Chasing Love (6 page)

Yet, here was her pirate, gently pushing her further than she could take herself, giving her something she had tried for a few times, but never been able to reach.

She gasped, she panted, she writhed and, after a few minutes, completely taken by surprise, she came again, screaming even louder this time, uncaring if she woke the entire college dormitory, as her second orgasm ripped through her.

Weak and spent, she muttered her thanks as her pirate lowered her onto the soft, grassy ground, flinching slightly at the loss of his fingers inside her. He sat beside her, cradling her in his arms.

He gently kissed her cheek, soothing her as she caught her breath.

“Next time,” he promised, “I’ll take you further.”

“I don’t think I’ll survive that,” she chuckled. “Anyway, I’m going home the day after tomorrow…mmpf.”

Christiana found her lips pressed together by his fingers, silencing her words for the first time since she had been a kid.

“Let’s not speak of that just now. I have to go and you should get to bed.”

He kissed her lingeringly and she wallowed in the exquisite taste of his mouth. It was a taste she would never forget.

All too soon for her newly emerged emotions, her Pirate pulled himself away from her lips, dragged his hands away from her body. Surprised, Christiana felt the chill night wind whipping around the trees and gardens. She noted how, strangely, in her Pirate’s arms she hadn’t felt anything except the burning heat of both their bodies.

Rubbing her arms, pulling her sweater back down, she clenched her mouth shut tightly as her Pirate pulled himself away. He wasn’t harsh or rude about it, yet he firmly, purposefully untangled them from one another.

Christiana refused to say a thing. She wasn’t some weak, stupid heroine from a cheesy romance novel. She wouldn’t whimper or beg or plead. He didn’t owe her anything and she wouldn’t make a fool of herself.

With barely a word—he was a pirate after all—her romantic masked man stood up and headed off, deep into the night.

Christiana watched and tried to reconcile the image of her childhood friend and teenage crush with the huge, masked man she had just double-orgasmed with. Something was up and she had no idea how to play along with his game without unmasking him.

Yawning, she headed back inside, stripped and climbed into bed. The silky feel of her sheets made her smile but, as she lay down and tried to work out what she was going to do, she drifted off before even a half-decent plan could form.

There was always tomorrow morning.

Chapter Seven

Christiana opened her eyes to stare at the crystal wind chimes making multicolored patterns on her ceiling.

What to do?

For well over five years now Edward had been trying to convince her to have an affair with him. Ever since she had headed off to college.

He had tried any number of arguments and persuasions, none of them changing her mind. She had offered her fourteen-year-old heart to him on a platter and he had rejected it.

He had been well over seventeen, and about to head out into the big wide world. College and then wherever his feet took him, she believed had been his words.

Even so, she had felt at nearly fourteen she was old enough to know her own mind.

More fool she.

While she still loved him—how could you
not
love a man on whom you’d had a crush for long as you could recall?—she had never again let him know how much he affected her.

So why was he dressing up as a pirate and seducing the hell out of her? Revenge? Just to get into her pants?

Even more importantly, should she unmask him? Let him know she knew it was him? Or should she play along? If she played along
knowing
it was Edward, when he unmasked himself, expecting her to be shocked and surprised, wouldn’t it be lovely to calmly stare at him and say she had guessed back on the very first night?

Appealing as that idea was she squirmed to think of all the ground she would lose if she traveled this way. She had spent
years
convincing him she didn’t want him, that she wasn’t attracted to him. If she followed his tune,
knowing
who he was, he would never again believe she didn’t care for him.

It was a messy coil.

Next to her, she heard Maggie yawn and grumble as her clock radio went off. Smiling, knowing the routine extremely well, Christiana huddled safely under her bedclothes. After sharing a room with the girl for almost the entire six years they had shared together at college, Christiana knew when to duck for cover.

For perhaps the last time, Maggie, still mostly asleep, unplugged the cheap-ass clock radio from the bedside table between their twin beds and hurled it across the floor of their tiny room. Not only did the music stop but an incredibly familiar
crunch
sound emanated from the poor battered machine.

Christiana giggled. That one had almost lasted the entire week. It appeared to be a stronger model than most. She made a mental note to get the same brand this time.

Well-versed in the different noises a clock radio makes when thrown against a wall, Christiana decided they would now be buying their ninetieth clock radio from the cheap Wal-Mart in town. The check-out clerks knew them well.

“Come on Maggs, time to wake up,” she laughed, sitting up and stretching. Once, back in their first year, Maggie had accidentally thrown the clock across the room, knocking her on the head.

Since then, Christiana had been sure to either not be in the room when the alarm went off, or to be safely hidden beneath the covers. Maggie had a wicked throw.

Climbing out of bed, she went over to the bureau and picked out clean underwear, a sloppy T-shirt and pair of sweatpants. They needed to clean the dorm this morning from top to bottom, and then start hauling their stuff out to their cars.

Christiana was hoping the day of cleaning and talking to Maggie would help her sort out in her mind what to do with her pirate.

Dragging the coverlet from Maggie, she was startled when the
whomph
of her pillow caught her right across the head.

“What the…?”

Next thing she knew, Maggie had pulled herself up on her knees and was thrashing her with the pillow.

Laughing, Christiana reached over to her own bed and grabbed her own pillow.

“I’m so going to get you for winning that last pillow fight. You were unfair! Pinning me by using your chocolates as a peace offering was a foul trick!”

