His to Win (The Alpha Soccer Saga #1)

by Alison Ryan

  Ellie awakened with a stretch of her own, a yawn, and a pounding headache. She rolled languidly in the bed, searching the room for Patrick, eyes settling through the open door on his nearly naked form in the next room.

  If she’d ever seen a sexier sight, despite the mother of all hangovers, she couldn’t recall it readily.

  Patrick wore a light sheen of sweat, rendering his white briefs semitransparent. His muscular form was on full display, enduring a series of contortions and stretches that had to be, she decided, designed for no earthly purpose but to torment and titillate her. She bit her bottom lip and slowly shook her head in wonderment, drawing herself up to a sitting position. He was truly magnificent.

  A maneuver in which he stood with his back to her but then slowly twisted his midsection to touch the floor with his left hand behind himself turned him enough to catch a glimpse of his audience, and he broke into a grin, completing the stretch.

  “Sleeping beauty! How do you feel?”

  “Starving, hungover, embarrassed—I don’t know where to begin.” Ellie laughed. “I’m sorry to stare. I mean, I don’t want to be rude, it’s just, your body. I’ve never seen anything like it. And also . . . Patrick, thank you so much for last night. I know I kept saying it, but I could never say it enough.” The memory of the night’s events still sat on her mind.

  Patrick resumed his exercises, same as the last, only this time with the right hand. Slow, deliberate movements. He was so in tune with his physique that he could feel each individual muscle group contracting and releasing as he went through the familiar workout.

  “It was nothing. I mean, it wasn’t nothing, I just mean it was so easy it felt like nothing. Easy in the sense that I couldn’t imagine doing anything else, taking any other course of action. I saw you in trouble and I went on autopilot.”

  Ellie scanned her phone, finding several messages from Helen detailing her night spent at the hospital with Ian.

  “Ian, the guy who went in the ambulance, is mending well,” Ellie explained. “He’ll need a few days in the hospital to recuperate, but then he’ll be able to go home with no permanent damage. Just a few nasty scars, but knowing him, he’ll find a way to add them to his flirting repertoire.”

  “He’s a lucky bloke. That was quite a lot of blood,” Patrick said, and continued his routine under Ellie’s silent, rapt attention.

  When he finished, Patrick grabbed two bottles of mineral water from the fridge and sat down at the foot of the bed, handing one to Ellie before drinking half of his in one shot.

  “So . . . I don’t want to make you uncomfortable in any way, but last night in your room, if I did something wrong, please let me know. I don’t want to rush things in any way. I want to do this right. Please give me a chance, we can go as fast or slow as you want to, we can enjoy today and go our separate ways. I’m just telling you that I’m very much into you, would love to get to know you better. I’m yours if you’ll have me. This isn’t about just sex for me. I know that’s strange coming from a man, but I’m not the fling type. And last night I was devastated to think I had done something wrong, or something that would make you get that upset. It about killed me, Ellie.”

  Ellie scooted down the bed to where Patrick sat and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him close, her tousled hair falling over his shoulders.

  “You did nothing wrong, absolutely nothing wrong. I’m so sorry for how I acted. It was amazing. You’re amazing. It was all my own weirdness, and I’m so terribly sorry. I got into a weird place in my head and the things you were doing to me were things I had never experienced so intensely before. I still can’t believe any of this. I’m all yours if you’ll still have me!”

  Patrick gave her a squeeze, pulled away and stared into her sleepy eyes, both of them breaking into smiles. He kissed her twice on the mouth, the second longer and deeper than the first, and pulled away before things got too heated.

  “We’ve overslept, love, we have a plane to catch!” Patrick just realized how late it was and that they both needed to shower and dress.

  “A plane? Where are we going?” Ellie looked at him quizzically.

  “How’s your Welsh?”

  “Welsh? Umm . . . a happy Anthony Hopkins and a good Charlotte Church to you?”

  “Ha!” Patrick replied, “That’s about the extent of my Welsh as well. But as a fellow bibliophile, there’s something in Wales, an hour and a half north of Cardiff, which I hope you’ll love. Ever heard of Hay-on-Wye?”

