Climb on My Stepfather (Ashley and Alex)

12: Stella.

The next day and a haif are blissfully...intense.

After our study session at the cove, Gage drove us home. We ordered takeout from the Chinese restaurant down the street from the apartment and we studied some more. This time, there was no kissing agreement, as much as I would have loved one, because I meant what I said. He's going to pass the test and play in the championship. The more that becomes a reality, the more I can see he yearns to be out on the field. He was born for it.

Several times throughout that night together, we woke up straining against each other, his fingers in my panties, his hips restless against my thigh. In his half- asleep delirium, he proposed to me no less than a dozen times, his tongue moving feverishly in my mouth, on my breasts. It's a miracle I made it through the night with my virginity intact, but I did. And the next night, too, though my boyfriend has started prowling around me like a wolf stalking a lamb.

He backs me into corners and fists my clothing. He sweats and curses.

He gets down on his knees and licks at my backside through my clothes.

He holds me down and asks me questions about my life before him. What I like to eat and drink. My favorite movies and music and holidays. He interrogates me about my dreams, my hopes, my secrets. Where and how my body reacts when he kisses me certain ways.

He peels off his shirt at the oddest times to tempt me.

I stand firm, though, repeatedly pointing at the textbook and our new, joint notes.

makes good on his vow to douse me in his cologne and make me walk around campus

walking around in a bubble of his

I'm in love.

wildly in love with

lets me take his head into my chest and stroke his hair, his huge, athlete's body curling around mine, pulling me tight and choking the air out of

and somehow that helps. Makes me feel so much less

time. Or it will, as our years pass

bed. I walk out of the bedroom

he glances up and sees me in the doorway wearing one of his old game jerseys, his eyes darken to black and he wets his lips. "You and me go straight to bed after the test, Stella. Don't even think about disappearing somewhere." He quickly swipes perspiration from his brow. "I'm going to have my reward. I'm going

my womanhood, muscles seizing. "I

me in your sleep. I came this close, honey, to railing

In my sleep, I slung a leg across his

denying ourselves since the cove. "But you wanted to

live to make you proud of me. So..." He blows out a shaky breath, then puts his attention back on the textbook. "So I'm

not just for me. He'd be proud, too. And you can be proud of

in his hand and stands, coming toward me, intense as ever. "I know. And I am. But I never would have considered any of that if you didn't come into my life, so I'm doing it all for you, Stella." He cradles my face in his hands,