His to Win (The Alpha Soccer Saga #1)

by Alison Ryan

  “Aye, I said I’d ’ave it, didn’t I?” Reaching for a shelf behind his stool, through a puff of pipe smoke, Padgett placed a parcel on the counter.

  “Pride and Prejudice. Third edition. 1817. As promised.”

  Ellie’s mouth fell agape. She’d read all six of Jane Austen’s novels and owned most of them in hardcover. Since her early teens, all she’d asked her parents to buy her for Christmas and her birthday were books—hardcovers, the earlier edition the better, signed copies when possible—and she had an impressive personal library. This, however, was something altogether different.

  “Can I . . . I mean, would it be OK if I open it?” Ellie asked.

  Padgett began to protest, but Patrick cut him off.

  “You can do whatever you like with it. It’s yours, after all.”

  Ellie protested, “Oh, Patrick, I’d love it, but I can’t afford—”

  “Consider it a late birthday present. It’s done. It’s yours. I’m glad you like it.” Patrick smiled his impossible smile. Ellie hugged him wildly.

  “Take it outside, you lot. Monk, you and I will settle up later. The price just doubled since I seen that smile on ’er face.”

  Patrick waved the boorish man off, escorting Ellie out the door as she tenderly scooped up and cradled her new most prized possession.

  “Patrick, you shouldn’t have, this must have cost, good grief, I can’t even guess what this must have cost.”

  “Whatever it cost was a bargain to put a smile like that on your face. Don’t mention it. It’s my pleasure.”

  The couple returned to the hired Maserati, loading the day’s purchases in the trunk (Ellie was delighted when Patrick referred to the trunk of the car as its “boot”). Turning back toward Cardiff, Ellie kept Pride and Prejudice on her lap where she gently ran her fingertips across the paper, awestruck by the fact that the book she held was printed during the year of Jane Austen’s death, possibly while she was still alive.

  Patrick glanced over, admiring Ellie’s reverie. “The spotting on the pages is called foxing. It has to do with the paper, impurities, acids and such.”

  “It’s so beautiful, I don’t think there’s anything impure or imperfect about it. I’m not letting it go, even to go through airport security. I may never let it go. I can’t seem to stop thanking you, but thank you again,” gushed Ellie.

  “The sparkle in your eyes and the joy in your voice are all the thanks I need, love.”

  The return to Cardiff was quiet, Patrick and Ellie enjoying the smooth ride and the picturesque countryside together. No more horses were spotted.

  ********

  They hadn’t much time in Cardiff, but when Patrick asked Ellie about grabbing a bite to eat, she replied that she’d rather wait until Glasgow, that for her last night in the UK she was happy to have room service and just be alone with him. Patrick readily agreed, and they were back at the Grand Central in no time.

  Steaks were sent up and eaten as the couple looked over the books they’d bought in Hay. Conversation was light, the food was heavy, and the two lay next to each other on the huge bed in Patrick’s suite, digesting their meals.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “What happens after this, do you imagine? I mean you leave tomorrow, my preseason training commences in a few weeks, and then we have Champions League qualifiers to play before the season even starts, some exhibition matches, and after that the season proper will commence. Once that ball gets rolling, I’ll be locked in for the better part of nine months. I know this has been sort of a whirlwind the past few days, but I’m not ready for it to end. What are your thoughts?” Patrick asked.

  It was a conversation Ellie had been dreading, but one she knew was inevitable.

  “I haven’t wanted to think about it, to be honest,” Ellie answered. “This whole week has been so completely different from my everyday life that it would have been more normal for me to have hitched a ride to Mars with Elon Musk. I mean back home I’m a pop culture junkie. I watch Bravo and E! and MTV and read all the trashy magazines and I’m just boring Ellie Peavey. Exciting for me is taking Maisie to the dog park. Then I got on that plane and sat down next to you, and, I’m sorry, but I expected you to either ignore me or to be a complete jerk. I guess I judged your book by its cover, but every guy I’ve known who’s looked like you—or not even like you, because nobody looks like you—but every sort of handsome alpha male type I’ve ever been around has either ignored me, made fun of me, or just wanted to have sex, and when I wasn’t interested in just giving them a blowjob because they were handsome and in good shape, then they moved into either ignoring me or mocking me. That’s what I’m used to. This week has been like a dream. Give or take a near death experience and a sexual meltdown—again, please forgive me for that—aside from those things, this has been the kind of week I wouldn’t have even dared to dream about. And today? That drive, those horses, Hay, that castle, the Jane Austen book—it’s all like a fairy tale.”

