'So, what do you say, Waldorf? Care to let me show you how it's really done?'
His eyes had travelled languorously across her entire frame before the question even left his lips, and he'd wanted her to see.
'In your dreams, Bass.' Blair pulled a shining mirror from her purse to check the perfect application of her lip gloss.
'How do you know about those?' He teased, winking at her.
She didn't dignify his grotesque comeback with a verbal response, only groaning at his insinuation.
'Oh, come on,' he droned. 'Why not? You know that's what they're doing in there right now.'
She snapped the compact shut sharply and launched it at him with a precision he hadn't expected.
'Ouch!' He cried, cradling the rib she'd hit. 'Bitch.'
'You're wrong.' She swore fiercely.
'And you're delusional.' He snickered, still rubbing at the spot her mirror had made impact with.
Blair scowled and began rooting through her purse for further ammunition, pausing only when he held his hands up in defeat.
'You're talking about my best friend and my boyfriend.' She hissed. 'They're not doing anything.'
'Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night, princess.' Chuck sighed.
But it didn't stop his lips curling into a sneer-like grin, as he shot a penetrating glance at the door that two blonde heads had rushed through, with more than a degree of over-zealousness, not long ago. He stretched his long fingers out and toyed with the neck of the empty champagne bottle they'd drained ahead of the game.
'You're a smart girl, Waldorf. I know you see the way he looks at her.' There was a twisted sympathy to his tone. Like everyone else, he felt sorry for her; Blair loathed it.
She did her best to ignore what he'd said, but the painful replays came rolling anyway. First, Nate following Serena around like a lost puppy everyday, as she appeared in racy swimsuits during their summers in the Hamptons. Then, Nate's eyes lighting with interest, interest he'd never afforded their conversations, when Serena opened her mouth to bleat some superficial nonsense. Last, Nate's fingers lingering too long over Serena's waist when they hugged hello and goodbye.
'It's only a matter of time before he slips up, you know it as well as I do.' He mused, as though he could see her memories flashing by too.
'They wouldn't do that to me.' She stood her ground, refusing to look at anything anymore but the floor her legs were crossed on. She was still in her school uniform, and the lace-topped stockings she'd hoped would catch her boyfriend's attention had instead won the appreciative eyes of his dark-haired friend. Blair tugged frustratedly at the hem of her too-short skirt.
'So why are they still in there then?' He drawled, rolling onto his back and staring up at the crystal chandelier.
'It hasn't been seven minutes yet.' She retorted, her insides twisting and turning at the thought alone.
'It's been ten.' He observed dryly, pretending to check the watch on his wrist.
'Liar.' She spat, consulting her own.
They were both wrong, it had been thirteen.
Chuck shrugged. 'Have you two even gone beyond first base yet?'
'Of course we have.' Blair pronounced defensively, willing herself not to flush pink.
'Oh yeah?' Chuck's tone was mocking, and he reached out from his lazy position to poke her gently in the ribs.
'Yes, we have!' She cried, shifting as far away from him as she could. 'Could you stop being disgusting for, say, five minutes?'
The smirk he replied with was accompanied by eyes that glittered with knowing victory. 'So where has he touched you then?' He pressed, knowing he'd have her in no time.
Her whole body clenched instinctively. 'That's private.' She snapped.
'Are you sure it's not just made up? Sounds like the kind of thing Nate would come bragging to his best friend about pretty quickly.' Chuck ogled her stocking tops again.
Nate and Serena's footsteps saved her from his lewd comments at last and a sigh of relief passed her lips. But then she heard the giggling, saw the puckered lips, rumpled collars and smeared, pink lipstick that Nate had wiped so carelessly from his mouth that most of it remained, like it didn't even matter.
Blair's vision was distorted by jealous blotches of red and white, her fists balled in the folds of her skirt and she clenched her teeth.
'What did you two crazy kids get up to in there for so long?' Chuck leered as the pair sat down opposite one another clumsily.
