24. Chapter 24

I took some of the rated M stuff out, so it's less explicit, but the M scene is very much still there. I feel it's a PG-15 rating. I myself don't believe in pre-marital sex as I am a Christian - and even if I wasn't, I wouldn't participate in it because I wouldn't feel secure in being intimate without the commitment of marriage, but this is a work of fiction, so . . . there is pre-marital (almost) sex here.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Steve and Jessica met in the school parking lot Monday morning. That was what they normally did, so there was nothing unusual about that, and the first half of the day passed by without a problem.

At lunch, they sat with Nancy and Jonathan. Jonathan usually didn't even eat in the lunch room; he usually spent his lunch period outside or in the dark room developing pictures. That day, though, he seemed okay to sit with them. He mostly seemed to want to see how Jessica was.

"I'm okay." She sent Jonathan a small smile. "I never got to thank you for watching out for me. So, thank you."

As usual when someone was being nice to him, he didn't know what to do with it.

"I'm glad I could help. You didn't deserve that. I mean, no one deserves that, but –"

"I know what you mean."

She felt Steve's hand on her leg then, right above her knee, and she turned to look at him. The look he was giving her was a soft, adoring one, and she couldn't help the bright smile that took over her face or the heat the filled her cheeks.

The drive the night before had helped her a lot. Once they'd talked about school and what everyone was saying, she'd been able to relax a little. They'd even sang along to the radio for a bit, not even trying to hit the notes right. It had been fun; it had been what she needed.

She leaned over to kiss him quickly on the lips before going back to eating what the school called pizza.

After lunch, she and Steve had gym. He walked her to the door of the girl's locker room, as he usually did. She went in, changed quickly, and felt her heart almost stop when she saw that the gym floor was basically covered in mats. She knew what that meant. They were starting gymnastics.

They still had to run the track for the first half of class, which sucked, but she decided she'd rather run than try to do flips and fail. Didn't the coach know that some people just weren't coordinated enough for this stuff? Someone could get hurt – someone, meaning her.

Sadly, gymnastics was a requirement; she at least had to try.

She did two laps around the track with Steve before they headed back inside. The first thing the coach said was that they were going to be working on handstands, so everyone needed to tuck their shirts into their shorts – especially the girls. Nobody needed a show.

Jessica groaned. "I'm gonna break my neck. Steve, you're holding my legs."

Steve grinned. "I wonder if coach knows he's helping people practice for keg stands."

"No, he's not!" Then she thought about it, and realized he was right. Steve did handstands all the time when he was drinking. "Hey, you think if I bring that up, he won't make us do it?"

"Hey, it's an easy A. I'll spot you, so you don't fall, and everything will be okay."

Jessica huffed in semi-annoyance. "Fine. But, also, we just had lunch. This can't be good for the digestion."

Really, she would say anything to get out of gym class or anything dealing with gym that involved more than walking.

After everyone had more or less mastered the art of staying up on their own – even Jessica did once she got her balance – the coach decided it was time to try cartwheels. It pleased Jessica to know that she wasn't the only one who didn't seem to be able to do it at all the first time. Many people fell or weren't able to land properly.

Jessica didn't know the point of doing gymnastics unless one was planning on becoming a gymnast, but since it was required, she had to do it.

Finally, gym was over and she was able to go back to the girl's room and change. She hadn't really worked up a sweat at all because it was still pretty cool outside and the gymnastics hadn't been a work out either aside from learning to keep her balance.

And that was when her day turned from slightly annoying to bad. She didn't have her next class with Steve, so she never really waited for him because she knew he usually took a shower after gym – just a quick one to rinse off the sweat from his body, because he did usually sweat during gym - and that day had been no different.

That was when she'd basically run into the guys that had been at the bowling alley – Jason and the ones who had been with him. She'd seen him around that day, of course, because they went to the same school, walked the same halls, but she'd been able to avoid direct contact until then.

But there he was, standing there in front of a group of lockers. She didn't know if one of them was his or not, and she didn't really care, but she didn't want to walk past him at all. She was sorely tempted just to go into the nearest classroom and wait for him to leave even if it meant she would be late. If she could avoid letting him see her, it would be worth it.

But then the best and worst thing happened. He looked her way, and when he did, he had such a smug look on his face that her fear was suddenly replaced with anger. She no longer wanted to run and hide. She wanted to slap his stupid face. She didn't think she'd ever been so angry. She couldn't believe she'd wasted time crying over him.

