Forks, Washington
1938
It happened so fast there was no time to react, even for a vampire. The house was there and then it wasn't. Had the Quileute attacked them anyway, despite the newly acquired treaty? The rumble of destruction faded to only the hiss of dust settling and the angry creak of timber, punctuated now and again by the shrill popping of glass windowpanes.
Carlisle was the first to pull himself from the rubble. "Esme!" He clawed frantically at the debris.
"I'm here," she called back, her voice muffled as half of a wall rose up and shifted to slide off her. "I'm all right," she added needlessly if only to soothe her husband's panic. As she rose from the ruins, she groaned in despair surveying the damage.
More sections of the house shifted and large sections of plaster slid out of the way as Rosalie's dust-covered head peeked up through a hole. She stared at her surroundings in horrified shock. Emmett groaned nearby with a strained sound just as half of the debris moved sharply. His bare legs stuck up through the dust as he kicked way a supporting beam to free himself. The enormous timber flew up and arched across the yard landing with a ground-shaking thud. The sudden motion caused a second collapse of material. Papers, furniture and more plaster rained down on them from the precariously supported roof.
"Uh-oh," Emmett muttered. A large section of plaster from the former ceiling dropped on his head and cracked over him like an egg. "Whoops."
Almost everyone was accounted for, except... "Edward!" Carlisle shouted. "Edward, can you hear me?"
"M'shtuck," came his muffled and deeply annoyed voice.
Carlisle and Esme pulled the shattered walls from the wreckage and tossed them aside, batting at more plaster as it fell on them. They made the task look as easy as pulling back a pile of blankets until they found Edward at last. He was tightly wedged between the new washing machine they had just purchased that morning and the cistern wall that had broken and collapsed on him.
By the time they could pull Edward free, he was drenched and covered in plaster dust and mud. Esme made a regret-filled tsking sound with her tongue as she pulled back her hands to shake the clay from her hands. The laser-like glare of Edward's eyes found Emmett and Rosalie.
Rose was sitting up in the rubble with her arms wrapped across her bare chest. Despite their pale complexions, she now looked like she had been painted in the white plaster powder. Emmett rose up out of the debris nude, but was holding a large chunk of wall in front of his privates. He laughed nervously and waved at Carlisle, Esme and Edward as they stared accusingly at the couple.
"Sorry," he said meekly. He looked around at what remained of the house. "Too bad we don't have a psychic in the family, huh? Bet he could have warned us in advance."
~•~
"Esme wouldn't really enlist us in the Civilian Conservation Corps, would she?" Emmett muttered, pulling the old canvas tent from the rafters in the garage.
Rosalie laughed lightly and shook her head. "No, but that's about as mad as I've ever seen her." She held her arms up and took the tent from Emmett as he lightly dropped onto the soft dirt floor.
"What did she mean about planting trees?" he asked.
"I think it's meant to show us the value of lumber, so we'll have a greater appreciation for what exactly goes in to all the repairs to the house she's had to make lately."
They pulled the tent into the yard and started unfolding it as Edward and Carlisle finished knocking down a nearby spruce. The tree landed neatly into the middle of the debris to disguise the cause of the damage. Edward glared at them again as he walked by. He didn't offer to help.
"Are we really banned from the house?" Emmett asked sheepish.
"Yep." Rosalie realized they had gotten off easy.
"I feel guilty about not being able to help rebuild it," he said sadly.
Rosalie shrugged. "I don't."
Emmett's guilty frown slowly transformed itself into a grin. "That was pretty incredible." His smile turned into a chuckle which grew into laughter. When Rose started laughing with him, they both doubled over cackling.
"There's nothing funny about this," Esme yelled from the other side of the junk pile that had formerly been their home.
Her words only made Emmett and Rose laugh harder.
"We knocked down the house!" Emmett gasped, falling to the ground with laughter.
"The house we just fixed after knocking out two walls last week!" Rose added, rolling next to her husband.
"Laugh it up, chuckles," Edward snarled. "I hope you're still laughing when the rain starts again."
