A/N: I haven't given up on my other story or anything but I was just walking around with this idea and decided to get it out. Hope you enjoy it and leave a review!
I don't own OTH or its characters.
Masters in Every Time
Summary: AU. On the flight New York - North Carolina, the worlds of two strangers collide. When their plane is forced to make a stop, they end up sleeping together even though they're both in a relationship. They agree to go their own ways after but soon, they learn that they'll spend more than just one night together.
Pairings:
- Major LP
- sides of NH/RN later on. This storyline will begin in Chapter 6 and get more attention as it proceeds.
Masters in Every Time
1. Expresso Love
Virginia Highlands airport was over flown with the wailing of toddlers and the complaining of parents while outside a roaring thunderstorm raged through sky. More fortunate people who didn't have their family to take care of bellowed to poor Mr. Thompson -the manager- and those who had given up wrecking their voices a while ago, just sat down with irritation plastered across their faces. Personally, Lucas was stuck here because of a visit to his uncle Keith, who had moved to New York about a year ago with his wife Jules.
In the middle of the busy crowd, one girl stood out to him. With her long, blonde ringlets, big emerald eyes and slender long figure, this beauty had caught his eye earlier on the plane. However, it wasn't really her enchanting appearance that drew him to her like a fly to syrup; it was the energy she radiated. The fact that the flight would probably be postponed a day didn't seem to bother her one bit; her thumb thoughtfully scrolled over the cursor of a white I-pod, her toned legs calmly crossed over one another.
As he observed her, something odd caught his eye: the seats left and right from her weren't taken although across the space, several people were still searching for a spot to plump themselves down. Lucas' legs began to move, stopping in front of the girl and then bowing to sit down. Merely a second after he had touched the seat a pair of fiery greens shot dead-sharp arrows at him and Lucas immediately understood why no one had dared to near her.
''Hi, I'm Lucas,'' he greeted unimpressed and offered his hand; the girl gazed at it as if it were poison ivy so he just lowered it again.
When the rock chick's attention was pointed back on her music, he saw the chance to take in her appearance once more and concluded that she might very well be the most stunning creature he had ever seen. The wonder of it was that she didn't seem to realize how gorgeous she was. On the other hand, she seemed unhappy, maybe even lonely. He softly bit his tongue; Brooke-his girlfriend- wouldn't be very happy if she'd know he was checking out other girls. Because he loved and respected her, he didn't do that to often though and if he did, it was more subtle. However -and this would make Brooke even angrier- this girl worked on him like a magnet. It was impossible to stay away.
''You're staring,'' she suddenly spoke. ''Don't.''
A blush appeared on his cheeks and he gazed in front of him again.
After a painful silence wherein a uncomfortable Lucas sat next to the beautiful but very defensive blonde, the manager marched between the benches and announced the flight to North Carolina would -as expected- be postponed a day. But, he added, everyone would be transferred to the nearest airport hotel by bus.
Airport hotels were quite luxurious and apparently, the girl knew that because an eager look suddenly glimmered in her eyes. Just like the rest of the passengers on the flight New York-North Carolina, Lucas stood up and followed the crowd -plus fire breathing, curly girl- outside.
x
The light-pink door of his room. That had been Lucas view the past half-hour. For some unknown but extremely annoying reason, his card didn't seem to work and since the manager had a lot of work -many people had to be checked in and led to their rooms- it would probably take another hour before he'd finally get in. So he just sat there in the hall, sighing and rolling his eyes until the thought that maybe, a song could take his mind of off things popped up in his head. In his off-key voice, he began to sing Led Zeppelin's 'What Is and What Should Never Be'. It didn't take very long before the door next to him slowly opened and a head full of golden curls peered through.
''Hey,'' he greeted with a small smile.
"You're ruining the song."
Sure, she was gorgeous but damn...Those pretty lips spat venom to all who crossed her path.
"Well, you're ruining my fun."
