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

was walking around in a bubble of his

I'm in love.

in love

I see he's down. He 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 me, my name a whisper on his lips. And in turn, he asks me a million questions about my time in the monastery, growing visibly troubled when I recount the lonely years I spent within those walls. I can see that he would go back in time

and somehow that helps. Makes me feel so much less

time. Or it will,

I walk out of the bedroom to find Gage going

lips. "You and me go straight to bed after the test, Stella.

down to my womanhood, muscles

juncture of my thighs. "You want it, too. Climbing all over me in your sleep. I came this close, honey, to railing you up and down

right. In my sleep, I slung a leg across his hips and rode him through

we've been denying ourselves since the cove.

of me. So..." He blows out a shaky breath, then puts his attention back on the textbook. "So I'm not just going to pass, m going to get an A. And then I'm going to win the championship, just so

for me. He'd be proud, too.

if you didn't come into my life, so I'm doing it all for you, Stella." He cradles my face in his hands, the gentle