  Patrick rolled up onto his elbow and began to caress Ellie’s face and trace his fingertips along her collarbone as she continued to speak, “So when you ask me my thoughts, how can I share them when I don’t have any? I mean I have them, but my heart is doing all my thinking right now.” Patrick began to softly kiss Ellie’s forehead and cheeks, her eyelids and chin, all around, purposely avoiding her mouth so she could continue her soliloquy, “My heart is so full it feels like it just might explode. When we woke up today, I didn’t want to unwrap myself from you. But then you took me to see wild horses, and I didn’t want to leave them. But then we wound up in Hay and the day just kept getting better. And I didn’t want to leave Hay, but here we are and this is even better. Just lying here with you and . . .”

  Patrick was straddling her now, and he could no longer wait to kiss her mouth, to taste her lips again. He held her face in one hand and kissed her deeply, his other hand exploring her curves, resting on her hip, then around to the small of her back, down her leg, back up to her ribcage. She gasped under a barrage of kisses, the insistence of his hand. She offered no resistance. Her body had been conquered by him, by his eyes, his mouth, those legs, his shoulders, and that voice. Her core was aflame with need for him. A desire she would either quench or die, she felt. It was so powerful.

  She pulled his shirt off easily, then went to work on his belt buckle, while he lifted her dress to access her treasures more readily.

  “Ellie, just lie back. Be very still. Close your eyes. Relax. I need this, to give you this, so badly.”

  With that, he slid down her body, removing her panties with a smooth tug, reaching beneath her to pull them over her majestic ass, which he’d become so fond of over the past few days.

  Ellie was trembling, her mind fighting to assert dominance over her body once again, telling her she needed a shower, she ought to have shaved, a million reasons why she shouldn’t let him do what he was about to do. But the first touch of his barely stubbly face to the inside of her thigh subdued the voice in her head. Silenced it completely, in fact. Thankfully.

  Patrick, his eyes closed in order to immerse himself completely in her scent and flavor, wrapped his arms beneath her thighs and eased them apart. He inhaled deeply, the heady aroma of her arousal thick in the air. He kissed her inner thigh once, then twice, then showered them both with kisses. So impossibly soft, so tender, so sweet. Ellie was writhing now, hands clawing at her own breasts through her dress, then balling up in fists on the comforter.

  Patrick moved forward, ending Ellie’s misery with a long, slow lick. He went from the bottom of her opening to her clit, taking his time, reverentially sampling her sex. The doors to the furnace in Ellie’s core were thrown open, and the heat centered between her legs flushed up her chest, to her neck and face. Again Patrick licked, flattening his tongue, careful not to miss anything. Ellie’s writhing became a gentle rocking, bucking when he would withdraw.

  He began to flick the tip of his tongue up one side and down the other, then centered hi
s attention on her clit, coaxing it out with gentle sucks and licks. Once it presented itself fully to him, he captured it between his lips and began to massage it with his mouth.

  Bolts of electricity shot up Ellie’s spine, and she felt Patrick’s hands on her hips, holding her steady as her body betrayed her and thrust lewdly, seeking Patrick’s mouth when he paused to swallow or breathe.

  This was nothing at all like the clumsy attempt a college boy had made to orally pleasure her. This was a grown man, one who knew what he was doing, sure of her need and his. Confident in his ability to give her body what it desperately craved.

  Any and all fleeting doubt dissolved as his palm began to firmly massage a mysterious place just above her pubic mound, circling it with firm pressure, in time with inhaling her clit into his mouth. Ellie began to arch her back, trying to say Patrick’s name, but losing her voice to a guttural groan.

