The Tent Scene

by: Paige Price

The wind lashed the tent, causing it shake precariously. Threatening to come apart at any moment. The lantern, that Edward had suspended from the peak, swung wildly making shadows dance around. The light cast some of those shadows on his face. Even through the cold was so intense that I could hardly form a complete thought, my breath caught in my throat.

Every time I thought I had become accustomed to the perfection of his face, a new angle would present itself, or the light would sparkle off his skin. Then I would be just as dumbstruck as the first time I saw him. Now the light painted moving shapes that caused his features to stand out in striking relief. The effect was dizzying.

"What is it?" he asked. His deep musical voice playing on my body in a way that most men couldn't do with a touch. "Do you need another blanket?"

I did need another blanket. The cold had deepened to the point of nausea. However, I doubted another blanket would make the situation any better. If four blankets hadn't formed a sufficient barrier against the biting temperature I doubted a fifth would do the trick.

"No." I said as casually as my chattering teeth would allow.

At that moment another wave of violent tremors rocked my body. Edward's face twisted into a look that could only be described as agony. "What can I do?" he asked. I almost thought I heard his voice catch, holding back a sob.

I gathered my resolve and forced my concentration into controlling the shaking and chattering. I had to appear at least marginally comfortable. For his sake. "I'm... f-f-f-f-ine." I stammered, cursing my failed attempt at control.

"Your not fine!" he snapped. "Your freezing!" He tensed as though the weather was something he could physically fight. Like the cold could be manhandled out of the tent.

"Don't be s-s-s-such a dra-a-a-ama queen." I said through gritted teeth.

He settled back into his corner. His thick eyebrows returning to their trademark furrow. I could tell by his posture, that was oozing anxiety, that he didn't buy it.

'Focus!' I scolded myself. 'Focus on something. Anything but the cold. Focus on... Edward.' I snapped my eyes open and tried to follow my own advice. If anything could distract me, it was sitting in the corner of this tent.

I examined his bronze hair glinting metallic in the lantern light. The way his broad chest tapered down to a narrow waist. The way the curve of his shoulders seemed sculpted, like a statue created by a Greek master. Immediately, it seemed like the cold lessened as things low tightened and warmed. Up to his flawless face. The impossible smooth expanse of his skin. The perfect line of his jaw framing plump pouting lips.

Apparently the warming sensation was only an illusion because my thoughts were interrupted by another wave of spasms. This time my abdominal muscles contracted in a cramp, causing me to cry out in pain. Truth be told, I didn't know how much more of this I could take.

A moment before I heard the zipper of the door begin to slide, I saw Edward glance up. His expression was not accommodating. Well, at least it was some emotion other than agony.

"What's going on in here?" Jacob asked as, he slid between the two sheets of nylon. He zipped the opening closed behind him.

"We have it under control" Edward said in a low menacing voice.

"Yeah, It looks real under control." Jacob said in his characteristically jovial tone. However, I could hear a serious note to his voice. He was worried.

"No." Edward growled, so low that it was almost indecipherable as a word. He had obviously heard something he didn't like in Jake's thoughts.

"You said it yourself." he growled back, an octave lower than his voice had been. "She's freezing."

The interplay had brought back some semblance of concentration and I was able to actually notice what was going on around me. Jake was crouched near the door of the tent, as far from Edward's corner as he could get without being outside. He was wearing his usual cut off shorts and nothing else. It was times like these that I was glad Edward couldn't read my mind. The places my thoughts traveled, when I saw Jacob, were anything but innocent.

"If you can't help her, then I will." he said, making a slight move toward me.

In a movement, so fast my eyes couldn't follow, Edward was across the small space. His hand around Jacob's throat, holding him back. Every muscle in their bodies were taught with anticipation. I could see the rippling vibration coursing through Jake, that had nothing to do with temperature. This was going to come to blows... or worse.

With every reserve of energy I had left, I sat up, letting the thermal blankets fall off me. I had thought it was cold under the blankets but this was a whole new level. The sensation was so frigid, that for a long moment, I couldn't even form a cohesive idea.

Finally, I came back to myself enough to remember what was going on a few feet from me. "STOP!" I shouted as loud as I could. My voice was horse and my teeth were chattering, so it wasn't very loud. Good thing everyone had superhuman hearing. "STOP IT!" I croaked again.

Both men turned on me in surprise, like they had forgotten I existed. Edward's face turned back to the mask of agony that he had been wearing for the past few hours. Jake's turned soft, like he was looking at... well, the woman he loved. That thought made my heart wrench. He looked at me like I was the center of his world. The sun around which he orbited. Ironic, considering I used to call him my Earthbound Sun.

