Although the early autumn weather was still pleasantly mild, I activated the Vanquish's heated driver's seat and steering wheel.
Save for the purr of the engine and the calm beat of her heart, it was a quiet ride into school. I had expected her to be stubborn, try to prove me wrong by sitting up bolt straight and pretending not to be sleepy.
As usual, she never did what I expected. We weren't to the main highway before she pulled off her jacket, covering herself with it like and blanket. She kicked off her shoes and coiled her legs up underneath her on the seat, leaving only her pretty little toes exposed beneath the flowing sapphire skirt. Body draped over the consul, she yawned once, tucked her arm underneath mine, then laid her cheek on my shoulder.
I smiled down at her unnoticed, the title of the song If loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right running through my head. Her bare arm coffered my own, its delicate softness bled through my shirt captivating it in heat and submerging the stone skin beneath in bliss. I inhaled her glorious scent, leaned my head toward her and kissed her hair. She sighed relaxing, yawning once and closed her eyes.
In spite of our argument and in spite the weather, I was a happy man.
Certainly the more vexing of the two was the weather. I would have to time my departure from the car carefully when we arrived. Hours before sunset and with only a few puffy clouds for occasional cover, I did my best to ignore the sun. Like the eye of Zoran, it sat low and menacing in the western sky, doing its damnedest to pierce the protection of the car.
Yes, the windows of the Vanquish were tinted dark, nevertheless I still took added precautions. I had the car's visors down. My granite hands hid beneath my driving gloves and a ball cap adorned my head. Before I met her, I would have never considered driving so casually around in this kind of weather.
I assessed that I had only two goals in life, to love her and keep her safe, yet this behavior was stupid, reckless and dangerous. The cognitive dissidence was maddening. As if we weren't in trouble enough, here I was, flouting the rules once more. There was no mercy for those that flouted the rules and it was only Aro's interest in me and Alice... and her that had spared us last spring.
I should have skipped my first class, let her drive her truck into school and met up later after sunset. All I would have had to do was asked. We had picked up the newly painted Chevy at the beginning of the week and I no longer could use its absence as an excuse for letting her go on without me. She would have been more than gracious, acted as though it was no big deal. There would have been only the slightest tightening of her eyes, a trace of sadness... of sympathy for me she would do her best to hide.
It's what I should have done. Responsibility used to be my motto, I thought wryly.
Nevertheless, here I was.
She loved me. Nothing else mattered to her. And when I looked down at her, beautiful, relaxed... and snoring, nothing else mattered to me than to be by her side. I could not even bring myself to feel guilty. I sighed happy and content, proud that we were on our way to school and not sprawled on the kitchen table. As I patted myself on the back for my exemplary behavior, I pushed my anxiety into a dark crevice of my mind that I would do my best to ignore.
With her warm soft body now slumbering peacefully against me, my thoughts now turned to how I handled the other part of the afternoon. I really didn't believe that I had done anything wrong. Clearly she was exhausted. She had barely slept at all in the last two weeks. But was there some way I could have handled it better, made her less angry, figured out a way to get her in bed earlier...
I paused snickering. Getting her in bed wasn't really that much of a problem. Getting her to sleep in that bed on the other hand...
I admonished myself for thinking this way. It wasn't up to me to establish her sleep patterns. She was not a child. The dress she wore made that clear in ways that conjured a host of adult activities.
Sleeping for her meant losing time with me. The idea was downright hysterical. Strewn across me, she spent most of what little sleep she got with me in her dreams. While her soft voice whispered my name, her fingers quietly determined to explore whatever part of me they came near. Monday night when her hand drifted to more intimate areas of my body, I could not stop myself from waking her.
My apology went over very well.
Increasingly, our mutual desire and cravings bordered the ridiculous. I tried to analyze the situation. It had to be more than just the gnawing sexual urges of my seventeen year old body driven to the brink by her own bewildering want for me. All I wanted was to be near her, smell her, listen to her voice and feel her heart beat against mine. Just thinking about her touch made my body stir.
I would be bothered by this obsession, force myself to put a little distance between us if I didn't know without a doubt she felt the same way. I could see it in her eyes from the moment she woke, this driving, crazy need. At least she didn't have to deal with the fear that gripped me every time I was away from her. There have been so many close calls, too many narrow escapes. My justified paranoia often got the best of me. I was terrified of what could happen to her every time she was out of my sight. Hunting had grown increasingly stressful. I hated being away from her, even for a moment.
"Edward…"
I chuckled and her arm tightened around mine as the car crossed the city line. We were quite the pair.
At the bottom of both our obsessions was the fact that she was still human. As the seeds of doubt about what we were doing sprouted into my mind, I stomped them down quickly. She was happy. I was happy. I needed not to let my fears take hold of me. Hadn't I proved to myself time and time again that I would be safe for her, could be careful with her and still love her?
We had time. I would keep us safe. Alice would know if the Volturi had decided to come looking for us.
"Rise and shine, Mrs. Cullen." I added this fresh wave of anxiety to the growing pile of things I would not acknowledge on this fine September day and nudged her a couple of blocks from school.
"We're almost there?" she mumbled, not fully awake.
"Yes, Love." I smiled.
She yawned and stretched, sitting up in her own seat, her toes feeling around the floor well for her shoes.