She actually marched right up to him and said, "You're disgusting, you know that? You knew you'd never stand a chance with me, so you drugged me."

"Hm. Good luck proving it." Jason brought his hand to her neck then, braiding his fingers through her hair, much like he had the night he'd drugged her. "You're making a scene, Henderson. What will people say now?"

"Don't touch me!"

She shoved him away, hard, and because he wasn't expecting it his back hit the lockers. She felt his hand tug at her hair as he was pushed and it made her hiss in surprise. She hadn't been expecting it.

"Hey, you came to me, so don't act like that wasn't what you wanted."

And that was when she slapped him. She had never hit a person before, but she had put the full force of her body into it, and his head snapped to the side. His skin was already turning red and she felt an insane need to grin. Steve had been right. She'd faced a monster before, and Jason? Jason was just a stupid jock.

"That was what I wanted."

At some point, people had gathered around to watch what was going on even though the bell was about to ring. She didn't know what people would take away from what had happened, but she knew they would know that she didn't welcome Jason's advances in any way.

She'd dropped her bag – she didn't know when – but it didn't matter because one of the people who had gathered around was Steve, and he'd picked it up. He handed it to her silently and they made their way through the crowd. Steve took her hand and she let him lead her away from everyone else. She was being stared at – probably because the Golden Girl had finally lost her temper; no one had ever seen her react like that to anything. She'd never really had a reason to act like that before.

Steve led her to a boy's bathroom and then checked to see if it was clear before letting her in.

"Uh –"

He locked the door and then turned to her.

"Feel better?"

"What?"

"Jason . . . I don't think he knew what hit him."

"Right. He just . . . he looked at me wrong and it made me angry. It was like he knows he's gonna get away with it, and I couldn't let him. How much did you see?"

"Enough to know he touched you without you wanting him to. I thought I was gonna have to do something, but, uh, you took care of it."

"I did, didn't I?" She grinned. "I remembered what you said about him being a stupid jock, the rest was easy."

Steve pulled her to him and she laughed when she hit his chest.

"That's my girl."

The rest of the week went by uneventfully. She didn't have any more run-ins with Jason, though everyone was talking about it, and he did show up on Tuesday more messed up than when he'd left on Monday. He had bruises on his face, and he walked with a limp. Steve swore he didn't know anything about it, which was technically true, because he hadn't been a part of it. He was fairly certain, though, that it had something to do with the members of the basketball team.

He never would've used his whole team to go after one guy, but he wasn't going to complain about it. Sure, Jessica had laid into Jason pretty well on her own, but at least now Jason would know that she had other people looking out for her as well.

Things quickly got back to what they considered normal, and Jessica's birthday arrived. Everyone that Jessica wanted there had already been invited, and Steve was taking care of everything. He was going to provide pizza and snacks, while Jessica's mom was bringing the cake and ice cream.

The party was going to happen at noon and last a few hours – Steve knew that would be about as much socializing as Jessica would want – and then Steve was going to have her for the rest of the day.

Their friends from school arrived first and then the kids arrived. Mike came with Nancy; Will came with Jonathan; Lucas was dropped off by his mom. Dustin came with Jessica and their mom, obviously. Hopper even stopped by for a few minutes, just to check in and to steal a piece of cake, which Jessica found hilarious, so she teased him about it.

Steve played some of Jessica's favorite music, which was fine with everyone – even the kids, and even Jonathan, to a certain extent – and everyone danced for a while. Jonathan and Will tried to get out of it, but Jessica wasn't having it.

"Oh, come on, I'm taking pictures," Jonathan said. "I can't take pictures and dance at the same time."

"Hm." She turned to Will then, who gave her a wide-eyed look. He seemed terrified. "Dance with me?"

"Um –"

"Come on," Dustin suddenly chimed in. "It's fun!"

It was true; Mike, Dustin, and Lucas were already dancing. Will was just shy, and there were a lot of people that he didn't know there.

Jessica grabbed Will's hand but didn't force him to come with her. She just gestured to a semi-open space in the kitchen where they could all dance together, she and the boys. It only took a few minutes for Will to loosen up with his friends around him. Jessica was just glad she was able to do this with them. And of course, Jonathan was off to the side taking pictures. Nancy was standing with him, smiling and sometimes laughing at them dancing.

