Queen of Spades (House of Car...

That first night in Mexico was a night to remember. Too bad half the student body got so falling down drunk on the all inclusive bar that they wouldn't remember it to save their lives. Alice and her friends were lucky to be the first shuttle over, they managed to get a ride in a cart to their huts. After the rest started to show up though, the five carts were always full of bags and bodies frantically trying to get everything settled. The three chaperones had given them all a major speech before letting the hoard loose though. Yes they were legal here to drink, parents having signed permission or the 18 year olds signing their own forms with a smirk, but they would not tolerate inappropriate behaviour. Any student that is caught fraternizing, inappropriately intoxicated or using illegal substances would be immediately sent home. Then they were each given a map of the complex and told to go explore their rooms.

Alice swallowed her grin when Kim told Mr. Vega to follow them, his hut was attached to theirs. The sparkle in Malcolm's eyes let Alice know that he was very much aware that her room connected to his and it wasn't just a happy coincidence. "I'm just going to go put my stuff away guys, I'll meet up with you back at the lounge?" Ace asked her friends, all of whom were gathering at Justine and Theresa's hut. Butch and West were hutmates and Sammy and Kim were hutmates, but Alice had no clue whom she was sharing a suite with or how to take advantage of that door to Malcolm's room once she moved her bags in. As a chaperone Malcolm had the massive hut to himself.

As soon as the coast was clear of her friends, she tore the door connecting her suite to his open, but another door stood just on the other side. So both rooms had to open up to connect through. She knocked at the door hesitantly, not sure if he knew she was waiting for him. The door opened and he grabbed her wrist and pulled her through into his room. Details she'd never noticed in her own hut were more obvious in his. There was a towel on the bedspread shaped like a ghost with stickers as eyes. And flower petals laid out across the pillows. And there was only Malcolm's lips as he pushed her against the wall and kissed her like they'd been apart for weeks and not seperated by people for a few hours. He broke from their kiss only to reach through and close the door on her side, then was back to holding her against the wall and scrambling her brains with his lips. They broke apart when they heart the door to Alice's hut close and realized her hutmate must have come in. Malcolm closed the seperating door on his side as well, in case whomever was housing with Alice for the week was a curious person.

"I should go meet up with my friends." Alice whispered into Malcolm's ear, reminding him that htey agreed to try and not be too obvious these next few days.

"Yeah." he agreed but kissed her again.  His fingertips were ticklish through the lace of her tank top and she tried not to squirm at his innocent grasp. They both gasped and paused when they heard the lacy fabric of her tank top rip as it caught on a corner of stucco, the walls were rouch with it. "Well I guess that shirt's just going to have to come off now." Malcolm said with a smirk and tore the tank top the rest of the way with a satisfying sounds of brutalized fabric. Alice flushed a little red, not at all bothered by the loss of her tank top as she pulled at the loose shirt Mal was wearing to get it out of the way. Things were progressing on their way to a very hot and heavy make out session when there was a knock at Malcolm's door. Alice swallowed her startled squeak and grabbed her scattered clothes, hiding behind the bed. Malcolm pulled on his shirt and pants, barefeet slapping against the tile floors.

"Hello Kim, what can I do to help you?" He asked calmly. Alice, lying nearly naked on the floor, hidden by the bed had to fight hte irrational urge to giggle.

"Hi Mr. V, I'm sorry to bug you but have you seen Alice? She said she'd meet us but that was almost an hour ago..." she trailed off and Alice felt guilty. She'd been making out and... other things with Malcolm and forgotten all about her friends. So now they were worried about her.

"I think she may be the first one of you guys to get lost in this place. I'm pretty sure I saw her wander towards the beach, but I'm not 100% Sorry Ms. Holmes." Malcolm lied smoothly.

"Ok, I'll go check for her. Thanks Mr. V!" Kim waved goodbye brightly and Mal closed the door.

Alice popped her head back up from behind the bed to see Malcolm leaning against his own door, chuckling softly. "Too close." he said, looking up at her, his eyes dancing with lust and good humour. She stood up from behind the bed, torn tank top in her hands, peasant skirt set onto the bed. Her bra was part way back on and she turned her back to him.

"Hook me up?" She asked, figuring to get a move on since they'd already almost been caught and had only been here for two hours now. Malcolm's heat radiated into her back so she knew he was close.

"Now why would I want to do that?" he asked, lips brushing her shoulder as his hands crept around to pull the offending garment away.

"Mal we really..." Alice tried to object but he shut her up with a kiss. They were more conscious of the time, but it was still another thiry minutes until Alice got to sneak out of his hut in her torn tank top and make a mad dash around to the stairs of her own hut to dive inside.

Whomever she was rooming with was a heavy packer. There was a massive luggage set at the foot of one bed, Alice's own small luggage already set on her side. She dove into the pack and switched out her clothes for a bathing suit, remembering the lie told to Kim. She yanked on the suit and pulled her skirt back on over it, loosing the running shoes in favour of flip flops. Then she was back outside and running down the stairs only to physically run into Butch.

With a thud of unprepared bodies smacking into each other at the base of a flight of wood stairs, Alice and Butch both took a moment to recover. "You're not dead." Butch stated calmly.

"And you're not fluffy." Alice replied, not understanding his comment. Butch grunted and helped pull her to her feet.

"Kim was worried you'd gone off and disappeared." Butch stated simply.

"I'm sorry. I realized I'd never been in the ocean before so I ran out to the beach. I only planned to go for a quick swim, but that tide sure pulls you up the beach." Alice lied quickly. Butch just nodded like this made complete sense. He walked with her back towards the lounge area where her friends had gathered. Students were surrepitiously getting cocktails at the bar while the three chaperones kept a weather eye on the lot of them. She saw Malcolm go a little pale and gulp when he spotted her walk in and smirked.

