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Authors: James Patterson

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BOOK: Hide and Seek
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There was a knock on his door around nine-thirty that morning. Palmer was already gone—Eleanor was taking him to the Regent's Park Zoo—and Will decided he would pretend to be sicker than he actually felt. He liked to pretend, to act, to see how good he was.

“I'm awake,” he said in a weak voice like Tiny Tim's in
A Christmas Carol
. “Come in, please.”

Vannie opened the door. She was wearing a gingham dress, cut tightly across her breasts. He noticed her breasts right away—
every time
.

“I'm going to make eggs,” she said. “Scrambled eggs. Could you assist in the eating thereof, Master Will?”

“A little,” he said, still playing Tiny Tim, acting his heart out. “Maybe a half portion.”

“I don't know if I'm up to cooking
that
much.” She winked.

Which finally got him to smile.

Vannie called his smile scampish. He knew that she liked it. So he smiled for her.
More acting on his part
.

“Just lie there. I'll bring breakfast to you,
Master Will
.”

Trembling, he watched her leave. She returned in a half hour, bearing scrambled eggs and mashed potatoes for them both, and sat on the bed next to him. Now
that
was extremely nice.

Will felt as though he hadn't eaten properly in a month, but her nearness took away his appetite for food.

“Still not hungry?” she asked, finishing her own portion. “Then how about one last game. For the championship of Fulham? You look recovered enough to play.”

“You're on. For the championship.”

“And what shall we play for, Vannie? What is our championship worth?”

I think I know what you want to play for. I think I know
.

CHAPTER 18

V
ANNIE QUICKLY CLEARED away the dishes, and set up the board on his bed. “The smaller pieces in front, they're called pawns,” she teased. “Please move any one of them, so I can begin to thrash you.”

Now he concentrated on the game. Her challenge had aroused his huge competitive spirit, and he was determined to win. He even forgot about her breasts, and the rest of her.

The game was their best so far. It was incredibly close—closer, he knew, than Vannie had expected—but at the last minute, in a move he should have foreseen, she took his rook with a knight. She leaned back in smug satisfaction.

“I'm afraid—checkmate, my darling, Mr. Competitive.”

“Oh, sod it!” Will roared and struck the game board in frustration. Pieces flew on the bed and across the floor and under the night table.

“Typical loser. Typical man,” Vannie said. “How do you think
your
opponents feel on the football pitch?”

They both laughed. Then they scooted around the bedroom, picking up the scattered pieces: queen under the night table; knight somehow on top of the bureau; king underfoot on the imitation Oriental rug.

On hands and knees, they reached for the king simultaneously. Will's elbow grazed the slick cloth of Vannie's dress; he could feel the warmth of her skin underneath. She didn't pull away. Neither did Will.

Every sound, every tiny movement, suddenly became intensified in the bedroom. Electricity spiraled up his spine, and he could scarcely breathe.
She wants me. I was right. I knew it
.

Vannie stared into his eyes for a long second. She actually
stared
at him. The room was so quiet. He was conscious of the staccato pounding of his heart, and was afraid she could hear it. He wanted to hear
her
heart.

Without saying a word, Vannie's fingers gently traced Will's cheeks. Then, they trailed down over his throat, rode the lump of his Adam's apple. He gave a little moan.

She leaned forward and kissed him softly. Then she nipped his unpuckered lips with her teeth. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing him against her breasts.

Her tongue slid inside his mouth. Her tongue was
inside
him, and it was
hard
.

“Dear, sweet boy,” she whispered. “You
are
something else. You're very special, Will.”

Will's hands finally reached for her, tentatively at first, as though they themselves barely believed the miracle that was happening. Then more aggressively, up and down her surprisingly well muscled back, her soft face, her neck, and then, blessedly, to those wondrous breasts.
She wants me. Finally, someone does
.

“Not so fast,” she whispered. “We have time, Master Will.”

“I know that. I've thought about this a lot.”

She smiled and her eyes opened wide with amusement. “You
have
, have you?”

His hands slid down along the outside of her legs. Vannie's dress made a sound like light static in the air.