When a slower song came on, however, the kids sat it out, and Steve stepped in. She wrapped her arms around him and he rested his hands on her waist. They just swayed back and forth, every now and then looking at each other, and she couldn't keep from smiling. She always felt so good in his arms; sometimes she wished they could just stay that way, close and in their own little world.

Pretty soon the pizza arrived and everyone settled down to eat – some in the living room, some in the kitchen, some on the stairs. There was a little bit of talking going on now and the volume of the music had been lowered so no one had to yell to be heard. The kids stayed together while they ate. Steve and Jessica sat with her mom, since she was really the only adult there. She was really just waiting for Jessica to open her presents, and then she was going to head out.

So after everyone was done eating, Jessica decided to put her mom out of her misery and go ahead and open her presents. Her mom treated birthdays the same way she treated Christmas. Jessica received a few things from her, one being somewhat expensive while the others were less so.

"Open ours first," Dustin said. "We all got together and pitched in. The guys, and Nancy, and Jonathan."

Jessica was given a badly wrapped square thing, which Dustin shrugged at, and began taking the paper off of it. It was a white canvas with her name written there in blue block letters. Around her name words were written, also in blue. They made her tear up.

"Dustin?"

"We just . . . I asked them to come up with what they thought about when they think of you."

The words read: loving, sister, funny, kind, never alone, best friend, happy, always there, smart.

"Guys, seriously, you're gonna make me cry!"

She did cry a little, because the four guys gathered around her and engulfed her in a group hug. Their gift was actually really sweet and thoughtful, and for Dustin to have come up with it meant a lot to her.

Once she was able to get to her next gift, she found out it was the one her mother had spent the most on. It was a silver charm bracelet, the charms circular and rectangular. Right in the middle was a silver plate that had her name engraved onto it. It was really beautiful. It was shiny.

She grinned and hugged her mom, then let Steve help her put the bracelet on her wrist. The charms kind of jingled against each other when she shook her hand, so she did it a few times just to hear it.

The next present she was handed was wrapped neatly into a square. She could tell it was some kind of clothing by how soft it was.

"This is from us," Chris said, gesturing to the rest of his friends from the basketball team. About four of them had come with him; they were all guys that Jessica had never had a problem with and had even hung out with on occasion when she'd gone to parties.

She was curious as to what type of clothing they would've gotten her, so she quickly ripped the paper off. It was a Hawkins High School Athlete sweatshirt. It was dark green with white letters.

"Um . . ."

"Turn it over," Steve said, and she looked up at him. He was grinning so he had to already know what it said.

She turned it over. At the top where a person's last name should be was her last name, HENDERSON, and below it was the number eighteen.

"Does this mean I'm an honorary member of your team?" she teased.

"Well, yeah. You kind of have been ever since you started dating Steve," Chris said.

Today was just a day for tears, she guessed, because she felt like crying again. They were good tears, though, so she guessed she didn't mind.

She thanked the team and hugged each of them, Chris the longest because she knew him the best.

She continued opening presents – she got a few things of make-up that she would actually use, a couple of band T-shirts, things like that – and Steve's present was the only one she had left. He wanted her to open it later once everyone left. It made her wonder what it was.

Once Jessica's mom left Steve turned the music up again. People took the cue to start dancing again.

Jessica was standing off to the side with Nancy and Jonathan, so that was where Steve went.

"Are we having fun?" he asked the group as a whole.

Jessica nodded. "It's been good."

She grabbed his hand and leaned against him, putting her head on his shoulder briefly. Of course, Jonathan snapped a picture.

"You always do that when I'm not ready," Jessica complained.

"And they always turn out great."

"He's not wrong," Steve said.

The party lasted about another hour and then people started trickling out. Steve saw everyone out because he was a good host, and eventually the only people left were the kids and their siblings. Nancy and Mike left first, but Jonathan and Will followed not long after. Dustin went with them so they could drop him off. Lucas was last to leave.

As soon as everyone was gone Jessica pretty much collapsed into Steve and they settled on the couch. Music was still playing softly in the background, but it was more soothing than anything else.

"You okay?"

"Mm. I'm good. I had fun even if I did cry twice."

Steve held her tighter as she buried her face in his neck. He had to hold back a laugh as she began nuzzling against him; it was so soft, it tickled. She noticed and looked up at him, a soft smile on her face.