"Wait. What? We can't stay in the tent?" Rose asked, her laughter coming under control in the wake of Edward's threat.
"Nope. This is your penance. Find something else to do," Edward informed them blithely.
Emmett's laughter took on a lascivious tone. "I can think of something else to do."
Edward rolled his eyes at the seductive tenor of Emmett's thoughts. "Sometimes I wish that bear had been more effective."
"Stop it, Edward," Rose snarled at him. "Just because you're not having any fun, doesn't mean the rest of us have to dance around you."
"Can you at least find someplace else for your... your... wrestling sessions?" Edward demanded before stalking off.
Emmett continued to chuckle, unfazed by Edward's surly demeanor. "Don't worry about him," he said comfortingly to his wife. "We'll find something else to do."
"Okay, but I can't wrestle you forever. I suppose I'll have to find some new challenge." Rosalie hid her teasing grin. "Can you recommend anything?"
Emmett's happiness couldn't be hidden as he helped her to her feet. "How about we go out to the foothills. I don't want a lot of competition for your time just now."
"Just now?" she teased.
"Or ever," he added.
A smile best described as wicked crossed her mouth as she whispered, "No matter how well you hide, lover, I'll find you."
So it was to be hide-and-seek! Or, as he knew, hide-and-chase. And she wanted to chase him.
Emmett paused by the half-erected tent hiding his excitement at her willingness to play. She never acted this way around the rest of the family. He doubted they even knew this side of her existed. He put a purely innocent smile on his face and mustered a bit of indignity, which he veneered over his true intentions, and then he was off in a flash, running at full speed across the backyard.
Rosalie paused long enough to give him a fair head start, then was after him like a flash. He made it all the way down the valley when suddenly she fell out of tree ahead of him, crouched in his path. She snarled at him. Emmett cut sharply left with a laugh that the game was still afoot and ran up the hill, making his own path through the low trees and saplings. He couldn't use his speed here so he used his bare hands to help him scramble over the steep rock and dirt ledges. Rosalie was right on his heels. Growls ripped from her as random scree was dislodged under his feet and flew harmlessly into her face. He could feel swats across the back of his thighs and calves as she swung at him, grazing him.
At last she hooked his thigh enough to knock him to the left. Emmett tucked and rolled, but still landed hard. He tried right himself, but Rosalie landed on his back. If he'd had to worry about breathing, he would have had the wind knocked out of him. He soon found himself in another wrestling match with a snarling vampire. Any other would have hesitated in an attack, cowered simply by his size and stature. Rosalie had no such qualms.
It didn't take him long to realize that if he didn't fight back, she'd get the upper hand without remorse. Emmett bent and put Rosalie off balance with his shoulder. He moved around her and lifted the snarling, wriggling woman off her feet, holding her arms down to keep her claws away.
His arms were like iron bands around her as he held her against his chest, then fell to the ground again with her pinned below him. His own voice growled with the impact, and he used everything he had to keep her from regaining her balance. Growling and writhing in frustration, trying to hold her was like holding a sack of steel snakes. She paused for a moment to gather her strength and broke his hold on her with a Herculean effort. She scrambled away to open space to fight.
She laughed at him. "Don't try those vampire tricks on me, my love. I'm older than you."
"We were born the same year!" he said. The sound of his voice surprised him. It was lower and rougher.
"But I was a vampire two years before you. Technically, that makes me older and wiser."
Emmett graced her with a pout and a dramatic gesture. "You wound my male ego!" He felt powerful, pushing himself to his limits with her and enjoying it. His mind was clouded with a fog of desire as he freely ran on his instincts, even for fun.
"That's not all I'll wound, sweetheart," she snarled and attacked.
Emmett rushed towards her instead of retreating. He feinted to the left as if to dodge away and brought his heavy hand down against her hip crumpling her leg from under her. Without hesitation, he spun behind her and swatted at the back of her knee, collapsing her legs from under her. Rosalie fell, rolled with the blow and added some extra rolls for distance. She scrambled back up favoring her numbed hip.
