A/N A special thanks to those of you who are letting me know that you're enjoying this. I appreciate you taking the time. It seems that there are still some R/M fans out there after all.

Chapter 12

Ryan and Marissa laughed as they watched their friend's antics on the dance floor. They were all at a local bar celebrating the water polo team's first win of the season. After several drinks, Luke had loudly announced that both Molly and Marissa's presence would be required for every game from now until the end of the season because they were obviously the team's new lucky charms.

Molly was very happy with her new popularity with all the other water polo players and was making the most of it by happily joining in with everything that was going on. And that included drinking and dancing with them all … much to Luke's dismay. He had been hoping that Molly may have decided that she only wanted to spend time with him exclusively but it seemed that was unlikely when she had such a feast to partake of.

Marissa on the other hand had only gone along because Ryan was going. She only wanted to spend time with one man. And he was currently sitting in a darkish corner with her, their fingers linked, while they both watched the fun and frivolity.

"So … is it like this every Tuesday night?" Marissa asked.

"No." Ryan replied. "They are usually drowning their sorrows. This is quite a change. And your friend there …" he said indicating Molly "really knows how to party."

Marissa laughed. "Yeah. She does. But it's good. She can use the down time. She spent the last week sitting at the hospital with her mother so I'm sure that this makes for quite a change."

"Is her mother going to be all right?" Ryan asked, not wanting to pry but interested at the same time.

Marissa turned to look at him, taken again by his thoughtfulness. He really wasn't anything like most of the other guys that she'd spent time with. "We hope so. But she's still got a long way to go."

Ryan nodded. "That's good. No one should have to lose their mother at such an early age."

Marissa nodded. "Are you close to your mother?" she asked.

Ryan sniggered lightly. "Now that's an interesting question."

Marissa looked at him puzzled, not sure what to think about such a cryptic answer.

Ryan shrugged wondering how best to explain. "I have two. My real mother was a drunk who kicked me out when I was fifteen and I'd gotten into some trouble with the law. But I was taken in by my attorney and his family and they became my foster parents. Kirsten, that's my foster mom is great. And even my real mom seems to have sorted herself out now and I keep in contact with her and see her occasionally. But I guess that neither of them are what you would call traditional parents, although Kirsten is probably the closest to the real thing. But then she's a member of AA too." He explained. "Who knows? Maybe I'm the common denominator?"

"I seriously doubt that." Marissa commented sensing how much he had been through and just how difficult it was for him to confide in her. She suspected that not many people knew much about his background. He wasn't the type to advertise it. But one thing was for sure … he certainly wasn't the spoilt, rich kid that she'd first assumed him to be.

"Maybe." Ryan shrugged. "It seems that nothing's ever simple."

"Hmm. So you're not exactly from a traditional family." Marissa shrugged wanting to reassure him that nothing about his family made any difference to her. She was only interested in him. "Who is these days?" she asked.

"Do I sense a kindred spirit?" Ryan asked.

"Sort of." Marissa replied.

"So you're not part of the Brady Bunch then?" Ryan asked.

Marissa chuckled as she shook her head. "Far from it. If you want to compare families then I suspect mine is even more dysfunctional than yours. My mom and dad are divorced. Mom lives with the father of my old boyfriend. They were friends of the family when I was growing up. I just hadn't realised just how 'friendly' they'd become. And neither had my poor dad."

"Hmm. Tough. Is that why you and the guy split?" Ryan asked. "I imagine it would have been awkward for you to stay together. You would have been like brother and sister."

"No. That's a long story. We were on the rocks before I realised that my mom was playing around." Marissa said and then wondered if she should say more. She was intending to share the most intimate thing imaginable with this guy … should she tell him the rest? Making up her mind she took a deep breath and added. "It didn't help that his older brother tried to rape me one night." she stated frankly, looking straight ahead and not wanting to make eye contact with him, scared of what she might see there.

"What?" Ryan asked. There was so much about this girl that he wanted to know. He knew that something must have happened in her past for her to still be a virgin at this stage. She was beautiful, caring and warm; everything that he'd ever wanted. He found her completely enchanting and every minute that he spent with her only made him more and more certain that he wanted her in his life for the foreseeable future and not just for the few weeks it would take to fix her 'problem'. In fact, he scarily admitted secretly to himself, everything was pointing to the fact that he wanted her in his life forever. He couldn't imagine a time when he wouldn't want to be with her.

But he kept reminding himself that he barely knew her. Surely something would happen and he'd realise that he was falling in love with a dream, because he knew that's what was happening. He was falling in love. But having her sitting beside him, talking to him, honestly and frankly only made him doubt that she was a dream. He knew that the time would come when he'd want to make love to her just to prove that she was flesh and blood and not some imaginary being, conjured up by his mind.

