“Like you do? I so don’t need this!” She flung her hands up in frustration, and then after toeing her shoes off climbed onto the bed and pulled the rather gaudy brightly covered duvet over her now shivering body. She closed her eyes and tried to not think about the man-boy who was sharing the room with her.

She had tried not to notice him, but what was there to ignore? He had this presence and although she was determined to pretend that the only thing she saw in him was an irritation, she knew that was a complete lie.

Michael knew that he wouldn’t be welcome to share the bed with her, so he lay down on the floor beside it, using his jacket as a pillow. He wanted to be able to move quickly should anything happen, not that he thought it would. Although he liked to think of Maria DeLuca as an irritation, he knew that he felt more for her than that. Since the day that he had touched her at the Crash Festival he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. She was an addiction, and if he were being completely honest he didn’t want to find a cure.

Maria sighed in her sleep and rolled over – directly onto Michael, who hadn’t been asleep at all. Every time he though he would finally fall asleep Maria would move, or make some sound, making him aware once again of where he was, in a room with Maria.

“Oh, God. Sorry!” Maria woke as a rather hard part of Michael’s body jabbed her in the thigh. She moved off him in a hurry and grimaced when she realised that the whole day hadn’t been a dream.

“What I really want to know is…Why did you pick me? Why couldn’t you have asked for a loan of the wonderful Max Evans’ car? Or did you ask him? Is that it?”

Maria was on a roll now. She had been woken from a nightmare to discover that it was real. She really was in a room with Michael Guerin, sharing a room in a nookie motel with the one person in the whole school who managed to wind her up by just looking at her.

“I wish I had stolen someone else’s car, then I wouldn’t be stuck here with you. You are just unbelievably annoying, do you know that?” He couldn’t believe that she was blaming him for all of this. Where did she get off saying it was all his fault?

“Excuse me? Hello? Abducted girl speaking here! I didn’t tell you to take my car…”

“No, but you could have got out at The Lift Off. But, oh, no…you had to come with me. Why couldn’t have just stayed where you were? I would have been back, car intact in a few days.” He couldn’t understand why Maria put such stock in her mother’s car; after all it was a pile of junk that hadn’t even lasted to get them to Marathon.

“I told you then. My life wouldn’t be worth living if something happened to my car, and now look at it…you blew it up with your useless powers.” She slapped him hard on the arm to show him exactly how annoyed she was with his poor attempt to get her Mom’s car to work after completely blowing the engine by driving way too fast.

“You didn’t have to come with me.” That really was his only defence. Despite being determined, he knew that he was in the wrong. He stood up and stepped closer to her, at first hoping that his presence would intimidate her, and then hoping that she would move even closer to him, take him into her and allow him to lose himself in her.

“Oh sure I could trust you to return my car. Yeah sure, do I look like that much of an idiot?”

She lifted her hand to slap him around the face, but he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her closer. Before she had another chance to open her mouth and make a rude remark he swooped down on her and took his lips with hers.

She parted her lips to comment on what he was doing, and he took this opportunity to thrust his tongue in to do battle with hers. For a few moments Maria tried to push him away, but then he moved his hands to her waist to pull her even more into him.

Maria felt that she was floating. She had never imagined that all this passion lay inside herself, or that Michael Guerin would be the one to bring it out of her, despite the fact that she had started to dream about him more and more.

Michael had finally got her to shut up for more than five minutes. Although this was what he had wanted at first, now all he wanted was to kiss her more, and perhaps feel her skin against his. After a few moments he moved away from her, blinking at the realisation that he had been passionately kissing Maria, and more than that, he had been enjoying it.

She was fire and ice in one miniature package, and for this brief moment she was totally his. There were no chances of interference from Liz, Isabel or Max, and without them in attendance he had the chance to step back and look at the girl in his company without having to pretend he wasn’t interested in her and what she had to say.

He was amazed at how complicated and intelligent she was. At school, and usually at the Crashdown she was a ditsy blonde who was clumsy and a chronic gossip, but here, with her she was different, but not…She was an amazing kisser, not that he was going to tell her this.

He moved away from her, fighting the urge to pull her to him and kiss her again, which was what he really wanted.

“Michael? What was that all about?”

“I…uh…I don’t have to explain myself to you.” He turned away to stare out the window into the darkness and the traffic, doing his very best to ignore his powerful body urges. His body was virtually shouting at him ‘you bloody idiot, kiss her, consume her…she’s yours for the taking you know!’

He didn’t want to listen to what his overly keen hormones were telling him, he didn’t think that they could really be used as an effective excuse should he be forced to explain his actions.

“You just kissed me, and then nothing?” She walked over to him and began to hit at his back and shoulders with her open hand, before he turned to her and flung her onto the bed.

“Will you just shut up?” He quickly stripped his trousers off, throwing them to the floor at the foot of the bed, and then crawled up the bed so that he was lying across her, his mouth level with hers, his eyes looking deeply it hers.

Maria couldn’t get over how intense he was. He had always seemed so detached. Sure, she knew that he didn’t like to be noticed, and that was why he kept so quiet, or absent in the case of school, but unless his secret was threatened he didn’t say a word to anyone outside of the alien clique, except to frustrate and annoy!