"I liked the party, but we didn't get to do much of this," she said.

She leaned up and kissed him. It was true; there had been too much going on for them to really have been able to enjoy their time together as a couple, aside from their dance. It wasn't a bad thing. There had just been other things they'd been doing. But now they were alone, so they could just enjoy being close.

Steve maneuvered them so he could have easy access to her neck because he knew she loved when he paid special attention to the skin there. Her hands found their way to his hair, and he continued kissing up and down her throat as far as he could go, considering her shirt got in the way once he reached a certain point.

She eventually guided his lips back to hers, and he felt when she pulled him with her as she leaned back on the cushions. They usually ended up in a horizontal position when they kissed now, and they usually had to stop before things heated up too much because they were normally only together like that at her house where her mom or Dustin could interrupt at any point, but no one was there with them now.

Her legs were spread for him and he was comfortably seated between them, just content to be so close to her and that she seemed comfortable with it as well. Her hands fell to his back, near the bottom of his shirt. She slid them slightly underneath the material, and her nails scratched softly against his skin. His hips jerked forward, meeting hers briefly, and she froze beneath him.

She removed her hands from beneath his shirt and turned her head from him, just enough to break the kiss, and he noticed she was flushed and breathless, her lips a little swollen and pinker than normal.

"Was that not okay?" she asked.

"What?"

His own voice was husky and rough. The thing was that something like that, her scratching his back, would have always felt good to him, but he'd literally been without sex for three months, which shouldn't have been a big deal, really, but he hadn't gone without it for so long since he'd had sex the first time, and so it felt really good now. Normally, a touch like that would've felt nice, sure, but it wouldn't have sent a serious amount of desire through his body.

"I'm not – we've never . . . underneath our clothes."

Watching her stumble over her words like that had his love for her mixing with his desire, and he was reminded that this was all new to her. They hadn't done more than mostly innocent petting over clothes, and it made sense for her to not know what was good and what might not be.

"No, that was good. So good."

"Okay. Good." She seemed relieved; it was endearing. "Kiss me again."

Since he'd established that it was okay for her to touch him, to really touch his skin, she didn't hesitate to put her hands back underneath his shirt and continue to scratch and caress. It drove him a little insane.

She allowed him to touch her also, her stomach and her sides, and he grinned against her skin as her breath stuttered the closer he got to her breasts. He stopped there, though, his fingers at her ribs, before looking up at her to see if it was okay to go on.

Her eyes were closed, but she opened them soon enough once she realized that he was obviously looking for permission.

"Jess?"

"It's so okay." She squirmed beneath them. "Please."

Steve ever so lightly brushed his thumbs across the underside of her breasts. She still had her bra on, but she still responded by letting out a small gasp and arching against his hands.

"Steve!"

Until then, they'd both sort of had their lower bodies under control – Steve had deliberately not moved against her much – but now with her sort of rolling her hips there was no way he couldn't respond, and there was no way she wouldn't feel it. He fit against her so well, and she seemed to know it because she wrapped her legs around his waist and just held him there tight against her for a minute as he went back to kissing her lips and kneading her breasts.

He became aware then that Jessica was trembling beneath him and he knew he needed to check in again, so he pulled away from their kiss and placed his hands back at her sides. He squeezed gently, hoping to comfort her.

"Jess?"

Her eyes were wet. She was . . . crying – she was not supposed to be crying. What had he done wrong? She was still moving against him, though, so he gripped her firmly to keep her still.

"Don't. I want – I want so much," she said. "We can't, but I want –"

And he understood then. Her body was experiencing pleasure for the first time and she was reaching for something she'd never had before. It was overwhelming her. He knew how to give her what she wanted if she'd let him, so that's what he offered.

"Please, I'm – please!"

Steve let go of her hips so he could reach the front of her jeans. Even though she'd already said yes, he still hesitated before undoing them.

"You still with me?"

"Yes."

"A'right, I got you."

He was able to touch her well enough through her panties and she didn't ask him for anything else. She just moved against his hand. And Steve? Steve was just mesmerized by the way her body moved and the way her face had been overtaken with pleasure. It took him by surprise when she finally reached her peak because she basically just grabbed his wrist and held him there firmly against her. It was probably the hottest thing he'd ever seen.