"I just want to help." he said softly... almost pleading. "You need warmth." he glanced back at Edward, with some hostility creeping back in. "You need ME." I had a feeling the last was more for Edward's benefit than mine.

'YES! WARMTH! HEAT! Warmth or die.' My survival instincts screamed.

"Y-Y-Y-es-s-s." I chattered. "N-N-N-eed." With that Edward released his grip defeated. If I asked he wouldn't refuse. Maybe even couldn't.

"Fine." he conceded, barely above a whisper. In another blur of motion he was back to his corner, like he had never moved. I had noticed vampires tend to move faster when they are upset or distracted. Apparently they forget about the human charade.

Jake moved forward and even in my delirium I couldn't help noticing him. He was beautiful. Not beautiful in the way Edward was, but in his own different way. His skin was a shade of brown so luminescent it had to be called bronze. It seemed to glow with its own internal light. Where Edward reflected light like a diamond Jake seemed to produce it like a flame.

My hands reflexively reached for him. Half because I wanted to touch what I knew would be 108 degrees of warmth but also because I wanted to run my hands along his skin and feel what I knew would be soft as velvet. Yup, a very good thing Edward couldn't read my mind.

He took me in his arms and the sudden wave of heat was almost too much. He felt hot in the first place, but now, against my frozen body, he felt white hot. I jerked back in response. A second later I overcame myself and melted against him. The heat seeped like boiling water into every part of me and I let out a sigh of contentment.

"Humph." I heard Edward make a disgusted sound from behind me. It was going to take more than indignant noises to peel me away from my own personal space heater.

As my nostrils began to defrost, Jake's aroma wafted into my nose. How the vampires could call it a stink I would never know. It smelled delicious, like the forest, musk, and autumn air when the leaves start to fall. I buried my face into his neck and drank in the rich perfume.

"Better?" he asked.

"Much." I whispered into his skin.

In a smooth strong motion he lowered me back onto the pile of sleeping bags, following me down, so our bodies remained in constant contact. It ended up with me on my back and him on top, with our faces only inches apart. I looked up into his deep brown eyes, flecked with a hint of some color I couldn't identify. Could it be wolf amber?

"Enough!" Edward snapped from his position. I flicked my eyes to see that he hadn't moved. "This is not necessary to warm her up!"

"I don't hear any complaints." Jake shot back. Edward bared his teeth and that menacing growl that was nothing human seeped out.

"Guys! Its OK." I said quickly. I was surprised how much better my voice already sounded.

Jake rolled off me and took up a relatively chaste position pressed against the side of my body. Luckily someone was being cooperative. I pressed my hands to his chest. I had to keep warm didn't I? Who was I trying to kid? I wasn't even buying my own rationalizations anymore.

"I know you want to be with me." Jacob said softly. "Like this."

Great. Maybe cooperative wasn't the right word. What did I say? A lie? The truth? A half truth?

"I want to be with Edward more." I said back, trying for apologetic.

"Maybe." he hedged.

"Definitely." I corrected. He pursed his lips, as if holding back something he wanted to say.

"What if..." he trailed off. He turned his head, so he wouldn't have to look me in the eye.

"What?" I asked curiously. The side of my face was getting cold again and my nose was going numb. I laid my face on the warm expanse of his chest.

"What if you could be with both of us?" he asked quickly, like he was blurting out something he was ashamed of.

"Like... shared custody?" I felt sorry for him. He was desperate and trying to come up with any solution. I understood. If it were Edward being taken away from me I would be a little desperate too. "I don't think that would work." I said, again trying to sound apologetic.

"Not with us both separately." he clarified. I looked up into his face hoping my expression was as confused as I felt. He saw that I didn't get it. "With us both at the same time. Simultaneously." he finished.

That being said, his idea locked into place. I understood what kind of arrangement he was getting at and I was intrigued. Thank goodness Edward couldn't read my mind! He might just kill us both, if he knew I was actually considering this.

I was faced with the same problem again. How close to the truth should I let my answer come? I glanced over at Edward. Its hard to shock a 100+ year old vampire, but the expression was clearly pure shock. The fact that he was so startled by Jake's suggestion, that he hadn't gotten to anger yet, said something. When I didn't immediately object I expected anger to settle across his face, but it didn't. Instead his expression turned thoughtful.

Finally he spoke. "You want this?" I couldn't decide if that was meant as a question or as a statement. I said nothing, fighting between what I should say and what I wanted to say. Apparently my silence spoke volumes. "Of course you do." he said to himself. "Who doesn't want to eat their cake and have it too."

When I found my voice, I said, "Edward. No. I only want you." I guess we were going with the what-I-should-say option.

