Author's Note: Thank you for the reviews. I notice nothing much has happened yet and that will change in this chapter, hopefully to your liking. Please note that this is a longer story so the action will come bit by bit, like in a real novel. I will try to keep updating quickly and hearing your opinions always helps with that. The more you feed me, the more I'm inspired and pushed to write. I hope that, if we work together, we can make this a good fic. All it takes is your help and thoughts :)

Chapter Three

Out in the street it took them a second to adjust to the colder night air. Blaine saw Rachel wrap her jacket tighter around her body while he tried to swallow a shiver. If she continued to hug herself he would have to surrender his coat and despite his chivalry and absolute willingness to give up any clothing to keep her warm, he was glad when she seemed to acclimate and walked at his side with more ease.

"So what do you think of London?", she asked him as they walked down the street, he had no idea where they were going but he trusted her that she did, plus he was mildly drunk and didn't really care as long as she wouldn't leave.

"I love it here", he said truthfully, "You guys ain't cheap as they say but the museums are great and the culture is broad, like take the West End alone for instance and, just the air here, really. It's a little like New York but not quite. It feels very safe here, safe and sophisticated and cultured. Well-mannered. A little more private and maybe less warm but not in a way that annoys me. I like privacy like that"

He didn't know how much of his picture of the city stemmed from prejudice, from him thinking Europeans and Brits as a whole must be smart and cultivated people just because it was a common American thing to think but it was what he felt. Rachel didn't seem to mind, she just smiled.

"That's what I loved about New York, like, the opposite of what you just said", she mused, "The noise, the crazy people, the fact that you can get donuts at four in the morning. Everything stirs with life and it's exciting and big and I don't know. To me being in New York is like falling in love. Over and over again, every minute"

He had to look at her, guessing the expression of the pleasant memory would paint her features nicely and it did. She gazed into the wide, probably not seeing some dark Kensington High Street stores but Times Square in front of her inner eye. Blazing with light and noise and dirt and she was most definitely missing it. He was missing it too, he thought. It was home and suddenly his chest was torn in conflict.

He was happy to go back, he missed the city, he missed Quinn and Beth and Mike and Wes and oddly enough he even missed work and it would be absolutely amazing to have it all back in less than twenty-four hours. But Rachel...Rachel would be just a memory then. Another face he'd stash away under "Travel Friends", maybe a facebook-contact he'd stop talking to eventually but all in all just a footnote in his life. She would probably shine a little brighter in his accounts, sharper around the edges because she was special but she would still not be really real, not palpable. She'd just be gone. Or better, he'd be gone. That thought stung and hit him in the face colder than the night air, like a slap of regret and desire and an outcry about the injustice.

Why couldn't he just keep her? Get to know her and get a little more lost in her chocolate eyes. And spread those long slim legs for him, dip his head down, down and explore her, bury himself inside of her until she whithered under him, screaming his name.

Focus.

He couldn't be thinking about sex all the time. It was horribly impolite, as she would put it. Also the way he saw her had shifted since they'd been on their own. She was classy and fun and smart, cordial and kind. And while he still very much wanted to rip down her jeans with his teeth, he was aware that she deserved better than a desperate fuck just to have the notch in the bedpost. She was too good for that. He was absolutely gonna sleep with her if she was game but it wouldn't be some mindless fling for him. It would mean something. Which almost made him forget about the whole thing. Because he'd be gone and then he'd be attached. Or even more attached than he already was.

On their way to nowhere in particular, they quickly fell into an easy conversation, skimming over as many topics as possible, both knowing they didn't have much time. To Blaine's enjoyment she seemed just as reluctant to have the night end as he was and she kept coming up with questions about everything and nothing. He told her how he grew up in Ohio, at an all boy's school, how he'd went on to NYU to study politics and creative writing and had decided to stay. They found that they had quite a similar taste in music and movies, except that Blaine was by far crazier about The Beatles than she was, something he noted seemed weird since he always believed Brits got the love for the band fed with mother's milk. And Rachel scolded him for never having seen Breakfast at Tiffany's, which he idly promised to fix.

She was very easy to talk to, a great listener and intriguing talker but he noticed the change in her voice when a certain topic came up, her tone changing from curious chatter to a more wary note, making her voice more high-pitched and pressing. And she was trying to suppress it which made it all the more obvious. He was very tempted to call what painted her voice jealousy.

