They didn’t do them every weekend, but they were renown for the parties… if you could call them that. He had been in there once, when he was bored and lonely. The noise, drink, drugs and mass of highly hooked up couples littering the place had remained firmly planted in his memory. It was reminiscent of an orgy in ancient Rome. He considered himself completely unshockable, but they really pushed the boundaries next door. The police had been called in a few times too over the disturbances going on in there. He snorted with amusement for a moment at the thought of her in the middle of all that shit and then a strange feeling crept up on him. He felt sorry for her.
Her pretty face, brown eyes and pink flushed cheeks came sneaking into his mind… her slender body swam around his head too. He hadn’t missed a thing, his vision was perfect. Those long silky legs and sexy backside in those shorts and those full breasts… there was more than a handful of those. He felt a sharp stirring sensation and he hardened. She was hot… as hell! An eleven out of ten, no make that a twelve. He was more than tempted to take a big bite of her cuteass little body. But he really didn’t need any distractions of that type, not now… not so late in the process. He’d had a lot of that type of fun along the way… but it was serious time now. He tipped his head from side to side, ran his hands through his unkempt hair, took a long deep breath and concentrated his mind on his work.
Laura entered the house with her groceries after her rather stressful day at work to be met by a cacophony of noise like no other. Men were yelling at each other and whooping… no make that screaming…. The usual dreadful music was playing slightly less loudly in the background. The smell of alcohol was so strong it made her gag. That and the stench of sweat was just too much. It could possibly rival a male locker room at this moment. She stood at Louis’s open door and looked inside. Four heads turned her way, eyes wider than wide with interest.
“Hey…. Laura….. Meet ….My gamer gang… Jon, Bif, and Carlos…..Wanna join us…? Grab a beer… Come in….” Louis multi-tasked drinking whilst gaming whilst having a stilted conversation with her….
“No thanks, I’m making dinner ….Louis… would you mind turning down the volume please.” She asked loudly. “I’m sure you don’t need it that loud, do you?”
“What…? Loud? Oh yeah…. How about this?” he turned it down quite a lot. She smiled. That was just about bearable.
“Thanks Louis” she said gratefully.
Perhaps he wasn’t that bad she thought. She made her way into the kitchen and got her dinner ingredients out. She was washing some things in the sink when she was aware of someone behind her in the kitchen. Whoever it was pushed up against her back and an arm came over her head to open a cupboard above her.
She turned her head as one of Louis’s gamer pals took out a bag of potato chips. He ground himself roughly against her backside.
“D’you mind?” she objected in utter disgust, pinned tightly up against the sink with his body forcing itself against hers.
“I don’t mind at all. Do you?” Came the alcohol and sweat drenched stench of a reply.
“Fucking get off me!” she screeched as his spare hand came around her and grabbed at her breast. She dug her elbow in his stomach and he backed off a little. “Don’t you ever dare touch me again!” she turned and shouted in his face shaking with anger.
“Aw come on… ! Be nice Laura… let me have a little touch.” Pervy pal lifted his hand again and grabbed her roughly.
At that moment Carella came in through the kitchen door and weighed up the situation in a micro second flat.
“Carlos you fucking creepy bag of crap…. Get your hands off princess Laura or you’ll feel my boot where it hurts you real bad. It’ll be so far up your ass you’ll be split in two… you fucker!“ She squared up to him, despite being a foot shorter, half his size and with hair like a pink cloud.
Never had Laura been so pleased to see this predatory girl lover roommate. She would have hugged her and kissed her biker boots if she was sure she wouldn’t start to hit on her afterwards. Carlos slunk off swearing at them both.
“Laura babe… don’t hang about the kitchen whilst they’re here… I told you to watch out for them, remember? They’re all bad… in fact Craplos is probably the nicer one of the bunch. Jonno’s the worst… he would have had you over the kitchen table by now. Come and sit in my room for a minute girl… you look all shook up.” Carella took her hand and led her rather shocked person to her room. Inside she looked quickly around her. It was decked out with masses of pink fairy lights everywhere. Black and pink pictures of nudes hung on the wall above the bed. The double bed was covered in a black duvet with a big pink playboy bunny on it and there were actually two sets of pink fluffy handcuffs attached to the metal headboard! Laura had to look twice at those to believe it…. Her eyes slid across to her bedside table…. Were they sex toys out on display or just modern art? They were massive whatever…! This was definitely a Babeland inspired boudoir for sure. A large flat screen TV hung on one wall and an equally large mirror on the other. A mound of jumbled clothes were in the corner. There was no other furniture in the room… no chair, no chest of drawers…. Just piles of stuff on the floor everywhere.
Carella was a very messy girl.
She sat her down on the bed. Laura was too stunned and weak to refuse or argue about anything and just sat there with her hands on her lap. Carella put her arm around her shoulders and flicked her long brown hair back from her face tucking it behind her ear.
