The Flirting Games (The Flirting Series - Young Adult)

Due for release in 2013

More Flirting Games

Further Flirting Games

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Copyright © Stella Wilkinson 2013

Cover Art by Littera Book Designs

This book was written, produced and edited in
the UK where some word usage may vary slightly from US English

All characters herein are fictitious and any
resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

For Richard

who gave me the most precious thing in the
world

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilogue

Ellie Parkhurst was restless. She needed some
excitement in her life. She’d only been back at Compass Court Boarding School
for four weeks and it just wasn’t the same this year. She missed the company of
Jack, her eldest brother.

Jack was fun. He and his friends had been
daring and a bit wild. In school he had often teased her but he spoilt her
rotten and everyone knew he had her back. In her third year he had caught her
kissing Bryn Dawes in the West Tower Common Room and had thrown poor Bryn
against the wall and held him there by his neck, demanding to know what he
thought he was doing. Jack was four years older than her and had left the school
the year before, and she hadn’t realized how hard it would be here at boarding
school without him and his friends livening it up. It was boring!

She did have a fair amount of family
here with her. Her other brother, Alex, was 16 and just two years above her. He
was pretty decent, but he just wasn’t as fun as Jack. Rose and Toby Falcon were
her cousins who were also at Compass Court. Rose was the same age as Alex, and
Toby was 13 and in Year 3, a year younger than Ellie herself.

She and Rose were friends as well as
family, but Rose was so like Alex: just plain nice! Ellie was much more like
Jack in personality. She liked things a bit more happening.

She kicked her feet against the end
of the bed, beating out a rhythm. What she needed was a new challenge,
something to liven up the year.

She looked across at the empty beds
in the dormitory room she shared with three other girls. On the far side were
two neatly made beds that belonged to Jessica and Miranda Taylor-Thomas. Ellie
glanced at the watch on her wrist. It was Saturday afternoon, nearly three
o’clock. Both girls would be in the music room right now, she guessed. To her
left was the more messy bed of the new girl, Flora Kincaid.

So far she liked Flora. She was a
bit quiet, or quieter than Ellie would have expected from an American, but then
again it was very hard being new. Maybe she should make more of an effort to
invite her to things.

At that moment there was a tentative
tap on the bedroom door. Raising her head, Ellie saw her cousin Rose peering in.

“Hiya, I’m going to down to the
village to meet Alex and some of the others. Do you want to come?”

Ellie swung her legs off the bed.
“Yeah, ok thanks.” Might as well, she thought. “Give me five minutes?”

“Sure.” Rose smiled and turned to
leave. “I’ll be in the Common Room.”

Ellie grimaced at her reflection in
the mirror. Her fringe was sticking up all over the place. Hmm, not how she
wanted to be seen. At nearly 15, you didn’t let boys see you going about
looking like a scarecrow.

She pulled a brush through her long dark hair
and added some mascara to her lashes. She had finally been able to persuade her
mother to let her buy some makeup this summer. She wasn’t really allowed to
wear it in class, but she had been sneaking on mascara all term, it made her
brown eyes seem brighter and gave them more impact. Of course, wearing a school
uniform did no one any favors. But in Oakworth, the local village, she could
dress how she liked, so she added some cherry lip-gloss too. Looking down she
was happy with her outfit. Black top, with long trailing sleeves and tight
black jeans with her favorite gray suede boots. She flicked her hair over her
shoulder, leaned forward to kiss the mirror and decided she was ready.

***

Nathaniel Naverly smiled at himself
in the mirror. He ran his hands through his blond hair and flexed his chest.
His reflection pleased him. Five years of school sports had filled out his
upper body: his shoulders were wide, his stomach tight and his arm muscles
looked toned. He’d spent a lot of the summer swimming, as well as playing
plenty of football and cricket.

Back at Compass Court for his sixth
year and he reckoned he was ready to pull anyone he wanted. He knew girls liked
him; they thought he was cool and good-looking and he’d spent the last few
years learning how to impress them.

Impress them, sleep with them and
then dump them.

And now, he wanted Rose Falcon. He’d been
planning it since the start of term. It was not motivated by desire; it was the
chase.

This year Rose had returned from the
summer holidays all grown up. All his friends had noticed too. Rose was
suddenly extremely pretty and shapely, yet still very much the shy virgin.

