Summary: Popular party girl Becca Ryan goes to Dartmouth University; studies hard during the day, plays harder with her band at night. At one of the parties, she sees a stranger lurking in the shadows…she sees him twice more, walks away alive twice. Will her luck hold the third time?

A/N: Please, please review to let me know what you think. Even if you read the first paragraph and decide you don't want to read any more…tell me. I really want to be able to improve, and I can't if you don't tell me what you like/hate!

First Sight

She noticed him at first because, at a party where alcohol flowed as liberally as monsoon rain in India, he wasn't drinking. Well – he was holding a bottle so it was possible he could be simply replacing it whenever it ran out, but Becca knew for a fact that all of that particular drink had run out an hour ago. So unless he'd passed out standing up, with his eyes open and one foot tapping gently to the beat of the music, he wasn't drinking.

She noticed him next because she'd never seen him before. It wasn't like she knew everybody at Dartmouth, but she'd seen the majority of the faces when she did gigs with her band. Besides, this was her best friend's party so she knew – or had at least seen – most of the people there.

Thirdly he was remarkable because nobody else seemed to see him where he stood alone in the shadows that filled an alcove not quite lit by the lights that spilled from the house. Well, nobody was at their most perceptive after around seven drinks each, she reasoned. She'd probably be the same if she wasn't working tonight, although that hadn't stopped her bandmates from chugging down beers as if Prohibition was going to be reintroduced tomorrow.

The only other people around were making out and doing God only knew what else in various corners of the yard.

"Becca!" A voice called forlornly, and she turned to see her cousin stumbling towards her. "Becca, I need to talk to you." With a sigh, she turned away from her surreptitious study of the man in the alcove, took Amber by the elbow and steered her towards a low brick wall. "Becca, I need to talk to you…" Amber blinked earnest, dilated eyes, swaying slightly, and Becca wondered just what she was on. "Becca, I slept with your boyfriend."

Amber's cousin sighed. "I don't have a boyfriend. I broke up with him, remember?"

The intoxicated girl blinked slowly. "Why?"

"Because you slept with him." And I haven't talked to either of you since, except when you were drunk. "Seriously, Amber, stop drinking. I'll call Pete and tell him to pick you up, all right?"

"'M 'kay…" Her head drooped down onto Becca's shoulder, who pulled out her cellphone with a sigh and dialled the number of her other cousin, Amber's brother.

"Pete? Hey…" She blocked one ear with her finger against the noise of the party. "Can you come…yeah, Amber. I don't know…That'd be great, thanks. See you soon, Pete."

It was more, she mused, than most cousins would do, not even counting the whole you-slept-with-my-boyfriend thing. But nonetheless she sat with Amber until Pete arrived, watched as he loaded his sister into the car and drove away.

Then, at last, she was free to go back to the party. As she turned, her eyes flicked across the alcove and some part of her noted that it was empty. But she didn't really think about it as she stepped back into the flashing lights and raging music, into the sweaty crush of bodies and drunken laughter. When her best friend Jen asked the band to play, she leapt up onto the newly erected stage with her band and they played into the small hours of the morning until the drummer slumped over his drums and the tired bassist tripped over a loose wire and had to have his ankle strapped up.

Becca woke slowly in what she recognised was the bed in Jen's spare room. Light filtered into the room through the gap in the blinds, tinting the room soft gold and filling it with shadows that moved as the breeze coming through the open window shifted the curtains gently. The silence – blissful after last night – which flooded the house told her that nobody else was awake yet, and she sighed happily, snuggling back into the solid warmth of the boy whose body spooned her where she lay.

Her hand absently covered his where it rested on her stomach and Becca felt him shift to pull her closer even in sleep; she revelled in the feel of his protective strength around her, acutely conscious of the strong, steady heartbeat against her back, the slow warmth of his breath on her neck.

She would have been perfectly content to stay like that all day, had the sudden painful tingle of pins and needles not begun to creep along the leg that was pinned down by one of his, so with clenched teeth Becca started to slowly extricate her leg from the tangle of limbs, trying not to gasp as sensation returned in a surge of prickling pain.

"Becca?" A startled murmur in her ear, arms tightening around her as the even pattern of the boy's breathing altered.

"I'm not going anywhere," she replied softly. He remained still for a moment longer, holding her closely to him before relaxing as quickly as he had woken, nose nuzzling warmly into the side of her neck so that his hair brushed across her cheek.

With her eyes closed, Becca smiled dreamily. Matt was her best friend and bandmate; they were also what the two of them laughingly termed 'kissing friends'; when neither was dating anyone else, they often sought out the other for dates or more. They went out together, sometimes slept together, but there was never any bad feeling when a new boyfriend or girlfriend was acquired. In fact, they didn't even specifically tell the other; Becca knew that when either of them felt it necessary to ask the other's permission to date somebody else, their easy friendship would be over.