“Laura… look… you’re very sexy you know. You must be more careful in here. That lot have even had a go at me once or twice … can you believe it? Not that they got very far, fucking creeps…! You’d better lock your room and stay there when we have our parties too. They can get a little wild; lots of girls and boys in here, you know…? Well, it’s all girls in this room, but I don’t think you’d like it and out there it’s mad!” She started rubbing her hand up and down her arm. Laura stiffened. “Hey… it’s okay I’m not going to jump your bones. Much as I’d love to… Not tonight anyway!” Carella giggled slightly at the idea…
Laura zoned out Carella’s never gonna happen fantasy and looked down at her leg tattoos … there was another interesting one on her inner thigh, it said ‘suck me’. She wondered where ‘bite me’ and ‘fuck me’ were… she was bound to have those tucked away somewhere.
“I think I’m okay now” Laura managed to utter eventually. “Look, I was just starting my dinner just now. D’you want some food… fancy standing bodyguard for me?” she managed to joke.
Carella cracked up laughing. “Pretty sweet… Yeah!… Cook me up a little dinner… Maybe I’ll provide the dessert!”
Laura’s eyes opened wide. No Carella style dessert was coming her way. She would be locking her bedroom door as soon as her dinner was served up.
It seemed like Carella was joking about the dessert as she went off happily with her generous portion of stir fry chicken and noodles once they completed a quick tidy up. Laura stayed in her room and heard no more from her all evening. Sadly the perv gang next door stayed late. They finally disconnected themselves from the noisiest gaming collective ever at about two in the morning. Thank heavens she wasn’t at work the next day. She was mentally and physically exhausted by the whole day’s events…. Having two pets put down had upset her no end… the owners had been distraught… then this extra stuff tonight.
It was all much too much.
Chapter 8
Seb woke up at eight. It was Friday. No appointments with tutors, training or exams today and the weekend stretched freely in front of him. He was going to have a chill out day. A couple of runs and masses of sleeping…. Maybe watch a few movies too. He went for a quick first run in his forest. It was limiting in here to say the least. He could run a complete lap in 6 minutes precisely. He was just rounding a blind bend when he saw her.
Oh shit… she was in here again. He’d better leave his runs till dark from now on. If she saw him there could be a
problem. He was lucky there were no kids playing around in here. He’d never had to be particularly careful before. He slunk about low, hiding and watching her wandering about. He was turning into a stalker around her.
Fuck no!…She was only crying! Not great big sobs but a steady stream of tears. She sat down on his favorite log with her head in her hands. Her lovely long brown hair hung forward around her pale face and shoulders. He wanted to hug her… No actually he wanted to do more than that… kiss her happy again…. Run his hands all over her perhaps, that might make her happy too! He had a sudden intense vision of the two of them wrapped together tightly… naked and sweating…. He reluctantly emptied his mind of this rather enjoyable hot surge of feelings and bounded off in a wide circuit back to the field entrance.
He sat for a moment, hidden in his secret shady area of bushes and then when he was ready he shifted out and put on his shorts. He didn’t have a t-shirt to wear… he never bought one of those with him, not even in the winter. He sat just by the path in the most obvious spot and waited for her to return.
She meandered her way around the forest. She was thinking in turn about her mom and Simon the love rat. These two things were guaranteed to bring on the waterworks big time. Why did she do this to herself so often? She must have cried Niagara Falls by now. She stopped short when she reached the end of the forest by the field.
Well, there was a sight for her sore crying eyes!
Seb was lying on the grass just in front of her, leaning back on his elbows with his eyes closed, face turned up to the morning sun. He had no shirt or shoes on, just a pair of loose shorts around his hips. Her internal temperature shot up. She was so massively wrong when she thought he had hot undertones. He was more like Mr H.O.T. full stop, no tones about it! She felt light headed just looking at him. He must have been working out quite a lot to get that kind of muscle definition.
He had just the right amount… of everything…
Her gaze ran over the light trail of hair across his chest and down his stomach in a rapture of lust. Her eyes widened and her pupils dilated…. She brushed away her final tears as she moved to stand right in front of him blocking out his sun.
He opened his eyes lazily and fixed his emerald gaze on her.
“Hi Seb. You’re out early today.” She managed to say in a miraculously calm voice.
“Yeah, I like mornings…. Ummm… What’s up Laura… You look like you’ve been crying, your eyes are all red. What’s so bad?” He asked kindly.
“Lots of things…. You wouldn’t believe it if I told you!” She replied sniffing.
“Well I’m a nice understanding type … how about you try me out?” he urged sitting up properly.
Why he was doing this he didn’t know exactly. He needed to know about her somehow. It was a very urgent pressing need.
She wasn’t sure why she trusted him as she’d only really spoken to him the once before, but she just did. She sat down opposite him and started with her mother and father, their dreadful divorce and her mother’s illness and recent death and finally her ex boyfriend’s antics. She stopped there. That was enough to chew on, she thought. She didn’t want him to think she was a complete disaster area. She gave him a very, very quick sketchy summary. No details. She didn’t know him at all so she wasn’t about to pour out her heart and soul. He sat quietly listening and watching her. She started to feel a little better suddenly. This was most odd. Why should that be? It seemed that sharing a little of life’s troubles actually helped… it really did! She gave him a sad little smile.
His heart melted quicker than ice in a lava flow.
