Queen of Tarts:

Chapter 1/?: Maneater

Rating: PG-15

Summary: He always wanted to know what was really going on in her head and when she leaves he's more baffled then ever. Derek gets a bizarre visit from someone with strange and ridiculous motivations. My take on a simple concept. (I'm toying with the idea of a different point-of-view and explaining her reasoning in the future.)

Eyes half-closed and hair in disarray Derek Venturi cradled one of his extra pillows tightly to his chest and buried his face into it as he turned onto his side. He wasn't sure why he was tossing and turning tonight. Practice had left him dead tired, but his mind wouldn't take that final plunge into a blissful sleep. It wasn't as if he was actually thinking about anything deep. He was just thinking about everything. Food, girls, hockey. Hockey, girls, food. Everything that was really important to a seventeen-year-old boy.

Letting out a groan of frustration he turned over again, hoping the new position would be more comfortable and faced the window in his room. He had to go to sleep.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to count the stupid sheep that were supposed to help people like him, but they weren't working. He must've been concentrating harder than he thought on sheep number forty-five, because suddenly he felt his mattress dipping on one side as it adjusted to fresh weight. Alarmed, his eyes shot open as he turned over to face the intruder that had dared to climb in bed with him in the middle of the freaking night.

He'd expected to see Marti standing with some random stuffed animal, Edwin with the phone, or if he was really stretching it, even Lizzie, but the figure that sat staring at him, took him completely by surprise.

"Casey," he half-asked, half-stated, not caring to hide the confusion that laced his hoarse voice as he climbed onto his elbows.

In the dark he could barely make her out, but he knew it had to be her. This close he could smell her and she always smelled the same, like she'd just finished baking a cake. Her pajamas were buttoned all the way to the collar and her dark hair was pulled away from her face in a braid so severe that it would make a Grade 2 schoolmarm seem relaxed.

Despite his question she didn't answer him. She just stared, her teeth biting dangerously hard into her bottom lip. She looked hesitant, like she couldn't decide if she wanted to answer him or run out the door.

Not liking the look she was wearing he cleared his throat and tried again. "What are you doing in here?" he demanded.

Again, she didn't say anything or make any movement to answer him. Derek had always thought that he would love for someone to sew Casey's mouth shut, but he quickly decided that when she didn't say anything at all it made her seem even less normal.

"Are you sick or something? Do you need me to order Edwin to fetch my Dad or Nora?"

Her pale eyes never leaving his own she took a deep breath and shook her head. Normally, he was comfortable holding her gaze, but at the moment it took a good deal of self-control not to look away. Why was she acting so weird?

"Are you just not going to say anything at all?" he asked, feeling his stomach beginning to drop. "I mean I'm not against you going mute that would be a reason for a national holiday, but it's two o'clock in the morning and I'm trying to sleep. Y'know-"

He'd had more to say. He knew he did. But the words were lost when she smashed her lips into his. The shock alone had left him unresponsive. He couldn't talk. He couldn't move. He couldn't shut his eyes and he couldn't shove her off of him.

She seemed to take his lack of protest as a positive signal and he could feel her teeth scraping his bottom lip as her body began to relax against his. Derek had been kissed by more girls than he had fingers and toes, but this had to be the single most aggressive kiss he'd ever shared. He wasn't even sure he was actually participating or if he was just letting her kiss him.

His face was beginning to burn and his elbows and shoulders were aching, but he could feel the surprise from her ambush leaking from him in degrees. Despite himself his eyes drifted closed and when he opened his mouth to her suddenly nothing else mattered.

Kissing her was like skating on a lake after the first hard freeze. That funny place that stood between somewhere strange but exciting and something he'd known his whole life. She tasted like an odd combination of mouth wash and cheap alcohol, but he ignored it. Her lips were soft but direct against his mouth, not covered with gloss and slippery which more than made up for anything else.

She tore her lips away from his like a drowning victim and he could feel her warm heavy gasps for air against his neck. He wanted to look at her and know what she was thinking, but she kept her eyes closed and suddenly he didn't care.

He'd assumed that at the first break in her assault common sense would have poured a bucket of cold water on him and he would break away and toss her out of his room. He didn't. He chased her lips.

Her weight was welcomed against his chest and he pulled her with him as he fully reclined into his pillows, freeing his hands and easing the ache that had started to grow between his shoulder-blades. Spread wide his fingers grazed down her sides feeling for the bottom hem of her pajamas top. They slipped beneath it with ridiculous ease.

His entire body seemed to be humming now as he tasted that small part of skin beneath her ear. He couldn't quite make out any sound, but that of her uneven breathing and the blood rushing in his ears. He felt her soft fingertips against his face and she easily captured his lips again. She shivered when his tongue ran across the roof of her mouth. Internally he couldn't help but smirk at the reaction he could provoke.

He didn't know why he was letting this happen and didn't care that he didn't feel bad for doing it. He should have. He should have stopped her, or called out for Edwin or dragged her back to her room and never spoke about it again or put it in the back of his mind and never dwelled on it for even a second.

This was not just another girl. This was his father's wife's daughter, his step-sister. She was his best friend's pseudo girlfriend. Sam had never done anything like this to him and he probably never would.

Why in the hell didn't he feel guilty? He should have. He should have felt very guilty.

But Derek Venturi had rarely ever done the right thing and this moment wasn't the time to start.

Underneath her pajamas top his hands roamed freely across her back appreciating the smooth dip that lined its centre. Her skin was soft and she arched when his fingertips grazed that shallow valley. She made an indescribable sound that he'd never heard her make before but assumed was a sound of approval. He smiled against her mouth.

Then it happened. She suddenly stiffened beneath his fingers. Her lids flew open and he read something in those big blue eyes that made his hands go limp. It was as if someone had slapped her in the face and made her realize what she was doing. He half-expected her to hit him or worse, but she only dug her palms painfully into his chest shoving herself away from him and his bed. This action earned her an unwilling grunt from himself, but Derek didn't move.

He tried not to breathe as he watched her quickly but quietly leave his room. Before he had time to knead the back of his neck, he heard the sound of her door shutting.

He should've gone after her. He should've demanded an explanation. But he didn't. He didn't want to know.

It would all catch up to him soon enough. It always did. He would feel it tenfold when it all came crashing down, but he couldn't think about that now. His mind was too preoccupied.

What in the hell just happened?

TBC...