"Where did you learn that, Emmett Cullen? That was pure bar brawl." She flexed the numbed side cautiously. "I thought you were a good Christian boy when you were human."
"I'd say during a particularly raucous sexual encounter," he lisped a bit as he tried to whisper. "But my wife might be close by listening."
"Oh? How interesting," she said, shifting her weight cautiously onto the affected limb. She massaged her hip, eyes down. "Were you trying to break my leg, Emmett love?"
"Course not!" he snorted and mumbled, "As if I could." Louder, he added, "Emmett's rule number one: Never break anything you might want play with later." He grinned as the innuendo hung in the air with her intoxicating scent.
"You'll have to find it first," she laughed suddenly and lunged to the side, into the undergrowth.
Emmett debated giving her a head start for all of a split second, and then took off after her. She ducked around trees, getting out of his sight, so Emmett tailed her by sound. She was ahead of him...or so he thought.
Rosalie rushed around the tree nearly silent coming from behind him as he passed, and leaped onto Emmett's back like a forest demon. If anyone had been watching they would have been shocked by the seeming intensity of the attack, but both combatants knew this was only for fun. Knowing it was just play, however, did not kill the slicing pain in Emmett's right shoulder as the hunter dug her nails into his stony flesh. Emmett tucked and rolled with her attack trying to fling her over his shoulder, but she only dug her fingers deeper into the muscle. With the added weight of Rosalie on his shoulders, he continued the tuck into a forward somersault and flipped both of them over, landing on his back and catching Rosalie between himself and the ground.
The scuttle of their feet in the underbrush and the low snarls were punctuated with her surprised yelp. Emmett felt a flash of concern through the slightly unfocused gray his mind had become with their roughhousing, but he still couldn't shake her grip. Instead, she tightened her hold on his shoulder and wrapped her left arm around his neck. Then, much to his dismay, she began to lick his neck behind his ear. Emmett shivered as her tongue sought out that compromise zone between his throat and his nape. She was trying to provoke another kind of frenzy in him now.
The baser instincts of the playing beast in him receded for a brief moment and he melted into the contact. Her breath was delicious on his neck and for a moment he could ignore the pain in his shoulder and the iron-like band over his throat.
Rosalie rolled them over onto his stomach, trapping him against the ground. Emmett pushed up from his hands and arched up into her, slowly bringing himself to his hands and knees as she continued her ardent attack with her mouth and lips. A different sort of beast awoke in him and the playfulness shifted suddenly. With his left hand he reached behind him for her leg and grasped her behind the knee as he shifted their combined weight to his knees and caught her arm around his throat with his right hand. With a strong and sudden yank, he pulled her off his back and onto the ground, gambling that she'd let go of his shoulder and not rip his arm off. She let go and landed hard on her back. He was on her now, using his weight to pin her and his leverage to hold her arms spread-eagled, unable to completely ignore the momentum of their pernicious play.
Rosalie had no interest in the wrestling any more though, and she continued to suck on his neck, slowly making her way to his torn shirt and applying herself to licking the punctures she had made in his shoulder. The venom closed the nearest wound under her clever tongue. Emmett caressed her jaw and ear with his nose, stroking her cheek with his own. He felt her mouth on the wounds she'd given him with her nails, and knew his venom-thickened blood was on her tongue.
No sooner had that thought entered his mind than she pulled away to look into his eyes. Was it a trick of the light or was there a storm cloud in her honey eyes? She had confessed to him how much she hated being a vampire, that she never wanted this life. She had gone to great lengths to avoid so many things that were part of vampire nature and had never once set her teeth into human skin. But he wasn't human any more. There was no uneasiness at the thought of her drinking his blood. It wasn't uncommon for vampire lovers to bite or mark one another. Carlisle had explained as much. He had said it was more erotic than carnal sex for their kind, even though he managed to impart this information with the manner of a schoolteacher.