She tugged at her own belt, then pulled him even closer. He didn't know what would happen next—what
could
happen?

He was already taller than she by half a foot, and much stronger, though she
was
strong. Her hands slipped all over him, reaching down into his pajamas. Her dress fell away to the floor. How many hands did she have? Where had she learned all this?

Will's face and neck were extremely hot—on fire; his ears were loudly ringing. His penis felt huge, and he rubbed against her bare flesh with a cry of utter joy. He wasn't sure what to do now, exactly where to go from here, but he would figure it out. He
was
smart, just as she suspected.

Naked, Vannie lay on her back on the bed. She was holding herself open with her hands. Her cheeks were red, blushing, and he loved that look, would never forget it.

“Now,” she said, reaching for him. “Now would be a very good time, Will.”

She wanted it to happen. She wanted him as much as he wanted her
.

Will watched her face—studied her beautiful brown eyes; then her rising breasts; the luscious V of her legs and the dark hair at the center. He was so hard that he almost couldn't believe it was
he
. He felt stronger and more powerful than he ever had. Most important, he knew what to do with her.
He just knew it. Naturally
.

“Don't rush it, Will,” she whispered to him. “Take your time, young Master.”

“Don't worry. I don't want it to be over either.”

When it was, though, when they lay together, and she gently stroked his long blond hair, she said, “You're so very beautiful. You're going to be able to have anyone that you want.” She smiled warmly. “You're quite irresistible, Will.”

This, Will already knew. He just wasn't sure what it meant.

To be irresistible
. Was that good, or was it very, very bad?

CHAPTER 19

A
LLAN “SKIPPER” THOMAS appeared to be an ordinary fellow, a tradesman perhaps, but Will understood that Thomas was the most important man he had met in his entire life.

Thomas was in his early forties now, manager of the Hammersmith Rangers, but rumor had it he trained as hard as his players, and that he offered bonuses to any on the team who could go past him one-on-one. Rumor also had it that
no bonus had ever been paid
.

He and Will were sitting like proper gentlemen in the living room of his aunts' house. Eleanor and Vannie had tactfully gone out, leaving the men to talk football, as men so love to do.

“I've watched you play, Will,” Thomas said, playing everything close to the vest, as Will had expected he would.

“I'm honored to hear that, sir. I really am.”
Like hell
. Every club in London had sent scouts to see him play.

“You've got natural talent, no question about it. I could make you into a fine player, over time I could.”

Will watched Skipper Thomas calmly, the way Will did most everything. “I'm a fine player already, sir. You know it, or you wouldn't be here.”

“You're fifteen years old. Nobody is a player at that age, just a
potential
player.”

“I am,” Will said.

“And modest too,” Thomas laughed heartily.

“No, I'm not modest, sir. That would be false of me. But I am a goal scorer, sir. I have no particular sense of team, of anyone else on the field. I'm a loner, a striker pure and simple. I'm cut from the same cloth as Johan Cruyff, Pele, Gerd Müller. I'm the best at my age that England has ever seen. Fast as any pro,
and
stronger too. All the papers say so.”

Thomas smiled broadly at the audacity of this young Turk, but most of all, because he just might be right. “The
local
papers say so, Will.”

“And
The Telegraph
. And
The Sun
. Look, Mr. Skipper Thomas, why don't you just get on with it? You want me to play for you; I want to play for you. So cut through it. How much are you willing to pay, sir?”

“Come on, Will, dribble past me. If you think you can. You're the next Cruyff, isn't that right?”

Skipper Thomas and Will were the only ones who stayed on the pitch this late after practice. It was the same thing night after night, practice after practice. Thomas had never seen such maniacal desire in a player, even a young one. Will was indeed an incredible striker, a natural goal scorer.

“What'll you give me if I do? What's in it for me?”

“Twenty pounds,” Skipper said and spat.

Will laughed and walked away. He was bare-chested, shaking his long blond hair. “I wouldn't fuck your wife for twenty pounds.”

“All right. Fifty pounds. But you have to get right past me.”

Will turned back, took the challenge. Thomas tossed him the ball; Will trapped it with his feet. Real casuallike.
Acting
like a dumb, cocky little shit.

