You all wanted more, so here I am! In addition to my usual disclaimer about Twilight belonging to Stephenie Meyer, I want to lower your expectations of any regular posting schedule before you start reading. I can only write this story chapter by chapter. I haven't written ahead at all, and if I do, I'll never get around to posting. I promise to never end a chapter on a cliffie, but understand completely if you want to wait for a 'complete' notification before you read. Updates will be slow.

Cared Cullen was my beautiful beta, so any mistakes are her fault. Joke! It's all on me. She gives me the courage to post; you would get nothing without her.

~~Kimberley Diamond~~

Kimberley Diamond Chapter 2

Carlisle

I do not suppose any of us are getting much sleep tonight, but I can't help thinking it is somehow worse for me than the other boys.

My sheets smell of Isabella, feminine and soft, if a scent can be soft. I lie here surrounded by her essence in Elizabeth's bed, listening to my son take her again and again. I would think him brutal, were it not for the sounds of pleasure from her. Such a slip of a girl, but so bold. They are well suited.

I ought to think of her as a daughter. Perhaps most of me does, but in the battle between my mind and my stiff prick, the father in me is losing ground to the dirty old man. It has been so long since I made a woman cry out in pleasure the way Edward has tonight. I pray he treats her well. He had better deserve her.

They finally settle down in the quiet of pre-dawn, but sleep eludes me still. All the burdens of responsibility I bear weigh me down, making my limbs as heavy as lead, but my cock will not settle. I am about to take matters in hand when there is a knock at my door.

"Pa? Can I talk to you?"

It's Emmet. He is always up and about before the rest of us, so his rough voice causes me no real alarm.

"Come in, Em." I sit up to hide my disgrace, but desire leaves me rapidly in any case.

He opens and closes the door quietly, his bare feet making no sound as he makes his way to the end of the bed, perching himself there with surprising grace for a man of his size.

Of all my boys, Emmet has always been the most surprising. Perhaps it is because he is not my flesh and blood, so I can never anticipate his development.

"What's troubling you, Son? You look like you've seen a ghost."

He laughs, but with no apparent mirth. "If you can call Alice a ghost, I've seen her."

"Alice is back? That's great news, Em. Where has she been, did she tell you?"

Emmet looks at me with a strange expression I can just make out in the dark room.

"Not in words," he says, hesitantly.

"Oh? How then?"

"I think you had better come and see, Pa."

"Alright." I haul myself out of bed and reach for my clothing, not wanting to waste time lighting lamps.

Alice – we named her ourselves, because we couldn't make out the clicks and guttural sounds in her true name – came to work for us a few years ago. We have no idea where she came from, or why she settled with us. One day she arrived in our kitchen, made herself at home, and set to work. None of us were of a mind to send her away again.

She is relatively light-skinned, of mixed blood – part Hottentot, part Xhosa, part who knows quite what – and could almost pass for Chinese, if it weren't for her African-black hair, which she plaits into tight, elaborate patterns every now and then. She is a sweetheart, a blessing, and when she left us several months back we were all terribly sad.

I am relieved she has returned, whatever the matter is.

I can't find my boots in the dark, so leave them off like Emmet. We walk quietly across the wooden floor, which feels cool and dusty under my bare toes. Em and I share a look as we walk past Edward's door. The silence from his room is thick with what must surely be utter exhaustion. Em can't hold back a snigger. I bump his shoulder with my own; a little piece of solidarity between the poor, unsated men of the family.

I hear her singing before we reach the kitchen, which makes me smile, but Emmet looks guarded. I raise my eyebrow at him in question, but he merely gestures for me to go ahead of him.

I enter the room quietly, but creeping up on Alice is an impossibility. She smiles radiantly at me, and before I can blink, has hopped across the kitchen to take my hand and press it affectionately against her face, as though she has missed me unbearably.

"Hello Alice. It's good to see you," I say in kitchen Afrikaans, the language we manage to share.

"Ai! Mr Cullen, look what I brought you," she says, already spinning around on tiptoes to show me the bundle on her back.

I peer at the little creature tied with soft cloth to Alice's back with a mixture of astonishment and consternation.

The baby can't be more than a few weeks old. Its eyes are closed, and its tiny mouth snuffles open and closed as though sucking in its sleep. I recall Jasper and Edward doing the exact same thing when they were new born.

The resemblance to my sons does not end there. This baby may be new, but its lineage is painted clearly in old Cullen colours. Pale skin. Reddish-blonde hair. Elizabeth always said that Cullen features were so strong as to bleach out the inheritance of any other clan, including her own.

Apparently this extends to Alice's mixed heritage, too.

I reach for a chair and sit down heavily.