  “Patrick . . .”

  Patrick’s hands held her thrashing hips in place riding out the wave of her climax until she pushed him away with both hands, whimpering at the sensitivity she felt coming down from her orgasm.

  Conscious thought was fleeting, but she couldn’t remember such an orgasm in her life. She could feel Patrick kissing her thighs again, both hands exploring her lower body, beneath her ass, then up and down her legs again.

  After a few minutes, she felt ready to continue, “Please make that happen again.”

  “My pleasure,” Patrick replied, and again turned his oral attention to her quim.

  It took longer for Ellie to reach her peak the second time around, but Patrick was equal to the task, and when the moment came, the tidal wave that slammed into her was even more intense than the first.

  Ellie was so relaxed she felt like she’d melted into the bed, like her very bones had liquefied.

  She was vaguely aware of Patrick mounting her, sliding into her easily, his impressive cock taking advantage of the flood between her legs to invade her without any of the pain his size might normally have caused them both.

  His tempo was slow, his thrusts deep. She could smell herself all over his face, and something about that scent drove her into even more of a frenzy. She kissed him hard on the mouth, her legs wrapping around his, trying to pull him in deeper. She needed it faster, harder, but he was in control, and the rhythm of the fuck would be his to determine.

  He impaled her at his leisure, pausing to throb, then withdrawing as slowly as he’d entered her.

  Thrust. Throb. Withdraw.

  Thrust. Throb. Withdraw.

  She was sure that if she just kissed him more passionately, he’d have to fuck her harder, faster, pound her the way her body was pleading to be pounded. She kissed him like she’d never kissed anyone before, sloppy, wet, deeply, aggressively. But it mattered not. His pace was unchanged. And now his hands had found a place on her that she’d never considered erogenous; the backs of her knees.

  He’d bent her legs up toward her shoulders, and he rose up into a different position, his thumbs massaging the area behind her knees, giving everything an entirely new sensation; the changed angle of penetration and the massaging excavating deeper inside her than she’d ever dared to venture.

  Through glazed, hooded eyes she looked up at him, this wonderful Adonis, and heard his voice, “You’re so beautiful, Ellie, I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.” Droplets of his sweat landed hot on her neck, one on her cheek, and she rediscovered her own voice.

  “Oh, Patrick please don’t stop, please don’t ever stop fucking me. I’m so close and you’re so damn good. I’m—”

  This was beyond an orgasm. The entire hotel seemed to shake with her moans of pleasure, and neither of them cared. As she reached the precipice, and began to clench around his shaft, he increased his pace, a jackhammer trying to drive her through not only the bed but the floor as well.

  Everything tensed, then began to tremble, but this time she didn’t care. Nothing mattered. Nothing but his cock. Nothing but her pussy. Nothing but her orgasm. Nothing existed but this feeling.

  Like a rowboat buffeted by an angry ocean, she could do nothing but crash from wave to wave, at the mercy of the storm.

  He slowed back to his original pace, sparing her the sexual fury he’d unleashed at the moment of her climax, and gently withdrew, rolling to his side and kissing Ellie softly, wrapping her up in his arms.

  Ellie nuzzled into him as the pair drifted off to sleep, Patrick pulling the comforter around them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  During the night Ellie awoke, moonlight streaming in through curtains they’d neglected to close earlier, distracted first by their meal and then their hunger for each other.

  She looked at Patrick, flat on his back, the comforter having slid halfway down his chest. She marveled at him, at his chest and rugged features. Realizing he was naked, she bit her bottom lip and decided to be naughty. It wasn’t in her typically prim, reserved character, but Patrick had changed everything. He enflamed her soul. The hunger he inspired deep inside her was something she’d never felt with anyone or for anything.

  He hadn’t finished earlier. He’d stopped to comfort her as she basked in post-orgasmic bliss. She intended to rectify that, to repay the gift he’d given her so many times already.