But he didn't want to rush things. "What happened?" he asked gently running his thumb along the back of her hand to reassure her that nothing that she said would make any difference to the way that he felt about her.

She shrugged. He could see that she was hesitant to talk about it and he wasn't going to press her. "If you don't want to talk about it … I understand … you don't have to."

"No. I think that you deserve to know." She said still looking ahead and reluctant to make eye contact. "I'm sure that it's probably part of why I am what I am." She said as if she was explaining a fault that she had.

"What you are … is a beautiful young woman that I'm falling for." Ryan said, gently touching under her chin with his finger and turning her face towards him to stare deeply into her eyes. He moved towards her and kissed her softly.

Marissa felt her heart tighten. She some how found strength in his words. She knew that she was falling for him … and hard. And she wanted him to know about her background … just as she wanted to know everything about him. It was only fair that she would have to reveal her past to him at some point. She took a deep breath and then explained. "I went to his house one night to talk to him, Kurt, my then boyfriend. We had needed to sort things out between us. He seemed to want more from our relationship where as I had decided that I wanted less. I had been contemplating breaking up with him, but I guess that I was just taking the coward's way out. I thought that if I could just wait until the end of the year when we'd both be heading off to colleges on different sides of the country then I wouldn't have had to bother. Geography would have accomplished the separation for me. But he wasn't home. His brother invited me in to wait for him and he'd obviously spent the night drinking. Needless to say that Clay, that's the brother, decided that he'd like to 'warm me up' for his brother. Fortunately, he'd had enough to drink that once I'd managed to hit him over the head with one of his empty bottles and get away, there was no way that he could chase me. He was in no fit state. So I came out of it with a few bruises, a few scratches and some ruined clothes." She shrugged trying to pretend that it was no big deal.

Ryan admired the way that she spoke. She wasn't trying to play the victim at all; just someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he could see just how much it had bothered her. It seemed that she never ceased to amaze him. He put his arm around her shoulders to pull her close, wanting to comfort her even though she had shown no sign of needing it. She had dealt with it and moved on. "Did you charge him?" Ryan asked.

Marissa shook her head. "Maybe just me being the chicken again." She shrugged. "They were family friends. Or at least that's what I'd thought at the time. And I'd managed to escape before he'd achieved his goal. So I just pretended that it didn't happen and I closed myself off until the end of the year when I could get away from the whole place. Looking back I wonder if I should have done things differently." She shrugged. "But needless to say that I don't visit my mom and her new family."

Ryan nodded. "Does your mom know what happened?" Ryan asked.

"No. I didn't tell her." Marissa replied.

"Maybe you should." Ryan suggested.

Marissa shook her head. "You don't know my mom. She would have told me that it was all my own fault for holding out so long. She'd accused me the year before of being a tease because I hadn't slept with Kurt. I can't see that she would have changed her mind just because it was Clay. I gather that she was sleeping around when she was 14 so she didn't understand me at all. In fact if she knew that I was about to turn 21 and still hadn't done the deed, then she'd probably think that I was insane and needed to be locked up."

Ryan smiled and Marissa looked at him trying to work out what was funny. "What? Don't tell me that you think that I need to be locked up too? And here I thought that you were a nice guy?"

"You're going to have to make up your mind just what you want me to be." Ryan suggested. "I can be nice." He said. "But I also have to admit to quite liking the thought of having you locked up."

Marissa frowned. Maybe this guy wasn't what he seemed to be after all.

"Or at least tied up." He smiled. "to my bed." He added as he realised that she wasn't on the same page.

"Oh." Marissa said feeling the flush burn her cheeks. She was amazed that Ryan still seemed to want her even though she had just revealed one of her most intimate secrets to him. Something that she'd kept locked inside her for such a long time. The only other person in the world that knew what really happened that night, besides Clay, was Molly.

And what was even more amazing was the fact that the thought of being tied up to Ryan's bed was not at all unappealing. She smiled. The relief she felt from having been open and honest with him and having him clearly accept that it was just part of her past and nothing that she should feel responsible for was uplifting. "This sounds like a new lesson that I need to be taught."

Ryan laughed out loud. "I am going to enjoy teaching you, that's for sure."

"Well, when can we get started?" Marissa asked. "Why don't we get out of here now?" she said and she ran the hand that had been resting on his knee slowly up his thigh.

Ryan clamped his hand over hers stopping it just short of it reaching her desired destination. "Oh boy. This is going to be hard." Ryan said kissing her and trying to calm himself down by taking deep breaths in between.

"I think that it might already be." Marissa said as her little finger managed to reach out from his hold and touch her target in his crutch which was indeed firm and getting firmer by the minute.

Ryan repositioned his hand to bring her little finger back into line with the others. "You think that you're so cute, don't you?"

"Maybe." She replied.

"Mmm. You are. And you know it." He said kissing her lightly on the tip of her nose.

