I totally wasn't thinking about Can't Hardly Wait when I started this, but now I see the similarities and I decided to roll with it.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with the O.C. or Can't Hardly Wait.

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~2~



It was four nights ago in which he'd tagged along with Ryan and Marissa to yet another one of Holly's parties and had got trapped with Summer in the bathroom. They'd been sprung and she promptly went about ignoring him, but they'd made a pact and he was going to honour it.



And now Summer Roberts, the goddess of Newport, was under his sheets wearing little more than silk underwear and a lace bra. Damn, if it wasn't the most erotic fantasy come to life. It didn't even matter that he'd heard her urinate and sat with her in a stinking bathroom while they waited to be rescued because there was something beyond sexual that emanated from her.



Seth cleared his throat. His eyes roamed his single bed. The bed he'd had since childhood and the one that was about to be christened, so to speak. "A-are you sure we have enough room here? We could always sneak into my parents room."



Summer looked up at him through a veil of lashes. "Gross. Here's fine." It was blunt and distant, but it didn't betray her nervousness.



He was pacing. It was a nervous habit really. And why shouldn't he be nervous, in approximately two minutes he was going to be kissing Summer and then he was going to be doing a lot more.



"Okay, let's see here." He pulled a bag out from his closet and began taking things out. "Candles; a little mood music: the best of Barry White; condoms: ribbed for her pleasure..."



"Seth, is that, like, a sex bag?" She wrapped the sheets against her torso, pulled it close to her breasts and leaned over to look inside the duffel bag at the end of the bed.



Seth's face began to colour, turning a deep red. "Well, no...yeah, I guess it is, but I prefer to call it an intercourse tote, sounds more professional."



"Whatever. Can we just get this over with?" She tried to sound casual but she was feeling anything other than relaxed.



"Y-yeah, yeah, just give me a minute." Seth began to pull more things out of the bag, settling them on the floor. He lit the candles so the room glowed with yellow light. Walking over to the CD player, he was about to put in the CD when Summer stopped him.



"I'm not going to do this to Barry White."



"Fair enough," he said and dropped the CD on his desk. He was stalling and he had no logical explanation for it.



When he turned back, he caught Summer going through the rest of the contents of the bag.

"Now, what the hell are these?"



"What? They're just books." The boyish way his cheeks flushed made her heart expand and before she let it melt, she steeled herself to the situation. This was just sex. Just a one-time thing and nothing more.



Summer swiped a book from the bag. "Danielle Steele!?"



Seth took the book from her. "Women like romance, she's a romance writer ergo I was brushing up on the basics." He scratched behind his ear, a rather compulsive twitch he had.



"Give me that! Newsflash Cohen, that's not a manly rod between your legs and I don't have a flowery patch of sunshine between mine. This purple prose doesn't work in the real world." She threw the book toward his closet where it landed on top of some old comic books. "In the real world we're going to have hot sex and we're going to say things that make absolutely no sense. We're going to grunt and sweat and then try not to be embarrassed afterward."



"We're going to have hot sex?" Seth asked, stuck on that very appealing detail.



"Look at me, what other kind of sex would I be capable of?"



His dimpled grin really was kind of endearing.



"I figured we could kind of have sweet, gentle sex and then I could hold you afterward...or you could hold me, whichever you prefer..." he said, sheepishly. "But I can see that's out of the question." The way his hair curled around his ears and the restless way he stuck his hands in his pockets like he was being scolded warmed her.



"Why would you want that with me?" Her voice was soft like warm honey.



His rich brown eyes were glowing with pride and something a little deeper...almost like love. "Because...because you're, like, perfect and you deserve a perfect first time. I want to give that to you. Don't you want that for yourself?"



Her eyes hardened like granite. No one had ever been so concerned with what she needed before and she certainly wasn't going to be fooled into thinking her opinion mattered. "Whatever. It's just sex."



Seth came over to her, dropped the book he had in his hands onto the night table and took her hand. "No, it's not. Not to me. Summer, if we're going to do this, I want you to be into it."



