Into the Deep 01 (2 page)

“There’s also a bathroom that locks. I’d call that an improvement upon most student accommodations.”

“You’re funny.”

“And you’re spoiled.”

Claudia narrowed her eyes. “I miss our apartment. It’s bright and airy. We have a balcony. Plus, there are only two of us living there.”

I’d heard this ever since Claudia laid eyes on the new place, so I ignored it and led her out of the kitchen, stopping at my bedroom door to make sure it was locked.

Back home we were juniors at Purdue in Indianapolis, and since Claudia’s parents were loaded, we lived in a nice apartment in West Lafayette, about a ten-minute drive from campus. There was no way I’d be able to afford anything like it if it weren’t for Claud. I joked that she was spoiled, but I only meant it in a material sense. Yeah, she was used to nice things but her life was a rich kid’s cliché—absentee parents who couldn’t give a crap what she did. They threw money at her instead of love and expected her to be grateful. Instead of letting it eat away at her, Claudia embraced the people who showed her real affection and offered fierce loyalty in return.

We’d met freshman year and hit it off. I liked her and not because of her money, and she liked me because she said I was the most honest person she’d ever met. When I took Claudia home for Thanksgiving, meeting my family cemented our friendship. My mom and dad treated her like their kid and fussed over her (which she secretly loved). Even Andie bestowed overbearing elder sisterly condescension upon her (which Claudia also secretly loved).

I didn’t come from money. We lived in a small town called Lanton, just a little over two hours northwest of Indianapolis. My dad owned the local garage and my mom owned a florist. We did okay. The only reason they could afford to send their daughters to good schools and even offer them a chance on a placement abroad was because of my mom’s aunt Cecilia. Cecilia had married a very wealthy pharmaceuticals guy and when he died, she got all his money. Now, Cecilia liked to spend that money, so by the time she died, she didn’t have a whole lot left. She had, however, always doted on Andie and me, and had put some cake away in a trust fund for our education.

As to Claudia’s grumbling over the apartment, I was guessing it was just a front for her nerves. We were excited but a little scared of being in a foreign country by ourselves for the school year, but where I admitted it and moved on, Claudia found something to bitch about so she didn’t have to think about her anxiety.

Because we were older students but would be taking some freshman classes, we were housed with three British students who were our age but only just starting college. Our roommates had met and bonded a full day before we arrived, so Claud and I would have to work a little bit harder to establish a friendship with them. Hopefully, we’d get around to that. For now, we were still trying to get organized before classes, determined to get to know the city as quickly as possible.

“It’ll get better once we’re settled and meet more people,” I promised Claudia as we stepped out of the apartment. “There are a couple of people from Purdue living across the courtyard. We could get to know them.”

“If we didn’t get to know them over there, why would we here?”

“Well, that’s a spiffy attitude.”

“Spiffy? Really?”

I laughed to myself as we walked down the stairs, but that laughter cut off abruptly as we hit the second floor. Claudia didn’t ask me what I was doing. In fact, there was utter silence behind me, so I guessed she was drooling too.

In the middle of the landing, sticking a photocopied poster high on the wall, stood a seriously hot guy. His shirt had ridden up as he raised his arms above his head, flashing us a glimpse of golden skin and great abs. The shirt encased the perfect V torso, and his ratty jeans encased the perfect ass. A hot tribal tattoo covered one roped forearm and as he caught sight of us out of the corner of his eye, I mentally sighed. His grin was awesome—slightly crooked, definitely flirtatious, and belly-whoosh-worthy. It was a great match to his beautiful light gray eyes, chiseled jawline covered in sexy scruff, and thick, messy, dark blond hair that was just dying for female fingers to get a hold of it.

“Hey, guys,” he greeted us in a rough voice, his American accent welcome and familiar.

Claudia pushed gently passed me and walked casually toward him. I smiled at the sway in her hips as she approached him. So did he, his eyes glued to that sway.

My friend was gorgeous. And gorgeous in that unbelievably classy, this-girl-is-used-to-the-finer-things-in-life way. A lot of guys back home were intimidated by her, and if they weren’t, they assumed she was something she wasn’t and treated her like a vapid socialite who’d be more impressed with the size of their trust fund than if they could make her laugh. So, unfortunately, despite being exceptionally pretty, Claudia was lonely in the romance department.

I watched hot, tattooed, rebel-without-a-cause eye her with appreciation. Claudia had long dark hair and exotic coloring inherited from her Portuguese mother, as well as a tiny waist, long legs, boobs, and ass. She was the kind of girl other girls loved to hate.

She wore designer skinny jeans, Lacoste tennis shoes, and a cute white Ralph Lauren blouse with capped sleeves and a nipped-in waist, and looked as though she was on the way to the country club. I saw immediately that our poster-hanging hottie found this amusing.

Claudia tilted her chin toward his handiwork. “There’s a party?”

“Yeah.” He smiled down at her and his grin widened as I neared. “I’m hanging these for a friend who lives here, next stairwell over. You guys should definitely come. I’m Beck, by the way.”

“Claudia.” She nodded at me. “This is my friend, Charley.”

“Hey, Charley.” Beck’s flirtatious grin remained fixed on his face as he perused me from top to bottom. Unlike Claudia, I was wearing clothes that would get me thrown out of the country club—my favorite, ass-hugging skinny jeans with the hole in the knee, the denim baby soft from having been run through the wash a million times, complemented by an oversized vest with “Library Nerd” scrawled across the chest. I’d dyed my long blond hair to platinum three years ago because I thought it made my hazel eyes more interesting. I had it pulled back into a messy ponytail and was wearing my usual plethora of silver—two long necklaces, three rings on one hand, two on the other, and a jangle of silver and leather bracelets on both wrists.

