Book picks similar to
In the Pocket by Jessica Ruddick
sports
college
sports-romance
romance
Free Fall
E.M. Moore - 2019
This is a war zone.
It should be just another year for me at Spring Hill High. It’s not. It’s the first of many years…without my brother.Fighting back the memories of Brady should be the most difficult thing I have to face while walking the halls of SHH. Instead, those sad reminders become the least of my worries.My brother’s best friends make sure of that.They won’t let me heal in peace. In fact, the three star football players—the ones my brother knew all his life—are determined to make me do it their way, or live through hell in the process.What they don’t understand is, I lived through my brother’s death…that means I can live through anything.
Bring it, hotshots. I’m waiting.
Free Fall is a high school bully romance.
Unforgettable
S.B. Alexander - 2019
She’s the daughter of a Texas senator. Their chemistry is like oil and water. My name is Ryker James. I hate when people tell me what to do. I’m cocky, ornery, and I take things when I want them. Caring isn’t in my vocabulary unless it’s related to football or my family, and I just lost my entire family in a blink of an eye.Now all I have is football. The problem is the misery, the drinking, and the parties have more appeal to me. But Lakemont University wants that championship. Fans want to see wins on the scoreboard, and my teammates salivate to crush our opponents every game. Yet the only pass I might be throwing is at the auburn-haired girl who waltzes into my life. She’s fire. I’m ice. A combination that doesn’t work. So let the games begin.My name is Haven Hale, and I’ve been tucked away in a boarding school most of my life. Now I’m a big-time college girl, and all I see is freedom in front of me. But first, I have to agree to my father’s demands—no media attention and no sororities. If I can follow those two edicts, then college life should be a breeze. Until one close encounter with Ryker James, and Father Dearest has changed the game. Stay away from the big, bad quarterback, or face my father’s wrath. There’s only one problem. I can’t help who I’m attracted to.And Ryker James is a magnet, built to attract any female, constructed to make any girl’s heart sputter, and my heart is beating off the charts. But it’s time to choose between the devil I know and the one I don’t.
Desperately Seeking Roommate
Micalea Smeltzer - 2019
That’s gross.2. Don’t be a jerk. I have no time to deal with your mood swings.3. Clean up after yourself. Is it really so hard to put dirty clothes where they belong?If you meet these qualifications, call me.Sincerely,Desperately Seeking RoommateWhen I put the ad in my university’s newspaper, the last thing I ever expect is for the star football player to respond. From what I know of him, Abel Russo is a womanizer and an absolute jerk.Sadly, he’s the only thing stopping me from being evicted by my annoyingly gleeful landlord. It should be easy enough—there’s no chance we’ll fall for each other. But then he gives me lingering looks, and I might just be looking back. All I wanted was a roommate, but I’m about to get so much more than I bargained for.
Team Hate
Rebel Hart - 2020
After my father died in a car accident when I was sixteen, I decided to pursue football as a tribute to him. I struggled my way through college coaching for experience, always trying to prove I belonged to the field. And now I’m excited to finally jump into the big leagues as a strength and conditioning assistant coach of the North Carolina Knights.I’ve always been a stubborn, short-tempered, swearing-like-a-sailor tomboy. But it's a different ballgame with the football players.They can be crass, rude, misogynistic.One in particular, the arrogant and egotistical star quaterback, John Scepter.He thinks there’s no place for women in professional football and is not subtly trying to force me out.I hate him.Yet, no one makes my heart race like he does…And that makes me hate him even more.
Ridge
Bethany Lopez - 2019
She had a boyfriend she loved, a softball scholarship, and the best roommate a girl could have. When it turned out her man was a lying, cheating ballsack, she may have gone off the rails a bit. Now, it's a new year and Karrie's ready to build herself back up and move on to bigger and better things. Still, a little revenge would go a long way in helping the healing process.
He's got a plan for revenge that will suit them both...
