A/N: Usual thanks to Katie & Trin, my super betas.

Usual disclaimer to say that I don't own Twilight or anything else that is publicly recognizable. Blah blah blah.


I was sick to my stomach. Walking into that room and seeing that asshole with his hands on Bella, when she so clearly didn't want him to touch her; the entire situation just disgusted me.

Leave it to me to pussy out and walk out of the room when she needed me. It wasn't a pussy move though, not really. I did what I had to do. I wanted to beat the hell out of him, make him bleed and break him, but he was a big fucker and I honestly didn't know if I could take him. I didn't want to fight with Bella and I certainly wasn't going to cause trouble at my brother's party. So while it might have sucked that I walked out on Bella, in that moment, it was the right thing to do.

"Edward! Wait!" I heard her call. I stopped short of the door leading to the deck, but didn't turn around.

"Edward, you have to let me explain," she said.

"You don't have to explain anything, Bella." I tried to keep my voice calm and level.

I turned to see her blinking rapidly, unshed tears shining in her eyes. "You…Please…I need…I just…It's not what it looks like. I com – "

"You weren't expecting it. It's not your fault. He kissed you. Yeah, I know," I said flatly. My voice sounded hollow, dead even. I had to find a way to convey to her that I knew this wasn't her fault, I wasn't angry with her at all.

I'd be lying to myself if I tried to say it didn't hurt to see her that way with him. My heart clenched in my chest when a single tear slid down her face. "Bella, I'm not angry with you," I said, reaching up to wipe the tear away with my thumb. "I wasn't trying to be difficult when I said I knew it wasn't your fault. You told me that he's been hitting on you forever."

She sniffed. "Really?"

I gave her a half-hearted smile. "Really. I'm sorry I left you like that and I'm pretty fucking upset that you were clearly struggling and he wouldn't let you go, but this isn't the time or place for me to go off on him. Have you even seen him since we started -?" I waved my hand between the two of us.

She shook her head. "I haven't seen him since just before we had lunch with Alice and Jasper. I didn't even know he'd be here today. I saw him before we sat down to eat, but there are so many people here that I wasn't even really sure it was him. I'm so sorry, Edward. I would have warned you, I swear."

I pulled her against my chest and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "I know, Bella. I know." She buried her face in my shirt and I felt her shoulders shaking."What's wrong?"

She was crying again when she pulled away to look at me. "Can you find me a dishtowel and some ice? Do you think Jasper would mind if I crashed somewhere for an hour or two? My head really hurts. There's no way I can get in a car without getting sick right now."

"I'm sure he won't mind. Why don't you sit down and I'll get you some ice." I guided her to the island in the center of the kitchen and helped her onto one of the stools. She put her head in her arms and sighed a little. I poked my head out the door and called Jasper over to tell him what was going on. He followed me inside, grabbed a towel and some ice for Bella and motioned silently for me to follow him.

"Sweetheart? Jasper's got your towel and ice. I'm going to take you to lay down now, okay?" I cradled her in my arms and followed him up the stairs to one of the guest rooms.

After tucking Bella in and closing the shades at her request, I walked back outside. The crowd had dwindled significantly and I felt better with the decision I'd made while taking care of Bella. Alice, Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett were all sitting around a table on the deck, chatting with Jacob. I grabbed a beer and took a seat. I got a small half smile from Alice and Rose mouthed thank you to me - they were familiar with Bella's migraines and it was clear that they were concerned.

I couldn't pay attention to the conversation. My thoughts were focused inward, on the anger boiling just below the surface. Jasper inclined his head in my direction and quirked an eyebrow at me. My kid brother read me better than anyone and I knew I wouldn't be able to hide this from him, no matter how hard I tried.

When the conversation lulled, I cleared my throat. "Jacob, I know we haven't been formally introduced, but do you mind if I have a word with you?"

He nodded and I was happy to see nervousness flit briefly across his face. I stood and walked toward the stairs, pausing to make sure Jacob was actually following me. When I reached the yard, I walked toward the pool, smiling at the memory of what had happened there just a few hours earlier.

I took a swig of my beer and turned to face Jacob. I took a deep, steadying breath and dove headfirst into the conversation.