She recoiled. All of a sudden everything was far too real and Seth Cohen wasn't just some random hook-up, he was a nice guy with a sweet side that ran a mile long and if she wasn't careful, she was going to fall for the kid.



"Look, are we going to sit around and talk about it all night or are you going step up and be a man? 'Cause I'm sure I could find someone else who would be more than willing

to-"



He stopped her from getting off the bed, touching her bare arm and sending fire along her skin. "No. I...want to."



Her eyes darted to the night table. "Is that a sex manual?"



His eyebrows shot up. "Uh...I just wanted to give you the optimum experience."



"Get real, Cohen. Let's just do it."



"I'm glad you're so cavalier about all of this. Look Summer, I don't want this to be just some quick, dirty thing. I want to remember this for the rest of my life...I want you to remember it."



"I will," Summer purred. She grabbed the lapel of his polo shirt and pulled him onto the bed. No regrets," she whispered.



"No regrets," he repeated and kissed her softly.



This was it, he was really kissing Summer Roberts and she was kissing him back. She tasted like a cherry popsicle. Sweet and cool and smooth over his tongue.



Her skin was smooth; a painted illusion of sparkles and an underlying coffee-cream pallor.



Her hair stretched out like winding vines onto his pillow and he took a moment to look her over. She was just as perfect and just as amazing as he'd always imagined.



"You're beautiful," he whispered, "and smart and so damn sexy," he added.



She laughed at that. A laugh he felt ripple through her and vibrate against the column of his throat.



She smelled expensive, like something precious that few people really ever could afford. He breathed that smell in; closed his eyes to remember it.



His hair was softer than she thought it would be as it curled around her french-manicured nails. And his body was not as scrawny as it had once looked. He was still skinny and he had narrow hips some women would kill for, but he also had a trace of muscle over his lanky frame that made her feel safe and protected.



His lips were soft though, somehow she knew they would be. As they moved over her body, tracing places that felt like heaven, she knew the feeling of it would be engraved in her heart forever. He was gentle, so very gentle it made her tear up.



She ran her fingers over the cleft in his chin, let her tongue follow it's path. She heard him groan and it made her smile.



He looked at her a lot and for the first time she actually could feel that he saw her; her true self. That scared her more than anything.



And so it went as their coital tryst continued until they were spent.



He watched her for a long time afterward, afraid to close his eyes. He memorized each tiny eyelash, each wayward sound and murmur she let out, and then the even cadence of her breathing. He set his own to her rhythm so after a while they were breathing in synch.



Her eyes fluttered open and she seemed surprised to see him still there, wrapped up in her the way he had been before she fell asleep. "Hi," she said, in that sleepy sing-song voice he could get used to hearing.



"Hey. Sleep well?"



"Mmm hmm." She stretched then burrowed into his side, resting her cheek on his chest before she had time to question it.



His fingers massaged her scalp, pressing gently at the base of her neck with his thumb. "Summer?"



"Yeah?"



Seth cleared his throat. "How did it...I mean, how do you...did I..."



She lifted her head, knew exactly what he was trying to say. "It was nice. I knew you'd make this right, Cohen. You're sweet like that."



"Thanks. I...it was nice for me too." He leaned over and kissed her forehead. A move that was tender and he expected her to bolt, but she didn't. Finally he closed his eyes.



When he woke up a few hours later, she was gone and so was any trace of her. Or so he thought. When he came back from a long, hot shower, feeling a little used and a lot depressed, he noticed something sticking out from under his bed. Bending down, he scooped it up in his hands and he nearly choked up.



He sat down with a heavy thunk, his sheets removed and thrown in the wash to dispose of any evidence or at least that's what he told himself. The truth was, he couldn't look at the bed where he'd had Summer to himself, for the first and only time. And he didn't know how he was going to go back to being just off her radar when they'd done what they had. It wouldn't have hurt so bad if it had meant something to her.



And now he knew it had.



Seth folded up the blue lace bra and tucked it away in the back of his drawer.



No regrets.

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