“What do you think you’re doing you alien freak?” Maria tried to move away for a few moments, but then he moved down her body and placed a light kiss across her shoulder, and then nudged her pink spaghetti-strap T off her shoulder and down her body with his nose, wanting to get closer to her naked skin.

There was something on her that made her taste sweet and spicy at the same time, yet he knew she didn’t smell of Tabasco sauce! ‘Well that managed to shut her up!’ His mind told him, smugly, ‘she certainly doesn’t appear to have any more complaints’.

He took one of her pert rose-coloured nipples between his lips and bit down on it gently, invoking a cry of passion from Maria’s parted lips.

He could hear her breathing change, from soft and slow to harsh and impassioned. He moved away from her breast for a moment and took his time undoing her jeans, inching them slowly down her slender legs and onto the edge of the bed. He slid his hands down her body and breathed in harshly when he discovered that despite appearing to be completely demure and innocent she wasn’t wearing any panties. “Never would have taken you for a commando, Maria” He looked up at her, a smirk on his lips and mischief in his eyes.

“Don’t care what you take me…” She gasped in surprise when he stroked her tenderly and then slid two fingers inside her experimentally. She was wet for him, and he knew that it was all for him when she arched her back and pressed her mound into his hands.

He watched in amazement as she continued to thrust her hips up to meet his hands as he thrust his fingers rhythmically into her. He wanted to just watch her, but a part of him was growing more demanding. He needed to bury himself inside her, and soon, before he humiliated himself and came on the crude bedsheets. No matter who he was with he didn’t want to appear like a completely unskilled oaf.

Michael removed his fingers from inside her, listening with glee as she sighed when he left her, and crawled to the end of the bed. He felt around blindly for a few moments, knowing that whatever he was looking for was nearby.

He almost crowed when he lifted up his jeans and found the condom in his pocket. It wasn’t that he had been planning this all along, or anything, but he didn’t like the idea that he would get caught out at some point and not be prepared for it.

Maria was absolutely fascinated. She sat up, despite the ache of unfulfilled passion between her thighs, wanting to see what he was going to do next. So far everything he had done had been a complete surprise to her, and she had the feeling that he would continue to do so until the night was over.

She watched as he carefully but quickly pulled the condom from its brightly coloured package and began to unroll it on his more than adequate erection. She took a deep breath as she noticed how large he really was. Was he actually going to fit inside her?

Michael could feel her watching him, and after rolling the condom down onto his penis he looked up at her and smiled. This time the smile was filled with promise rather than sarcasm or secret knowledge. He was going to share this experience, his first time, with this girl. He knew that it was unlikely things would go anywhere between him and this mortal girl, but for now there was enough to keep them going through the night ahead.

Even as his mind screamed at him to say something about her being able to say no his body was moving towards hers and he was kissing her again. His tongue tangled with hers and his body pressed her down into the mattress as his hands made their way down between her thighs, spreading her legs giving him easier access. She was so ready for him, and he was definitely ready for her. He closed his eyes and began to slide inside her. At first there was resistance, but then she began to become accustomed to him and lifted her hips up to meet his as he moved away from her.

She looked up into his face as he moved down to kiss her again, but then the pleasure took over, and she sighed into his kiss and closed her eyes. She had never felt anything as powerful as the feelings that he was evoking in her. She took a deep shuddering breath and just allowed her overpowering emotions to override anything else that she had previously been conscious of.

Michael knew that he was losing control, and he could feel that Maria wasn’t quite there yet. He thought back to those rather embarrassing conversations that he had sat through with Max and his father about how to pleasure your partner, because that was as important as getting off yourself – what an embarrassing conversation to have with an adult!

He remembered Phillip Evans mentioning how to help bring a woman to her peak and whilst inwardly cringing at remembering such a conversation he put the information to good use. He reached between their bodies and whilst stroking one hand against her cheek he slid his other hand between her thighs and pinched at the tender nubbin of flesh that had caused her such pleasure before.

Maria was flying. What Michael was doing to her with his hands, with his body joined to hers was making her feel absolutely amazing. For a moment she felt like she was going to break into a million little pieces and then just disappear as she let out a breathy cry and slumped back onto the bed as reality began to return very quickly.

Michael thrust into her one last time and then withdrew and rolled onto his back. He felt weak all of a sudden, as though he had run a marathon and had just reached the finish line. Although reality was starting to return he felt elated.

Without looking at Maria he sat up then moved away from the bed. He didn’t bother to turn as he pulled his trouser back on and did them up, then again using his jacket as a pillow laid down on the floor beside the bed that only moments before he had been lying on inside Maria.

Maria wanted to say something, but didn’t know quite what. She had watched as he moved away from her and dressed. Maybe he didn’t want to talk about this, about what had just happened, so maybe she should just pretend that none of it had occurred. After she was sure that he wouldn’t hear she moved off the bed herself and walked into the small bathroom attached to their bedroom to pull herself together and get dressed again.

Within moments of returning to the bed she closed her eyes and fell asleep, her dreams filled with Michael.