"You want to hold her, Mr Cullen?"

A girl. A little baby girl.

Who the hell does she belong to?

~~Kimberley Diamond~~

Jasper

At first I think Pa's agitation has to do with the way Edward and Bella behaved all night.

They reluctantly join us at the table. My brother acts gentleman-like and pulls a chair out for his wife, who sits down upon it very gingerly. I catch his eye and wink at him, watching for the flush in his cheeks before he hides them behind his large hand. I am not disappointed.

"How are you this morning, Ma'am? Sleep well?"

Bella flushes scarlet. "I am most refreshed, Mr Jasper. Thank you for asking. I trust you rested well also?"

I have to admire the girl; it's clear she will take no nonsense from the rabble. My brother is one hell of a lucky man.

"Oh no, I can't say I did. Something kept me up all night, it was too hard to sleep," I tease.

Em and Riley burst into laughter, but Pa actually cuffs me around the back of my head.

"Hey! What was that for?" I ask him, but he does not look in the mood for goading, so I let the matter drop.

Poor old man probably didn't get a wink more sleep than the rest of us.

Breakfast is an unusually quiet affair. As soon as he is done eating, Pa throws down his napkin and stands, scraping his chair noisily across the wooden floor.

"Jasper, Edward? Come and see me as soon as you are done."

Edward's head lifts sharply from his daft mooning at Bella. "What got into him this morning?" he asks, waiting until the door is firmly closed behind the gruff paterfamilias.

"Probably got as much sleep as the rest of us." I may as well enjoy my little digs, there is scant other pleasure in life.

~~Kimberley Diamond~~

Pa's study is a mess of papers, books, ink, mathematical instruments and dust.

I haven't been in here in a while, and being summoned this morning brings back uncomfortable memories of trouble and punishment. I believe my brother feels the same way. He enters the room behind me, staring at his feet so intently he almost walks into me. I reach out a hand to steady him, always in the role of elder brother. The responsible one – that's me.

The problem with continuing to live at home as grown men is that we have not moved beyond the role of subordination to our father. Carlisle is nothing if not a fair man, and he has always treated us with respect. With hindsight, I can see what a rowdy bunch we were to raise, and the discipline we received at Pa's hand was utterly necessary. The three of us were difficult enough. Bringing a young Riley into the mix must have been trying, at the very least. However, I do not appreciate the continued heavy-handedness at this point in my life.

We stand there in front of his huge oak desk, awaiting an invitation to sit that may or may not be forthcoming, like naughty little boys. Pa regards us in silence for an uncomfortable minute, then inclines his head.

We sit. We wait.

I can't tell whether Pa is waiting on something too – a revelation, perhaps? He leans his elbows on the desk and holds his head between his fingertips, eyes on the wooden surface in front of him. The clock ticks in the silence, and occasional farm noises intrude from outside. Laborers' distant shouts, one of the dogs barking setting off a few of the others, that kind of thing. A banal day on Cullen Farm.

I spare a glimpse towards my little brother. He can't stop himself from smiling, the lucky bugger. I lay awake half the night listening to Isabella's incoherent moaning, pumping myself to release on two separate occasions. It has been a very, very long time since I gained any satisfaction from a woman.

And what a woman she was – delectably uninhibited, sweet and demanding at the same time. It hurts that I remember her so vividly, almost a year later. I recall the way her thighs shone in the candlelight as they opened up for me; how her little fat bottom jiggled and swayed; how those tiny breasts, with gloriously dark nipples bounced up and down as she rode me; and the lush pink treasure land nestling at her apex – dear lord in heaven, take these memories away.

If I am ever granted the pleasure of setting eyes on her again, I swear I will tie her up and lock her away and never let her leave me. Not ever.

~~Kimberley Diamond~~

Edward

I have no idea what has gotten Pa's goat, but I can hardly bring myself to care. In the moments I am forced to separate from my wife, all my mind can do is relive my night.

Every memory brings a wave of pleasure over my body so intense, I almost moan aloud.

After our first wild coupling – for which I still feel a twinge of guilt, I have no idea what overcame me – we lay stunned for a while, staring into one another's eyes like the romantic fools in penny novels. Her fingers would reach out to smooth away a lock of my hair. Mine would stroke the line of her fine nose, the apple of her cheek, the delicate curve of her jaw. After the shock of our manner of joining, something in us knew to take the time to learn each other.

Eventually some signal passed between us, and we began to remove our tattered clothing. Her body is exquisite. Pale white and rose pink, small and softly curved – perhaps a little thin, but she has endured a lot. I will have to feed her up.

