Stella had never seriously imagined exactly what kissing Raphael would be like, she had always managed to stop her daydreams before they had gotten very far but if she had let her imagination run away with her she surely wouldn't have come even close to the real thing. Gone was the rough, tough guy persona that Raphael always liked to put on and rather than being replaced by the closet snuggler she had always known a new, passionate persona had popped up taking her by surprise.

As his lips continued their assault upon her own, something about the roughness of his skin sent delicious chills racing down her spine and she couldn't stop the small groan that escaped her. That small noise seemed to ignite something within Raphael. As soon as he heard it he increased his assault on Stella's lips and she was surprised to find herself responding with just as much fervor, if not more. Finally, they hit a peak and were forced to break apart in order to catch their breaths.

"I'm gonna take it that the idea of this," he motioned between them, "doesn' freak ya out," Raphael panted while wearing a self-satisfied smirk but behind it she could make out an underlying feeling of uncertainty.

"Not if it doesn't freak you out," she replied. "I mean you've thought of me as your sister for a long time."

He laughed. "Stel, I ain't thought a you as my sista' since we was ten. I mean not that I thought a you like this when I was ten or nothin' but the way I've felt about ya has always been different from anybody else. Ya know?"

"I know," she assured him. "Mikey, Leo, and Donnie I've always thought of as my brothers but you've always been something different, something more."

"An' me bein' a big mutated turtle?"

"I could ask you the same thing about me being human."

"True." They lapsed into silence for a moment. "So that was one hell of a kiss wan' it?" He grinned devilishly down at her.

As much as Stella normally would love to wipe that particular look off of his face, she didn't have it in her to be completely evil. "Well it wasn't the worst kiss I've ever had," she replied with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. She may not be completely evil but she certainly wasn't going to allow Raphael's ego to ride shotgun and make him completely unbearable to live with.

Immediately, the smirk slid off of the large turtle's face and he actually appeared shocked. "Not the- are you kidding me woman?" He demanded, obviously offended. "Not the worst? That was some movie quality kissin' and all you have to say is 'it wasn' the worst'?" He eyed her skeptically, suddenly serious. "Who've you been kissin' on anyway?"

It was Stella's turn to smirk now. Moving closer she craned her neck to look him in the eye. "That's between me and-," Raphael leaned intently forward, hanging onto her every word. "Well would you look at that? Looks like I'm not one to kiss and tell," she snickered at his furrowed gaze and earned a low growl in response. "I guess you could always try again," she gave him a coy smile. "I mean, if you really want to prove your point that is."

Raphael cocked his eye ridge in response to her challenge before wrapping his large hands around her waist and drawing her closer into his embrace. "I'll take that challenge," he muttered before recapturing her lips with his own.

Raphael's kisses were like nothing she had ever experienced before and it went so much deeper than the different textures of their skin. Stella hadn't been lying earlier when she had suggested that she had kissed other guys, she most certainly had, but every one of those kisses paled in comparison to what she was feeling now. She suddenly felt freer, more comfortable, and far, far hornier than she had probably ever been.

As their kissing once again hit a fever pitch, they found their hands furiously groping, exploring one another's forms. Stella ran her hands up and down Raphael's plastron before moving back up to the tender skin around his neck and eventually up to his bandanna tails. Acting completely on a whim, she began untying the red bandanna he almost always wore. Meanwhile Raphael had slipped his good hand up the back of her quickly drying shirt but with only one hand working correctly he found himself getting quickly frustrated.

"Stella," he moaned plaintively against her mouth between kisses. Taking pity on his plight, Stella dropped his red bandanna onto the sand before reaching down and with one quick motion she rid herself of her top leaving her standing in nothing but her bikini top and a pair of shorts,

"God you're hot," Raphael sighed before diving in to attack her neck with his mouth while his hand shoved her flimsy bikini top out of the way before he managed to rip it off of her completely. Stella let out an appreciative moan as he began to trail kisses across her collar bone.

Suddenly Stella found herself laying in the sand while Raphael hovered over her. "Raph," she panted as he joined her in the sand and quickly reclaimed her lips while his hand began exploring her newly exposed chest.

It wasn't until Stella felt his hand began to play at the button of her shorts that she was really able to think straight. "Wait," she panted stilling his hand with one of her own while slipping the other under his chin and forcing him to look up at her. "We can't."

Raphael blinked at her for a moment before slowly nodding his head. "Uh uh right, Stel. I'm sorry you're right it's too soon. I didn' mean ta rush ya. I just- and you're so-, god." He allowed his head to drop onto her collarbone as he rolled to the side.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Stella laughed causing his head to jerk up. "Too fucking soon? Do you have any idea how long I've wanted this?" she snorted in disbelief while Raphael stared at her with wide eyes. "Too fuckin' soon, I just don' wanna do it in the sand." She gestured to their surroundings. "I know it sounds romantic as shit to have sex on the beach but fuck! Sand gets everywhere and there are some places I'd rather it not go, if you catch my drift. That's just a Cosmo confession waitin' to happen."

Raphael continued to stare at her for a moment longer before he began to chuckle. "Ah thank fuck!" he shouted as he leaned back in to kiss her on the forehead. "There ya are! I was beginnin' to get worried with all of your good grammar and shit that you were gone but I knew you still had some New York in there somewhere."

