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Crossing Paths
They were just two lonely people heading towards New York, just two trains passing in the night. He didn't think it would end like this.
It was the brief flare of light from across the smoky dining car that first drew his attention. He watched as she replaced the lighter on the maître d's podium and raised the cigarillo to her ruby lips. Full and pouty, they quivered with self-humor as they closed around the shaft. He quickly found himself cataloguing the curve of her cheekbones, the distinctive bump on the bridge of her nose, her flashing hazel eyes – the right one drifting with a light laze – which glittered with irritation as she waited to be shown to a table in the crowded car.
The maître d' approached her with a sad shake of his head and she blinked. She coughed once and ground out the smoking nail, impatiently smoothing a stray falling curl behind her ear before she stepped closer towards the little man. He admired the blue curve of her hips against the dark black background of the entryway and the servant's suit while she tried to work her wiles, but her only effect was to add a note of desperation to the glorified waiter's shaking head while he stood making calf-eyes at the dame.
He chuckled at the sad state of the railway help, even as he raised his hand to summon the first-class waiter. He mumbled his instructions carelessly, but never took his eyes off of the woman. He traced the trim lines of her body as lovingly as her prim, woolen traveling suit seemed to cling to them, but he was careful to look directly into her eyes when the waiter finally spoke to her and she turned to see where the man pointed.
She balked and turned her shoulders, preparing to spin in that huff that proper skirts perfected at the same time they learned to snap stockings onto garters, always moving away with the bouncing hair and swaying ass designed to let a man know just what he was missing.
He just raised his eyebrows in an unspoken challenge.
And she stopped, just as he knew she would.
She broke their mating gaze and cast her eyes left, right, and down to her purse. He was holding his breath, and he didn't know what for until she looked up again. It was like she climbed inside of him, fired two hot slugs right through his brain pan, and he couldn't tear himself away as she crossed the room and stood at his small table, which now held a hurriedly-arranged place setting for a second guest.
She returned his challenge with a delicate arch of one brown brow.
"Interesting that first class seems to have at least three empty tables while my new friend at the door insisted the restaurant car was fully booked for the next hour." Her voice was a sultry smoke in his ear, although tingling sparks of sarcasm still struck his eardrum at random intervals.
He allowed her a nod even as the left corner of his mouth climbed higher.
"Privileges of class, Kitten. But with great wealth comes great responsibility." He winked because he instinctively knew it would bring a flush of pale pink irritation to her cheeks. "Such as rescuing classy ladies like yourself from the horrors of returning to your bunk on an empty stomach." He watched her, waffling between taking a poke at him and making good use of her getaway sticks, and tried to keep her off balance by the friendly offer of his hand.
"I'm Edward Masen."
Edward watched for the tell-tale flicker of recognition his last name sometimes excited, but there was none. Good. That was the way Edward preferred it, and his smile widened.
"Isabella Swan," she said with a perfunctory nod, and Edward found that he was now the one fighting to recall where he knew a name. Ideas flickered through his head as he prolonged the hand shake, turning her hand so the pale flesh of her wrist was exposed to the sweep of his thumb when he moved it down the light turquoise contour of a vein. Where did he know that name from?
Isabella, whoever she was, yanked her hand from his grasp and spun away, only to come face to face with the waiter bearing a tray of oysters on-the-half-shell, which he set next to the basket of elegant dinner rolls. Her eyes widened.
"Is that real butter?"
"Only the best," Edward agreed, pushing the basket closer towards her and indicating the chair next to him. He noticed that she held one hand to her belly as she sat, and tried not to grin as she made quick work of buttering a roll. He wouldn't have been surprised had she shoved the entire thing in her pie-hole at once, but, instead, the first single, healthy bite set her eyelids flickering down in an expression he recognized only too well as sinful pleasure.
A small, whimpering sound of supreme enjoyment spilled over her lush lips along with the darting flicker of her pink tongue and Edward pledged to himself then and there to discover what other circumstances would produce that sound. She came back to herself slowly, gazing at him behind the amber fall of her lashes, and he had to resettle himself in his seat before she blinked and dropped the piece of bread on her side plate.