'Shut up!' Blair shouted, reaching hurriedly for the bulbous glass at the centre of the pillows they'd formed in a circle. 'No one cares.' She asserted. 'It's my turn.'
She skilfully twisted the bottle until it spun dizzyingly fast, grating noisily against the hardwood floors.
As it slowed, Blair crossed her fingers behind her back, praying for a chance to make her boyfriend forget her best friend.
'No.' Nate interjected quickly when it stopped at last, its neck pointing directly at his grinning best friend. 'Sorry, no.'
All the other heads in the room snapped up and stared at him.
'You don't trust me?' Blair bit, too bemused to even address the fact that the bottle had landed precisely where she hadn't wanted it to. 'After that?' She shot her eyes pointedly between him and Serena, who looked equal parts shocked and embarrassed.
'That was- I… It's just a game, Blair.' Nate began fretting. 'Come on. It's him.' He glared at Chuck, who beamed at the accusation that might have made another boy of their age grimace.
'If it's just a game, what's the problem?' She demanded, her chin jutting up defiantly.
'Spin again, I'll take you.' She might have been convinced if he hadn't made it sound like a consolation- second prize to the time he'd spent with Serena.
'Trying to play God, Nathaniel?' Chuck teased. 'The will of the bottle cannot be ignored.'
'Just start the timer.' Blair hissed, before standing up and stalking into the bedroom that had been so unjustly allocated the title Heaven. She didn't even wait to see if Chuck had followed her or not.
She didn't care, for she had no intentions of kissing him, instead herself as close to the edge of his potentially-infectuous bed as she could without falling off.
Chuck, who had indeed followed her, had busied himself with locking the door. He turned round and scoffed at her position.
'What are you doing?'
'I don't want to catch anything.
'You'd have to actually let someone get past your chastity belt for that to happen.' He said.
'Just stand there will you?' She dismissed him with a wave of her hand. 'Make a few noises or something until the seven minutes are up.'
He ignored her, sauntering over to the bed and settling down beside her. 'That's not really my style.'
'That's not really my problem, creep.' She groaned, curling her lips as his thigh brushed hers.
'You know,' Chuck said, turning his body to face hers. 'If you want to make him feel even a fraction of the jealousy you just did, the best option would be to actually do something too.'
Her stomach churned at his words, and she tried desperately to claw away the image of her boyfriend pawing her best friend in the very same spot she now sat. 'I'm not jealous.' She said, her voice shaking.
'I've known you your whole life, Blair. You're not as difficult to read as you think.' She knew was goading her, but it was working.
'If you think I'm going to let your nasty mouth go anywhere near me, you've got another thing coming, Bass.' Shooting poison was the only thing she could do to force away the dreadful sense of dismay that had stirred in her gut.
'Well, I only had one destination in mind for my mouth.' He whispered, getting even closer to her until she could feel the heat from his body permeating her school clothes. 'For today anyway.'
'You're a pig.' She angled herself as far away from him as she could without falling to the floor.
'Thank you.' He murmured; she could hear the grin in his voice.
'Just leave me alone.'
'Blair.' Chuck called her name so gently that she almost looked back. 'Blair, look at me.'
'What do you want?' She cried, her voice cracking. When she finally turned round to face him, she saw a look of sincerity replacing his permanently cavalier expression.
'Trust me, it will make you feel better, at least for a minute or seven.'
Blair thought of Serena and Nate, all the things they might have done in here while she sat patiently, waiting for them to come back like a fool. Despite herself, Blair couldn't deny that it would make her feel better to make him feel even a little of what he'd subjected her to every day of their relationship.
'I can't kiss you, you're…' Blair's nose wrinkled. 'Well, you.' She said, for want of a better insult.
'Exactly.' He agreed emphatically. 'I'm me, so you know you don't have to worry about me falling head over heels and pining for you afterwards.'
Blair couldn't help but laugh; he'd always been able to make her laugh, for better or for worse. 'What's in this for you?'
He shrugged. 'You're hot.'