"You live with a woman and a kid?", she asked incredulously and she sounded so stunned that it was a miracle she didn't stop mid-stride, frozen in the street.

"You make it sound a lot more scandalous than it is", he said merely, knowing full well she wanted more information and he would've lied if he claimed he didn't enjoy taunting her a little bit. It was basically just the purest form of reassurance that she was interested in him too. Of course her shudders whenever their skin brushed could have told him as much but he couldn't distinct those clearly enough from his own.

"Well, I just wonder how it works", she said, careful to keep any strain off her voice, "Like, does the child call you Dad or?"

Blaine laughed, "No, Beth calls me Laine, which is a step up from Nay which she used to call me before. She turned three a little before I left for Europe"

"But why?", Rachel asked and he knew she wasn't talking about why Beth couldn't say his name right. (She still had a little problem pronouncing 'b's, nothing to be concerned with, though if it persisted he might suggest Quinn to take her to a speech therapist, just to be sure.)

"I met Quinn before she even got pregnant, I tried to hit on a friend of hers, Santana, which was useless because Santana has been seeing Brittany for ages – which I hadn't known first of course and they had a jolly good time with that – but the four of us, and my friends Mike and Wes kinda stayed in contact and Quinn and I got close. I was there when all the shit with Puck happened, Beth's Dad. They broke up before she knew about the baby and they tried another time when she'd figured it out but they're like fire and water, it just doesn't work"

He looked to see if Rachel was still keeping track but she seemed unfazed by the mass of info, rather the opposite, she was hungry to learn more, her eyes never leaving his.

"But they had moved into a great old penthouse with their two paychecks and although Puck was still willing to help out with a bit of the rent, Quinn was never going to make the cut. I'd just started writing for the Times so I had enough money to support myself and possibly others, so we decided that I could as well move in. By the time Beth was old enough for Quinn to go back to work, I'd finished college and worked mostly from home so I could look after the kid for her and I had someone to help me put food in my belly. Because I'm a hideous cook. We're there for each other. Puck drops by every now and then, he's with a nice lady called Lauren now who keeps setting his head straight. She's one hell of a woman but it's what he needs and she makes him pay his child support on time and Beth loves her. It all turned out quite well, considering."

Rachel tried her hardest, he could tell, but she couldn't keep the wary look off her face, the worry that peeked through her words when she next spoke.

"And you and Quinn never...", she left the rest hanging there and then added in a meek attempt to be elusive, "Isn't that terribly confusing for Beth, you know, as an image?"

Blaine worked hard to keep from chuckling, he relished in her unease at the idea of him living with a woman, "Quinn and I were never attracted to each other. She's beautiful, don't get me wrong but totally not my type and we're too different, we basically live on discussions. We bicker like siblings. Really, if I think about it, she's like the male version of my brother Coop, so. Also she's a blonde and I never felt attracted to a blonde before"

He saw Rachel grin and blush furiously at his side, his fingertips tingling with the blind wish to cub her cheeks and run his tongue over her lips to part them for him, to wound her into a hug and kiss her senseless, just to keep that blush there.

Instead he continued, doing Rachel the favor of pretending he hadn't seen her reaction, "As for Beth, she knows who her father is and she knows who I am. I get to be the cool uncle. Though I do kind of raise her when I can't help it. I very much love her, she's one of the best things that ever happened to me and she made me grow up so much. I don't know where I'd be without her and Quinn, they're family"

Rachel nodded and Blaine wanted to linger on her beautiful face but salty air hit his nostrils and he looked up because that was new sensory input.

"Wow", it escaped him at the sight ahead. A set of gates, no, it was a bridge, with tall pillars shimmering pastel green in the moonlight and decked with Art Nouveau ornaments rose in front of him and it looked so majestic and serene he had to take a second to appreciate it.

"I know", Rachel muttered, walking on and finally turning over her shoulder, "Hammersmith Bridge. She's a beauty"

She trailed on and he followed. He took in the lights from the bridge and the ones from the city reflecting in the muddy Thames water, wallowing in the sight and the magic of the moment. It was beautiful and he'd forgotten that it was cold and he saw Rachel's legs move and glanced up, passing her firm, gorgeous ass and she smiled at him when they'd reached the middle of the rope bridge where the steal chords met, joining below the railing and granting free view over the two sides of the river and glistening water.

