New Leaves, No Strings

New Leaves, No Strings

By C. J. Fallowfield

Kindle Edition.

Copyright © 2014
C. J. Fallowfield

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Reserved Worldwide

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unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this
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and retrieval system without express written permission from the author

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Foreword

Thank you so
much for buying New Leaves, No Strings.

This is book one
of the Austin erotic romance fiction series, which is designed to be read in
sequence.

Table of
Contents

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

How the hell had I made it here I wondered? At
University, in a city so large it dwarfed my miniscule home town. Even more
amazing was that I was standing here at 18 years of age, still a virgin. You
Mia Page need to work on fixing that, I thought to myself as I huffed my fringe
out of my eyes.

It was sweltering for September.
The sparkling white tiles and air conditioning of the bathroom was a welcome
relief from the mugginess outside. I splashed some cold water on my face and
looked at my reflection in the mirror. My long shiny brunette locks tumbled
around my face, my skin glowed from my summer tan, which made my bright blue
eyes sparkle. Pretty or beautiful, that’s what everyone said about me, never
stunning, but
so
pretty.

I put my hands on my hips and
studied myself in my white T-shirt and dark blue skinny jeans, not bad, not bad
at all. With my wedge trainers I was pushing 5 foot 9, in flats just 5 foot 6,
pretty average. My double DD’s however always looked good, no matter what I
wore and my small waist just accentuated them. The only thing I really disliked
about myself was that I felt I was too curvaceous. My best friend Lexi said I’d
curves to die for, in fact she said I’d bodacious breasts and a booty like J-lo
and should think myself lucky. She also said, if she were that way inclined,
I’d be top on her lesbian list.

I smiled to myself, Lexi could
always make me laugh. I looked at my watch, it was already 8.50 a.m. and
lectures were due to start in ten minutes. Where the hell was she? I checked my
phone, no message. Just typical of her, always bloody late, the only thing you
could rely on her for, that and a shoulder to cry on. I sent her a text.

Lex, where the hell are
you? I really don’t want to be late to our first lecture on day one! We agreed
to meet twenty minutes ago. It was too hot outside, so I’ve come into the
bathroom on the ground floor to the right of the main door. Hurry up!

 
I
took another deep breath of the refreshing cool air. From outside I could hear
the clatter of feet hurrying past and chatter of excited students. Attending
Uni and being away from home, was a really big deal to both of us. We came from
a small rural town, where we’d attended Rowleys, a highly respected all-girls
boarding school totalling 100 odd students, if that. It was stuck in the middle
of nowhere, with nothing but fields, trees and sheep for company and the
constant smell of manure. To leave home and come to Westhampton, an actual city
no less, was a scary proposition for both of us. I was in awe at the sheer
volume of men and had to be reminded to close my mouth by Lexi on more than one
occasion. It was like being released from prison, after life in isolation we’d
discovered a new species and Lexi was taking full advantage. We’d only moved up
here the Friday before last, to move into our new home and be here for
freshers’ week, yet she’d already bedded five of the natives. My phone vibrated
in my hand and I glanced down to see her response.

Soz Mia. OMW  L8 as uz.
Cover 4 me. CU soon x

I sighed. Why did she have to use
slang in all of her messages? Half the time I couldn’t even decipher what she
was trying to saying to say. I picked up my messenger bag and left the bathroom
to join the throngs of students in the long corridor. How she’d got the grades
from sixth form, to make it to study English Literature and Modern History here
with me was astonishing. There again, it was in no small part down to the hours
of extra tuition I did with her, but I was so glad I’d persevered and dragged
her here with me. Lexi’d been my best friend for 7 years and I couldn’t have
entertained the thought of going through this experience without her. She
really knew how to push my buttons sometimes, but when I really needed her she
was always there. Best friends to the end, that’s the pact we’d made when we
met at Rowleys all those years ago.

We both started there as boarders
at age 11, in the Autumn term. We soon discovered that we weren’t posh enough
for the rest of the girls in our year, who all looked down their noses at us.
We didn’t come from homes with a Rolls Royce, or have parents who sailed, played
golf, or ran money making empires. We’d also bonded over the fact that our
fathers had given both of us issues. Mine had buggered off before I was even
born and I only saw him twice a year at most and that was under sufferance.