"Bella..." he said in that tone parents use when they know a child is telling a lie. Apparently he didn't need ESP to know what I was thinking in that moment. "If this is what you want... need. Then..."

Could he be serious? Was this really happening? How had things changed so quickly? I knew it physically pained him to deny me something I wanted, but I never knew he would go this far. Maybe if I just played along for little while to see where this went."

"Your OK with this?" I asked, letting all the skepticism I felt color my voice.

Edward met my eyes and the feeling of floating and falling simultaneously, which resulted from him looking at me, took hold. His golden iris' met mine with unflinching honesty. "If this is what will make you happy..."

My first thought was that this was a trick. A deception. I was being lured into a trap. No one was this selfless, or this accommodating. It couldn't be real. I searched his face scrutinizing every line and set. I could see no hint of dishonesty. I turned back to Jake, who had gone as still as the dead beside me. He wasn't even breathing, as far as I could tell.

"And your OK with this?" I asked him. Of course he was. It had been his idea.

"I want to be with you anyway I can." he replied.

Time to take the bull by the horns. What do they say about looking a gift horse in the mouth? "OK then," I said matter-of-factly. "lets do it."

In a motion I thought was graceful, but probably looked awkward to a vampire and a werewolf, I rolled on top of Jake, straddling his waist. I slid my hands slowly up his chest, letting myself feel him in ways I had never dared. So unlike Edward's body, so soft and warm. Immediately he began stripping the layers of outerwear off me. First the parka, then the coat, then the shirts. Within a few seconds only my white lace bra remained.

I looked over at Edward, who had yet to move a muscle. "Well?" I asked him. "Aren't you going to join us?" I smiled, trying to make the invitation sound seductive.

In a lighting fast blur he was pressed against me. Marble-hard hands clasping my upper arms. I had been turned away from Jake and into Edward, even though I hadn't remembered being moving. He kissed me fiercely, his tongue forcing its way past my teeth, probing and dancing with mine. I began unbuttoning his shirt as his hands found the clasp of my bra. When I pulled away from him, to slide his shirt over his shoulders, my undergarment fell away and spilled my breasts in front of him. It caught his attention and he stared longingly at me newly exposed flesh. Edward's shirt fell asunder and I gaped in awe. The only word that came to mind was art, but sculpture and perfection followed soon after.

I leaned toward him, to lay my lips against his adamantine chest. To kiss and suck at his nipples and lick my way lower. I felt heat pressing at my back, like an open flame, a second before Jacob's arms encircled me from behind. He drew his hands up my torso as he melded himself to my back. After a long exploration his hands found my breasts and he cupped them, squeezing as his fingers massaged back and forth across my nipples.

"Uhhh..." I moaned.

Edward pressed himself along my front, kissing down my collarbone to my upper mounds. Jake pressed into my back still cupping me while kissing down the side of my neck. I was caught between fire and ice. Heat seared at my back, cold bit at my front and my head swam in multicolored bliss.

I felt a moment of vertigo and when I opened my eyes, I was reversed and facing Jacob. They had to stop with the speed-thing, I was getting dizzy. He grabbed the front of my jeans with both hands and pulled in opposite directions causing the thick denim to shred like wet paper exposing the white lace panties that had matched the bra. I reciprocated by yanking open the button of his shorts and working them down over his hips. Immediately I noticed that he wasn't wearing anything under the shorts. Another inch lower and his hard thick length spilled out fully erect.

A quick tug and my underwear shredded from behind, leaving me totally nude. I felt icy hands caress up my inner thighs spreading my legs. Another moment of vertigo, the world blurred, and I was facing Edward. I really was getting dizzy.

"What about me?" he asked playfully.

Without a word, I reached down and unfastened the button of his trousers. With a quick motion slidding them over his hips, letting them fall to the floor. I dropped to my knees, face to face with his penis. Like everything else about him it was like living granite. Leaning in I took his head in my mouth, playing around it with quick flicks of my tongue. The sensation was strange, not as cold as ice but a lot colder than me. He cried out. His back arched. That small thrust of his hips carried enough force, that I would have been tossed onto my back, had Jake not caught me.

Laying me back into the blankets, he straddled over me. I could feel his length pressed against my stomach. I thrust myself into him, grinding him between us. I rolled my abdominals against his throbbing shaft. His breathing quickened as he matched my rhythm. His mouth found mine and he kissed me fiercely, hungrily, like he was trying to consume me. Pulling back he met my gaze. His lips parted to say something and... A flash of motion and Jacob lay sprawled beside me. Edward was now in his place atop me.

