“DON’T MOVE,” I said to Tess, sweaty and out of breath. “Don’t even
blink. If you so much as breathe, I know I’m gonna wake up, and I’ll
be back lugging chaise longues at poolside, staring at this gorgeous
girl that I know something incredible could happen with. This will
all have been a dream.”
Tess McAuliffe smiled, and in those deep blue eyes I saw what I
found so irresistible about her. It wasn’t just that she was the
proverbial ten and a half. She was more than beautiful. She was lean
and athletic with thick auburn hair plaited into a long French
braid, and a laugh that made you want to laugh, too. We liked the
same movies, Memento, The Royal Tenenbaums, Casablanca. We pretty
much laughed at the same jokes. Since I’d met her I’d been unable to
think about anything else.
Sympathy appeared in Tess’s eyes. “Sorry about the fantasy, Ned, but
we’ll have to take that chance. You’re crushing my arm.”
She pushed me, and I rolled onto my back. The sleek cotton sheets in
her fancy hotel suite were tousled and wet. My jeans, her
leopard-print sarong, and a black bikini bottom were somewhere on
the floor. Only half an hour earlier, we had been sitting across
from each other at Palm Beach’s tony Café Boulud, picking at DB
burgers-$30 apiece-ground sirloin stuffed with foie gras and
truffles.
At some point her leg brushed against mine. We just made it to the
bed.
“Aahhh,” Tess sighed, rolling up onto her elbow, “that feels
better.” Three gold Cartier bracelets jangled loosely on her wrist.
“And look who’s still here.”
I took a breath. I patted the sheets around me. I slapped at my
chest and legs, as if to make sure. “Yeah,” I said, grinning.
The afternoon sun slanted across the Bogart Suite at the Brazilian
Court hotel, a place I could barely have afforded a drink at, forget
about the two lavishly appointed rooms overlooking the courtyard
that Tess had rented for the past two months.
“I hope you know, Ned, this sort of thing doesn’t happen very
often,” Tess said, a little embarrassed, her chin resting on my
chest.
“What sort of thing is that?” I stared into those blue eyes of hers.
“Oh, whatever could I mean? Agreeing to meet someone I’d seen just
twice on the beach, for lunch. Coming here with him in the middle of
the day.”
“Oh, that …” I shrugged. “Seems to happen to me at least once a
week.”
“It does, huh?” She dug her chin sharply into my ribs.
We kissed, and I felt something between us begin to rise again. The
sweat was warm on Tess’s breasts, and delicious, and my palm
traveled up her long, smooth legs and over her bottom. Something
magical was happening here. I couldn’t stop touching Tess. I’d
almost forgotten what it was like to feel this way.
Split aces, they call it, back where I’m from. South of Boston,
Brockton actually. Taking a doubleheader from the Yankees. Finding a
forgotten hundred-dollar bill in an old pair of jeans. Hitting the
lottery.
The perfect score.
“You’re smiling.” Tess looked at me, propped up on an elbow. “Want
to let me in on it?”
“It’s nothing. Just being here with you. You know what they say: for
a while now, the only luck I’ve had has been bad luck.”
Tess rocked her hips ever so slightly, and as if we had done this
countless times, I found myself smoothly inside her again. I just
stared into those baby blues for a second, in this posh suite, in
the middle of the day, with this incredible woman who only a few
days before hadn’t been conceivable in my life.
“Well, congratulations, Ned Kelly.” Tess put a finger to my lips. “I
think your luck’s beginning to change.”
(Continues…)
Excerpted from Lifeguard
by James Patterson Andrew Gross
Copyright © 2005 by James Patterson .
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Little, Brown
Copyright © 2005
James Patterson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-316-05785-1