Stella couldn't help but grin. "I've been workin' on droppin' my accent so I'm less memorable and shit but fuck it," she laughed, "it's nice not to have ta have ta think about what I'm sayin' every fuckin' moment."

By this point Raphael had rolled back over her so that he was now hovering over top her sprawled out form. "So back ta what we was discussin," he nipped at her jaw playfully making her laugh. "You really don' think we're rushin'?"

Stella shrugged her shoulders. "I guess it depends on who you ask. If you were to ask say April or some shit for sure you'd get a yes but I for one don't really give a flyin' fuck what anyone else thinks. Well other than you that is," she amended with a sly smile, "I do care about your opinion this time."

"Thanks?" his reply sounded more like a question.

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, yeah. I know," he waved her aside as he turned his attention back toward her exposed breasts.

"I'm going to take a guess and say you don' feel like we're rushin' anything either," she breathed as he licked first one nipple and then the other making them stand at attention in the quickly cooling night air.

"Hell no," he grunted. "I'm just about done waitin'. In fact I say we swim back to the ship right now."

"Ah yeah, well that would be a great idea, if it weren't for the sharks," Stella replied.

"Tha- wait, what now?"

"Sharks," she said, "this is their feeding time and I've seen some pretty gnarly ones out here in the past but hey, if you want to try swimming back to the boat rather than spend a night on the beach be my guest. Personally, I'm going to stay here and wait for morning, just to be safe."

"Well fuck."

"I told you Raphie, not in the sand," she laughed as he pouted.

"Thanks."

"For what?"

"Callin' me Raphie again," he began twirling a wayward curl around his large finger. "You know I can' stand it when you call me Raphael, makes my skin crawl."

"I know," she replied before leaning up to kiss his jaw line, "that's why I did it."

"I'm sorry you know," he said, his voice rumbling pleasantly through his chest. "Those things I said," he hung his head, "soon as I said 'em I felt like shit but I was too biga asshole to do anythin' about it then afta ya got hurt-." He leaned back slightly. "Stel you gotta know you're my whole world without you I ain't got shit 'cept a pair a forks and a bad fuckin' attitude. I almost lost you an' Mikey that night. Fuck if I had know ya was up there I woulda dropped Tina on her ass and hauled ya outta there myself."

"Raph," Stella interrupted only to be silenced by a glance.

Raphael shook his head. "I been waitin' a long time to get this shit offa my chest Stel. Seein' you an Mikey just layin there, bleedin' on the sidewalk not knowin' if yis was gonna make it or not," he swallowed thickly and looked away for a moment. "I just couldn' face ya knowin' I coulda' stopped that, I shoulda' protected ya betta but I didn'. Hell ya shouldn' a even been there by yourself! If it wasn' for me fuckin' shit up earlier you woulda been right by my side the whole time where ya belonged ratha' than on your own. If Mikey hadn' a heard ya, if he had listened to me and left the buildin' that night. Fuck I'm an asshole." He sighed and rolled off of her once again to lay on his carapace in the sand, one arm thrown over his eyes.

Stella pursed her lips and furrowed her brow as she regarded the large turtle currently beating himself up on the inside over her. It was true that he had been a real dick to her before she had left but she had never blamed him for her injuries that night. He was right, she should never have had to go in alone but there was no way of saying that even if she had entered with him at her side that she wouldn't have gotten hurt just as badly or even worse. Every time they entered into a fight there was always a chance that one of them might not walk away, it was a risk they all knowingly took and she wasn't about ready to let him take responsibility for that.

"You're an idiot," she announced as she put her arms behind her head and looked up at the night sky, searching for the now familiar constellations she would soon be saying goodbye to as she traveled back to New York.

"Got that, thanks," he muttered around his arm before peering cautiously over toward her.

"No really," she continued. "You honestly blame yourself for me choosing to go into that building alone that night? Are you stupid? Of course I was going in and you know as well as I do that we've always known there was a chance one of us wouldn' be walkin' back out again. S'not like when we were fifteen and stupid, thinkin' we were invincible. We're fucking adults, I knew what I was doin'. Am I saying you're not an asshole for saying that shit to me or that you're not a complete fucktard for leaving me alone and fucking scared afterwards? Hell no. You royally fucked up. But the part in between? If you have to blame anyone blame fuckin' Stockman, god knows I do."

"But-"

"Whatever," Stella interrupted sitting up and pulling her shirt back on before snatching up his discarded bandanna and using it to tie back her saltwater and sand encrusted hair. "I'm tired as shit of carrying all this emotional fucking baggage around all the goddamn time. Can we just start being Raph and Stella again and just move past all of this crap to get back to what really matters?"

"You mean getting back to that boat a yours as fast as possible?" He waggled his eye ridge suggestively and Stella had to laugh.

"I mean building a fucking fire so we don't freeze our pathetic asses off out here on the beach before we have to swim back against the tide in the morning." Seeing Raphael's disheartened face she couldn't hide the smile from her face. "Then we can focus on getting back to the ship as soon as possible. Ready?" She asked standing up and shaking the loose sand off of herself before holding out her hand.

"Eh, not quite yet." Stella let out a small squeal as she found herself tumbling back down toward the ground only to find herself once again trapped in Raphael's embrace. "I jus' wanna, you know," he murmured against her hair as he cradled her against his plastron.

"Cuddle?" Stella suggested as she settled more comfortably against him.

"Shaddup," he muttered before leaning down to recapture her lips with his once again.