He pressed his length against my crouch. Instinctively my hips rose to meet him, grinding hungrily. The sensation of it brought small sounds of pleasure from between my parted lips. I buried my face in his neck, breathing in his own brand of perfume. He always smelled like sugar, if only sugar had a smell. He shoved himself against me and my upraised hips were forced into the ground, hard enough to bruise. The mix of pain and pleasure made me scream into the curve of his neck, racking my fingernails down his back. Anyone elses skin would have broken, but with his skin it was like trying to claw through stone.

Just as his tip found my opening and I was ready to thrust up to make the union complete... Another blur of motion and Jake was atop me. The switch from the cool expanses of Edward to Jake's broiling heat stunned me. He picked up where Edward had left off and slid himself inside me. Soon he found a rhythm and I matched it. In and out. In and out. He seemed to know exactly where my g-spot was because he began to focus on it, each pass causing me to gasp. He accelerated. Now his rhythm was so fast that I couldn't gasp between strokes, so I settled for hyperventilation.

The sensations caused me to dig my nails into his skin. I found purchase this time and drug through the skin at his sides. I watched in amazement as the red wounds closed behind my nails, like a zipper re-zipping. The rhythm was too fast. Superhuman. I couldn't comprehend it. No individual strokes, just a constant wave a sensation to bringing me screaming and clawing.

"I'm... cumming." he panted, after what seemed like an eternity of ecstasy.

"Me... too." I more screamed than said.

I felt him release inside me. He screamed wildly, as his fists clenched spastically into the blankets beside my head. His body writhed. He prepared to shove in one final time. The thrust that would have brought me as well. Suddenly he was gone, the long thick length of him replaced by an icy organ. Edward pressed his hips to mine, driving in until he hit the bottom of me. The arctic contrast was enough to stall my orgasm.

"You'll come for me." he said loud enough so Jacob would hear.

With that, he went to work. Jacob had been fast but, vampires were faster. Each retraction and my body was momentarily brought airborne. Each thrust and my body was slammed into the hard earth. Maybe Edward had been right all along and it was to dangerous for a human and a vampire. Maybe he would kill me. The thought was chased from my mind by another dizzying impact with the ground. Sore as my body felt, as much pain as jolted through me with each impact, the pleasure still began to build. As though both sensations fed one another.

My throat was horse from screaming. My lungs ached with the effort to draw in more air. The pleasure intensified again. How could it increase? I was already at my limit, with the pleasure at unbearable levels. The sensation crawled through my body, too great to be contained. I flailed wildly. My fingers racking his skin, breaking my nails.

Finally, when I thought the experience might drive me insane and my mind would die with my body in a blinding flash of ecstasy, I came. I bucked so hard against his immovable form that I knew I had bruised myself further against his body. Somewhere in the delirium of orgasm, with the sweet sent of vampire and the woodsy sent of wolf thick in the air, I heard Edward scream as he released. Then the world went black.

I awoke to find my vision ringed with blackness and spotted with star-bursts. Afterglow? Had blood vessels in my eyes rupture? Did I care? No. I felt surprisingly pain free. Kind of disconnected, but good. I must not have been out too long, because the endorphins were still in my system, muting the pain of being beaten and bruised. I could vaguely see Edward lying on his back beside me. I blinked twice to focus on Jacob kneeling over me.

"Are you OK?" he asked in a worried tone. His face was crinkled into an expression of concern. "Did he hurt you?

Did he? I didn't know for sure. "No," I drawled out like a sloppy drunk. "I'm..." I searched for the word. "Great." I said finally. It seemed so inadequate.

"I couldn't get him off you." Jake said, sounding mortified. "He was going too fast and you were hitting the ground so hard..." he trailed off.

The sound of his voice and the horrified look in his eyes brought me a few inches closer to reality. "Its OK Jake." I said in a soothing voice. I raised a hand to lay on his cheek, cupping his face that hovered so close to mine. "It was perfect. You were both perfect." And that was the whole truth. They had both been phenomenal, but together they were... perfect. The experience was completely sublime.

His face seemed to soften a little bit, now that he realized I wasn't dead or dying. "It was." he agreed, as he laid down pulling me against him.

Edward rolled over and pressed himself to my other side. We fit together like three puzzle pieces. Meant to be. This is what had been missing. This had been the source of my anxiety. Trying to choose between them, when the solution was to choose both. How obvious!

"Perfect. My sentiments exactly." Edward whispered in my ear.

"No choosing." I said more to myself than either of them. "I will eat my cake and have it too!"

"So, I can look forward to this again?" Jake asked, with utter contentment plain in his voice.

"Ohh, you had better believe it." I reassured him. "Again and again and again and again..."

The End?