Alice had bought a black one piece bathing suit that was a few scraps of fabric away from being a string bikini. It was a dark purple colour, rich against her skin tone and the bottom was low enough that it showed off her hip bones and almost all of her tattoo. The only reason she wasn't rocking the plummer crack was the aformentioned scraps of fabric. One connected the bottom of the suit to the top in the back, the other copied a thin line up the front. Alice had kept her skirt low with the swimsuit and now the bottom of it brushed the floor as she walked. She knew it had to look startling, all that skin and ink exposed after she'd spent the last few months hiding it away. But Ace had never looked at her tattoos as ugly, even though they covered up scars. It was just how she'd gotten used to looking by now. Unfortunately a lot of her male classmates seemed to suddenly realize that she wasn't hard on the eyes and they started to drift over to try and talk to her. She actually curled her lip at one of the mouth-breathing jock-letes that was panting after her until West casually walked over and slung his arm over her shoulders.

Since the student body hadn't figured out if West and Alice were together or just best friends, West's intervention gave her some space, but not if these guys could try and get her alone from the looks of it. "Remind me how your gender has survived this stage of its evolution to reach maturity?" Alice asked her friend, a little amazed at how corny, stupid, insulting and downright LAME some of hte pick up lines were.

"A few handsome devils like myself keep the hope alive." West chuckled back.

"You got that description half right. But you're too cute to be the devil." Alice teased, giving West a friendly kiss on the cheek to confuse the male students. Maddison had already gotten used to seeing Alice and West manhandle each other in dance class, and Malcolm was now well aware that West and Ace were planning to flirt outrageously this entire week so no one would think either student was actually sleeping with a teacher.

West's hands dropped off her back and suddenly swatted her bottom. She shot her elbow back into his ribcage and ignored the male laughter from West's friends. "There is a limit to my tolerance West." Alice said through her teeth, smiling as if they were joking around right now.

"I know, I just want to see if I can make the vein in Reaper's forehead throb." West replied with a wink.

"Just remember that Reaper isn't the only one watching this." Alice reminded, catching a glimpse of Maddison looking a little sad. West swore as he realized that his girlfriend was feeling jealous and out of place. "I've already had a turn. Grab her and go disappear." Alice whispered to him and he gave her an innocent peck on the lips as a thank you and melted away.

Unsurprisingly about five seconds later she was surrounded by her girlfriends, all demanding to know if West was her boyfriend, and if so if he was DJ Mask. All the while she saw Malcolm trying not to scowl, obviously pissed off at West for kissing Alice even chastely. Alice managed to deflect the questions without answering a single one of them, reminding them that West had a girl he called Angel and did she make anyone think of an angel? Not likely.

There is a native drink to Mexico that makes tequila look tame. It is called Mexcal and it is tequila's bigger, meaner brother. Tastes better than tequila, goes down much smoother than it's more popular little brother and packs a more impressive whallop. Alice had four shots and stopped, knowing by the tingling feeling all over that more would invite trouble. And a hangover. So she stood with her friends and sipped at a coke, telling everyone it was a rum and coke so they'd leave her alone about it and they all stupidly did shot after shot. Mr. Bottomswell reminded the still mostly sober group to take it easy, because the days were gonig to be full here and no one wanted to get sent home. Then he left for bed, it being around 11 o'clock, but since Ace was a little confused on the timezone differences she wasn't sure if that was her home time or here time. Either way his exit prompted higher levels of debauchery from her classmates. And then someone realized there was an in resort club with it's own bar, pool table and a DJ. The students as a herd headed over, no one wanting to be left behind.

Alice lingered behind her friends, telling them that she was headed to bed, when in reality she'd seen Malcolm point at the beach symbol on the map and vanish. Once the witnessing eyes were gone, Alice scrambled out to the beach, finding it surprisingly hard to find someone under all the shadows cast by the palm trees and lounge umbrellas on the beach. A hand reached out of one dark corner and snatched her wrist, pulling Alice into the darkness. Like so long ago, she reacted without thinking and decked Malcolm across the face.

"Oh my god I am so sorry!" she exclaimed softly, not wanting to drag any attention to where he had her puleld across his lap. Malcolm was holding his nose and Ace was worrying she'd broken it.

"It's ok, not even bleeding. Just forgot how hard your fists are." Malcolm's voice was muffled, but then he dropped his hands. Malcolm had been sitting on a lounge chair, blocked from the resort view by a massive umbrella. He grabbed Alice and resettled her so she was facing him, straddling his legs.

"I thought we were supposed to be avoiding this kind of thing in a public place?" Alice asked, eyebrow arched.

"I'm yours." Malcolm stated instead of answering. Alice flushed and blinked, a little confused as to why he was saying this right now. His hands came up, one cupping her cheek, the other sliding back into her hair. "You're mine." he breathed against her lips, and she started to understand. The stunningly goregous man holding her was still jealous over West. Even knowing that peck had meant nothing, seeing it had made Mal jealous and possessive.

The knowledge made her feel giddy and bold. Without thinking about how it sounded, she blurted out, "Maybe you should do something about it then."

His lips crashed against hers and his arms tightened around her, pulling her to his chest. They kissed hard and passionately for a moment, then pulled apart, both aware they were still far too exposed for this kind of thing. Alice smiled at her boyfriend and climbed off of his lap. He held her hand, not letting her walk away just yet.

"Maybe I should." he said softly, then let her walk away as the sounds of other students approached. Alice wandered, a little dazed, back to her room, wondering what he'd meant by that last statement. She only realized who she was sharing a room with as they stared at each other. Then Alice started to laugh as Lexi cursed at her.