Instead of pulling her head back inside, she stayed and gazed at him. Her greens quickly established that he was hot. Thick dirty-blonde hair, sky-blue eyes and a nicely built body...it could be worse.
"Why aren't you in your room?"
He slightly raised the metallic card. "Doesn't work. I've been waiting for half an hour to get in."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Do you..." she bit her lip "Neverm-"
"What?" he cut her off.
"OK, don't think I like you or something but if you want...you can wait here until they've found you a new key."
"Look at that..." he jokingly began "It can be nice."
It hadn't been a good idea to joke; the curly blonde closed her door with a big bang. Lucas stood up from the beige carpet and began knocking her door. There was a slight problem though: he didn't know her name.
"Girl!" he then called a bit silly. "Girl!"
Just when he was about to give up, the door opened again.
"Yes? What seems to be the problem?"
"I'm sorry, OK?" he said.
"And?"
"Can I come in?"
"Can I come in...what?"
In her eyes, he saw she was taking pleasure in this; making him beg. It should be irritating but he actually found it kind of cute with her.
"Please?"
While she pretended to be thinking about it, he waited until she finally fully opened the door. "OK."
x
Somewhere in the hotel, a chamber maid had been looking for a blonde boy called Lucas Scott to give him his key for over an hour. Less did she knew that he was talking with the curly girl in the room next to his. Strawberries and chocolate chip cookies were the centre of the big, white sheeted bed.
"So..." the blonde-who Lucas had figured out was called Peyton- tried to keep up with his family tree "You're dad left your mom in high school when she was pregnant because he knocked another girl up. With your half-brother."
After a few minutes of bantering and joking, the two had plumped themselves down on her bed to watch a film but it had turned out into a conversation.
"U-huh."
"And he was a jerk to you for practically all your life which made you a depressed outsider plus troubled 'I've-been-done-wrong'- eyes?"
When he gave her an insulted stare, she just laughed.
"Yes..." he then answered. It still amazed him that he had spilled his heart out to a stranger while Brooke had been pushing him to do exactly that for ages. However, he had always refused so how could this New Yorkian girl get all this out of him so easily? Her personality? Maybe, but she had her dark sides: she was very sarcastic, maybe even a bit cynic. She certainly was no future psychologist but somehow, she made him open up.
"And you guys hated each other until he married your best friend?"
"No..." he corrected "Our relationship began to ummm...grow when I entered the basketball team. It took a while but we're close now. He can still be an ass but you know, I'm looking forward to seeing him back."
"I guess that's what happens with those kind of guys...After a while, you begin to miss 'em."
"You read?" he immediately asked.
"O-oh, busted," she smiled and sugar-coated another strawberry. "What are you? Some kind of book freak?"
"I guess I am, but I'm not the one quoting J.D. Salinger."
"No..." she denied "I'm more into music and art; I don't ready very often. Sometimes." She shrugged. "'Catcher in the Rye' just happens to be my favorite. Teenage alienation, hypocrisy..."
"You understood? The psychology behind it?"
"Uh...I don't know..." She playfully placed her finger against her lip "But last time I checked, I still had a few brain cells."
His hand, which was reaching to the last chocolate chip cookie on the plate, pulled back and he bowed his head.
"What?" Peyton asked. "Did I say something wrong? You don't have any?"
"No..." he looked back up "It's just that...me and my girlfriend; we don't really connect on that level." When he noticed her surprised eyes, he quickly said: "I'm not saying I connect with y-"
"So what do you do with your girlfriend? Just...Sex?"
His head turned red like a beet.
"Look, it's OK,'' she mentally backed away a bit ''your love life is none of my business. I'm not one to play the critic, trust me."
"Why?"
"Well..." her sigh betrayed her uncertainty "my boyfriend's a good guy and I love him and I know he loves me but he doesn't really make me feel happy, just...safe."
"Are you always this open?"
"God no!" she sighed out; a chuckle followed. She had been accused of many things but never of being open. "The opposite, really."
"Me too."
They locked eyes and in the silence that followed you could hear a needle hit the ground.