"People don't pay as much attention to her like they do with the Tower Bridge because she isn't as pompous but they really should", she mused on, "I think she's prettier even, more frail and feminine. The Tower Bridge is so burly and broad. Hammersmith's a lady"

"I'm really glad you showed me this", he said and stood beside her, placing his hands only inches away from hers, holding on to the railing and taking a deep breath, "Did you know you wanted to come here or did it just happen?"

"I don't really know but I think when we passed McDonalds I kinda knew where I was going", just at the mentioned burger joint her tummy growled and she laughed loudly. It sounded like a very adorable hick-up.

"Woman, we need to feed you", Blaine exclaimed and laughed with her, "Why didn't you say something earlier? We could've stopped to get you some fries"

"Chips", she corrected, "And I wanted to show you this first, I kinda had the feeling you would appreciate it. I'd have more places to show you but you'll be gone by tomorrow"

She sighed and it was the same sincere regret he felt resonating within himself too, "Why didn't I meet you my first night here?"

He didn't really ask her, it was more like an open question to the city around them, or the universe, maybe, "We would've had more time"

Rachel sighed again, heavier this time, aware as it seemed of the thick meaning behind his last words and she used the momentum of that big breath to fall into his side as she exhaled. It was a deliberate move masked as a playful caving but he didn't mind. He wanted her close. After such a short time it already seemed unbearable to leave her again.

It was ridiculous really, he hadn't known her ten hours ago. He would've been fine going back to New York and his life and he would've been jolly happy about it. But now he wouldn't be. He would miss this strange new girl and her enlightening presence in his world. Amping up the sounds, intensifying the colors, sharpening up the edges. Everything seemed clearer when she was there. Except when she clouded his senses with what followed.

Her free hand curved ever so timidly around his and her cheek turned closer into his upper arm, "I can't tell if I'm drunk or if you're making it spin"

Blaine's breathing suddenly became shallow and he could understand her musings fairly well and some song he knew played through his brain at random, I feel the earth move under my feet...

"What is spinning?", he asked mindlessly, entwining his fingers with hers and that tiny touch was enough to send his heart galloping through his chest at a frantic pace. It was remarkable, the effect she had on him. He felt like he'd boarded a roller coaster.

His head was definitely spinning when she tugged at his arm and turned him around to face him, the moonlight reflecting in her eyes, her olive complexion glowing with the yellow street light.

She looked like someone out of a very dizzy dream. A very very pleasant dizzy dream.

"The world", she laughed, as if it was obvious, "The world is spinning...are you doing that?"

He laughed and took both her hands, swaying them from side to side between them, "Nah, you're just drunk"

They stayed like this for a while, swaying and laughing, then grinning, then smiling and then after a while Rachel's features softened into a thoughtful, gorgeously puzzled kind of state.

"I want you to know that I never do this", she said and it was barely a whisper, hardly loud enough to drown out the running river beneath them.

"Do what?", he asked but he was already leaning in further, every inch earned with a thousand rushed heartbeats and his throat drying out. He licked his lips quickly and he was just in time before she answered his question with something other than words.

Their lips met in what seemed like the resolve of a crescendo, a big explosion, setting off somewhere deep inside, so deep he wasn't sure he'd ever felt anything there before but now he did and it would've frightened him if he hadn't been so busy with getting more of her.

Rachel was soaring. It was a funny feeling because she could actually barely feel her feet on the ground anymore, feeling light as a feather but Blaine still held her tightly, clasping her to his body and rooting her on the spot. She felt like a kite. Or how kites would feel if they, well, if they had feelings.

She sunk into the kiss and was shocked with herself. She hadn't been lying, she literally never did this. She had not once in her life kissed someone she'd met the same night. She figured there was a first time for everything after all as his fingers clasping her hair. She felt a little naughty, a little dirty and the fact that it was so so wrong, that she didn't know him well enough and that her whole crush on him would have to be temporary (if only for practicability) made it feel thrillingly right. Blaine nibbled at her lower lip, grazing his teeth tauntingly over the brittle skin before she granted him access.