Ridge is used to being the BMOC. Sergeant of Arms of his frat and the ability to land any chick within snapping distance has made life pretty easy for him. His home life is another story. He and his brothers are in the middle of a battle between his socialite mother and asshole father. Ridge is looking for a stand-in to placate his mother and her matchmaking ways, and he has a feeling he's just met the girl he can perfectly mold. This makeover has nothing to do with love and everything to do with Karrie and Ridge using each other to get what they want. What starts as a ruse soon becomes an attraction they cannot deny. When it's all said and done, they'll both have more to confess than a need for revenge.
Player
E. Cleveland - 2020
Or that he's a legend on skates.And, yeah, I know it's a double entendre. I'm well aware of his reputation for hooking up with half the girls at Westbury. I've had a front row seat to the bunny parade.Still, I won't call him Player. That's not who he is to me. That's never who he's been to me. He's Noah Foster. My best friend. The boy I grew up with. The guy who knows me better than anyone.Well, except there is one secret I've never told him. I haven't exactly been open with him about how I'm still a card carrying member of the V-card-club.But, when Noah needs me to tutor him for his exam, I get an idea. What if I teach him a little science, and the Player teaches me how to play?
Little Lies
H. Hunting - 2020
You mean nothing to me. I never loved you. I turned my words into swords.And I cut her down. Shoved the blade in and watched her fall. I said I’d never hurt her, and I did. Years later, I’m faced with all the little lies, the untruths, the false realities, the damage I inflicted, when all I wanted was to indulge my obsession. Lavender Waters is the princess in the tower. Even her name is the thing fairy tales are made of. I used to be the one who saved her. Over and over again. But I don’t want to save her anymore. I just want to pretend the lies are still the truth.A standalone angsty new adult romance. Heroine: Lavender Waters (Alex and Violet Waters’ youngest daughter, PUCKED and FOREVER PUCKED couple origin, Pucked Series )Hero: Kodiak (Kody) Bowman (Rook and Lainey Bowman’s son, A LIE FOR A LIE couple origin, All In Series )
Long Game
Teagan Kade - 2017
They call me ‘The Damage’ because I crush it on the field and off. I’m all about the offensive penetration. No one knows the game as well as I do. It doesn’t hurt I’ve got a goal post in my pants. But the moment I see Indiana’s smoky eyes and tight end, I know I’m in trouble. No one has a college record that clean, which means she’s either hiding something or running from something, and I intend to get the bottom of all her dirty little secrets. Even if I have to tease it out of those sweet curves. Even if she’s playing hard to get. Because I can go the distance. Because I always score. Because I’m in this for the long game. Small on sports, big on steam, Long Game is a full-length bad boy romance with a happily ever after and no cheating. Includes bonus books and exclusive bonus scene for a limited time.
On a Tuesday
Whitney G. - 2017
Became best friends, then lovers, on a Tuesday. And everything fell apart on a Tuesday... Charlotte Taylor has three automatic strikes in my book: 1) She hates me. She also claims that I'm a "domineering jerk with a huge, overbearing ego." (I do have something huge. It's not my ego, though.) 2) She takes our mandatory tutoring sessions way too seriously. 3) She's sexy as hell...And a virgin. At least, those were her strikes before our study sessions started lasting longer than they were supposed to. Until one innocent kiss became a hundred dirty ones, and until she became the first woman I ever fell hard for. Our future together after graduation was supposed to be set: Professional football for me. Law school for her. But she left me at the end of the semester with no explanation, and then she completely disappeared from my life. Until tonight.We met on a Tuesday. Became everything, then nothing, on a Tuesday. And now it's seven years later, on a Tuesday... **This is a full length second chance romance, inspired by Adele's "When We Were Young"**
Push the Envelope
Rochelle Paige - 2013
Boys haven't been on her radar for a couple years after a disastrous breakup with her high school sweetheart. Her plans to focus on school hit a bit of a snag when she meets bad-boy Drake Bennett and he sets his sights on making her his own. Drake transferred to Blythe College for the rugby team, not for a new assortment of college girls. He's sexy and cocky, and he attracts women like moths to a flame. When he meets Alexa, Drake knows he's met his match. She tries to resist him, but Drake isn't used to taking no for an answer.This does not have a cliffhanger.Warning: 18+ due to sexual content
Lucky
Carina Adams - 2017
A filthy talking college boy with a quick smile and a kind heart, he can have any woman he wants. Except me.A chance encounter. A spark neither of us could ignore. One unforgettable night was all we were allowed. Fate had other plans.Sometimes, despite the odds, you have to cross your fingers, roll the dice, and see where they land. Because love is worth it. This just might be our lucky chance. "One night stand my ass."
