A/N: I'm so sorry this took me so long! For awhile, I was disheartened, I barely had any reviews compared to past postings, and I guess I thought you guys didn't love this fic anymore. But I got some amazing reviews that lifted my spirits, and then life got a little less crazy (there's been surgeries in my family, a couple of days out of town, and just a crazy work schedule). So here we are! I'm debating on how long I want to make this fic... I never intended it to be longer than 10 chapters to begin with, and I think I might be sticking to that, but I'm never exactly sure how long any of my fics are, so we'll see.
Thanks as always to sererah for being my awesome beta/spell checker, and for my girl for being my sexy inspiration. ;-)
Disclaimer: SM's idea of sexy is fade to black... I give you the goods... ;-) And you should see my bank account. I make nothing off of this, trust.
Bella greeted me with a motel key once we pulled in for the night in Olympia. It was the old school kind of motel, where the doors were all outside facing the parking lot, and there was a walkway above if you were on the second floor. As it was, we were on the bottom floor, on the very end.
"I requested it," she said, and flushed scarlet.
I fingered the plastic card and looked up to grin at her. "I like the way you think," I told her, and the blush deepened, which I had not thought possible. Clearly her thoughts were as dirty as mine, because all I could think of now was how loud I could make her scream tonight, if anyone else could hear her. We parked in front of the room, our cars beside each others, and even though the hotel had less than fifty rooms, it seemed that we were miles away from the other occupied spaces.
Tonight, we would be alone.
I held her hand as we grabbed our bags and walked quickly to our room, 112. The door squeaked a little as we swung it open, and it was dark inside. One flick of the light switch flooded the tiny room, in all of it's burgundy and mustard yellow glory. The curtains were dusty and hunter green, but at least provided a heavy protection from the outside world. Now that Bella was mine, I didn't quite feel like sharing.
"Well, it's clean, right?" Bella laughed a little, running her finger over the top of the TV and holding it up to prove it was clean.
"I guess so... it'll do," I smirked, setting my bags down. Bella visibly gulped as I said it, and I knew her mind was just about where mine was now. To the not so distant future where I would be touching, licking, and kissing her until she couldn't take anymore. I chewed on the inside of my cheek, pulling myself back from jumping her. Later, I kept telling myself. The night was young.
"I'm starved, wanna grab something?" she asked, and I nodded. I'd had granola bars in the car to tide me over, but I was starving. "We might need energy for later," she added softly, so quietly I could barely hear her. An enormous grin spread across my face as I took her hand, and we walked to the nearest restaurant just around the corner.
We talked some more as we waited for our orders. It turned out the place was a pancake house, so I'd ordered a stack of waffles with strawberries, and Bella picked a shortstack of buttermilk pancakes with blackberry syrup. "It was my dad's favorite," she said with a small smile, tracing the edge of her glass with her fingertip. There was definite sadness in her eyes, but a happiness there too. She'd loved her father very much, that much was apparent, but there was a lingering question I had to know.
"Why didn't you introduce me to any of your family?" I asked. "At the funeral, I mean."
She blew out a big breath of air. "I suppose that's because Sue is the closest thing I have to family now. She and my dad were nearly inseparable, after Sue's husband died, that is. Harry and Charlie were best friends, and after his heart attack, Sue spent a lot of time with my dad. When he got sick, it only made sense that she be his... I guess caretaker is the best word. He didn't have anything or anyone else, except for me." She bit her bottom lip, and for once it didn't feel sexual.
"How come?" I asked, knowing the question was stupid before it was even done being said.
"Why didn't he have anyone else?" she clarified, and I nodded. "Charlie was an only child, and his parents died when I was a kid. We were pretty close, and I took it rough. Let's just say I now have a mortal fear of cancer. It's taken too many people. And my mom, she left when I was a baby. Just walked out, hated Forks that much I guess." She shrugged, probably a fact of life she'd said a hundred times in her life. It was sad, how she could just say that, that her family had left her. Knowing Bella, hearing her stories, made me want to reconnect with my parents, my brother, even his annoying girlfriend. I was learning how selfish I had been, hell, most of my life, and I wanted to put a stop to it.