Blair's lips quirked. She'd known Chuck long enough to see that there was something more behind his flippancy.
'Fine then.' She challenged him, adjusting her position on the bed to look directly into his playful eyes.
He stiffened. 'What?' He stumbled even over the single word. Looking at her, the uncontrived disbelief written all over his face.
'You want to kiss me, so kiss me.' She stated. Looking down at her manicured fingernails, Blair hoped he wouldn't hear her nerves, much less see them manifested in the strange firmness of her posture.
Chuck's mask was back intact again. 'Well, if you're going to keep begging.' He grinned, sliding a tentative hand over the pleats of her skirt.
'Just get it over with… And keep your hands to yourself.' She breathed out shakily, her whole body now rigid as a board.
'How can I resist when you make it all sound so enticing.' He teased her, taking her fingers between his own. 'Blair, you know we don't have to if you don't want to.'
Blair warred with both sides of herself- the good girl and the bad.
'I want to.' She admitted furiously, nodding over and over in case she might change her mind. Was she angry at herself, angry at Nate? Perhaps both, she wasn't entirely sure.
'You're sure?'
'Stop being sweet.' She ordered, struck by the tenderness of his question. 'Stop it. It's not right; that's not you.'
His lips quirked. Then silently he lifted his hands to hold either side of her jaw and looked intently into her eyes; she'd never noticed the flecks of gold that marked them before. His fingers were almost painfully gentle as they guided her face towards his. Then slowly, as though she were made of fine china, he pressed his lips to hers.
His kiss was light as a feather, undemanding and soft. He kissed her like Nate always did and felt all sorts of wrong. Blair was sick of being handled like a precious antique doll, or worse, an old toy, unwanted and ready to be thrown out at any given moment in favour of something shiny and new, and perhaps blonde.
The moan that escaped her chest was one of frustration, of disappointment at the sameness of his treating her like the fragile girl that every man who looked at her seemed to see. But Chuck read it as something else entirely. Suddenly grasping at her hair, he pulled her closer to his body with an arm snaking quickly around her waist. Blair didn't have time to gasp because he had claimed her mouth again, and in such rampant fervour that she was breathless. With all the passion she'd been so long bereft of now rippling through her, at the hands of a man who wasn't her boyfriend, Blair could no longer tell herself she didn't want it.
Chuck's hands were unyielding, devouring every inch of her body as he kissed her. They ran up and down the sides of her abdomen, grasping her thighs, tangling in her hair. When he felt her shudder against him, he pulled her even tighter still.
'Tell me why you want me.' Blair mumbled against his lips, gasping for air.
'Because you're the hottest girl I know.' He murmured, eagerly seeking her lips again.
'No.' She protested. 'It's not just that. You're always watching me, always. There's more, tell me.'
'What?' He husked, pulling back from her in surprise. His mask was slipping again and she yearned to reach out and pull it from his face, to let everything come pouring out.
'Tell me, I need to know.' She pleaded.
His hooded eyes widened. 'Blair, I-'
Feeling suddenly sobered by her withdrawal from him, Blair's gaze fluttered away and she pushed his frozen hands from her.
'Just forget I said anything.' She hurried through the words mortified, then quickly stood up to make a dash for the living room where another kind of torture waited for her.
'Wait.' He called, following her just fast enough to snatch her arm before she unlocked the door. 'Stop.'
Without another word, he pulled her into the expansive closet just off from his bedroom and positioned her in front of the mirror. In the cold, artificial light she felt naked and exposed, her swollen mouth a scarlet A emblazoning shame on her chest. Blair tried to turn, but he held her strong, looming behind her reflection in the mirror.
'You want to know why I want you?' Chuck murmured.
She wriggled against him again. 'You only want what you know you can't have.' She protested.
'No.' He growled. 'Look at yourself.' Chuck ordered against the shell of her ear.
She tried her best not to.
'Really, look at yourself.' He hummed.