I turned off North Main, pulling under a large shady oak fairly close to Kemeny Hall to let her out. I caught her glancing at the clock, her cheeks turning slightly pink. I knew it wasn't chivalrous, but I had to rub it in just a little.
"See? Ten minutes to spare."
"I'm sorry I was so cranky today." She leaned over the armrest again to hug my arm. "I know I need to get more rest."
"It's okay. I have my days too." I smiled trying to repair the damage of my snide remark, dipping my head to bury my nose in her dark mane.
"Perhaps we can spent the weekend in bed." she grinned mischievously.
"Hmm..."
My eyes shifted momentarily to the sun reflecting off the pavement a few dozen yards from where we sat. The shadows were growing long now, but not enough to completely cover the way to Kemeny Hall for our trig class.
"I'll be in as soon as I park."
"I can wait with you." She said brightly, easily, trying no doubt to gloss over the fact that I needed to hide in my car for at least another fifteen minutes.
"I thought you didn't want to be late."
"I know." she dropped her eyes, chagrined again.
"It will take me a few minutes to park anyhow."
"True," she agreed, the corners of her lips finally turning up. "We can't put baby just anywhere, can we?"
"Hey, no dissing the car."
She snickered at my choice of words. I put my best smile on for her, though this was the fourth time in the two weeks since we got here that we had to walk into class separately. "I won't be long, that patch of clouds are coming on pretty fast."
"I'll be waiting." She scampered up onto her knees in the seat to reach me and kiss me goodbye. It started out friendly, the palm of one hand pushing gently against my shoulder to hold her in her awkward position. With my feet still on the brake and the clutch, I twisted my body toward her. But as her lovely mouth lingered, it became ardent, demanding more. Desire and greed overtook me. My gloved hands abandoned the steering wheel, nearly pulling her into my lap as I held her against my chest treating myself to physically feeling her heart thump wildl and erratic against my own.
My mind flashed to an isolated spot nearby. We've never broken in the car. We could be there in minutes...
No! I'm trying to be good!
I tried my best to concentrate, but her power over me was formidable. The clamor of voices in my head silenced as her fingers knotted in my hair knocking my hat off my head. Our breathing grew urgent. She now bared down on me, crushed her yielding pink lips to mine. They parted, as did my own, and I found my tongue being sucked into her mouth.
Please... No... It took all my focus to behave myself earlier and now...
Later... we would have all weekend, I desperately reminded myself. But my resistance was waning, my hand was already moving back toward the steering wheel. Could the other one get to the gear shift with her on top of me?
She seemed to come to her senses before I did, pulling away panting.
"You are so tasty Mr. Cullen." She said dazed and glassy eyed, a silly grin spreading over her deliciously pink face.
"Get to class Mrs. Cullen." I growled, shaking my head to clear it. "I'll be there soon."
She giggled, apparently amused by my desperate state and left one last stinging peck on my cheek. But as she went to leave, she paused to look back at me, her own hungry expression evolving to something new. The faint trace of sympathy in her eyes that I had imagined earlier was there as she climbed out of the car. Then she sighed and closed the door, hurrying from me down the sidewalk. I watched using my own vision through the tinted window... still far superiors to the humans surrounding her until she became completely block from view. My right foot abandoned the brake and my palm shifted the Vanquish into first.
I passed by the student lot, opting for something with more shade. Just a couple blocks from campus, I backed into a dark windowless unused alley and shut down the engine. I had paid the owners of the adjacent buildings two thousand dollars each cash to rent it for the next couple months.
As I followed her in my mind, I stared out at the cross street in front of me doing my best to keep calm and get a hold on myself. It wasn't easy. After having her so close, it felt like a poor conciliation prize to continue to track her into the building through the thoughts of a young man several paces behind her. He had the best vantage point, but I should have moved onto to someone else... someone who in my current condition did not make me want to damage them.
I knew who he was. It wasn't the first time that she had caught his attention. He was a regular student, and our trig class was his last of the day. He was in our Tuesday-Thursday Humanities as well and she had literally bumped into him, knocking both their books to the floor as she walked distracted and alone to her seat in the back of the small auditorium the second day of the semester. That day I had to miss class altogether, I recalled irritated.
Up until a moment ago, he was thinking about our quiz in trig today... and then he saw her... alone once more. Like me, he also approved of her pretty new dress. He intentionally kept several paces behind her, enjoying the way her it clung to her narrow waist and floated over her over her heart shaped bottom... how the deep blue fabric undulated around her knees with every step she took. He wondered if her long brown hair was soft as it looked. The idea made him a little hard.
I ground my teeth in anger and frustration, a low snarl escaped from my chest as he considered upping his pace to talk to her.
I wonder where her boyfriend is?
He hadn't noticed the ring on her left hand, but at least he did remember me. He pictured in his mind the way she looked at me when we would come into the classroom... how her fingers were entwined in mine when we got up to leave. He changed his mind and stayed where he was.
It took me by surprise how his thoughts of us together soothed me, sucked the territorial fight right out of me. No, she doesn't have a boyfriend, she has a husband. She was mine, this insane woman crazy enough to love the likes of me was all mine. He had good taste, was probably a nice guy. That was all. I would take his appreciable attention. Take it and be happy.
...daylight savings time could not come fast enough.
Yes, I am a tease. But I promise to make it up to you next chapter.
And as always, Feel free to review or maybe even give me an idea for something new if you are of mind. I always enjoy reading them.