Chapter 1★

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Char

Ten years has passed since the beginning of my love story and yet putting pen to paper to document the reality of it has always terrified me.

Life can pass by in a blink of a second, but it feels like it will never stop.

Reflecting on it now brings a smile to my matured lips. I still feel seventeen at heart and yet the mention of his name fills me with a bitter sweet taste and butterflies inside my stomach.

At the age of seventeen, I was the definition of young, naïve and carefree. I was a hormonal teenager craving adulthood and yet chained to the orders of everyone around me.

You'd probably assume that Lisa and I were just the standard twenty-something-year-olds letting our hair down after an exhausting week.

And yet we were far from it.

We tried to fool the perception of everyone; It became a running battle against our admirers to distinguish how old we really were.

We were walking sex hormones, breath us in and you'll know what I mean.

We were good at pretending, but aren't most teenagers good at hiding at least something?

"One of the best nights of my life," Lisa grinned as we entered our tube carriage.

Well, more like stumbled.

We went all-out with makeup and glitter and wore outfits to amuse and please the eyes of onlookers. We aimed to tempt them with our hormonal lust for attention.

Isn't that what we all crave at that age, attention?

We'd bought tickets to a concert in Brixton and were travelling back on the tube as our Friday night rolled over into the early hours of Saturday morning.

Lisa had clearly gulped down far more vodka than I realised, which meant that I needed to monitor her antics. She continued to dance to the beat of her own drum as carefree as you could ever hope to be.

Her fits of random giggly definitely made it look like we were on something, not just adrenaline, not just the buzz of youth. We were obviously wasted.

"I reckon we should go to some bars, I'm not even tired yet and neither are you." Lisa smiled flirtatiously.

"I reckon you're wasted." I raised my eyebrows cheekily towards her.

"I reckon we'd have fun." She challenged me.

"I reckon we should just try to get home." I calmly declined her proposal for more boozed up shenanigans.

My head was still so buzzed from the concert. The whole experience had lifted my mood, so I decided to join Lisa in her climax of the evening as we both started laughing hysterically at each other.

It was one of those brief moments, where neither of us really could quite defend our actions or our overflowing laughter, we didn't even have to communicate properly to share such euphoric moments.

We bounced off hazily at the next stop and frantically chased up the stairs ready for our next adventure.

"Bars are open till 4AM and you know it." She twirled a strand of my hair in an effort to persuade me.

I shook my head in disapproval and then let out a satisfied giggle as she pretended to care.

She sighed in defeat.

The streets were pretty empty, but sometimes unpredictable things happen just when you don't expect them.

"Let's play truth or dare, minus the truth part." Lisa smiled. "I dare you to dance like nobodies watching." Lisa hoaxed me on spontaneously.

"I've never been one to refuse a dare."

I remember being so utterly elevated and proud that I swung on the nearest lamp post and started tunelessly singing. I was trying to appear drop-dead gorgeous and utterly sexy as I performed for Lisa.

Well, I assumed it was just her.

I realised how hard it was to try and be everything I wasn't. I lost myself in this haze of lucidity, running off alcohol fumes, that I barely noticed anything else going on around me; let alone the stranger who was watching my every move.

"I dare you to make out with the next person we bump into." I battered my eyelashes towards Lisa.

"Deal." An exotic tongue replied to my request.

And then I noticed him.

I bit my lip nervously as my eyes caught sight of this unknown figure clapping slowly in amusement.

Oh shit, we have company.

His broad shoulders dwarfed Lisa. I could feel my cheeks blushing with embarrassment.

"What a performance, can I get an encore? " He cocked his head confidently.

My mouth felt as dry as the Sahara desert as his eyes locked onto mine. Words disappeared from my vocabulary and my lips perched in surprise; I was the definition of drunken disorderly, or maybe just a little star struck by this handsome stranger.

"I think there would be ." Lisa winked at me.

I squeezed her hand in appreciation for answering on my behalf.

"Although I think I beat you to it, buddy." Lisa planted a slobbery kiss on my cheek and I wrapped my arm around her.

"What a shame." He pouted but his body language seemed to be sending a completely different message.

"She's a natural performer, wouldn't you agree." Lisa grinned illuminating her face with the dimly lit street lights.

This guy is gorgeous, I giggled nervously.

"Don't worry babe, you looked great," Lisa whispered gently in my ear to soothe my nerves.

I gnawed the inside of my cheek in complete embarrassment.

"I looked like an idiot," I whispered.

"A hot idiot." She whispered cheekily.

This led to a tumble of laughter to be developed between us all.

According to him; I looked like a hot mess.

I was so unbelievably humiliated, I wanted the credits to roll or something, just to get his lingering stare off me. Instead, I let my eyes do the job for me.

