Chapter 1: The Engagement

When Stephen, Katherine and Chloe returned from their Gold Coast holiday, Katherine changed the room in which she was going to sleep at his house for the third time. She had spent her first two weeks in this house while recovering from the snake bite and her sprained ankle in a temporary bedroom set up down stairs. Once she was able to climb the stairs, Stephen had moved her into one of the guest bedrooms upstairs, where he and Chloe had their bedrooms. Now that she was engaged to be married to him, she happily moved into the master bedroom to share with Stephen.

The holiday had bonded the three of them so closely. Katherine for the first time in her life was coming to understand what love really felt like. She didn't know what pleased her more, though: her growing, reciprocated love for Stephen or her daughter's enthusiastic and wholehearted acceptance of him as her step-father, eagerly adapting to the role of being his daughter.

In the space of less than a week they had melded into a real family.

That first night in the bedroom she now shared with her fiancée (she loved how that sounded she told herself), Katherine wanted to make sure that he was more than happy to have her in his bed. But Stephen surprised her, taking the initiative away from her that she had contemplated.

He climbed onto the bed from the end, pulling the cover off her and began kissing his way up her legs, concentrating on her thighs making her moan softly. When he reached the juncture of her legs, he spent considerable time worshipping her sex with his tongue and lips, ensuring that the firm swelling of her clitoris, her ultra-sensitive love-bud, was quivering in sexual anticipation, before moving further north where he found her navel. He drew circles around it with his fingers, just lightly touching her with gentle, butterfly-like motions, his tongue trailing behind.

By the time both breasts had been kissed, licked, fondled and bitten, her nipples had become steel like protrusions, tingling with pleasure as she begged for more. He continued his journey up her body until his tongue was engaged in a duel with hers. They plunged their tongues into each other's mouth, swapping the drooling moisture that secreted from their arousal. By this stage his throbbing erection was pressing firmly against the gates of pleasure and slid easily into her very aroused and welcoming vagina, penetrating to her very depth.

As their passion rose, he plunged fervently in and out of her, her legs wrapped tightly around his body, her feet pressing firmly against his bottom, trying to draw him deeper and deeper inside her. All too soon they both caught the orgasm express that enabled, no demanded, that they experience a mind-numbing climax.

Two very happy, contented and sated people were soon snuggling together, reflecting on how good their sexual experience had been and looking forward to enjoying many more in the years ahead; years that they were hoping to share with each other.

"Thank you my darling. I love you and hope that you'll always be happy here" an exhausted Stephen whispered lovingly in her ear.

"If every night is as good as tonight, I won't be happy; I'll be ecstatic" she sighed, before rolling onto her side so that they could adopt the spoon position with Stephen's hand clasping a breast, Katherine's hand ensuring that his remained tightly against her as they drifted off to sleep.

Morning found them lying face-to-face, cuddled close together. Her eyes were staring fondly at him when he opened his, returning her smouldering look of love.

"Good morning, Stephen, my darling. I hope you slept well?"

"Good morning to you too, sweetheart. I think I'll always be able to sleep well when I'm wrapped in your arms."

She smiled at him as she replied, "I know just how you feel. I haven't slept better in months. Think I like this bed and hope to have many more nights here with you holding me like you have been. Waking up like this is a thrill I want to experience again and again."

Meanwhile, as Chloe lay in her bed at the other end of the floor, she contemplated what had happened in her life recently. She knew that she adored Stephen, but now she was determined that she would try to accept that he was to be a father figure for her, albeit a very generous and caring one. She endeavoured to suppress her sexual feeling for him, determined never to do anything that might jeopardise her mother's new found happiness. Nevertheless, deep down she knew she would always hope that one day he would be the one: the one who deflowered her. She would continue to hope that it would be him who would turn her into a woman.

Chloe kept up her riding lessons and by the end of the training package that Stephen had bought for her, she had developed into a very capable and enthusiastic rider. She was overjoyed when Stephen and her mother took her to select and buy her very own horse, promising them both that she would diligently care for her new charge. She loved both the responsibility of owning and the freedom of riding a horse, especially as there were so many horse riding trails so easily accessible around Canberra. The responsibility of owning and having to care for her new best friend she found to be not only challenging, but also satisfying. Actually, she was also very pleased that through owning and riding her horse, she made a couple of very close girlfriends, something she had never been able to do in her previous fifteen odd years of constant moving and deprivation.

One of the first things that Stephen did when they had settled back into his, now their, home was to take Katherine to an upmarket jewellers in Manuka, a rather posh suburb of Canberra. Despite her protestations that she didn't need an expensive diamond ring, it made Stephen very happy as he slipped his new purchase onto her ring finger. Despite her protestations, Katherine was secretly pleased that he hadn't listened to her. She proudly wore her engagement ring and was so delighted when Chloe told her how happy and excited she was that her mom was wearing his ring.

Stephen encouraged Katherine to give up her job in the cafe, giving her more time to spend with him, but he also encouraged her to go back to school, managing to enrol her in a part time college course, to help make up for her lost education.

Katherine, wanting to make a contribution to their union, insisted that she take over the housework, even though Stephen would have been more than happy to keep his housekeeper on. But she did, however, accept his offer to have the ironing done each week. Ironing was something that she had never learned to enjoy, but then who does, she thought?

It also left her time to plan their wedding, which, although it wasn't going to be a big, white wedding, Stephen insisted that it be something that she would enjoy and be able to remember fondly. They agreed to have the wedding itself on the lawn outside the National Carillion, which had to be booked well in advance, as it was a popular venue for non-church weddings. They decided that they would then return to their home for an outside catered reception for their guests.

Stephen was surprised at how much work there was to do before his book was actually printed and distributed for sale. Editing was something he had no experience with, but although several parts required extensive rework and other areas just minor tweaking, he had to agree that by the time the book went to print it was a much better read, the characters tighter and more consistent.

Now the pressure was on for a sequel and then another book. This was a lot more stressful than simply writing for his own pleasure and publishing online through Storiesonline.net. Using that outlet for publishing, once he had written a story, he reread it a couple of times to ensure grammar and spelling were correct and that characters consistently had the right name, then simply uploaded it onto the website. Hopefully it would be read and enjoyed by a goodly number of people, those readers would give it a good score and some would send emails thanking him, encouraging him. His experience to date had been quite acceptable, most of the emails being rather complimentary. Occasionally a couple of emails would be abusive or less than complementary, but fortunately to date that was a tiny minority. Of course he made no money for his efforts, just relied on the pleasure he got from readers providing scores, feedback and comments. But selling books, even if he did end up making some money, required a lot more work, a much more polished story and then a lot of promotional effort.