Did she want to bite him? Did she want to mark him?
Below him, still in his hard grip, Rosalie lay submissive with downcast eyes in sudden embarrassment. Emmett dipped his head slightly and touched his lips to her throat, opening his mouth. He licked her neck, pressing his tongue flat against the smooth skin. When he opened his mouth wider and caressed her with his teeth, Rosalie arched violently and pressed her neck into his mouth. That was all the encouragement he needed. With steady deliberate pressure, he broke the skin and sank his teeth deep into her neck. Her venom-tainted blood flooded his mouth. She was, in a sense, his first non-animal victim. He let go of her arms and held her, one hand holding her to him, the other supporting her neck as she clutched his soft curly hair in her fingers.
The flavor burst into his mouth: pepper and sugar all at once. The thick elixir poured over his tongue and he swallowed reflexively. She moaned and collapsed under his mouth; he followed her to the ground. Even as more vitae flowed into his mouth, he could feel it begin to boil through him. It was life and death inextricably linked. Her essence flavored with that of her own victims: deer, bear, and coyote. To Emmett, the warming sensation reminded him of a rare treat he'd had once as a child; hot chocolate on a cold blustery day as it warmed him from the inside out. It morphed into a vintage moonshine, pure and clear from the still, but it didn't burn. That simple quaff spread through him like a wild fire and revitalized him. He enjoyed the flavors, the complexity, and feeling her body pressing mindlessly into his. He swallowed again, savoring the sensation and taste of her.
Rosalie whimpered and writhed under him, everything centered around his mouth on her throat. Pain and happiness began and ended with his sucking kiss. After her human fiancé violated her so completely, she never thought she could trust herself to love again. She never imagined she could simply be herself or enjoy the vulnerability that came from knowing the love of a decent and caring man. Emmett's purity and goodness healed her once-bleeding spirit.
A star burst of light exploded behind Emmett's eyes and he shuddered. His control could not compete with the present—and the totally arousing—experience of Rosalie's eager and intoxicating body. He panted heavily, his breath harsh against her neck as he kissed and licked her in heated abandon, closing the wound.
He knew it was Rosalie's turn, and he knew she would not shy away from her nature. She rolled him over. Her strong fingers ripped his already tattered shirt aside. She was kneeling over him, drinking, healing the punctures on his shoulder when it hit him.
His mind splintered into a million tiny fragments. Light burst across his eyes and sent his rationale spinning away into oblivion setting his body on fire with her every touch. The sharing of their venom was like a drug and a thousand times more powerful. His body burned, hypersensitive to touch. Even the clothes he wore were too much of a distraction and he ripped them from his own body. Skin like satin. Smooth. Wet. Sweet. Erect pulsing animal desire. Her body opening and accepting his.
His need for her was immediate and primal. All he knew was her. All he wanted was her. There was no thought. Her clothes disappeared in a roar of tearing seams, hanging in shreds from her slender shoulders. She was touching him, over him, moving against him. She rose from her labors and caught his eyes: wanton, greedy, her lips smeared with his blood, and it was natural. It was right that she be here, on his body and he took her, forcing himself into her with the heartlessness of an animal. Their hunger was insatiable. Her heat was his destruction. And the world as they knew it... ended.
~•~
Emmett awoke with Rosalie lying naked over him. Her golden hair spread over his chest in little tangles. They were still joined; her warmth surrounded him. Slowly, he combed his fingers through her hair, trying to right it. The silky strands parted with little difficulty once he pulled the twigs and grass out. He felt her sigh in his arms and he tried to rub her back, but his hands felt sticky. He lifted his hand to see what it was: venom and blood. Emmett tried to look at her back to see what could have possibly done this to her. A glance at the top of her shoulder showed him that however bad it had been, it was only scratches now. The upper edge of four nail-marks marred the pale skin. He tried to lick them closed, knowing they were his own doing. He lifted her off him slightly and laid her back down in the puddle of their clothes. He laid over her, licking the wounds closed slowly in long stroking caresses. He worked his way up until he was lying over her, using his body as a blanket.