"I'm sorry. That was rude." Even as she said it, she continued to glance at the dinner roll, and Edward found that, for the first time in his life, he was jealous of a piece of bread. He split a second bun, lathering it with a week's worth of rations of the creamy spread, and was pleased to find her attention now riveted to the work of his hands.
He saluted her with a buttery bit. "Never apologize to me for enjoying yourself, Doll." Edward popped the bread into his mouth with a loud smack of his lips.
A grin broke across Isabella's face and her eyes twinkled mischievously as she observed, "You talk like we'll be doing this often in the future. Like we're not just… two trains passing in the night." She let her irony slip with a lover's caress, and Edward found himself swaying closer to her.
He nearly ripped off the waiter's head when the discreet cough cut across the threads of their conversation. He chose to ignore the way Isabella's eyes crinkled at the corners while they ordered. But he remained focused on her every bite of food and every private chuckle, and, as soon as they were alone again, he leaned forward and brushed his thumb along the bottom contour of her lip, just below its ruby-red line. With a gentle pressure, he reclaimed a small dab of pale yellow. Edward held her eye contact as he sucked it off the pad of his finger.
She blinked and turned her head to gaze at her place setting with fixed fascination.
"So you do this a lot, then? Try to pick up strange girls?" She spoke around bites of buttered bread, and to hell with him if he didn't find it adorable.
"You make it sound so sordid."
That earned him a reproachful glance, so he continued. "And you're not so strange."
Isabella looked at him gravely over the flickering candle that served as a centerpiece.
"I'm not your average Jane," she informed him.
"Oh, believe me, I can see that." She frowned as if disappointed, and he cut to the chase. "You're alone on a train heading halfway across the country, and you were brave enough to come sit with me. You know how to take care of yourself. I'd wager you're packing iron in that cute little satchel." He angled his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. "Your clothes are well made, but they're mended, and the rations have hit you hard," he gestured to the bread she had set on the plate as her mouth dropped open. "You've got a slight accent. Midwestern? Maybe you're going home to Chicago," he mused, but he was quick to see the shade of sorrow as it swept over her eyes. "No? That's not your home. You – you don't really have a home, do you? You really are alone. Are you bad luck, or do you just chase them all away?"
The sorrow in her eyes was consumed by the flame of irritation. The firming of her lips and straightening of her shoulders issued the acceptance of a challenge as clearly as the return slap of a glove across his face. Damn, but he liked this tomato.
"You mean like you do? God, what is your problem? You change tracks from sizing up my gams to insulting me in the blink of an eye. Isn't that a bit too cliché? Hollywood son –" he couldn't arrest the flutter of his eye lids "– Oh, yes! I know who you are now. Your name was in all the papers. You're more famous now for your romantic peccadillos than your father ever was for his screen romances. But you can't let anyone get close to you, can you? Treat them like garbage so they can't hurt you down the line. Heaven forbid that any of them ever measure up to… what was her name?"
"Carrie."
He forced himself to spit out her name, and willed the images away even as Isabella rambled on about the tragic official story. Edward had been there when they found the body. He had seen the needle marks, the trail of foam across her perfect cheek, her impossibly large eyes staring right through him without seeing anything. He remembered how those eyes had pleaded even as she had climbed off the lap of his old man and pushed down her wedding dress. Yeah, he did measure other sisters against Carrie, and he'd found so few who could match her for her charming cruelty. But it wasn't his fault, what had happened to her, and he glared at Isabella as she finally fell silent.
The steaming plates of well-garnished cuisine were placed in front of them as they continued to stare. She looked away first, and Edward dedicated himself to finishing his meal quickly and dusting out as soon as possible. Miles of perfume-scented legs wouldn't have been worth this abuse, and this sister probably wouldn't even clear his shoulder. He waved his hand and had his glass refilled.
Halfway through his dish he heard a whispered sigh, and glanced up to find her looking at him with expectation.
"What?"
She cleared her throat. "I said I'm sorry."
He released his fork and fell back into his chair with a smirk. The color had climbed high in her cheeks, and she shifted uncomfortably but she pressed on.
"I shouldn't have brought up your fiancée. I know it was in all the papers a year ago, but they never get the story right and… I'm sure you didn't have anything to do with her death."
Edward struggled to hold onto his rage, but her obvious discomfort charmed him.
"Why do I get the feeling that it's not easy getting an apology out of you?"
