AUTHORS NOTE: Hey guys! Im truly sorry for the late update! Ive been really busy working full time and taking a full time summer semester at school and I had a bit of writers block. But now i have a clear idea of where this is going so im going to try my darndest to have another update up within a week. Its just hard sometimes to portray the emotions I want in the characters, hard to write..Anyway, I hope you enjoy it...Please review!

OH, also...this chapter is M rated...there are some sexual themes not suitable for everyone.

Chapter Three:

His eyes open to the blaring sounds of his own music, his ears banging, rap and hip hop bouncing off the walls; just another way he'd found to piss off his nemesis of a brother. It baffled him still; in a mansion of 8 rooms, they had to sic him in the bedroom next to his. It's like they were asking for another fight to break out.

Lying on his bed, he moves his arm away from his chest to scratch an itch, knocking an empty tequila bottle to the floor in the process, the clanging too much for his ears. He turns over on his back and onto his other side, noticing the body sprawled out beside him; honey gold curls covering her face. His arm reaches out, pushing the hair away from her face and moving down to her shoulder in warm caresses.

It had become a routine of his; turning to booze, partying and sex in order to numb the pain of his parent's divorce and the added stress of having Pucas under the same roof as him. The others didn't see what it was doing to him though; most either envied him for just being Nathan Scott, certified bad boy and womanizer while others pitied him for having a chip on his shoulder. He'd convinced himself that with the exception of the two closest to him, to everyone else, he was the clichéd high school jock who, as Haley had put it, would reach his peak in high school and crash and burn in real life. She didn't know it, but her words had cut deeper than she realised.

It's not long till his soothing motions on her arm makes her eyes slowly flutter open.

He grins, gives her one hungry look and she returns it with one of her own. He leans in closer to close the gap between them but she moves away; gets up off the bed and walks towards the door wearing nothing but his t-shirt. He stares at her back confused until she stops briefly in her tracks to look at him.

As she slowly takes off her panties and drops them to the floor and continues to the bathroom, her intentions become clear to him. A second later he jumps off the bed, following closely behind her.

As he joins her, she turns on the water to a temperature just right and steps back into it, letting the water soak her hair and cascade down to her breasts, perking up. She runs her hands through her locks and opens her mouth to lick her lips, tasting the liquid droplets. He closes the distance between their torsos, presses her up against the wall, steadies her arms above her as he takes her, gets deep inside of her. Her thighs wrap around his waist and moans escape her mouth. She wants to scream from the toxic sensation of the feel of him entering her only to slip out teasingly, not sure she can last long without him firmly between her legs. She brings one hand down onto his buttock and presses him hard inside of her. It's not long before the hand moves up

to his back to leave scratches with every mount of pleasure.

It's quick and almost over, but a gasp from the doorway turns him around as he pulls out of her.

He smirks at the sight of her.

"Never pegged you for a voyeur, James"

She rubs her eyes in rapid movements, thinking this is a dream until she realises it isn't and she really has caught him in the buff and in the act no less. His companion covers herself behind him, embarrassed.

"Enjoying the view? Is this why you've been spending the past few nights here? Hoping to catch a glimpse of me?"

Haley's eyes widen at his accusation and dart away from his bulge as she mumbles a quick "Sorry", turning to leave, her face flushed horrified at being caught staring.

Instead, she bumps into a wall ungraciously.

Her clumsiness amuses him. "Why the rush? Want to join?" He taunts her.

She turns back around. "Bite me"

She watches as he passes a towel to Peyton to cover herself up and he wraps one around his waist.

"Kinky. However you want it" She shoots daggers at him while trying to avoid looking at his naked, dripping self and suppressing a blush. He really wasn't too bad to look at, she thought.

"In your dreams" she dismisses.

"Nah, just yours" He's quick to respond.

"Uh - I'm going to go" Peyton finally says as she holds tightly onto her towel, embaressed, walking past Haley. She nods and smiles at the girl awkwardly on her way out.

Haley turns to leave again, cursing underneath her breath for always getting herself in the weirdest situations.

"Hey, wait" Nathan calls out to her. She stops momentarily by force of habit, thinking he may actually apologize for being an egotistical ass.

Instead, the response she's met with is true to form. "I showed you mine so it's only fair you show me yours"

She frowns, rolling her eyes. He was having too much fun at her expense.

"You know - it's called a lock" she manages to speak once she gets over the initial shock. "You should try using it. Spare us both the embarrassment. Not everyone wants to be subjected to an early morning, live, porn show."

"Who says I'm embarrassed?" he cocks his head, grinning.

She shakes her head. It figures that that's the only part of her comment he paid attention to. "Right, well. Carry on. Or – or don't" She stops herself, stuttering, when she realises what she's saying. "Whatever. Just please hurry up, I need to use the bathroom."

"I don't blame you. I'd need a cold shower too if I were you. Most girls usually do, and that's after seeing me fully dressed."

She scoffs. "Believe me, I'm not like most girls"

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An hour later at school...

"Hales, thanks for coming over last night. I think I would have gone crazy without you there."

"Sure thing, Luke." She doesn't bother telling him about her run-in with Nathan. Figures he has enough to deal with. Finding out he was toying with her would only agitate Luke more.

"Hey" She grazes his shoulder comfortingly. "Has it gotten any easier, being there, since you moved in two weeks ago?"

He sighs. "Heh. Not so much. He does everything he can to piss me me off or irritate me."