She let out a soft cry as she basically collapsed back against the couch. She was still trembling, but her eyes were no longer wet. She actually seemed quite peaceful. He had given her that; she had allowed him to give her that.

He gently pulled his wrist away, grabbed her hand, and softly lowered himself back onto her just so she could feel he was there. She looked at him then, a soft and sleepy smile on her face, and kissed him.

"Was that – was that what you wanted to give me?" She grinned. "Because that was great."

"What?"

"Earlier you said you wanted to give me my gift after everyone left."

"Oh! No, that – that's not – I didn't plan for that to happen."

"Oh." She was still breathless. She moved against him then and Steve couldn't help but grunt. "You didn't –" She sat up a little and reached a hand down, only to stop at the button of his jeans. "Can I?"

Steve was going to faint. He'd put his own pleasure on the backburner so he could help Jess with hers, but now it was coming back fully.

"I, uh – yeah!"

He had been going to give her an out if she had wanted one, he probably should have, but he knew she wouldn't have offered if she hadn't wanted to anyway.

"Scooch up," she said, pushing against him a little, and he sat backwards so he landed on his bottom and she was now straddling his legs.

Maybe he had died and gone to heaven.

Jessica had his jeans done in record time and had pushed her way into them and felt him against his shorts. She watched as Steve's head fell back and his neck stretched prettily. She latched her mouth onto it and couldn't help but smile when he let out a long groan. Apparently, he was going to be vocal. She couldn't say she hated it.

She ended up bringing her hand back out only to push at the fabric of his jeans to get Steve's attention.

"Can I?"

He lifted his hips up and she brought his jeans and shorts down.

"Steve? I'm – I want –" She looked at him, and saw that he was looking at her now too. "Help me make you feel good?"

She knew what to do theoretically, but what if she did it wrong? What did Steve like? Did he like it fast or slow? How tight did he want to be held?

"Jess, there's literally nothing you can do right now that I won't like," he said.

His face was flushed a pretty pink. She didn't think she'd ever seen Steve flushed before, not even from exercise, and she kind of wanted to keep him that way.

"Okay, but tell me if I do something wrong."

She started a very cautious rhythm, but when Steve didn't say anything against it she grew more confident. She started caressing his stomach and chest, too, as he began moving his hips to the movements of her hand. It was kind of hot, and it made her stomach feel funny, kind of like it had when she'd been moving with him earlier.

"You look so good like this," she said. His hair had become messed up at some point and it did it for her for some reason.

She continued until Steve finished, tensing beneath her, shaking a bit. By the time he was done, he had ruined his shirt.

He was panting heavily even as he pulled her face towards him so he could kiss her. It was the sloppiest kiss they'd ever shared.

"Are you okay?" she asked, amused.

She'd never seen him so out of breath or out of sorts. She'd never seen his body so limp before either, like there was no stress there at all. She completely got it, though, because she'd felt that way too.

"I'm perfect. You're perfect."

She laughed as warmth spread through her. This had ended up being her best birthday ever.

Steve had planned on taking Jessica to the skating place they had gone for their first date, but that was out now. They were both tired from their recent exertion. They were just going to hang out at his house until it was time to take her home. They watched Grease because it was one of her favorites, and then he was able to give her his present for her.

This was also a purely-by-chance gift. He'd been going past a store window and had happened to be looking at it, and it had reminded him of Jessica and something they had done together, so he'd bought it. He knew she would like it, he just hoped she got why he'd gotten it, why it had reminded him of her.

It was in a long blue box, and when she opened it, he could tell she knew why he'd bought it. In the box was a silver chain with a snowflake pendant on it. In the middle of the snowflake was a blue gem.

"Our snow fight," she said. "You guys cheated."

"Did not," he said.

He was glad it was something they could laugh about.

She held the chain up so she could examine the snowflake.

"It's so pretty." She held it out to him. "Put it on me?"

Once it was secured around her neck, she settled back against him on the couch – the couch that Steve would never be able to look at the same way again.

"You know, we should do Grease for Halloween."

"What?"

"Grease. You can pull off the Danny haircut. I mean, you basically had it down last year. And I can pull off a Sandy outfit. I think. As long as no one cares that I won't be blond."

Steve couldn't even remember the last time Jessica had dressed up for Halloween. She usually stayed home and gave out candy.

"I mean, if you want to, I think I could do it."

"Good."