"So anyways, tell me about your family," she said, and I smiled, launching into a brief history of my family, and how I was thinking about visiting them soon now. "I'd... like to meet them someday, I think," she said.
The waitress, who was wearing obscene red lipstick and had talons just as crudely painted, smacked her gum and asked which of us ordered the cakes and which the waffles. As if it were difficult to keep an order like that straight. The waffles were buttery and just the right kind of crispy as I sunk my fork into them, and I took a huge bite before answering her, licking my lips free of the sticky syrup. Bella's eyes were locked on my lips when I looked up, and I gave the bottom another lingering lick before finally responding to her comment.
"I want you to meet them too," I said sincerely. "I think you might like them."
"I'm sure I will," she grinned.
We ate up quickly, as if we both knew the faster we ate, the sooner we'd be alone together. Her feet played with mine under the table, and I marveled at how easy this felt, how right, and how she seemed to be going along with it just as much as I was. As we walked back to the hotel, hand in hand, I had to ask. "Were you ever attracted to women before me?"
"Yes... and no," she replied, and after a moment's pause, she continued. "I was always fascinated by women, but I'd never had one in mind before, ya know?"
I laughed lightly. "I know what you mean."
"But... you've had experience before," she said, her brow furrowing a little.
"Well yeah, but that was more experimentation, I guess you could say," I explained. I'd never really thought about what I'd done in the past before, but now was as good a time as any to explore it, and I was surprised how easily the answers came to me. "I liked it, don't get me wrong, but I never had real feelings for the girl I was with. That's..." I paused and swallowed hard. "That's how it always was with me, when it came to sex. Fun but no meaning..."
"Ever?"
"Well, I liked Emmett," I finally admitted. "We get along great, even when we're not in bed. But he's more just like a protector, my friend. Until you I-" I stopped mid-sentence, feeling my own cheeks flush. I was worried I'd let too much slip, but then she squeezed my hand and grinning, and I relaxed. Expressing my feelings wasn't something I was good at, even the slightest hint of revealing how I truly felt about things terrified me. But Bella, she prodded more, like she wanted to hear about all my jumbled thoughts, and I gave in. "Until you, I didn't think of sex as something with meaning. I just... had it. I used it because I thought if I had sex with whoever, somehow I'd be happy. That I could escape. It doesn't work that way, as it turns out," I chuckled.
Her brown eyes were shimmering with tears as we walked, but the grin on her face told me they were happy tears. "I never thought I'd find anyone like you Rose," she said finally, and pulled me to a stop, right there on the sidewalk. Our lips met, her hand in my hair, controlling the kiss. I let her, giving back everything I could into the kiss, until we pulled back, walking twice as fast towards the hotel.
My heart was racing as we got back to our room. It had little to do with exertion, and far more to do with the fact that something was changing between us. I didn't know what it was, maybe our open discussions, maybe going through something difficult together, that we'd passed our first physical barrier... in any case, I felt closer to her now than I'd ever truly felt with anyone else, and one thing was desperately clear. I was in love with Bella, and I think she loved me too.
The door shut behind us, we sat down our purses and kicked off our shoes... and suddenly the bed was sinking beneath us. It was slow, not unlike our beginning kisses, but there was so much more heat behind them now. We weren't frantic, we took our time, exploring each others mouths with our tongues. My head was spinning as I memorized her taste, running my hands over her body, up and down her curves as we laid on our sides. Her leg hooked over mine, and we moved so much closer, my hips settling against hers.
Her shirt was the first to come off. I was impatient, I wanted to feel her skin against mine. Like she was reading my mind, my shirt came off moments later, and I groaned as our breasts brushed together more intimately, though still in our bras. "More," she whimpered into my mouth, and soon, we were both completely naked, still kissing slowly, hands exploring each others bodies now.
I guided her hand between my thighs so she could feel how wet I was for her. She gasped, and I realized this was the first time she'd done this before. "Show me, Rose," she whispered, and I helped her find my clit, gasping as circled it slowly like I'd done on her before. "God, you feel so good," she said in amazement. "I had no idea..."