Skipper Thomas crouched, but stayed on the balls of his feet. “Whenever you're ready, son.”

He was ready now, and he wasn't anyone's son.

Will feinted left, quickly feinted right, headed directly at his coach and then, with fist toward the sky, middle finger raised in the universal gesture of contempt, glided past him as though Skipper Thomas's shoes were glued to the grass.

“Keep your money,” he said and laughed at the coach. “I won't need it where I'm going.”

Will played two years for the Rangers before his contract was bought by Liverpool, perennial champions of the English League's First Division, for one point five million pounds. He was already the biggest star in England. In his first year he was the League's leading scorer and was barely edged out as Footballer of the Year. He was nineteen years old.

The papers glowingly wrote about his “great inner fierceness,” his “uncanny ability to actually fly across the pitch.” “He can swoop like a golden eagle, then fly off to his natural aerie—the opposition's goal,” the
Guardian
said.

“He is like a Blond Arrow—stretching toward the goal.”

“Will Shepherd is the complete egomaniac on the field; he has the consummate scorer's mentality. He plays as though he were
alone
out there.”

At nineteen, the Blond Arrow began to make the gossip columns as well. He was “fox hunting with friends in Gloucestershire,” “grouse shooting on Lord Dunne's moor near Balmoral,” “playing polo at Swinley Forest, in the presence of the Royal Family. The Blond Arrow cuts a dashing figure—
wherever
and with
whomever
.”

When he was twenty, Will led Liverpool to the League championship. He was arguably the biggest star in Europe. He was runner-up for FIFA's Best World Player award. “Frankly, Scarlett,” he commented on the award, “I don't give a fuck what anyone thinks of my playing.
I'll
tell
you
whether I'm the best or not.”

During the same time, Will had been playing international football with the U.S. team. It was his stubborn attempt to keep some connection with America. He quickly tired of being a very good player on a team of donkeys. He quit the team, and thus all international play.

The news stories rapidly became disturbing, and therefore much more interesting to the public. There were hints of alcohol abuse, of drugs, and worse. “Personal reasons” made him miss practices before games. Liverpool transferred him to an ambitious rival for two million pounds. In the off-season, Will began to drive Grand Prix race cars, an avocation forbidden by his contract. “If I live, it doesn't matter. If I die, it doesn't matter,” he was quoted on the racing flap.

The Blond Arrow was all the rage—absolutely
irresistible
.

CHAPTER 20

I
RRESITIBLE
.

Will drove Melanie Wellsfleet's supercharged red Ferrari sports car to her estate in Somerset. He got the new automobile up to over 115 at one point on the narrow, curvy road, and was seldom under ninety for the length of the trip.

“It's not a bloody
race car
!” Melanie laughed and shouted during one harrowing stretch of high speed and danger.

“It is now. With me at the wheel it is. Hang on, Mel. Ride of your life and all that.”

The estate in Somerset was everything Will had expected—and much, much more. The grounds seemed to have been tended with tweezers; the twenty-six rooms inside Ryertton Hall were like a Tudor museum.

“My boss lives very well off my efforts,” Will said to Melanie as she guided him through each of the nine bedrooms. Melanie was the thirty-one-year-old wife of Sir Charles Wellsfleet, who owned Will's football team, as well as a stable of racehorses and a well-respected publishing house. Charles Wellsfleet was sixty-nine years old.

“Charles owned this house long before you made the scene,” Melanie laughed, and gave Will a hug. They had been carrying on their secretive affair for the past four weeks. She couldn't get enough of Will, and was sure he felt the same way about her.
He couldn't be faking that
, the former high-fashion model reassured herself during an occasional “blue” moment.

“I missed you, I want you, I need you,” Melanie announced when they reached the master suite with its commanding view of a topiary garden and water terrace. “What do you
need
? What do you
want
?”

He seemed bemused by the question. He wandered around the spacious suite, searching through Melanie's dresser drawers and her huge walk-in closet. He selected several dresses, evening gowns, lingerie, stockings, shoes, and laid them all out on the bed and floor.

BOOK: Hide and Seek
6.03Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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