The Rivalry
Nikki Sloane - 2017
He’s good with his hands, even better with his sexy mouth, and the best at making me forget my own name. His—ahem—stats are perfect. But I can’t fall for him. He might be everything I want, all rolled into a glorious package of gridiron god, but there’s one teeny-tiny problem. The vile, loathsome team I’ve spent my entire life hating—my beloved school’s arch-rival? This guy is their star player.
Wilder
Rebecca Yarros - 2016
He’s Paxton Wilder.Twenty-two-year-old, tattooed, smoking-hot leader of the Renegades.Five time X Games medalist.The world is his playground—especially this year—and for the next nine months I’m stuck as his tutor on the Study at Sea program.He’s too busy staging worldwide stunts for his documentary to get to class.But if I can’t get him to take academics seriously, I’ll lose my scholarship…if I don’t lose my heart first.Six unlikely friends on a nine-month cruise with the Study at Sea program will learn that chemistry is more than a subject and the best lessons aren’t taught in the classroom…but in the heart.
The Hardest Fall
Ella Maise - 2018
You smile, say hello. Should be simple, if you’re anyone but me. The first time I met Dylan Reed, I found myself making eye contact with a different part of his body. You see, I’m very good at being shy, not to mention extremely well-versed in rambling nonsense and, unfortunately, rather highly skilled at making a fool of myself in front of a guy I’m attracted to. At the time, I knew nothing about him and thought none of what I said would matter since I’d never speak to him again. Turns out, I was very wrong. He was the star wide receiver of the football team, one of the few players expected to make it into the NFL, and I ended up seeing him all over campus. I might have also propositioned him, run away from him, attacked him with a cooking utensil…and…uh, maybe I shouldn’t tell you all of it. It’s pretty normal stuff, things you’d expect…from me. Eventually, the time came when I couldn’t hide anymore—not that he’d have let me even if I tried. Before now, he never knew I was secretly watching him. Now that we see each other every day, he knows when I have a hard time looking away. It doesn’t help that I’m not the most subtle person in the world either. He smiles at me and tells me he finds me fascinating because of my quirks. I can’t even tell him that I think my heart beats differently whenever he’s around. He thinks we’re going to be best friends. I think I have a big thing for him, and the more I get to know him, the more I don’t care that I’m not allowed to be his friend, let alone fall for him. The thing is, that’s exactly what I’m doing—what we’re doing, I think. Falling. Hard.
Texting Titan
Kaci Rose - 2020
Because of their message, she showed up at a party for the football team and caught her boyfriend cheating. But the messages don’t stop there. Whoever the person she nicknamed Titan truly was, they offered her support and friendship when Avery needed it most. Now, she finds herself longing to meet her hero face-to-face.Denver isn’t sure if Avery even remembers the kiss they shared freshman year, but he’s thought about it every day since. As much as he wanted to be with her, family obligations pulled him away. It was torture watching her date another member of his football team, yet he never would have intervened if they were happy. One thing he wouldn’t do was stand back and watch as his buddy cheats on her time and again. When it’s revealed that he is her mysterious Titan, Denver prays it will be the beginning of his second chance.But his family responsibilities haven’t lessened. And her trust in football players has been destroyed. Can the pair score a touchdown into their happily-ever-after under the scrutiny of the stadium lights?This is a Steamy, Small Town, College Football Romance. No Cliffhangers.As always there is a satisfying Happy Ever After.If you love steamy romances with insta love, hot love scenes, small towns, and football, then this one is for you.