"Bellaaaaa," I moaned. My hips bucked up to her hand, my body eager for more. She kissed me again, thrusting her tongue against mine, making me dizzy again. When she pulled back, I moaned her name again. She had added a finger, very very slowly, tentatively, and I pushed back down on her finger to encourage her more. My body was so ready for her, needy and aching and desperate for this release. She was adorable, as I looked at her. She was concentrating so hard, biting her bottom lip, like she was studying me and my body. I spread my thighs a little more, and she added another finger. "Just like that baby, yes," I panted.
"Rose, you're so beautiful," she said, and our eyes locked. My body's reaction sped up then, as I looked into her gorgeous brown eyes and realized, without a doubt, that I loved her, and that she loved me. We just had to say the words.
"Are you close?" she asked, she was so earnest, so eager to please.
"Yessss," I sighed, feeling my walls start to tremble. "Bella, oh God!"
"Please, let me make you cum," she pleaded, and I came, feeling the wetness soak onto the sheets beneath me.
"Oh," she gasped, and kissed me hard, swallowing my cries of pleasure. When we broke apart, I kept mumbling her name, over and over. She pulled her finger out slowly, and I grabbed her hand.
"I want to see you taste me," I gasped, still coming down from my high.
She hesitated a moment, before raising her finger to her lips, and giving it a tiny lick. Another hesitation, and she was sucking it all off, moaning. "You taste really good," she admitted. I kissed her then, letting our tastes mingle together on our tongues.
* MD *
Hours, many many hours later, we were laying side by side again, whispering in the darkness. We were exhausted, sated, and maybe even a little sore after all of our explorations. I now knew how she tasted, how to get her to gush on my tongue, how she looked while she was on her knees, spread open on her back, and hovering right above me. That she liked the vibrator held on the right side of her clit, and that even though I'd now seen her in nearly every single way possible, she would still blush when I told her she was beautiful and sexy.
"Rose, I never knew it could be like this," she whispered across the pillow.
"Me either," I admitted, just as quietly. Her hand ran over the curve of my hip, and my body couldn't help but react. "When I first saw you, I knew I wanted you. But now..."
"It's more," she breathed, finishing my sentence.
"I don't just want you now," I said. "I need you."
"I was so afraid to want you," she murmured. "And now I can't picture anything but you."
I wanted to tell her, the words were on the tip of my tongue. The words "I love you" had never seemed more difficult to say than this moment, even though I knew the words themselves would come easy. That I meant it, that I felt it. But I couldn't. I felt cowardice wash over me, but then Bella rolled over, the sheet falling off her chest, with the sexiest "come hither" look I'd ever seen. I couldn't dwell on serious things when my girlfriend was inviting me to ravish her again.
* MD *
Campus seemed a lot bigger when we got back, but the sun seemed to shine more brightly. Our dorm rooms seemed to be miles away instead of just twenty feet or so, but for a few days, the only thing that really concerned us was whose room we were going to stay in that night. When we were busy with work and class, it felt like part of me was missing. When we met back, in her place or mine, I felt whole again. Even if we just watched movies together, it still felt right.
"Do you want some ice cream?" she asked one particularly toasty evening. The fans were pointed at us, and we were so hot, we weren't even touching, sitting more than a foot apart from each other on the bed. Sharing body heat did not sound appealing in any way to me.
"Yeah, we could go get some," I said, though I dreaded the walk to the snack shop a few blocks away. "Or I have some water bottles in the freezer we could use as personal ice packs."
Bella giggled, and hopped up to grab them. It looked like she was going to say something, before there was a knock on the door.
"Hall meeting in twenty!" Angela chirped when Bella opened the door. "Oh! Hey Bella! I'm glad to see you, I keep coming by your room to talk with you, but you're never there."
Bella tucked her hair behind her ear and looked sheepish. "I have a lot of classes, and I'm studying a lot." That, at least, was partially true.
"Yes, I've heard you studying in here several times," Angela quipped with a wink, and Bella turned scarlet. "I'll see you two at the meeting!" and away she went.
A/N II: Whatcha think? Leave me love!
P.S. If I can't respond to your reviews, it's not because I don't love you back, it's because FF . net has been a whore-bag lately.