"So..." Lucas began after a while "what about your family?"
"Well," she answered in a sigh "I'm an only child and my father never spends time with me since he's always traveling the world."
"Isn't that hard?"
"Yeah...but I'm kind of a loner anyway."
"Your mother?"
Her curls followed the bowing of her head.
"Ummm...My mother died eight years ago."
"I'm so sorry," he immediately said. "I shouldn't h-"
"I didn't have to answer that if I didn't want to."
Unwarily, they both shuffled closer towards each other until their noses almost touched. Her beautiful eyes stared into his and she slightly bit her lip. Lucas heard the blood buzzing in his ears. What should he say? Was there anything to say? Maybe there was nothing to say; maybe he should just follow his instinct and kiss her. Off course he couldn't; he had Brooke. So he began to ramble, about the nervous feeling he gets before every basketball game, about the cake at his last birthday and his uncle Keith back in New York. After a while, the sound of his voice died again and there was just her. His heart beat in his throat.
"What would you do," he began in a voice, husky with lust "if I were to kiss you right now?"
"I'll know when it happens."
So he bowed over and cupped her face, very carefully, and kissed her soft pink lips, which opened under his. Then he pulled back.
"I'd say that I have a boyfriend, that we shouldn't do this and that you'd better leave," she answered his question.
"Send me away."
"Go," she ordered weakly. It wasn't very convincing.
His hand disappeared into her locks and pulled her lips against his; she didn't pull away and he deepened it while his hand stroked her side through the material of her shirt. The end of their kiss was inevitable; they had to come back up for air or die here in this beautiful hotel room. Lucas caught their breathing moment to shower the skin between her neck and the back of her ear with kisses.
"I can't do this," Peyton in the meanwhile tried to convince both of them but her words fell flat.
His kisses led back up to her lips and captured them over and over again with growing passion; they grew hot and tingled. He wanted to drink her. Breathe her. His body briefly left hers to take off his shirt. With burning eyes, Peyton let him take off hers too. The signs of arousal quickly grew more obvious and Lucas hand slid under her arched back to remove her red bra until two porcelain-colored hands cupped his face.
"I'm not a cheater."
"Trust me," Lucas replied 'This isn't something I normally do either." It was the truth: he had been with Brooke over half a year and he had never even kissed another girl. It confused him too.
"So why are you?"
His mouth slightly touched her full lips as he spoke. "You're special."
"I'm not."
"Yes, you are." When he was about to brush his lips against hers again, she turned her head away but he led it back to face him. "Kiss me,'' he ordered.
Peyton turned her head back and stared at him a bit surprised. His chest touched and left hers together with his breathing. Seconds passed and she began to wonder if he was just going to stay in that position until he got what he wanted. Then, she raised her head to softly capture his lips. After that quick kiss, the blondes couldn't be held back by a pack of wild horses. Their hands began to tug at each other's belts lustful; their mouths kissed every piece of bare skin they could find. However, even when she was completely naked, a flash of doubt reappeared in Peyton's eyes. His touch wiped it away; it was unlike anything she had ever felt and after all... did it matter? It was one night; she would never see him again.
x
With the white sheet wrapped around his body, Lucas lay at Peyton's waist, drawing invisible figures on her tummy. She was perfect. Everything about her. Her intelligence, her beauty and a bit more primitively her body and the feeling she gave his earlier. Amazing. Not that Brooke was bad, how could she be; she had been with many guys before him but he had never experienced this kind of pleasure with her. There was something else than sex there though, some kind of...connection. Whatever it was, he had never felt it before.
"What are you doing?" she asked with a smile. "Come and give me my sheet back."
Obeying, he loosened the fabric around him and by a trail of kisses, finally made its way to her face, which he brushed all over with soft kisses. Her lips were obviously privileged as his repeated touch lingered there and grew deeper.
"You're treating me way too loving for a one-night stand," she managed to say when he dropped a kiss on her collarbone.
"I want it to be more," he seriously said.
"What?" she asked with a shocked look in her hazels.
