The Allure of Love

Chapter 12

Passing back through the iconic wrought iron gates of Alpha Sigma Sigma sorority house, Anastasia felt an electric frisson charge the air around her. God, this place - with its stately columns, dormered windows, and perfectly manicured lawn unfurling before the veranda stairs in all its Georgian splendor - hadn't changed a bit. A flurry of rose-tinted memories instantly bombarded her senses.

Stealing giggly, conspiratorial glances with Kate and their other sisters as they lounged with mimosas on the front balcony studying for exams. Breathless laughter and squeals echoing up the foyer staircase as they primped and preened before formals, straightening each other's updos with practiced precision. Sultry, tantalizing wafts of the night-blooming jasmine perfuming the garden hideaways where she would occasionally steal off for clandestine liaisons...

No. Stop it, Anastasia, her inner voice commanded with a slight wince, startling herself out of the nostalgia spiral before certain other memories could take firmer root. Bittersweet pangs of unrequited longing and quiet pining that she refused to relive in the harsh fluorescent light of the present. Those demons had been exercised, staked definitively into their overdue graves.

Or so she hoped, at any rate.

Fighting to keep a buoyant smile plastered across her face, Anastasia turned to Jack with a performative flourish. "Well? What do you think of my old digs, babe? Appropriately swanky enough to match the lavish sorority princess tales I regaled you with?"

Jack made an exaggeratedly appraising sweep of the elegant facade and grounds, eyes narrowing to convey his critical evaluation. "Hmm, I suppose it'll do if we're grading on a sliding provincial scale," he quipped. "But I think my boarding school boasted hedge mazes this place can't possibly rival."

Sam immediately let out a raucous guffaw at the barb, shooting Anastasia a sly wink. "Don't listen to this insufferable peacock for a second, Anz. He's just embarrassed because his college days didn't contain half as much nubile coed debauchery as our run around this place!"

"Lies and slander!" Jack shot back with a rakish grin, tugging Anastasia roughly against him for emphasis. She couldn't quite squelch an involuntary hitch of breath at the sudden friction of his body against hers, his scent and warmth encompassing her senses anew in a dizzying rush.

"I'll have you know, my romantic entanglements during university exist on such an esteemed, globetrotting level as to make this quaint little sorority house look like an utter dreary nun's cloister in comparison. Care for me to lend some concrete illustrations of what I'm talking about here?"

With a devious smirk, Jack trailed a single fingertip along the plunging v-neck of Anastasia's sundress - causing sparks of pure, visceral lust to shoot directly through her bloodstream as Sam and Josh let out a chorus of raucous catcalls.

"Get a room, you insatiable horn-dogs!" Josh crowed gleefully.

"No need to torture us poor sods with salacious reenactments on sacred Alpha Sig Sig property," Sam half-begged through wheezes of laughter. "Our fragile little hearts may explode just picturing the epic levels of sensual depravity you two degenerates are alluding to!"

Anastasia couldn't help but join in the laughter at their lurid insinuations, though she felt the heat of a different sort blossoming rapidly across her cheeks. While Jack happily leaned into the lascivious commentary by exaggeratedly burying his face in the curve of her neck and planting loud, smacking kisses against the sensitive skin there, she chanced a fleeting glance at Chris.

As expected, he was studiously avoiding even looking in their general direction, staring off into the distance with a practiced nonchalance - his rugged jawline ticking almost imperceptibly. Was that a flash of something that could almost be described as...yearning in his hooded brown eyes?

Quickly stuffing down that fanciful notion, Anastasia forced her focus back to Jack and their chuckling companions, mentally erecting a firewall against any wayward sparks or flights of nostalgia that threatened to reopen old wounds among them.

"Alright, alright - that's enough putting us repressed choir boys to shame for now. I believe we were promised a guided tour of your very own boudoir for mischief and shenanigans back in the day?" Josh drawled, arching a brow in an exaggerated leer of innuendo. "Unless you've gone soft in your old age and those stories of legendary panty-raid conquests were mere slander all along?"

Though she would never admit it out loud, Anastasia had to give her old friends credit - for all their bumbling machismo, they could certainly spin a diversion far better than she expected. Allowing a mischievous smirk to quirk her lips, she purposefully laced her fingers through Jack's and tugged them all forward through the creaking front doors.

"I'll let you ninnies be the judge of that for yourselves," she tossed back over her shoulder with a saucy wink. "Just try not to be too scandalized if the exploits imprinted into these hallowed halls prove too much for your dainty constitutions!"

As she led the way across the entrance hall, sidestepping the suit of armor and assorted heraldic decor bedecking the Alpha Sig Sig foyer, Anastasia silently hoped the others wouldn't catch the effort it took to keep her hand from trembling. It was all she could do not to allow her focus to drift inexorably towards Chris once more. To yearn to meet his stare, to search for a lighthouse in those familiar warm depths, any hint of the anchor that had once kept her soul firmly tethered rather than flailing away at sea.

With an inward swallow, Anastasia vowed to herself that this weekend she would remain that lighthouse, unyielding and impervious to any rogue tidal waves that threatened to batter her carefully rebuilt foundations. Some currents simply weren't worth the risk of getting pulled back under for good.