Chuck guided her hand with his own, trailing first down the long column of her neck. 'How don't you see what everyone else does?' His finger traced the sharp line of her collarbone.
Blair's teeth sank into her bottom lip as his hot breath blew against the fine hairs dusting the nape of her neck.
'He doesn't see it.'
She felt his fingers grip hers tighter. 'He's a clown.'
'I love him.' She protested sadly.
'So let me help you forget for a few minutes.' He pleaded, his eyes set on hers in the mirror, searching for confirmation.
Against her better judgement, Blair nodded. She'd been spun and her back angled against the cool glass in less than a second, its coldness eliciting a small whimper from her throat.
'You're perfect, Blair.' He whispered darkly, something possessive crossing his eyes that she couldn't make sense of. 'Perfect.' Chuck repeated. 'Anyone who doesn't see it is a fool.' His eyes travelled over her, with a heady desire she couldn't help but privately relish in, before he eagerly slanted his mouth against hers once more.
Blair felt her body arch into his of its own accord, felt her hands grasping for fistfuls of his shirt to draw her closer to him still. For a few delicious moments, she did forget. He was skilful and intoxicating, knew just where to touch her and just how to kiss her so that her mind went blank and her senses grew overrun. But he was Chuck Bass, and taking it too far ran thick in his blood.
She wasn't precisely sure when his hands had started working their way down and underneath her skirt, toying with the edge of her underwear. She hardly thought about it in the thrill of it all. But when they dipped teasingly beneath the lace, breaking the barrier she didn't know she'd created, she gasped and shoved him hard.
'What the hell do you think you're doing?' Blair demanded, reeling as she fumbled to straighten her clothes in the mirrored wall.
'Don't you think it's a bit late for the innocent act now?' He jeered with still-ravenous eyes, wiping his mouth with the corner of his sleeve and moving to reach for her again.
Blair evaded his grasp and bolted for the door, pausing in his bedroom as he emerged like a beast from the closet, the keen creator of her very own disgrace.
'I hope you enjoyed that.' She spat. 'Because it will never happen again.'
'Me? You really think I couldn't feel you grinding yourself against me like some touch-starved wildcat?' Chuck laughed darkly.
'You make me sick.' She retorted, but the sound was weak.
'No I don't.' He asserted, his eyes still fiery.
'Yes you do!'
'Let me know when your brain has caught up with your body.' He said, dismissing her coolly while he fixed the buttons of his shirt and tamed the hair she'd tangled with enthusiastic fingers.
'Which will be never.' Blair insisted. 'Not a word of this.' She commanded, one hand on the doorknob.
'Your wish is my command.' He agreed. His tone was unconvincing and non-committal. All Blair could think about was how many minutes they'd been gone, what Nate would be thinking as he waited for her- she almost felt guilty.
She flung the door open and, expecting to find her boyfriend pacing restlessly as he stood by for her, but was instead confronted by the sight of him engaging Serena in a juvenile battle with a can of whipped cream. Neither one of them, both coated in sticky, white cream, through bursts of jubilant giggles, noticed her standing there aghast.
Blair felt Chuck emerge from the bedroom behind her. 'Looks like it really worked.' He whispered through a snigger, moving casually towards the cushions and splaying out his limbs with a lazy ease that she hated him for.
She narrowed her eyes first at him, then her oblivious best friend and the boyfriend she'd done nothing but throw herself haplessly at.
It wasn't even a month later that Serena had disappeared. Boarding school, her mother had said, it was for the best in her difficult condition. She hadn't even said goodbye.
Nate wasn't the same after that. But Chuck, Chuck always maintained that sickeningly knowing gleam in his eye; the unwavering puppeteer.
AN: I don't really know what I'm doing with this. Maybe a one-shot, maybe I'll look at it again in a while if anyone is interested. I've read a lot of pre-pilot stories though, so I don't want to add a boring, repetitive contribution to those great ones that already exist. Either way, I was watching season one at the weekend and it just got me thinking and this is what came of it. I need to stop watching GG for real one day.