“Well it seems you’ve had a real run of bad luck Laura…. Life’s like that sometimes. Thing’s will get better I’m sure.” As he gazed at her lovely face he didn’t quite know what else to say. He was sure she didn’t deserve all this misery…
“So Seb, what’s your story… where’s your family? What are you doing around here? Working or what?” She asked him with another sad little smile.
“Well I’m training at Fort Collins CSU, final year veterinary school… my exams are this month. Then I’m going back to New York State. We have a family practice there.” He said smiling at her.
Her face registered a little surprise…. Or was that shock? He never got to find out because she stood up abruptly and walked off without a word. He sat looking at her retreating back in confusion.
“What the fuck did I say?” He said out loud to himself.
She arrived back in her room and flung herself on her bed. The sobs started in earnest. Her mother, her father, her boyfriend, her career on hold, the loss of her best friend Kelly, her lack of money, her new shit life here…. It all came bubbling over the top. She cried herself to sleep.
She was awoken by the crescendo of the noisiest gamer in town starting his day. She really couldn’t hack it, being in here with this pure crap. Fuck them all!
She had nearly three days free and she was dying to escape to the wilds… to the quiet and complete solitude of absolutely nowhere land.
No pink haired girl lovers dying to stick her with giant love toys… no pervy guys waiting to grab soft and tender parts of her in the kitchen and noise so loud it would burst her eardrums at a hundred yards …. And no hot vets in training living just next door, taunting her and reminding her of her failure. Just peace and tranquillity and nature.
She dragged out her backpack, hiking boots, tent and other essentials. She took the first lot out to the car. As she loaded her stuff in the trunk she was suddenly aware of Seb standing at her side, now with his t-shirt on, thankfully.
“Laura… I think we need to have a little talk. What did I say to upset you? And where are you going with that tent and backpack?”
She looked into his green eyes. At such close quarters he was really quite a stunner. How could she have ever thought him scruffy either….? The fact he wasn’t very clean cut made him hotter than ever… The words sex-machine, hunk and steamy whirled around her head. No, the steam was all hers in fact. She stopped her eyes from wandering madly all over him and fixed them on his green ones.
It wasn’t his fault he was in vet school….
“What you said…. About being a vet. I wasn’t accepted at Fort Collins. It’s what I wanted to do. In fact it’s all I have ever wanted to do! And, If you really must know, I’m going away to do a little camping to escape the noise, the incredibly annoying and sometimes frightening people in that apartment and to avoid you, Mr vet to be … that’s what!” she blurted out in a hurt tone.
“I’m sorry Laura. It’s hard to get in vet school, isn’t it… I know that’s true. I only made it by a whisker…” he joked in a soft tone of voice. “Actually I cheated a little… my dad knows some people there very well. I was able to get a couple of recommendations from sponsors who mattered… Look Laura, would you like me to come with you? Camping, I mean…”
“NO THANK YOU! I am quite able to camp unaided!” she shot back in surprise at his unexpected offer.
“Well I’m not sure you are actually… let me ask you a few questions first… Do you know how to set up a campfire? What about navigation, can you do that? And what would you do if you saw a bear or a mountain cat? Can you hunt or shoot? Could you deal with a group of male hikers who stumble upon your little one person female camp? Do you have any survival skills at all in fact?” His eyes searched hers.
“Well it seems I’m not prepared at all, doesn’t it! I probably couldn’t cope with any of that… but I don’t care… it’s less dangerous in the wilderness totally unprepared and skill-less than it is hanging around here, that’s for sure.”
“Laura, I would really love to come with you. I have a lot of wilderness experience you know. My family lives in it full time. I would also really enjoy a weekend in the park. I know a great place, a perfect spot, you would love it!”
“Seb, I only have a small 2 bed pop up tent. It’ll be crowded with six feet of you in it. It was crowded with my much smaller fri
end in it. Do you have your own tent?”
“No I don’t use a tent. I usually sleep in the open. I’m a nature lover. I have some other gear though. Shall I bring it? Are you saying yes, Laura?”
“Well I don’t know…” She looked into his green eyes and caved in. “I suppose so Seb. And you are welcome to share my tent if you can squash in. I wouldn’t want you to freeze your butt off on my account. But just friends, okay? I don’t want any more upset and complications in my life just now.”
“Of course. Just friends. Nothing else entered my head.” he lied beautifully. “I’ll be ready in about 20 minutes. We’ll take my truck Laura. It’s far better for the rough park roads. We can get much further in. I like to get as deep as I can when I go wild…” He gave her a smirky little grin as he left.
Chapter 9
She gathered her final lot of gear and some more food and drink from the kitchen and waited outside by his truck. They finally got in the truck and set off for Seb’s perfect camping ground of choice which he explained would take about an hour and a half to reach. He had changed into dark jeans and a dark blue tightly fitted t-shirt. He had obviously just showered, smelled divine and his hair was damp. She tried very hard not to get any hotter over him or she’d surely burst into flames inside his truck. How on earth was she going to have a friendly little sleep less than one foot away from this dark and dangerously attractive cutie? This whole damn trip was a big mistake, she just knew it.
The Pairing Page 3