In fact, she was exactly his type.
He thrived on the challenge of getting difficult girls into bed. Unfortunately,
once he had succeeded they weren’t a challenge any longer and he lost interest.

It would be depressing except that
he didn’t much care for the company of girls anyway. He was a guy’s guy. He had
a group of male friends who thought he was great and that was all he needed. It
was almost amusing that half the girls in the school seemed to hate him, yet
they never said no. Well maybe they did at first, but not for long.

He and Rose had so far had very
little to do with each other for their first few years at Compass Court. She
was in a different Schoolhouse. She was in West Tower, he was in North Tower.
They had one or two classes together, but had different friends. Apart from the
fact she got exceptionally high grades, he didn’t see anything particularly
interesting about Rose. She was quiet, probably fairly boring, barely
noticeable to a popular boy like himself.

He had honed his skills a lot in the
last year. His usual game plan was to do his homework on each conquest like he
was studying for an exam. He gathered information about her. It made it so much
easier if the girl thought they had lots in common.

To get close to Rose he had
befriended Alex Parkhurst. Alex wasn’t just Rose’s cousin; they were clearly
close friends too, so he needed Alex to like him.

Surprisingly, Nate had discovered he
actually liked Alex. They were even becoming friends. He had thought Alex was
as boring as Rose appeared to be. Alex was quiet and diligent. But as Nate made
efforts to get to know Alex he had discovered he was very funny with a really
clever dry sense of humor.

It was good to be back at school.
Back in his familiar room at Compass Court. He took one more look at himself,
wearing nothing but a pair of jeans, and flexed his muscles at the mirror
again. Yes, he was ready. He dragged a t-shirt over his head and fished his
trainers out from under his bed, found his socks still stuffed inside, and
pulled them both on.

He and Alex were going into Oakworth Village.
They were meeting up with Rose in the Fox and Hounds pub. He grinned thinking
the name of the pub was apt. He stuffed his wallet in his back pocket and
headed out to meet Alex in the school courtyard.

Ellie watched Nate Naverly with
narrowed eyes. He had come in with Alex and joined their table. He had made
everyone laugh and seemed to settle easily with the group who were mostly from
West Tower House. She hadn’t paid much attention until he had turned his
megawatt smile on Rose.

He was sitting too close to Rose,
whispering into her ear. As Ellie watched, Nate picked up Rose’s hand and began
to trace a pattern across her palm. Ellie strained to hear what he was saying:
something about predicting Rose’s future. He slowly rubbed his thumb across the
wrist he was holding and Rose seemed to shiver.

Ellie could plainly see that Rose
didn’t know what to do. Rose had never had such a good-looking guy single her
out like that. She was blushing and nervous. Quite suddenly, Nate dropped her
hand and turned away to talk to Alex, leaving Rose looking shell-shocked and a
bit bereft.

Ellie frowned. That was not a good
thing. Nate was a self-satisfied jerk, but dynamite with girls. Ellie had seen
too many crying over him in the bathrooms to doubt it. There was no way on
earth that Rose was a match for his charms if he had set his sights on her.

Eyeing Nate suspiciously, Ellie
wondered what he was playing at. Did he genuinely want Rose? Even if he did it
was reason for concern. Rose was far too nice for him. Ellie was extremely fond
of her cousin and didn’t want to see her get hurt. She had a very bad feeling
that this was a game to Nate and not a genuine desire to be with Rose.

Ellie looked at Alex to see if he
had noticed anything. Of course, he hadn’t. He was as naïve as Rose. She wished
again that Jack was still at Compass Court; he would have stamped on any
pretensions Nate might have.

Mentally squaring her shoulders,
Ellie decided she would have to keep an eye on the situation herself.

***

Nate felt smug. Stage One was a
success. He wanted Rose to be aware of him and now she was. He had flattered
her and he had touched her so she noticed him. He had been fully aware that the
hairs on the back of her arm had gone up when he’d intimately stroked the
inside of her wrist. Not too much to draw attention, just enough to confuse
her. He concentrated on Alex and tried not to look too pleased with himself. A
few more moments like that and he would have her where he wanted her.

His second opportunity was at the
bar. Rose was helping carry out drinks. He put one hand on the small of her
back, leaned in close behind her and curved his arm around her to reach for his
drink. She jumped and came right up against him. He smiled at her and didn’t
step back. She blushed yet again. It was quite endearing really. This was going
to be easy.