"While normally I wouldn't speak for Bella, in this situation I feel like I can. It would be appreciated if you would back the fuck off. What you just did in there was completely inappropriate and if you do it again, I can't promise I won't beat the hell out of you."

I'm not an intimidating person. At all. Jacob stood a good half a foot taller than me and was much more muscular than I could ever hope to be. I didn't expect him to comply instantly with my request but I did hope he would at least see the error of his ways.

"I've known Bella for a long time," he sneered. "Long enough to know when she's interested and when she isn't, Edward. She isn't."

Big dumb oaf say what?

"I'm going to have to disagree with you, Jacob. She seemed very interested when she was screaming my name this morning."

His eyes went wide and his jaw dropped.

Check. And. Mate.

"So I trust we've come to an agreement? You'll back off? I want you to know that I'm not a jealous person, Jacob. I don't care if the two of you are friends. But when you do stupid things like restrain her when she so obviously doesn't want to be restrained, I'm going to speak up." I was pretty damn proud of myself for keeping my temper in check.

"Yeah, whatever," he mumbled.

We walked back to the deck and rejoined the crowd there. Jacob excused himself, telling Jasper he had some work to do for his course and that they'd have to get together for lunch next week.

The rest of the party guests had left, so when he was gone, four sets of eyes turned and focused on me. I was expecting Jasper to jump in first, but Rosalie beat him to it.

"What the fuck, Edward? You take care of Bella, come out here all moody and chase Jacob away. What happened?" she snapped. "They've been friends forever, you know that?"

"I went in to get Bella, like you asked. I found Jacob and Bella in a rather compromising position," I said with a sigh. "He was kissing her."

Alice gasped, Rosalie's shoulders slumped forward and Emmett and Jasper just gave me a sad look.

"It's really not that big of a deal." Emmett's eyes widened at me. "No, really. It's okay. Did I want to beat the shit out of him? Yeah, I did. But have you seen the size of that dude? No way was I going to fight with him. Especially not today." I gave Jasper a pointed look and finished my beer.

"Wow," Alice breathed. "That's really big of you, Edward."

I shrugged and smiled. "Like I said. No big deal."


Bella was stressed. Any time she gnawed on her lower lip like that, I knew that something was up. I wanted to ask, but I knew what her answer would be. She'd tell me she was fine, nothing was wrong and I shouldn't worry about her. Easy for her to say.

I briefly wondered if she was worried about us. The nature of our jobs made it difficult for us to be us. We couldn't spend too much time together while working, we rarely sat in on the same meetings anymore and we couldn't be seen going into or coming out of the same hotel room. I knew our jobs were safe, but Bella was another story entirely. Being a female sports reporter was hard enough for her, she shouldn't think she had to worry about her job because she was dating me.

I reached up to tug her lip from between her teeth. "Stop. You're going to make it bleed," I said softly.

I flopped back onto the bed and watched her as she worked. Her brow was furrowed in concentration and her glasses were sliding down her nose. Her fingers banged away at the laptop keyboard; she was desperate to finish what she was writing so that we could spend time together before the game tomorrow. First pitch was at 7:05, so we'd have to arrive at the park around 3 p.m.

"Give me five more minutes, Edward. I'm nearly done. I really hope they can pull off a win tomorrow. I know they're not the best team in the world, but I hate writing this depressing crap," she muttered, still typing furiously. She paused to push her glasses up her nose and smiled softly at me. "Five minutes. I promise."

I nodded and flipped through channels on the TV. There was nothing good on this late, so I settled on local news. The weather was going to be nasty all weekend, but I knew that. The humidity was ridiculous and the temperature would range from the mid 70s to low 90s.

I must have dozed off during the weather report because I jolted when Bella slammed her computer shut.

"Done!" she declared happily.

She stood up from the desk and stretched her arms above her head. Her shirt rose to reveal a sliver of her stomach and my breathing hitched. I'd seen her in every state of undress but it seemed like the less skin she revealed, the more turned on I got. I felt a growl low in my chest and pushed myself up to scoot to the edge of the bed. I grabbed her waist, pulled her between my legs and rested my cheek on her stomach.

"You're all done? Does that mean phones off time?" I asked softly. Bella had created the 'phones off' rule after a particularly embarrassing moment for both of us a week after Jasper's party.