Their tongues darted out to meet somewhere in the middle, hesitant at first, still figuring out a certain choreography of where to move limbs, where not to hit teeth against teeth and how to steady themselves so they wouldn't slip into the Thames by accident. Breathing was an issue too since they both seemed not big fans of it, preferring to keep their mouths interlocked. They found a pretty decent solution with breathing through their noses, except Blaine would moan quietly whenever Rachel repositioned her hands on his body.

It was always a little dance, kissing someone for the first time but Blaine was good at it and Rachel was drunk and horny enough not to hold back which proved to be a fantastic combination.

"Oh my god", she muttered while still attached to his mouth, "I don't do stuff like this"

"Neither do I", Blaine breathed and she was pretty sure that wasn't all the way true but she didn't mind, not as his hand traveled south and grabbed her ass, pulling her against his hips where she could feel him hard against her thighs. It was all heat and chemistry, they'd found their rhythm and neither of them thought of parting. She couldn't think about how uncomfortable any possible passers-by must have felt by that very public display of sexual attraction. Fortunately her mind was too clouded to dwell on a thought like that.

They'd been kissing for a while when her lower back hit the railing and Blaine pushed even further into her, she was dizzy and she could feel her lips starting to tear open but she couldn't get herself to care. His one hand had wandered from her hip – where his companion slipped easily under her leather jacket – up to her face and he pushed her chin slightly down to open her mouth wider to gain more space to claim. A low, guttural moan escaped her, meeting no defenses and she mindlessly broke free from his lips, finding his fingers on her chin and swiping her tongue over the tips, eventually sucking on his thumb. Blaine growled lowly and his erection twitched up against her, making her smile just before he drew her face back onto his lips.

Their breathing came in harsher and deeper, more frantic huffs as if they were suddenly scared they couldn't get enough of each other and they were pulling on fabric, on hands and arms and biting lips and clashing tongues and teeth together in a desperate quest for more and Rachel could feel herself getting lightheaded because the oxygen supply seemed to fade, fizzling away from their heat.

Blaine was the first to break away slightly to take a long hard breath and two others before he nudged his forehead against hers, still panting, "Woah"

"I was not expecting this tonight", Rachel panted with him.

"I was just hoping for it", he confessed.

"Oh really?", she asked bemusedly, pecking him playfully on the lips.

"Yes", he said and pecked her back, "Since I saw you molest that microphone stand"

"That's my special move to lure unsuspecting tourists into my spider-web"

"Argh", he mocked defeat, his voice quiet, he didn't need to speak up because she was just an inch away from him, "And I walked right into the trap"

"That's right and now I will devour and then kill you", Rachel joked, surprised that she still didn't feel weird yet.

For heaven's sake, she was locking lips with a total stranger, standing at impossible proximity with someone she'd met mere hours ago. But somehow Blaine didn't feel strange to her anymore. She wondered when that had happened. When she'd started to trust him. Because she did, that was sure. She couldn't really name a reason, just that she felt very strongly that Blaine would never lie to her. Not about big things, things that matter. She was sure of it and that made all the difference, even if it really didn't matter because he left in the morning. He couldn't tell her that many lies in such a short time anyway.

"When's your flight?", she asked without an agenda, she just wanted to know until when she could be with him.

"At twelve pm tomorrow at Heathrow, I gotta check in at eleven", he informed her, kissing her because it was due time for another round of that.

"Where's your hotel?", Rachel heard herself ask breathlessly and she didn't stop kissing him just so she wouldn't start second guessing what she had just implied.

Blaine scurried slightly away from her and she protested, two fingers gripping his collar as one of his hands flew to the back of his head, scratching it awkwardly.

"I don't really have a hotel", he said sheepishly and Rachel tilted her head in question. Did he like, sleep in the streets? He definitely didn't smell like it, thought her dulled brain.

"Hold on", Blaine said, taking both her hands into his, "Do you have time for a little detour? And a black cab number handy?"

Rachel nodded to both, wondering what the hell she was doing but she was so lost in his softly shining hazel eyes she couldn't bring herself to not be the kind of girl that went to..yeah, wherever he would take her, with a total stranger. To have sex. Probably, if she was assessing the situation right. Which at this point seemed hard to get wrong. Oh god. Rachel Berry had never had a one night stand in her life. What if she was bad at it?

She blindly produced her cell and called a black cab to the Kensington bound side of the bridge and let Blaine drag her there by the hand, explaining to her with many words and a weird story about virtual suicide that he was couchsurfing and staying with some human-shaped hermit crab named Grayson and that this was where they going.