"I'm sorry, Luke. Have you tried talking to him? He did get hit pretty hard that night with his parent's divorce. "

"Are you kidding? I doubt the guy is losing any sleep over it. If it's not the team he has over pulling pranks, hiding my stuff, he blasts his music all night long or has orgies in his room. Seriously. Did I mention the walls are paper-thin? The guy is on a mission."

It saddens her. She remembers when they were younger and he'd wanted nothing more than to have a little brother.

"I still can't believe my mom went through with this. I don't think she realises how hard it is for me to live there. It's – it's a constant reminder of what I was deprived of. But..." he pauses. "What gets me the most is that – Dan got my mom and Deb pregnant a couple of months apart...so...why did he chose to be a father to her baby and not my mom's? What made me any less important?"

He looks away thoughtful, not wanting her to see how much it really pains him.

"I don't know, Luke" she tries to offer sympathetically.

"Anyway" he continues a moment later. "The whole house is full of pictures of Nathan and Dan. Nathan even put one next to my bed of them together when he was younger and Dan looks so proud of him. And the worst part is, i'm in that shot, in the background looking pathetic at the two. And you know what Nathan did Hales? He put a big ol B on my face..."

He doesn't need to finish the sentence for her to know what the B was for.

Haley stayed quiet throughout this whole thing, her heart silently breaking for him.

"You know what I think?" She finally speaks.

"What?"

"He's put you through enough of his crap." She looks at him determined. "I think it's time to get even"

His eyebrow raises in interest. "What do you have in mind?" he asks putting his arm around her shoulder as they walk to their lockers.

"If there's one thing Nathan Scott values above all else, it's his own vanity" she starts thinking out loud, remembering the constant theme in every encounter she's had with him.

"Uh huh...?" he moves his arm probingly for her to continue.

"It's safe to say that his reputation matters to him alot"

"Right..." he nods his head, waiting for her to continue.

"So if there's one way to bring him down a peg or two, it would be –" she waits for him to catch on.

"Social humiliation" he concludes.

She smiles, loving how they're always on the same wavelength. "Exactly."

"You're quite the little deviant Ms. James" he says proud, steadying himself with one arm on the wall towering Haley as she leans against it.

"I have my moments" she grins, enjoying the close proximity. "Speaking of the devil.."

She motions her eyes behind Lucas when she notices Nathan walk into the hallway. Lucas turns around in the direction she was pointing at and makes eye contact with him as he passes by them. Nathan sees Haley, remembers their morning encounter and winks at her tauntingly. It's an added bonus that the gesture pisses Lucas off.

Lucas looks back at Haley questioningly but she shrugs her shoulders as if to say she has no clue what that's about. They turn back to Nathan, following him with their gaze as he walks over to Brooke, his expression now clearly upset, as he disrupts her conversation with her cheer-friends and lightly pulls her into an empty classroom.

Lucas looks on intrigued.

"I wonder what that's about" Haley tells Lucas.

Lucas mumbles a "yeah" and waves to his best friend as he heads to his class.

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"Nate, what's up?" He doesn't answer right away.

"Hey Brooke? What do you think you're doing?"

Brooke looks at him confused, not understanding why he was upset.

"Uh, Well, I was talking to Bevin and Theresa -- "

"I heard about your little stunt in Pucas' car. What the hell was that?" He cuts to the chase.

She looks away from him, expression changing knowing full well what he was getting at. "Oh come on, Nate, that's my signature Brooke-Davis welcoming wagon-thing, it's what I do"

It really was. Every boy knows he's arrived once he's greeted by a half naked Brooke in his car.

"Are you forgetting something?" He looks at her pointedly.

Her smile fades and eyebrows narrow. They hadn't talked about this in a while, managed to avoid the topic altogether lately, to the point where she forgot about it herself. But ever since Lucas joined the team—

"Look, it was completely innocent. I figured it would look suspicious if I hadn't done it" she tried to joke. "It's practically a rite-of-passage, you know that."

"Brooke—"

"Nathan" she cuts him off, placing her hand on his shoulder. "If it makes you feel better, I'll back off."

"Brooke—" he tries to continue.

"I said I'll back off Nate. Let's leave it at that."

He sighs. "Ok" he doesn't push; hearing the genuineness in her voice. He pulls her close to him and kisses her forehead.

As they leave the classroom and walk down the hall, Haley closes her locker door shut, staring into the direction Nathan and Brooke went in. She notices the closeness between the two and momentarily forgets about her own predicament when she sees Nathan whisper something in her ear, making Brooke grin. Whatever it was, it earns him a kiss on the cheek. Its then that Haley's book almost falls, snapping her out of her trance to reflexively hold on to it and brought back to her struggle to stuff it in her backpack.

When her mission is accomplished, she steals one last look towards Nathan and Brooke and gets a weird feeling in her stomach; like she's violating their private moment when she witnesses him give her one of the most genuine smiles she's ever seen. For a womanizer whose signature expressions are limited to smirks and cocky grins, it was surprising to see. She shrugs the feeling off and pulls her backpack on her back, following them to her next class.

Was something going on between the head cheerleader and the Ravens' #1 star?

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Ok! So, I hope this chapter didn't feel too rushed, ive had this on my comp for a few days now but i was never completely satisfied with it. I don't know. Tell me what you think? I sincerely appreciate the reviews! Also, just want to assure you that this is most definitely a Naley story, I Just didn't want rush them getting together...it's going to progress slowly... but hopefully, well worth the wait. The other couples in this story will be Brucas and maybe Jeyton. But remember, all is not always as it seems!

Coming up in the next few chapters:

Revenge on Nathan goes further than intended, making him lose something important to him.

Brooke and Nathan caught in another compromising-looking situation

Nathan and Haley blow-up