Lexi’s mum was an alcoholic and
would beat her dad. Lexi’d get the odd backhand as well, if she wasn’t quick
enough on her feet to avoid it, so her dad decided he’d had enough and left
when she was 11. His parting gift was paying for her boarding school education
up to the age of 18, so she wouldn’t have to stay at home with her drunken
mother.

Seven years later and here we were,
starting a new educational establishment together, or not as it seemed this
morning. We were 20 minutes into Mr Taylors History lecture when Lexi turned
up. She was wearing a short black leather mini skirt with metal safety pins,
black ripped fishnets, black lace up biker boots and a ripped cropped white
t-shirt that showed off her torso and belly button ring. She’d had her nose
pierced a few weeks ago back home and was sporting a large ring through that
too. She’d insisted I have my belly button done at the same time and I’d cursed
her for days it was so painful.

She’d also started hair modelling
for a local salon a few years back and would often turn up to meet me with the
most bizarre looking cuts, with outrageous colours. Today it was long on one
side and shaved on the other, with a spiky fringe with graduated coloured
stripes spiralling around in purple, then blue, then finally in red. No outfit,
piercing, cut or colour however could take away from her face, she really was
stunning with deep emerald green eyes. She was six foot tall, without heels and
straight up and down, no curves at all, unlike me. Even back at Rowleys Lexi
was smoking, drinking and having sex. She was quite simply the coolest person
I’d ever known, yet none of it had rubbed off on me. I’d resisted the rebellion,
it just wasn’t worth the hassle while I lived at home.

 ‘Where are you? Daydreaming
again?’ she asked as she popped a large bubble of pink gum in my direction.

‘I was thinking that as we’re
starting a new chapter in our lives, maybe we need to turn over a new leaf. I
could do with a little bit of your wildness and you could do with a bit of more
of my sensibility and then we’d be just perfect,’ I whispered.

Lexi snorted. ‘Yeah right, although
you were pretty wild on the drinking front last week.’

‘Don’t remind me,’ I groaned. ‘So
much for Uni orientation, I only made it to the parties.’

‘Well I like wasted Mia, you’re so
much fun. We need to do it more often.’

‘Lex, I really can’t afford to
flunk out. I need to study hard, but I’ve also decided that I
do
need to
let my hair down and go a bit crazy now and again.’

‘What nearly getting kicked out of
Rowleys for getting drunk on site and skipping out to play pool in town wasn’t
crazy enough for you Miss Prim and Proper?’

‘Hmmm good times. I’m lucky they
let me stay on to sit my A levels, that went down so well at home. I was put on
detention and kept on site for a month as well if you remember, at bloody 18.
You know who my parents blamed for that?’

‘I get the blame for everything
that you do wrong. Rightly so, as I keep enticing you to the dark side Anakin,
but your folks still adore me,’ she said with a cheeky grin.

‘Sssshhhh.’

I looked around to see a scowling
blonde who shook her head at me and I looked back at Lexi and pulled a face.

‘See Lex, other people have
actually come here to study as well as party. We’re just going to have to
carefully balance both. Are you going to actually make an appearance at home
tonight?’ I whispered.

She grinned back at me, popped her
gum again and saluted. ‘Sir, yes Sir.’

When the lecture was over, we
headed out to the grounds. Students were littered all over the grass, eating
lunch in the sun and the sound of chatter and laughter filled the air. The
lawned area was peppered with trees and it led down to the river, which cut
directly through the middle of the city. We found an empty spot under the shade
of a beautiful weeping willow.

‘So, have you heard from Kai since
we left home?’

‘No,’ I sighed thinking of my ex.
‘He really wasn’t very happy when I told him it was over.’

‘You think? You were together for 3
months Mia, he was so in love with you.’

‘3 months on and off,’ I corrected.
‘And he wasn’t in love with me, he hardly knew me.’