Rachel almost stopped in horror, imagining doing it on the couch of some kid. He must've sensed her discomfort because he squeezed her hand in his and pulled her closer.

"I just got to get my stuff out and leave him a note", Blaine said, "And then we'll go to the airport Holiday Inn. If...I mean, if that's what you want"

He paused then, almost at the place where the cab would pick them up in a bit, "I mean I can have the cab take you home too, make sure you get there safe"

"No", Rachel shook her head at the thought, she wasn't willing to let him go yet, "No, the Holiday Inn sounds fine"

This should feel like the weirdest agreement to have sex ever but in a twisted way it seemed almost normal. Like it was just something she and Blaine easily conversed about like it wasn't a big deal. Like they'd always known and trusted each other and there was nothing kinky about having sex in an airport hotel. Well, she figured there wasn't anything really kinky about that, people probably did it all the time just people that weren't Rachel. Until tonight, tonight she would join the ranks of Holiday Inn-fornicators. Blimey.

They walked on but then she froze again, this time she was the one initiating the abrupt halt and Blaine twirled around, attentive, almost alert for her to change her mind, ready to carry her home safe on his hands if he had to, "What's wrong?"

"I just, um", she stuttered, gosh darn, this was embarrassing but she had to tell him anyway, "Uh, Blaine, I, like I said, I'm, uh, I really did not expect this tonight"

She hoped that he wouldn't make her spell it out, praying that a short glance down at herself and her lips chewed in utter humiliation did their thing to tell him that she hadn't done any...trimming or grooming that should precede the carefully planned out act of intercourse. Her head could might as well have been gleaming red hot, like a traffic light.

This is excruciating, she thought, blushing crimson.

But Blaine just let out a relieved kind of huff, "I honestly couldn't care less about that"

Rachel was wary and embarrassed but then he kissed her again, just as hungry and urgent as before and she decided to believe him. She probably would still feel a little awkward getting naked but fine. It wasn't like she had a rain forest down there either just...she didn't look like a nine year old and she didn't know what the American standards were for that sort of, well, hairdo. She was afraid of not meeting it and Blaine being turned off by it. But alas, he kissed her now like his life depended on it, almost missing the cab honking for their attention and Rachel figured she would worry about that later.

The cab driver was silent, even by London measures and Rachel felt her alcoholic high fade as she waited in the car after Blaine had reached his first destination, excusing himself to pack up his stuff.

She was uncertain about the whole plan now. Maybe she should take up on Blaine's offer and have the cab drop her off at home after all? Maybe this was a stupid idea. She hardly knew him. He would leave in the morning and it would hurt to see him go. Plus he kinda had a family back in New York, even if he said him and this Quinn girl were only platonic friends. Rachel still didn't want to be a home wrecker if it turned out he'd stretched the truth a bit. Although she doubted that. Still. She could possibly regret this in the morning.

She rummaged around in her purse because she remembered the text she'd seen calling the cab, a text she had disregarded at the time, being otherwise occupied but now she didn't want to feel so torn and decided to postpone the decision-making by distracting herself.

Her cell phone lit up, showing a text from Tina, a reply to her earlier one about Blaine flying home the next day.

3:48 AM, Tina CC

Well then, what do you have to lose? If you like him, go for it!

That was odd, usually Tina would caution her. She half wanted Tina to do so, to give her a reason to bail but then Blaine hurried back into the car after stuffing his suitcases in the trunk and finally returned to sit with her. His smile was so blazing and touched such remote places of her heart and mind that she knew she would never leave this vehicle without him, not in a million years.

She wanted that mouth back on her so badly, the physical restraint was painful to endure. She could start undressing him right there on the back seat but she had some courtesy and compassion for the poor cab driver. And she was a well mannered girl. So instead of jumping him she sat beside him, quietly and very careful not to touch him at all so she wouldn't loose it and all the tension and the yearning built up inside her like a huge tsunami wave. Or a hurricane front ready to blister. Or like electricity between them because she could swear he felt it to. The air was almost sizzling in the space between their warm bodies. And everything built up and up and up and up and her skin tingled and her groin burned and she took deep breaths to steady herself, wondering if that was what volcanoes felt like.

Chapter Four will be posted after 10 reviews.