That would be a disaster, because Becca didn't know what she'd do without Matt. Not to mention the fact that recently she had become fairly certain that she was falling in love with him.

She knew, of course, that if she told him he'd probably run a mile. She was his friend, confidante, bandmate, bedmate. Not his girlfriend. When they were together, he called her 'Becca' or 'baby', but otherwise she was 'Ryan' – one of the boys.

"You're thinking very loudly, baby," he murmured lazily into her neck, and she couldn't help but smile. "What's up?" His warm breath on her skin had shivers running down her spine, and she gave his hand a little squeeze.

"I'm thinking you probably have one hell of a headache from last night," she replied.

"You'd be right." Her breath caught as his other hand began to trace a line down the length of the arm that lay on the pillow above her head; one long, sure movement that begun at her wrist, continued over her shoulder blade and caught on the strap of her top, tugging it down slightly so that he could press a kiss to the centre of her back just above the clasp of her bra. His touch seemed to burn her skin, leaving her in no doubt as to what he wanted. "Luckily, I know a sure cure for headaches."

"Oh, really?" She was already breathless as she arched her body back against him, feeling his muscles tense and the rising heat that smouldered even through the two layers of clothing they'd not bothered to remove when falling, exhausted, onto the bed the night before. "Do tell. I'm sure the rest of the band will be glad to know of a hangover cure."

The intensity of his reply would have surprised her had she been any state to consider it; it came as a feral growl, even as his teeth nipped at her neck to make her moan. "Not a chance, baby. You're all mine."

"What makes you think so?" The fingers of the hand lying over her stomach had tightened to bunch at her clothing as if ready to tear the thin material; Becca dragged his hand up to her breasts, drawing the material with it so her top hitched upward. His other hand made its own way down to her hip, scraped lightly across the bone that jutted out before dipping suddenly down to the waistline of her panties.

"Mine, Becca." All too suddenly he withdrew from her, eliciting a sudden whimper of protest – there wasn't enough breath in her lungs for anything else. The girl found herself on her back as he hovered over her, hair a golden halo framing his face against the morning light as he swooped down to capture her mouth. One knee pushed her thighs apart and Becca moaned into his mouth, hands pinned helplessly at her sides by his stronger fingers as his mouth continued to ravish hers.

When he at last released her mouth, both were gasping for breath. Her eyes met his with a sort of awe. Becca was speechless; the queer intensity in his eyes, in his kiss, both confused and excited her. She half lifted her head from the pillow in a mute plea for another kiss, when the telephone rang.

They both started, staring at each other in indecision as it rang on, unanswered. "They'll call back if it's important." Matt's voice was husky with desire, and he claimed her mouth once more as the phone fell silent.

She'd lost her top and was in the process of relieving Matt of his shirt when the phone rang again.

Their eyes met for an agonizingly long second. "Leave it," the boy pleaded with her.

"If it's important…" But the sentence ended in a gasp as his fingers traced the curve of her breast along the edge of the bra cup, lips kissing her collarbone.

It was Becca's cellphone which interrupted the third time, but this time she didn't wait for Matt to persuade her out of it before scrambling guiltily across the bed to snatch it up from the bedside table. Matt fell back on the bed resignedly but refused to relinquish his hold on Becca's free hand.

Both of them could hear the caller's words clearly. "Becca? Thank God, thank God…"

"Jackie. Is everything okay?" Jen's mom.

"Is everybody all right, is Jen okay? Where is she, is Dan there too?" Matt rolled his eyes; how to explain to a mother that her twenty-one year-old daughter was, at this moment in bed with her boyfriend sleeping off what had probably been a drunken orgy? Becca half smiled at his expression, but there was a line of worry between on her forehead at Jackie Davenport's tone.

"They're still asleep. Everyone's still asleep."

"Thank God," Jen's mother repeated. "Did I wake you?"

"Something like that," Matt muttered. Suppressing a giggle, Becca dragged the bedsheet from underneath him to wrap around herself before stepping off the bed.

"I'll go get her for you." She froze suddenly in the doorway, but Matt couldn't hear why as the caller's voice had faded. "A…shit. Shit. No, we're here. We're okay. Yes. Yes, I'll wake Jen and get her to…about five minutes. God." She hung up without saying goodbye, turned back.

"Matt." He had sprung up in an instant, was gathering her into his arms. Her face was dead white, and she looked like she was about to faint. "God. There's been an accident."

A/N: What do you think? Please review! Love Jude ;)