When we were finally naked, I pressed my full body into hers, skin to skin. I can't describe how her flesh felt against mine. Hot and delicate, alive and thrumming with life, she sent jolts of excitement through me in every place we touched.

I felt such an urge to control her in every way. I have covered many a bare woman with my body before, but none had this effect on me. Not remotely.

Perhaps it is because Bella is my wife. My wife. I love the sound of those words. As I love the sound of her moans when I kiss and lick and suck at her skin, all over her - everywhere. Taking what is mine. Mine, mine, all mine. Lust buzzes in my ears and glazes my eyes even now, while I am chastely sitting in my father's study for who knows what crime.

We must have spent hours through the night with her submitting to my hands and mouth and cock, never once turning me away, not even offering so much as a flinch of resistance. It was almost as though she felt relief at letting herself go under my care. It was in her eyes last night, and it was there again in her eyes this morning when we were abruptly awakened by my brother's imperious knock. She turned her sleepy face to mine and smiled at me with such open joy, it was all I could do to restrict myself to nuzzling against her warm neck.

Given a little more privacy, I would have been nuzzling between her legs...

I am startled from my reverie by a soft knock at the study door. Pa snaps a curt 'come' at whomever is on the other side, and the door opens slowly behind me.

Jasper has a clear view of the interloper, and his physical reaction is extraordinary. His tanned face pales and stretches taut as a wire. His mouth opens wide, his eyebrows raise, his back straightens, and he is out of his seat with an alacrity I have never witnessed in him before.

I haven't had time to turn more than half way around before he is at the door, pulling someone in and closing it sharply behind him. I am shocked to hear him turn the key in the lock at the same time as I recognise the tiny girl.

"Alice!" My exclamation is as much surprise at seeing her again after all this time, as it is at my brother's behaviour.

He cups her little face in his big hands, bending down to one knee in – supplication? I turn to Pa and he stares back at me in equal consternation.

Neither Alice nor Jasper speak. They stare into each other's eyes in a silence that unsettles me. I have no wish to witness this, whatever it is, I would prefer to give them the privacy they obviously require. But exiting the room is incredibly awkward, as they are between me and the locked door. Why did he lock the door?

I look at Pa again, silently asking him what to do. He shrugs his shoulders, then stiffens as the sound of a baby's cry startles me.

I whip my head back around to Alice. Sure as eggs are eggs, there is a squirming little bundle tied to her back, African mama style. The pathetic little wail begins to strengthen, and something like grief passes over Jasper's features.

Alice clucks at him and reaches down to stroke the devastation from his face. Then she pulls back and shifts the bundle somehow from her back to her front. She loosens the knots that bind the babe to her, and gently lowers the little creature into Jaspers arms, as though she is giving him the most precious gift on God's Earth.

He kneels there on one knee, bewildered and almost frightened, with a squirming, wailing bundle in his arms, and to add to the bizarre nature of the scene, Pa barks out a laugh behind me.

~~Kimberley Diamond~~

Alice

Peace floods through me as I lay my young master's daughter in his arms.

I know he will never understand where I have been, or why I left, or what I've done; but it doesn't matter now. I am back where I belong and I see I will never have to leave again.

The ties of love that bind this family of men have been strengthened in my absence. I felt it in the earth under my feet as I walked back here. A new voice was calling me, a feminine one, and there was a lightness to the air.

I heard master Edward bring her pleasure. I wanted to go straight to my man and demand the same from him, but that wouldn't have been right. It was Mister Cullen who gave me a home before, and it was Mr Cullen I needed to turn to first. When he accepted me again in the baffled and compassionate manner he accepts everything about me, I knew we could stay.

I am excited to name our little one. I thought to call her 'happiness' at first, because that is what she brings. But I know she is going to be someone bigger than me one day, bigger than my young master, even. It is right he should name her, because it is his world she will grow to fill.

It startles me to realise that Jasper is still on his knees at my feet, our daughter fussing in his hands. Ai, she looks so small there – he could snap her in half if he wanted to, with a flick of his wrist.

He is so gentle though. I sink down to the floor, which may not have been cleaned since I left, and settle myself in front of my husband. His eyes lift heavily from his daughter to glare at me.

"You are not to leave this house without my express permission again. Do you hear me, Alice?"

His voice is so stern, but I hear the love, fear and relief beneath the anger. I smile and nod as though my prison sentence is a gift, not a punishment. "She looks just like you, neh? So beautiful and strong."

His face softens again. "It's a girl?"

I nod.

"And she's mine?"

Mr Cullen laughs, which reminds us he is here.

"Who else could she possibly belong to, Jasper? Look at you." He gestures at us with wide arms.

"Where have you been, Alice?" Master Edward's voice is gentle and sweet.

"With my mother."