I possessed this need to talk to him; not a need, more like a burning thirst, that had never been impressed on me before with anyone.

"So, is there going to be an encore?" He wet his lips seductively with his tongue.

"Sorry, it was a one night only kinda thing." I bit my lip nervously.

"I didn't think I quite saw enough of you." His lustful gaze fixated entirely on my body alone.

"If you're lucky ..." I tilted my head as I began to relax whilst the minutes passed.

Before I could even open my mouth completely to form a response, he had already beaten me to it.

"I've been known to be a pretty luck guy." He chimed.

"Is that so." I putted back.

"Sí, señorita." He grinned in response.

I could tell from his sun-kissed skin and accent that he was Spanish, which attracted me even more; I struggled to keep my hands to myself in his company as he edged closer to the glorious mess that I was.

We started casually walking down the road, but I could hardly tell if Lisa was even there anymore, it didn't really faze me at all as I felt intoxicated back his company.

"So what's a pretty girl like you doing on a Friday night?" he questioned me in a sexy husky tone.

"Waiting to bump into someone like you." I admitted honestly.

I want you, I hummed to myself.

"Well, I guess you found me." He winked at me.

My knees weakened. My heartbeat sped up. I subconsciously licked my lips, naturally aching to introduce my pair to his.

"So whats the beautiful girl going to do next?" He questioned me.

"She's deciding what she should do with the rest of her evening." I curled my crevice into a smirk.

"Oh really, well maybe I should leave her to enjoy the rest of her evening with her friend." He pouted playfully.

I was trying so hard to not give into the burning attraction between us, but there was a burning attraction between us, I could already feel it.

"Or we could see where the night takes us?" He wet his lips in anticipation. He appeared so serene, unfazed by the impact he had on me.

"We could." I elongated my sentence with slight hesitation.

I knew he was well-versed in these type of heated conversations, but I couldn't draw myself away from breaking his inseparable eye contact.

He was so gorgeous, I hesitated to peel my eyes away from him.

"We definitely could." I implied.

"I mean maybe, I will," I suggested to him, but deeply I regretted allowing that sentence from escaping my pouting lips.

"It depends on whether he's worth getting to know." I mused. That was better. I had him just where I wanted.

A mischievous grin landed on his face, as he whispered a few selected words into my ear.

"I guess you'll just have to find out." He bit his lip slowly.

"With a pair of eyes like yours, I don't think you'll be getting rid of me that easily." He combed his fingers through his hair, not allowing himself to take a breath of air without it being in time with my own.

"I'm sure they've seen far too much to let me pass you by. Somehow mine haven't seen anything quite like you before." He gleamed a charming smile to convince my sense to agree with his proposal.

My self-control was in his hands at this point. He knew all the right things to say and pressed all the right buttons.

"What if she agreed." My hands rose to cup his jaw but I had to slow down their actions before they were let loose.

"Well, she could be in for the best night of her life." His breath smelt like a warm remedy I wanted to have a taste of.

"And if she didn't?" I crossed my arms cheekily.

"The same goes." An invisible bond pulled me towards his poised physique. My actions were out of my control from this point onwards.

It felt like in that moment, time had stopped as I was mesmerised by his appearance.

Everything about him already made my pupils dilate, so that I could absorb every single ounce of information about him. I indulged in the aspect of exploring him for the first time. I had become so lost in his physique, that I hadn't noticed that Lisa was running her fingers through my now damp hair.

I must have spaced out for longer than I had expected.

The cliché of getting lost in his eyes, somehow seemed so easy to do when in the company of the right person.

Lisa shoved a cigarette in my mouth before I could even ask the question which was already burning my lips. I took a drag after she lit it with her Zippo and let out an exasperated sigh. When did he leave? When did it start raining?

"He was a fine piece of ass babe. Shame you were so out of it, shame he just so happened to give his number to me and not you," she gloated in a playful manner, although I was jealous.

"You worked so hard for that pretty little Spaniard." Lisa pouted her red-velvet kissers against my cheek.

She reeked of vodka.

Only now, after a very sobering encounter with that beautiful creature, had I realised this. She daintily taunted my eyes with the number on a creased piece of paper.

Before I knew what I was doing. I snatched the number, violently punched it straight into my keypad and dialled it without a flinch. The anticipation was burning my insides.

The phone rang twice, and then an inviting masculine voice spoke. He pulled each string inside my heart, playing a classic melody which made me proceed to melt.

"Can your eyes let your mouth do the talking now, gorgeous?" He chirped.

My voice caught in my throat before I could think of a worthy response.

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✶ Thoughts on Char & Mysterious guy's first encounter? Makes my knees go a little weak; what about you!?✶