  “Ham on rye, yes. Hay-on-Wye, I’m afraid not. You’ve stumped me. But I can’t wait!” Ellie replied.

  Showers, changes of clothes, and room service breakfast later, Patrick and Ellie resumed their familiar mile high courtship on a Flybe flight from Glasgow to Cardiff.

  “So, let me see if I recall correctly—you’ve lived in Ohio and Georgia, used to travel to Kansas City and Birmingham for work, right so far?” Patrick asked, his easy smile breaking the tension created by his naturally intense gaze.

  “Four for four, yes,” answered Ellie, still amazed that Patrick remembered her name, much less a conversation they had within ten minutes of meeting each other.

  “Where else have you been?”

  “I’ve driven from Ohio to Georgia, of course, so Kentucky and Tennessee. Alabama, Missouri and Kansas for work, Florida, both the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois . . .” Ellie trailed off, counting on her fingers, trying to recall if she’d left anything out. “Oh, Virginia and Maryland, we went to Washington, DC, once when I was in middle school, West Virginia . . . that’s probably it.”

  “And where would you like to go?”

  “California sounds like fun. And all my friends who’ve been to Vegas rave about it. Do you know Georgia O’Keefe’s work?”

  Patrick nodded.

  “I’m a fan of hers, so I’d love to get to New Mexico someday, see what inspired her to create what she did. I guess everybody should visit New York City. Am I the world’s biggest cliché, or what?”

  “Absolutely nothing about you is cliché. I meet the same women over and over again everywhere I go. The ‘try-too-hards’—too much makeup, too little clothing, too cool for the room—so desperate to be clever, dropping names, trying to fit into some mold. That’s cliché. You’re an original. A breath of fresh air. That’s you.” Patrick closed by kissing her on the tip of the nose.

  “As for New Mexico, it’s absolutely grand. I’d love to take you. Southern California you can keep, I mean it’s not a bad place, just not for me. The Bay Area is worth a visit, Seattle, Vancouver. But really, for as much traveling as I’ve done with footb—sorry, soccer—so much of it is spent on a bus, in a hotel room, in a stadium. Precious little time for sightseeing, soaking up local food, culture, anything like that. So if you looked at my travel résumé, it’s quite full. I’ve been lots of places, but there are so many I hope to visit again when I’m done playing. Take my time, go at my own pace, soak it all up, you know?”

  “I’m picturing you driving all over Europe in one of those shiny silver Airstream RVs,” Ellie laughed.

  “Don’t laugh, love, you just might be in the passenger seat!” Patrick reached over and took Ellie’s hand in his, holding it for the remainder of their short flight.

  ********

  If Glaswegian English was tough for Ellie to follow, Cardiff’s peculiar mix of Welsh and heavily accented English was nearly impossible. Patrick took the reins, guiding them through the airport, stopping to sign a few autographs and take some pictures. Finally they reached the car he’d rented, or “hired” as he’d put it, for their trip to Hay-on-Wye.

  “Is James Bond letting you borrow his car for the day?” Ellie asked, clearly taken aback by the sleek, black sedan into which Patrick was putting the small bags they’d brought.

  “No, he drives Aston Martins. This is a Quattroporte. It’s by Maserati. I grew up on Fords, and my own vehicles are pretty modest. But when I hire a car, I usually go top shelf. I can swap it o
ut for something else if you’ don’t like it?”

  “No, don’t do that. I’ve just never . . . I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Maserati in person before. I mean I’m not much of a car person, but even I can tell that this is pretty cool. My brother Andy would die. He’s the car nut in the family.”

  “Then let me take your picture with it! Let’s blow his mind.”

  Patrick took Ellie’s phone and snapped several pictures of her standing next to, and then sitting behind the wheel of, the six figure automobile.

  “Nature will hopefully necessitate a stop or two along the way, so we’d best get on the road, El.” Patrick declared, opening the door for Ellie.

  “Nature?”

  “We’ll be driving through the Brecon Beacons. It’s a mountain range and national park. I don’t want to spoil the surprise I hope we run into. But keep your eyes peeled.”