Christiana laughed. Back in their first year they had fought over who got to use which beds, finally ending up in a huge, shrieking pillow fight. Christiana had indeed offered Maggie her box of Godiva milk chocolates to settle the fight, and then pinned Maggie until she yielded.

It had been dirty, but worth getting the bed underneath the window.

Laughing, Christiana tried to wrestle and fight Maggie but her friend was determined.

Eventually, she yielded.

* * * * *

“Aaahhh, so the lamented Edward strikes again. Why didn’t you say so? I wouldn’t have interfered. I know you’ve been saving your cherry for him. It’s about damn time one of you wises up and you fuck each other.”

Christiana rolled her eyes and scrubbed the floor harder, with larger, more vicious strokes.

“You don’t understand, Maggie.”

Her roommate laughed. “I’m not stupid, hon, of course I understand. You’ve had the hots for each other since you were little rugrats but you never got it on at the same time. As kids, you wanted him, as young adults he wanted you. Now you’re both trying to move on and neither of you can because there’s still this massive unresolved sexual tension between you.”

Christiana muttered curses under her breath. It had taken her
months
of self-reflection upon first arriving at college to work that out and, even then, it hadn’t helped solve any of her problems. How dare Maggie understand so easily!

Stealing a glance over her shoulder, she saw her best friend sitting on her knees, scrubbing brush in hand and huge grin on her face.

“What?” she grumbled.

“It took you ages to work out that’s what the electric attraction was, didn’t it?”

Refusing to give her the pleasure of answering, Christiana continued to scrub. “So, almighty all-knowing beast of a friend. What do I do? Do I unmask him, or carry on with the fantasy?”

“Hmm,” Maggie contemplated. Christiana could practically hear her thinking, turning over different possibilities.

“Scrub while you think or we’ll never get the candle wax off this damn floor. Are you sure this happened at our last Halloween bash? I could swear they were here when we arrived!”

“I’m sure,” Maggie stated. “You were far too plastered to remember. I, on the other hand, was fuming over Ian being late, so I hadn’t started drinking when you spilled the wine or started boasting of that stunt with the wax. But that’s beside the point. I’m trying to think what I’d do in your situation. You want passion and romance, right?”

“Right.”

“But you don’t want to go all the way with this Edward.”

For the briefest of seconds, Christiana had a mental flash so real, so life-like she was grateful to already be sitting on the floor. Otherwise she might have melted and created more of a mess to clean up.

Heated bodies, straining toward each other, slick with sweat as moans filled the air. Edward’s large, warm, rough hands caressing her skin, causing an electric current that made her knees weak. His thick, hot erection paused at her entrance. The strength of his body and mind preparing her for his possession; body and soul.
Before her vision could become any more mouth-watering, she firmly squashed it. She had a floor to scrub.

Remembering to answer her friend, she paused in her furious scrubbing and agreed absently.

“Right.”

“Okay, so I’d probably unmask him and then make a deal with him.”

Christiana frowned and stopped scrubbing. “Huh?”

“Well,” Maggie explained, “you want the passion and romance, but none of the penetrating sex. There are, as I
know
you’ve found out, a heap of things you can do
without
actual intercourse. There’s no point stringing each other along, Edward would have to unveil himself soon—like before you go home tomorrow. He can’t just
appear
in costume and mask at your parent’s home and expect you to not work out who he is. So take control of the situation. Unmask him when he undoubtedly turns up tonight, and then offer him a deal.”

Christiana sat back and thought of it. She imagined an “anything goes but penetration” deal between her and Edward, and then thought of all the things he could do to her—and even better, all the things she could tease him with.

Flushing, she looked back to Maggie.

“You’re not just a pretty face, are you? Anyone would think you had a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management and Communications.”

Maggie beamed. “Does this mean you’ll finish the wretched floor?”

Christiana looked scornful. “Don’t be stupid. Get back to scrubbing.”

Chapter Eight

Christiana fidgeted with the hem of her micro miniskirt. Having never worn the blasted thing she hadn’t realized
just
how short it was. She had bought it as a fashion impulse back in her sophomore year, and then never quite had the guts and right situation appear at the same time.

A very pretty navy blue, it complemented her eyes, while the midriff-baring white shirt showed off her faint tan and blonde curls.

She knew she looked good, she just wasn’t sure it would do any good. Looking good in the past had never seemed to affect Edward yet this time
he
had started the game. Maybe things would be different for a change.

Unable to remain still, she began to pace back and forth before the large tree in her dorm backyard.

She wasn’t
worried
-worried, she was simply
nervous
-worried, she consoled herself. Who wouldn’t be nervous? Seducing Edward had been a long-held fantasy of hers. She had mostly given up on it years ago—just before she left for college, in fact—but she was disgusted to realize that, with a simple action of dressing up and masking himself, he had seduced her more thoroughly than any man had in five years of college.

A deeply hidden part of her acknowledged she had fallen hard and fast for her childhood friend,
again!

Of course, the rest of her disputed the fact vehemently. Never again would she fall for the man who, as a child, she had been certain was hers and hers alone. He had been with many women over the years, probably
hundreds
since she had given up and stopped trailing after him like a nuisance.

Neither was she interested in being some trophy or plaything for a man. Her True Mate would accept her power and position in the Pack as its eventual leader, and love her simply as she was. She would give him her faithfulness, her loyalty and the satisfaction of truly knowing she only belonged to him.

Yet in the meantime, she wouldn’t mind playing a bit with good old Edward. A bit of experience never hurt a girl and with a no-penetration clause on their playtime…