My Jasper lifts his head sharply. "Your mother the Sangoma? The one who sold you to a man who hurt you so badly you had to run away? That mother?" He is very angry, and he will never understand.

"Yes, that mother. I have no other mother. How could I have a baby without a mother, Master Jasper?" I make my voice reasonable. He will accept it in due time. I am not afraid.

"But you weren't safe with her Alice!" He makes our baby cry with his angry words, and he quiets them again, while rocking her awkwardly. "What if she sold you off again? What if she sent you back to your husband?"

"Alice is married?"

"Her husband?"

I ignore all their cross words, and take the baby out of his arms. He doesn't know how to care for her yet. I offer her my breast, and she shouts at me a little longer – so I know her displeasure – before latching on with determination. Such a strong girl. So like her father. I smile at her, and stroke her downy head while she sucks hard, making little grunts of pleasure.

So very much like her father.

~~Kimberley Diamond~~

Isabella

"So she's married to another man?" I can hear the consternation in my voice, and it surprises me because I thought nothing in life would surprise me any more. How ironic.

Edward smiles and nods his head. "Sort of. Not in the way you or I would think of marriage, perhaps. She is his third or fourth wife, I can't remember which, and apparently his other wives aren't too keen on her. Her mother used her to pay off a debt, or to stop another Sangoma encroaching on her territory, Alice didn't tell the story very clearly. Anyway, it didn't work out well for anybody, and she ran away from him. Which is what brought her to us the first time, but we didn't know that then."

We are resting in Edward's room – our room. Supposedly resting; we have not slept, excitement courses through us too stridently. I feel so strange. The only time I relax at all is when in my husband's embrace, unless I start thinking, because even acknowledging that I have a husband sets me off.

"What's a San – what did you say?"

"A Sangoma? A witchdoctor. A man or a woman who lives apart from the tribe and offers healing of one kind or another. It's either stuff and nonsense, traditional medicine or ancient magic, depending on who you listen to."

I shift my body so I can see his face. "What do you believe?" I realise I am prepared to accept his answer as my own, at least for the time being. This is another thing that has surprised me – the relief I feel at having a man whose job is to take care of me. I barely know him, but the very title 'husband' is apparently sufficient for my soul to trust him implicitly.

He smiles tenderly at me, making my heart warm. "Before I met Alice, I probably would have said stuff and nonsense. There's something magical about her though. She sees things; knows things she ought not. She knew we would take her in. She knew as soon as Jasper made her pregnant. That's why she left."

"This is the part I struggle with most. She came to him at night and, what, seduced him?"

"So he says. Although I am sure he was all too willing to participate."

I must scrunch up my eyebrows, because Edward lifts one of his long fingers to smooth my brow back again.

"Why did she leave then, as soon as she knew she was with child? And she left him no word? No letter, no message..."

"I don't suppose Alice can write, Bella. She hasn't been to school. Anyway, she says she left because there were no women here to help her, which is not strictly true; some of the men who work on the mine have wives, even though none of them live out here on the farm. But Alice has never fit in very well – she is an outsider to so many cultures. And she doesn't seem to be at all angry with her mother for selling her off like that, which neither Jasper nor I can understand."

Perhaps I understand that better than most, given my own situation. My mother could no more have kept me at home after Father passed than she could have become queen. It was either Service or marriage, and my prospects for either were slim. It was hardly Mama's fault that I found my way here, and frankly, staring into the handsome eyes of my new husband, I'm rather pleased.

It is not beyond imagination that Alice feels the same way. After all, Jasper seems besotted.

"Will it cause problems for the family? That she is so different?"

It's Edward's turn to scrunch his brow. "Perhaps. Well, almost certainly. But that can't be helped. Jasper's a father now, he will marry Alice in church and probably keep her here under lock and key." He laughs. "Much good it will do him. Alice is a free spirit, she will stay or go as she pleases. I hope it pleases her to stay. I believe you two will enjoy each other."

He rests a warm hand across my small belly. "When you swell with my child, you will be glad of her company, I dare say."

His words ignite a flash of fire low down inside me. I see the hunger light his eyes, too. He rolls me onto my back and drags my skirt up to my hips, exposing me in the afternoon light.

"I hope you aren't too sore," he says, unbuttoning his trousers.

A little discomfort has never bothered me.

He presses his mouth to mine, sliding his tongue inside while his fingers push into me below. I am completely prepared to believe in African magic, because Edward casts such a spell on me with his body, I melt instantly into a cauldron of boiling desire.

~~Kimberley Diamond~~

I love to hear what you think. The more you talk to me, the more motivation I have to write. Thanks for reading. Stay safe and take care, G&G xox