"So what do you say? Can we get out of here and move on to lesson 2?" Marissa asked again.

"We can't. We all came in the same car and I can't see us getting the other two to move off the dance floor for quite some time." Ryan said, for once pleased that he was going to have to wait for Luke. Staying in public might be the only way that he'd be able to resist her because there was no doubt that the attraction between them was almost palpable.

"Well then, what are you doing tomorrow night?" Marissa asked.

"Wednesday night?" Ryan replied shrugging. "Gym?"

"How about you give it a miss for the night and come to my place instead? Molly will be at work so we'll have the place to ourselves. And I can give you a workout." Marissa suggested smiling.

"But you don't have the equipment." Ryan teased.

"Just because my equipment is different from that at the gym – I don't think that you should dismiss it without trying. Who knows you may even find that you prefer it?" Marissa asked.

"I'm sure that I will." Ryan replied his voice dropping to a husky tone as he imagined some of the possibilities of what she had in mind.

"Good. I'll even supply dinner." Marissa offered.

"Ah. You think that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach?"

"Who said that I was trying to get to your heart?" Marissa asked and as soon as the words were spoken she knew that they were true. She did want to reach his heart. But she didn't want to scare him off. "I just want to get into your pants." She explained. Surely no guy could runaway from what she was offering. She was a sure thing.

Ryan couldn't help but be a little disappointed. Sure, he could hardly wait until they consummated their relationship but he did want her to be after his heart. But he knew that he was going to have to work on that. "So you think that the way into a man's pants is through his stomach?"

"Don't be silly. I know that the way into your pants is through your fly. I may be naïve but I'm not totally stupid. But if I feed you enough then your pants will get too tight and you'll have to drop them just to be comfortable." She laughed.

Ryan smiled. "You may be right."

"But I do have an ulterior motive." Marissa explained.

"This I need to know about." Ryan said pulling himself closer to her so that she was almost on his lap.

"You know that couple of hours spare that I had after lunch? When I tried to get you to come home with me but you had some boring old prac you had to go to?" Marissa asked.

"Yeah."

"Well … I spent my time wisely." She said teasingly.

"Doing what? You didn't go and find another Greg to practice on?" Ryan said only slightly worried.

"No. But that's not a bad idea if you don't hurry up." She teased. "But I did go back to the library and let's just say that books can be a font of information. I learnt a few things that I need to try out. And I need one of those things that you've got in your pants to practice with … and well … you did volunteer to let me use yours whenever I needed one." Marissa reminded him.

"Yes, I did. Why do I have the feeling that I may come to regret ever making that offer? But do I need to remind you that we're not doing 'it' yet. Not until we get to know one another a bit better." He said still hoping that there would be a lot more than just the physical involved when they did finally do it.

"I know." Marissa said. "Spoil sport." She pouted playfully. "But can't we still have some fun like last night?" she suggested saucily.

"Exactly what do you have planned this time around?" Ryan asked.

Marissa smiled. "I promise I won't hurt." She said lasciviously.

Ryan groaned into her ear. "You may be the death of me." he said as he repositioned himself, the swelling in his pants making it difficult to sit still any longer.

"Not if I can help it. I have way too many ideas that I need you to help me with." Marissa replied. "Speaking of which … since you won't take me home and let me ravish your body … how about we join them on the dance floor?"

Ryan looked down at his crutch indicating with his eyes the effect her words had had on him. "You'll need to stay really close to me to ... um … hide my obvious attraction to you."

Marissa laughed. "I think that I can do that. Just stick really close and you'll be fine." She said as she stood up and Ryan moved behind her pulling her close. She smiled back over her shoulder. "I said to stick close … not stick ME."

"Sorry." Ryan smiled as he turned her in his arms and held her firmly to him. "It's just what you do to me."

Marissa loved the fact that he was so open about his attraction to her. She knew that the feelings were completely mutual. She nuzzled her face into his neck. Their bodies pressed closely together as they began to move with the music. They didn't need to dance they just wanted to feel one another. As they moved in time, Marissa found her hips pressing harder and harder into Ryan's, grinding against him as she felt his desire building; his hands on her rear pressing her even more fully to him. She could feel her desire building and the temperature rising and she quickly undid a few of the buttons on the front of her shirt, hoping to cool herself down.

Ryan glanced down at her movement only to be greeted by the sight of the glorious mounds of her breasts coming more into view. "Wh … what are you doing?"

"It seems to be getting hotter in here. I just thought that I'd try to cool down.

Ryan couldn't take his eyes from her chest. He wanted to bury himself in them. "You may be cooling down but I'm definitely heating up." he said, pulling her even closer to him to prove the truth of his words.

Marissa's breath was becoming laboured when they were all of a sudden startled by the loud voice of Luke. "Hey you two … get a room."