Claudia wanted to clean me up. I wanted to grunge her down.

I nodded back at him, my cheeks warming at the appreciative gleam in his eye. The guy was smoldering, and I was pretty sure if I licked my finger and pressed it to his skin, steam would rise with a satisfactory hiss. Still, I’d done the whole bad-boy thing in high school and I was definitely over it. I shot Claudia a look that mentally relayed she should go in for the kill.

She smirked and turned to look at the poster. I followed her gaze.

“Um,” Claudia turned to Beck, frowning, “does your friend know he misspelled ‘snacks’?”

Beck snorted. “Babe, it says ‘FREE BOOZE’ on the poster. Do you think anyone else will read the next fucking line?”

“He’s got you there,” I murmured.

She ignored me. “Don’t you care? You’re putting the posters up. If people see that, they’ll think you’re the moron who spelled ‘snacks’ wrong.”

Beck shrugged and stepped around us to head up to our floor. “Not a problem since I don’t give a fuck what people think.”

“Sounds enlightening,” Claudia turned on her heel, following him with a grin that would’ve melted a lesser man. “You want to teach me that kind of enlightenment? I’d make time.”

I watched as Beck faltered a little on the first step, as if surprised by her coquettish question. He quickly covered it by giving her another sexy once-over and then smiled into her eyes. “See you at the party, babe.”

“We’ll be there,” Claudia answered. She grabbed my hand, jerking me down the stairs with her. As soon as we burst out of the concrete stairwell and into the warm courtyard, Claudia leaned against a bike railing. “I think I could orgasm just looking at him,” she moaned, turning to stare longingly back up at the building.

I wrinkled my nose. “Oversharing again.”

“Come on. Dip that boy in a cold lake and he’ll turn it into a hot springs.”

“You are such a cheeseball,” I laughed, pulling on her wrist and dragging her out onto Guthrie Street. We lived just off the Cowgate, the east end of the Grassmarket, which we discovered with all its pubs and a club nearby was kind of a hotspot. Our bedrooms faced over the Cowgate, so both Claud and I had invested in foam earplugs so we could sleep at night.

Our accommodation was only a couple of streets away from the main campus, the landscape sloping up toward the University of Edinburgh. We headed that way, needing to collect our student ID cards from the information center. The ID was kind of important—you needed it to get in and out of the library, as well as the student union venues.

“I agree he’s hot but I don’t do bad boys anymore.” I ignored the familiar ache in my chest and locked my jaw in an effort to appear unaffected. “And I didn’t think you did bad boys ever?”

“I’m seriously making an exception for Beck.” Claudia’s eyes fluttered closed on another moan. “Beck. Even his freaking name is hot.”

“Well, my mother would hate him. He said ‘fuck’ twice within a matter of seconds.”

“I’d fuck him twice in a matter of seconds.”

Shocked laughter escaped my lips.

“I’m not kidding.”

And when I looked at her face, I realized she wasn’t. I instantly sobered. “Please do not do anything you’ll regret.”

She waved off my concern. “I’m not stupid. If he wants in my pants, he has to earn it.” She rubbed her hands together gleefully. “And I am going to have so much fun making him earn it.”

I didn’t particularly enjoy the idea of attending a party where I’d be left to socialize alone as my best friend attempted to wrap Beck around her finger. But … she was Claudia and I loved her and I’d never seen her so instantly excited over a guy before. I’d suck it up for her. “Then I guess we’re really going to that party tonight. Maybe we should invite our roomies?”

“What are their names again?”

I searched my brain, knowing the answers were in there somewhere. “Maggie, Gemma, and Lisa. Right?”

“I thought it was Maggie, Jemima and Lauren.”

“Jemima? I would remember if her name was Jemima.”

“We are awful roommates.”

“We are. I’m going to organize some kind of get-together for us all.”

Her eyes glittered. “Ooh, can we invite Beck?”

Crap. She was definitely a goner.

“Maybe I should’ve worn a dress,” Claudia muttered for the fiftieth time as we walked up stairwell one to apartment three. We could hear the music throbbing from within and we’d already passed a couple of drunken freshman out in the courtyard.

I sighed, squeezing back against the wall to let an annoyed-looking guy hurry down the stairs and outside. “I told you a dress would be too much. This is just like any other student party, Claud, not a formal.”

As soon as we hit floor one, she knew I was right. The door to apartment three was thrown open and there were students milling around outside drinking out of red plastic cups. A couple of girls smiled at us and the guys gave us “the nod” as we passed to wander inside. Everyone was dressed casual and I was glad I’d talked Claud into jeans and a tank top.

“This place is much bigger than ours,” I commented as we gazed around the crowded common room and kitchen.

“There are more rooms,” Claudia explained, pointing down the hall to our left. I noticed at the end it turned a corner. I counted five doors on the one side, and guessed Claud was right and that hidden corridor housed more.

“You came.” Beck appeared like magic in front of us, holding out two beers. “Nice to see you again, ladies.”

Looking much the same as he had that afternoon—except perhaps hotter—Beck’s presence seemed to paralyze us for a second as neither of us said a word.

He grinned cockily as if he knew what kind of reaction he elicited in the opposite sex and shook the beers at us. “You want?”