As he closed the last of the scratches near her neck, she began to breathe in shuddering gasps as if crying. He bent his ear to her lips. She wasn't crying. She was pleading with him.
"Fuck me, please. Oh God, do it. I want you to fuck me. Please, Emmett, please."
Some part of his brain registered her words. 'Fuck' wasn't part of the vocabulary of the once proper and self-absorbed woman she used to be. They had gotten pretty wild in the past as they grew more familiar with each other—Rosalie indulging his penchant for occasional roughness—but it had never been anything like this.
She was totally beyond defenses now. She was just his, raw and complete. She trusted him utterly, not only in their love and lust, but in all things. She was giving him everything, beyond any games or distinctions.
He kissed his wife's neck softly, wanting tenderness to counterbalance their earlier barbaric intercourse, but it was almost impossible to maintain that gentleness. Their base natures, both raw and hot, were still lingering close to the surface. He knelt between her legs and placed his hands on her hips, urging her to her hands and knees. He nipped the small of her back, entering her without prelude until he filled her completely with a guttural cry. His movements were quick and deliberate, moving in rapid short strokes, forcing himself deeply into her until he thought he'd go mad.
He lifted her into his lap with harsh strength and wrapped his arms around her stomach, helping her by alternately lifting her and forcing her down on him. There was no control or delicacy, no finesse. He felt clumsy and overzealous. He shuddered; trying to find his restraint so he could please her, and crushed his eyes closed never breaking their momentum, when suddenly it happened. A bolt of energy shot through his body. It raced through his neck and out the top of his head. For a moment he thought his might explode. He felt suffocated and trapped even as he felt liberated and set free to fly, burning through the heavens like a shooting star.
Emmett felt arms wrapped around his midriff. His voice broke in a gasping growl and he clutched at Rosalie in a sudden burst of anxiety that barely subdued a possessive rage.
Someone was behind him!
Even as his grip around his lover tightened, so did the arms around him. He felt a body pressed against his back, felt the euphoria of lovemaking. Confused, he flexed his fingers experimentally against Rosalie's skin, and likewise, the sensation of the hand on him moved. He moved his thumb in a slow circle against her; the touch felt the same on his body.
He was feeling what Rosalie felt! It wasn't empathy. He wasn't reading her mind. It felt like he was he was in her body, sharing the same skin.
Rosalie gasped as he realized what it was. Their shared venom connected them and reflected their emotions back on them like mirrors—one looking at the other reflecting itself ad infinitum. He felt her climax, knew now what it felt like for a woman to reach that precipice of the little death and plunge off into oblivion. He even felt Rosalie's response to his own climax as his mind broke free and spun in circles. He felt his own orgasm reflected in Rosalie. Their cries of ecstasy began and ended together, echoing off the walls of the valley.
As suddenly as his new sight came it was gone again, and they collapsed in utter exhaustion. Emmett turned her in his arms and buried his face against her neck. He could feel her breath racing through her throat against his cheek. His mind was clouded in an exhausted blur and the sense of unreality of everything that had happened.
"What WAS that?"
Rosalie's eyes were wide with surprise and happiness. "I don't know, but we are so going to do that again!"
"Damn right we are." A wicked grin spread over Emmett's face. "See that. We do have a special vampire gift. Completely unique. Just our own."
She grew suddenly serious, gazing up into his adoring eyes. She never thought she could ever trust another man, never thought she could ever submit to a man and let him press her into the ground. She never felt more vulnerable and exposed in her life than when Emmett looked at her.
"I love you," she mouthed the words without a sound.
He pressed his lips against hers, tasting their blood combined on their tongues. "I will love you forever, Rosalie Hale." His hand found hers, threading his large fingers between her thin ones and pressed his thumb against her wedding ring. "Thank you for saving me."
"No, thank you... for saving me," she said in earnest as her voice broke, smoothing his thick curly hair from his temples and pulling his lips back to hers.
~•~