  Ellie slid into pure luxury. Everything about the car was designed for comfort, and even when the engine roared to powerful life, scarcely a thing was felt inside.

  The Welsh love their Ys, Ellie considered, trying to decipher road signs as Patrick navigated up the A470 past towns with names like Radyr, Tongwynlais, and Pontypridd. Light conversation turned to slack-jawed silence as they entered the Beacons, verdant green hills rolling into mountains all around them, a wonderland as Ellie had imagined Ireland as a young girl.

  Just past someplace Ellie couldn’t hope to pronounce named LLanspyddid, Patrick took a road that probably didn’t show up on many maps, a winding affair up into the mountains, all the while scanning the horizon, looking for something.

  “There!” Patrick pointed excitedly out in front of them, off to the left. Ellie didn’t immediately see what he saw, but as they got nearer he veered off onto a gravel “road,” and Ellie saw what had him excited. A pair of gray horses, both with darker manes and tails, stood grazing on the crest of a small hill, among haphazardly strewn boulders.

  Without a fence in sight, Ellie couldn’t believe her eyes. “They aren’t wild, are they?”

  “Indeed. They’re descended from horses the Romans brought here. Some of them have been domesticated through the years, but these two may be the latest in a centuries-old line of wild horses to live here.”

  Patrick cut the engine and they got out, enjoying the breeze and walking as close as the horses would allow before they trotted off down the hill and out of sight. Hand in hand, Patrick and Ellie followed them, looking down into a valley to watch the two grays reunite with the rest of their family, a white stallion spotted with black and a pair of smaller white mares colored all over with splashes of brown.

  For a long while, Patrick and Ellie sat on the hill, watching five wild horses, not terribly concerned with their human audience, go about their daily business. The group grazed and visited a small stream before the two grays playfully jumped and danced. The performance ended with the entire group leaving the area at a casual gallop.

  “This,” Patrick explained, “is one of my favorite places in the world. I don’t always get as lucky as we did today. I mean sometimes I make this drive and never see a single horse. But they’re just magnificent, aren’t they? I never tire of watching them.”

  Ellie was stupefied by the entire afternoon. She was sitting on a hill in Wales, holding hands with a professional athlete (a ridiculously handsome professional athlete), having arrived there in a Maserati, and she just watched a herd of wild horses eating, drinking, and playing as if they were put on earth just to entertain her. This was a day, a moment, that her mind was firmly etching into her memory. As unforgettable to her as it would be impossible to capture in words when she tried to describe it to Meg or anyone else.

  Ellie was in no hurry to leave, hoping her equine friends would return, but Patrick was insistent. “There’s so much more I want to show you.” He extended a hand, helping her up, pulling her into his arms and kissing her.

  Not for lack of trying, they failed to spot anymore horses on their drive, but signs welcomed them to Hay-on-Wye, and Patrick’s excitement was palpable.

  “Welcome to my favorite little village in Europe.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Maserati rolled into Hay, the village located hard by the River Wye, passing a sign with the Welsh name for the town, “Y Gelli” (The Grove), and Patrick could barely keep his eyes on the road. He so eagerly wanted to see Ellie’s reaction as they entered the town proper, and she got her first look at the main reason, aside from the eight-hundred-year-old castle that dominated what passed for a skyline in Hay, that tourists flocked to the village of fewer than fifteen hundred full-time residents.

  “Patrick, did you see that adorable bookshop back there? If we have time, do you think we could . . .?”

  Ellie’s voice trailed off as her jaw fell open. The “adorable bookshop” she first spied was the tip of the iceberg. Everywhere she looked were bookshops, bookshelves, literary T-shirts, more bookshops, book-related furniture, posters, still more bookshops, sculpture devoted to the printed word, people carrying books, and, finally—believe it or not—more bookshops.

  Each time Ellie began to speak, the words were stopped short by her eyes finding something new on which she sought to comment.

  Finally, rather than burst, she half shouted, “Patrick, what IS this place? How did you—this is AMAZING! And you just sit there grinning like the Cheshire Cat!”