  She reached beneath the blanket and found his soft cock laying across his thigh, and she gave it a squeeze and a tug. Feeling it grow to fill her hand gave her a tingle between her own legs, and she could feel herself lubricating in anticipation. She added a second hand, cupping his tightening balls while stroking him to a full, proud erection. Her eyes never left his face, watching him intently. She noted a distinct change in his breathing and fluttering of his eyelids, but he remained asleep.

  She rolled and caressed his balls in her hand, lifting them and gently pulling them away from his body, her other hand swirling all around his manhood. He felt ready. She knew she was ready.

  Carefully as she could, to let him remain asleep until she impaled herself, she mounted him while gripping his wide shaft to aim it directly at her soaked opening. As she lowered herself, his head began to roll on the pillow and his mouth softly mumbled something unintelligible.

  Ellie had never been so forward, sexually. She’d never admitted, verbally or physically to another person how much she loved the act. Beyond the emotional intimacy great sex provided, she also craved the raw, primal satisfaction of getting fucked.

  She gasped as she filled herself with him, bearing down until she was stretched flat atop Patrick’s body, her public bone pressed against his. She began to ride him, rolling her hips to feel him everywhere inside her. He finally began to stir, his eyes focusing on her, adjusting to the semidarkness.

  “You insatiable minx,” Patrick said softly, grinning.

  Ellie smiled wantonly back at him, clearly enjoying herself, using his cock to get herself off.

  “You just feel so good, Patrick,” Ellie replied, her breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps. “So fucking good.” She gritted her teeth through her first orgasm atop him, as his hands moved to her hips to give added pressure to the grind.

  Her rhythm slowed immediately following the climax, but with Patrick’s encouragement, she found her pace again.

  “Good girl . . . go again now. Keep going. But this time when you’re close, look into my eyes. I want to share it with you even more deeply.”

  Ellie’s face contorted with her efforts and she bucked wildly. Patrick steadied her with his hands clamped to her hips to keep himself buried inside her.

  “Do it, Ellie. Come for me. Come so hard for me. Look at me. Into my eyes. Focus on my eyes.”

  Ellie suddenly found herself on the doorstep, her eyes wild, struggling to focus, the intimacy of peering into his icy blue eyes at such an intense moment almost unbearable.

  “That’s it, stay with me, stay right here with me while it happens,” Patrick commanded.

  “Yes . . . yes . . .YES!” Ellie shouted, the orgasm overtaking her
as she sought refuge in Patrick’s eyes. It sledgehammered into her, and she felt it everywhere at once. From the tips of her toes to each individual curly hair on her head. And through it all, her eyes locked on Patrick’s. It was the most passionate and powerful moment she had yet to share with any person in her entire life.

  As it began to wane she kissed him, vaguely aware that her hips were now being lifted and dropped back down by Patrick alone. She wasn’t moving. Rather than Ellie using Patrick’s gorgeous body to satiate herself, their roles had changed. Patrick was now seeking his release, her body simply a tool, a means to an end. His cock was in control now and it demanded satisfaction. She had no choice but to follow his lead.

  His hips raised from the bed in time with her every assisted descent, and on his face she saw a focused glare that sent her to a new height.

  A third orgasm started her pussy clenching him again, and it was too much for Patrick. His mouth open in a silent scream, his brain commanded him to pull her off before he came. The pleasure, however, was too intense and soul-searing. He instead took hold of her hips, pressing her tightly against him, letting the contractions of her orgasm milk his cock.

  Ellie could feel him erupting inside her. Men had finished inside her before (she’d been taking birth control pills since her second year in college) but never like this. Each blast from the cannon between his sculpted thighs set her off into another aftershock.

  When they were finally both finished, she dismounted and slid back up next to him, kissing his shoulder and face tenderly.

  “How was that, Patrick?”

  “Indescribable. Bloody fantastic. I’m speechless,” Patrick replied. “Please don’t be mad, I didn’t mean to, you know, inside, it was just so good.”

  Ellie wrapped her leg around his and wrapped as much of her body as possible around his. “It’s OK, it was ‘bloody fantastic,’” she said, the last part in her best faux-British accent.

  They locked eyes and exchanged smiles with a final round of tender kissing before falling back into blessed sleep.