We were in her bedroom, spending some quality time together when her phone rang. She thought she'd pressed ignore as she reached for a condom, but Alice had gotten an earful of our intimate activities. Alice was able to laugh it off, but Bella and I weren't so lucky. The next day, Bella declared that our phones had to be turned off when we were spending time alone.

She nodded her head and smiled. We each reached for our phones and turned them off before she settled onto the bed next to me. She grabbed the remote control out of my hand, flipped through the channels and settled on Meet the Parents. We watched in silence for a few minutes, arms and legs wrapped around each other. I pressed as kiss to her head and sighed happily.

She tilted her head up and gazed into my eyes, a content smile on her face. "Hey, you," she whispered. She lifted herself up on one arm and used her other hand to caress my cheek. "I've missed you."

"Baby, I've been with you nearly every second for the last three days. What do you mean you've missed me?"

"I know we've been together physically," she said with a sigh, "but that's Work Edward. I've missed My Edward."

She had a point. The last few days had been particularly hectic for me, so despite being in the same location as her, I was often off meeting with someone or on my phone, talking things over with the team's general manager.

"Lucky for you, Team Edward is gone. I'm just Your Edward," I said, kissing her nose playfully.

Her hand guided my face to hers and she kissed me gently.

Too bad for her I'm not in the mood for gentle tonight.

I shifted to my back and pulled her on top of me. We stayed that way, just touching and kissing for a while before I'd decided that I'd had enough and tugged her shirt over her head. Her bra quickly followed and I pushed her away from me so that I could spend a few moments kissing and licking her breasts.

My lips captured a nipple and I spent several minutes licking and sucking it before moving on to the other. I kept my eyes on her the entire time. Her head was thrown back, her hands remained still on my chest and she made the most beautiful noises. She pulled away from me and settled herself onto my thighs. She quickly unbuttoned my shirt and pants then lifted herself off of me so that I could remove them.

"You went commando today? So glad I didn't know that at the game," she muttered.

She pressed kisses across my chest and her hands roamed along my sides, her fingertips grazing lightly over the sensitive skin of my hips. She leaned down and placed a kiss on the head of my cock. Her eyes rose to meet mine and she gave me a wicked smile before flicking her tongue out and taking my entire length into her mouth.

Her head bobbed up and down, the sensation of her mouth on me overwhelming. "Oh my god, Bella. That feels amazing."

I groaned when she pulled away from me. "Don't stop, Baby."

She grabbed my hands and placed my fingers on the button of her pants. "I think I'm a little over dressed for this evening's activities, don't you?"

My fingers made quick work of her fly and I shoved her pants down over her hips. Looks like I'm not the only one who went commando today.

Bella pushed against me and wiggled out of her pants, then eased herself onto me. I moaned her name as she slid along my length. She stopped when I was fully sheathed inside of her and leaned in to kiss me. I grasped her hips and pulled her almost all the way off of me before thrusting my hips up against hers.

I slipped out of her just long enough to flip her onto her back. We both sighed at the regained contact and started moving together. I rested my weight on my forearms and buried my face into her neck, kissing and nipping at the flesh there.

My hips rocked against hers and we climaxed together, the sound of our pleasure filling the room. I collapsed on top of her, murmuring senselessly into her shoulder.

When I regained my composure, I laid down beside her and pulled her into my arms. We talked until she drifted off to sleep.

I lay there, stroking her hair for a long while. Though we'd only been together a short time, tonight I knew. I was in love with her.


Couple of housekeeping things: This chapter was shorter than usual. My apologies. I also need to let you know that updates are probably going to come more like every ten days from here on out.

Thanks to the usual suspects on twitter, to xtothey for letting me bounce an idea off of her, snshyne for reading & reviewing all of the chapters in the past two days. NanMcCullen gave me the weather in Cincinatti for the weekend that B & E were in town. Thank you to coldplaywhore & tasha0259 for pimping me on your blogs. I honestly have no words to express how excited I was about that.

Final note - Go here (www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/~NaughtyHeelsAnonymousContest) to read all of the I Love 80s Music O/S entries. Mine is in there somewhere! ;)

Things I'm reading this week: 3, 2, 1 by heatherdawn, Living Backward by ciaobella27, and Hand In Glove by WindyCityWonder.

So how do you think AceWard handled the Jacob situation? Good/bad/ugly, I wanna know.