"I'm going to NYU after the summer s-"
"Listen," she began "I don't know what they did in those chocolate cookies but you're obviously high. You can't give up your life for one night of sex!"
"It wasn't just sex."
"I've just slept with a psycho!" she half-jokingly gasped out.
"Tell me it was just sex."
This left her speechless because she couldn't say that; just like him, she had felt something more than lust but obviously, unlike him, she wasn't as impulsive. Plus, how could she give up her quite stable, two-year relationship with Jake for something this uncertain? Crazy. This boy was completely mad. She should be scared.
"It doesn't matter what it is but it's over after tonight. You might be willing to give up your girlfriend but I won't give up Jake. I'm sorry."
With an irritated look in his blues, he rolled to the spot next to her only to have her bow over him. Lucas felt like a child robbed from his favorite color Popsicle.
"Besides, my emotional baggage would just tear you down,'' she convinced him ''Now, we can go our on ways and remember this as... a beautiful memory."
He refused to look at her. So, she went to lay down onto his body and swore she saw him smile but he turned his head away. Persistently, she tried to face him yet he kept moving his head in impossible directions. It was playful now though, Peyton could see he wasn't angry or annoyed anymore; he was just teasing her.
"Lucas!" Her hands cupped his face and yanked it her way. "Please?"
"OK...If that's what you want," he gave in.
"It is."
Then, in a swift motion, Lucas wrapped his arms around her waist so he was on top of her again. Her chest jolted against his as she first squealed and then laughed.
"We've still got a few hours left," he whispered while burying his lips in her neck; his hands rubbing her body "To make the 'memory' even more beautiful."
"Right...we can talk some more about your father," she announced and crawled from under him to sit up straight against the headboard.
Completely bewildered, he gazed up at her. Was she serious? It would be cocky to say about himself that he was hot but still, he didn't look too bad and he was laying on top of her completely naked. Did she really want to talk about his messed up family right now?
"Look at your surprised little eyes," Peyton then said while slightly bowing over.
"Come here." He clutched his hands around her waist and pulled her back under him.
About three hours later, the two naked, tangled bodies received their wake-up call.
x
"So..." Peyton took a deep breath "have a nice rest of your life, I guess."
"You too," he answered a bit sadly. "And remember that you are special. I've never fallen in love with anyone so quickly. I mean it, Peyton, and you know what I said."
Slowly, she bowed over and kissed his cheek. "You're very sweet."
They began to walk towards the exit but as they stood outside, they realized they were waiting at the same spot.
"Who are you waiting for?" Peyton questioned.
"My girlfriend. You?"
"My uncle, I told you I was staying with him."
Suddenly, a raspy voice approached them with two carton name cards.
"Cousin! Boyfriend!"
The voice in the form of a pretty brunette dressed in a Rock 'n Republic jeans and red Marc Jacobs top jumped in front of the two on her black Dior heels before grabbing Lucas and smashing her mouth into his. Peyton's jaw dropped to the floor; she couldn't believe this was happening. Why hadn't Brooke told her she'd be catching a plane with her boyfriend? And why hadn't Lucas mentioned his girlfriend's name? Off course they hadn't really talked about their partners, to avoid the guilt a bit but maybe they better had. This was awful.
''Cousin,'' she then began to introduce ''this is my boyfriend Lucas. Boyfriend, this is my cousin Peyton.''
With a big smile, she waited until the two greeted each other. However, they just stared at each other almost shocked.
'You two...'' Brooke slightly rolled her eyes ''too shy to shake hands.''
Together with her body, her chocolate hair swept along as she turned around and began walking to the car.
''Come on! We can't waist any time!'' she yelled when the blondes seemed to be nailed to the floor ''I've got so much planned for the coming weeks. Thursday beach bash, Tuesday to Rachel's cabin, the next w...''
Veiled in silence, guilt and discomfort, 'boyfriend' and 'cousin' followed Brooke with their suitcases rolling behind them; heading to what would sure be a painful holiday.