Climb on My Stepfather (Ashley and Alex) novel Chapter 80

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.

Gage also makes good on his vow to douse me in his cologne and make me walk around campus wearing his jacket. Truth be told, I hated it at first.

Everyone stared and whispered as I passed, speculating about me, our relationship. But after a while, I started to feel untouchable. As if I was walking around in a bubble of his protection. I loved having the smell of him available to me all day, when he couldn't be right next to me.

I'm in love.

I'm deeply, wildly in love with this man.

He’s still in pain over the loss of his father and he lets me soothe him when 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 rescue me, if possible, and somehow that helps. Makes me feel so much less alone now that it makes up for lost time. Or it will, as our years pass together.

On the morning of the test, I wake up alone in bed. I walk out of the bedroom to find Gage going over the study outline, his mouth moving as he reads.

When 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 to have it all day and night.”