‘Mia, don’t be so naïve. Any guy
that looks at you with those puppy dog eyes and hangs around for 3 months,
without getting any action, is in love. Besides, whose fault is it that he
didn’t get to know you? You never open up, it’s enough to drive anyone to
rage,’ she retorted as she lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring in my
direction.

‘I open up to you don’t I?’

‘Yeah, but I’m your best friend, I
already know you inside out, so nothing’s going to put me off. If you want a
relationship, you need to share and fuck, it’s a whole big deal so I hear,’ she
shrugged.

‘I just didn’t feel that way about
Kai, I really wanted to Lexi, but it just wasn’t happening. Besides I want my
first time to mean something, to be with someone I crave and can’t resist. Look
at my mum, knocked up the first time she had sex, that worked out so well for
everyone. Why would I rush into something that I don’t feel’s right? I don’t
want to end up like her, full of regrets.’

Dad had only married my Mum because
she got pregnant with my older sister Georgie, so her getting knocked up with
me was the last straw in their tempestuous relationship, so he’d walked out. I
didn’t actually meet him until I was 8 and I’d already made up my mind I wasn’t
going to like him, so we clashed from the get-go. I became a bit of a handful at
home and withdrew from any form of socialising, so out of despair Mum and my stepdad
Gerry sent me to Rowleys as a termly boarder. They’d hoped that the school
could make me take heed of an authoritative figure in my life, reign in my
stubborn argumentative side and help me make some friends. Their plan had
moderate success. When Mum realised I’d bonded with Lexi, who was a year round
boarder, she’d hated the thought of her being at school alone during the
holidays, so decided it would do me good to have my best friend with me. So
Lexi became part of my family from that moment on, spending every holiday with
us. I was closer to her than to my own sister.

‘Christ Mia. I know you’re all
kinds of screwed up with father abandonment issues, but if you’re going to plod
along in one short relationship after another, with guys who may as well be a
brother, what’s the point? Why not just get out there and have great sex
without the strings? What have you got to lose, other than your virginity of
course,’ she chuckled.

‘Is sex really all that good?’

‘Hell yeah,’ she grinned. ‘Well 90%
of the time. Dave, the removals guy from the other Friday, was so bloody slow
and monotonous. I lit a fag and smoked it while I read my kindle over his
shoulder.’

‘Only you could shag one of the
removal guys before they’d even finished moving us in,’ I laughed. ‘Didn’t he
even notice that you weren’t enjoying it?’

‘I made the odd noise and moaned “
o
yeah”
now and again. Seriously though, it can be mind blowing, way better
than masturbating or a vibrator. As you won’t let anyone else down there,
please tell me that you at least get yourself off?’

‘Of course I do. I’m not totally
frigid, I’ve got toys. I wouldn’t say mind blowing, but it’s nice,’ I said, my
cheeks burning.

‘Nice?! Jesus. Trust me, sex with
the right guy will
totally
change your mind. Besides you deliberately
set yourself up for failure by honing in on arseholes, then you dump them for
being arseholes. God forbid one of the prats says the love word, you turn into
Usain Bolt and dump them even quicker.’

‘Love, yeah right,’ I sighed. ‘Look
at me, my own bloody father can’t even love me.’

‘At least he’s trying to make an
effort.’

‘What effort? Every time he makes
plans, I get my hopes up and then there’s always some excuse, something’s come
up that’s yet again more important than me. I’m left all upset and then a few
days later the guilt cheque arrives. Rewind and repeat over and over, I can’t
keep doing this dance with him Lexi. It’d just be easier to cut him out of my
life for good. So yes, maybe I pick guys I know I have no long term future
with, at least I get some company. That way I’m safe in the knowledge that
there’ll never be any deep emotional attachment on my part. It’s just easier
that way, it’s no wrench when I decide to leave.
I’m
the one in control
not the other way round, that’s how I like it.’ There was a heavy silence and I
glanced up at her and she just gave me a look. ‘Damn it Lexi. We were having a
great morning and now you’ve made me talk about it and I hate talking about it.
I wish I could be more like you and not give a shit.’

‘Mia we’re not so different. You
have short term relationships without the sex, I have sex without the
relationships.’