  Patrick laughed. “Funny you should mention that cat. The shop right over there, the one with the black shutters, is where I picked up my first edition of Alice in Wonderland. It was a second issue, but the first issue barely exists and never comes up for sale. It’s a decent copy, too. Disagreeable bloke owns that shop, but it’s one of the best places in town to find the truly scarce stuff.”

  Patrick pulled onto a side street near the castle, inviting Ellie to get out for a walk around town.

  “And to answer your question from a few blocks back, yes, we can definitely visit that ‘adorable bookshop’ back there.”

  Ellie playfully punched Patrick on the arm and spun in a slow circle, trying to take in everything at once.

  “They have a huge literary festival each spring. Bill Clinton described it as something like ‘Woodstock of the mind.’ I think that’s my favorite quote about this place. Isn’t it brilliant?”

  “I want to live here!” a delighted Ellie exclaimed.

  “Sadly, we’ve just got the afternoon. We have to drive back to Cardiff and fly back to Glasgow early this evening so you can make your flight back to the States tomorrow.”

  “I’m going to need another suitcase. Or a storage unit. In the old days, didn’t people fill trunks and put them on boats?” wondered Ellie out loud.

  “How about this—whatever you can’t take with you, I’ll keep at my place. I know, I know, sounds like a clever ploy to get you to visit me, but I insist, I’m simply being a gentleman,” offered Patrick.

  “Well, what kind of a lady would I be to refuse such a chivalrous offer?”

  Patrick and Ellie found themselves on the outskirts of a tour group, the docent describing the history of the area, including the construction of Hay Castle, all in a purposely slowed-down Welsh accent:

  “William de Braose, the fourth Lord of Bramber, resided in Hay in the late twelfth century. His wife, Maud de Braose, the Lady of Hay, who history informs us was a tall, very wise, and beautiful woman, is said to have donned armor and ridden into battle alongside her knights, and to have built Hay Castle alone, all in one night. She gathered stones in her apron and did the work herself. Not bad workmanship, or ‘workwomanship,’ as much of the original structure is still standing over eight hundred years later.

  “After a disagreement between William and his patron, King John, Maud was ordered to send her son, William, to be imprisoned, forcing William’s loyalty. When Maud refused, she and her husband, William, were sentenced to death by starvation by King John in 1208, walled up inside the dungeon at Corfe Castle, in southern England, nea
r Dorchester.

  “The English nobles were so troubled by King John’s sadism that when he signed the Magna Carta in 1215, he was forced to include a clause that prohibited imprisonment without due process of law.”

  Ellie ran the palm of her hand across the stones, saying a silent prayer for the souls of Maud and William. Patrick sensed her melancholy and wrapped his arms around her from behind, rocking her gently.

  “Let’s go and buy some books,” he whispered.

  The two spent the afternoon exploring bookshops large and small, some in old stone buildings, others temporarily arranged beneath roadside tents, and even the occasional outdoor “honesty shop”—shelves lined with tomes featuring signs indicating prices and where to leave money.

  They made purchases here and there, but mostly just enjoyed being so immersed in the sight, the smell, and the feel of all those books. The crisp sound of pages being turned, snippets of conversation in a dozen languages discussing authors, titles, and favorite characters.

  Near the end of their time in Hay, they visited the small store with black shutters, Padgett’s Rare Books, the one Patrick pointed out as the source of his early copy of Alice in Wonderland.

  The place was cramped, a tight and musty maze of hardcovers in no discernable order. A small man with bushy eyebrows, smoking a pipe, sat behind the counter.

  “The Monk? With a bird? What’s this, then? Did Celtic throw ’er in when you signed?” the shopkeeper asked Patrick.

  “This,” Patrick said, introducing his companion, “is Ellie. Ellie, meet Padgett.”

  Ellie extended a hand, which the man reluctantly shook. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

  Fumbling for words, Ellie replied “Uh, yes, absolutely charmed. By Hay, anyway.”

  “Padgett, you wanker, I’m trying to impress Lady Ellie, not terrify her. Do you have it?” asked Patrick.