Her soft laughter broadened his smile. "Maybe you do know me fairly well after all."
Edward caught the waiter hovering in the distance and summoned him forward. He claimed the whole bottle of wine and topped both glasses off as he considered how easily she had earned a rise from him when the taunts of others had never made him so much as flinch. She might be prickly as hell, but he had felt more genuine emotion in his short time with her than he had in the past year. He felt her gaze on him, he knew the train of her thoughts, and he had to wonder what it would be like…
He proposed a toast with a small wink in her direction.
"To strangers on a train."
Their glasses resonated across the room. "And the things that they know," she amended.
xxx
Edward slid closed the door to his private cabin. He leaned against it as he watched Isabella standing at the window, framed by the fast moving shadows beyond. She turned and a faint dusting of pink climbed her cheeks when she found him looking at her.
"How about that nightcap?" she chirped, her eyes darting low, from his made up bunk to his small pile of reading materials, looking at anything to avoid looking directly at him. He crossed the distance between them in four long strides, and she was forced to meet his gaze. Her eyes widened when he raised his hand, but she let him touch the back of his fingers to the velvet softness of her cheek. She allowed him to trail it down her delicate neck, and her body shivered when his hand lifted from her exposed collar bone as if it already missed the touch.
"We could drink some more," he considered. "But there are other things we could be doing, too."
Isabella's gaze was knowing, but she asked anyway. "And what would those other things be?"
"This." He lowered his head to hers and was rewarded when her hands quickly slid beneath his dinner jacket and pressed him to her. She tasted like butter and wine and raspberries and he wanted to feast on her mouth for an eternity.
Edward turned their bodies and stepped into her.
He never stopped kissing her.
They sighed, relieved to finally feel the other's body stretched against their own.
Their hands flew at the buttons and zippers of the many offending articles of clothing while their mouths moved against each other, communicating passion and desire better than mere words ever could.
Isabella arched away from the bed as Edward pulled her skirt over her hips, down her legs, and let it fall on top of the growing pile of clothing, but he broke their kiss when his hands encountered what her skirt had hidden. He examined her legs with a feral grin, running his palms up the smooth silk of her stockings until they hit the four pink ribbons of her garters. Isabella shuddered as he lowered his head and took the end of one ribbon between his teeth.
"I'm starting to miss these," he bemoaned, unhappy at the effect the war was having on the state of women's undergarments.
"Funny," Isabella squirmed as his tongue bathed the line of the ribbon against her flesh, "it feels like you found them just fine."
Edward smirked up at her and deftly unhooked the ribbons from the silk. He kissed each inch of flesh as it was uncovered to the cool air, and then held the two scraps of silk while he looked at her with mock-despair.
"Why, Miss Swan, I do believe you've been holding out on our boys. Could these possibly be nylon?"
Isabella sat up and plucked the flimsy fabric out of his hands and tossed it on the ground. "There's only one boy who's in danger of being held out on, funny man." She slipped her hand around the back of his neck and tugged until his warm chest was flush with hers. "I've got a small tour of service for you."
He followed her to the bed with a small laugh. "Private Masen, reporting for duty, ma'am."
They laughed into each other's mouths, but the friction of skin on skin soon sobered them. Her legs were long enough to wrap around his thighs, and her feet hooked behind his back as her body made a request of his with a small movement of her hips. He framed her head on either side as he held himself above her, and her dark hair spread freely across the white sheets. Both pairs of eyes fell closed as he slid into her, and his forehead fell on top of hers.
The rumble of the train shook the small cot, adding unexpected but not unwelcome vibrations to their lovemaking. The clicking of the wheels along the rails was like a metronome that increased its paces instead of standing still as a straight stretch of track loomed before them. The whistle blew shrilly in the night at the same time Isabella screamed his name, gripping his arms as she thrashed out her climax. Edward managed to fall to the side when he went over, his chest still heaving, his arms twitching as they strove to relax.
They lay in silence save the train's rattle for several minutes.
Isabella's fingers trailed up his forearm.
Edward's fingers tightened on the curve of her hip.
Her fingers slipped to the gathering hardness at her thigh.
He followed that curve to the shadowed place between her thighs.
They both laughed.
A/N: Parallel story, Crossroads, posted.