Thanks to RobsSwissMiss, bierbeck, texaskatherine, and my beta Becky_Boodles. The next round of Slurpees is on me. ;-)

Jasmine belongs to Stef, Ben belongs to Marsha, and Satch belongs to me. Everything else belongs to SMeyer.

I'm sitting on the bar and Edward is standing in between my legs, sucking on my neck, when Jasper walks in at two. The place has been cleared out for an hour and we've been "closing up" since then.

Jasper clears his throat as the screen door slams. I lean away from Edward's mouth and brush my hair out of my face. I wonder if I look freshly fucked, but then decide that I don't really care.

"Busy night?" Jas asks.

"Yeah, more or less," I reply, hopping down off the bar. "I guess you guys were busy too. It's late. Where's Alice?"

"She went in to take a shower and pass out. We stopped for something to eat on the way home, but I could use a drink."

"Well you've come to right place, my love," I laugh, grabbing a bottle of tequila and three shot glasses. I start my "Songs for Sleeping" playlist, and Band of Horses softly comes through the old speakers around the bar. The three of us sit around one of the tables and Edward fills the shot glasses.

"To Faulkner. And you guys," I say, raising my glass towards the mule.

"Cheers," the guys say in unison as we all throw the shots back. The tequila is warm in my belly and the music makes me feel more drunk than I really am. Jasper starts telling us about some crazy housewife who flipped her shit at the party they were catering and the sound of Edward's laughter makes me feel all warm and gooey inside. This scares me, naturally, because I never feel warm and gooey, and if I do it's probably because I've stepped in shit or made myself bleed. Because I can't act like a normal person, I jump up out of my chair and it falls backwards, clattering on the wooden floor. Edward jumps up as soon as I do, but Jasper is a fucking mind reader and knows I'm being an idiot, so he stays in his seat.

"Bella, what happened?" Edward exclaims, reaching out for my arm. I shrug him off and turn towards the bar.

"Nothing. Nothing. I'm sorry. I just need some water." I'm such a fucking spazz. Edward just looks bewildered, but sits back down after picking my chair up. I fill a glass with water and ice and power that shit down, my back turned to them. I get the crazy under control and center myself. It's been a fantastic fucking day and I refuse to let my wacky ass mind ruin it.

"I'm ok, really," I tell a worried looking Edward as I sit back down. "Sometimes I just flip out for no reason."

Jasper laughs. "It's true man. She does. Just ignore it," he says, winking at me. I kick him under the table and roll my eyes. Edward laughs and shrugs, and I think we're back on track. He lights a cigarette, which I promptly steal from him, and Jasper pours us all another shot.

"This is the last one, " I say.

"To you, then," Edward says, making sex eyes at me. My stomach does a back flip and I can feel my face flush as I down the shot. Jasper gathers up the glasses and puts the bottle back behind the bar as I flip the lights off.

"Alright. I'm heading to bed. Thanks for the company," Jasper says. He and Edward do that guy handshake half-hug thing and he heads out the back as I grab my iPod off its dock.

"So..." Edward says.

"So," I reply, turning towards him. "Edward, this really has been a fantastic day."

He doesn't respond, but closes the space between us and pulls me to him, kissing me sweetly and reverently. He ends the kiss and I wrap my arms around his middle, squeezing as hard as I can.

"Stay here tonight? It's already so late, and you said you wanted to come to the barn with me tomorrow."

"You don't have to twist my arm, Bella," he chuckles. "As long as you don't think Jasper and Alice will mind."

"I know they won't," I tell him, yawning.

"Good. I'm exhausted," he says offering his hand to me. I take it and let him lead me through the back door and across the patio to the house. Fraggle is waiting by the door and I scoop him up, burying my face into his fluffy belly. Louie is in his cage, but makes snoring noises when we walk in.

"Is the bird snoring?" Edward whispers.

I laugh. "Yeah. He's not asleep, but we taught him not to screech hello after it gets dark out." I go over to the cage and ruffle his head feathers, and he stretches towards me for a kiss. I grab his beak and plant one on him and he starts purring.

"Night Lou. Love you," I tell him. He makes a rumbling sound and tucks his head under his wing.

Edward and I creep up the dark stairwell and into my bedroom silently. I grab my pyjamas and head into the bathroom to take a quick shower. When I come out, Edward is in my bed and the sight stops me in my tracks. I smile and launch myself towards him, falling into a heap and nearly missing the cat. My bed is made of pure win even when Edward isn't in it, so the situation I'm currently faced with is pure fucking heaven. I sink into the feather top mattress pad and Edward pulls the down comforter up over us. Fraggs crawls under the covers and I'm so fucking happy I can't even speak.

"Goodnight, sweetheart," Edward whispers. I kiss him and burrow into his side, passing out almost immediately.

#########

I wake up and stretch, being careful of the cat next to me, but forgetting about the man and accidentally punching him in the nose. Fortunately, he just grunts and rolls over. I poke him in the shoulder once to see if he'll wake up, but he mutters something about marshmallows and starts snoring again. I rub the sleep out of my eyes and I'm happy to see that it's only 7:30. I'm amazingly ready to get moving after only a few hours sleep. Fraggle hops off the bed, and I follow him into the kitchen and dump some food into his dish. I set the kettle for tea and take an ice pack out of the freezer and attach it to my foot with an Ace bandage. I was hoping Edward wouldn't notice that it was swollen yesterday but of course he did. I pop a couple (or five) Tylenol along with my happy pills and the anti-inflammatory and pray to Jesus Bear that the swelling goes down. The last thing I want to do today is get dragged to a doctor's office, and I wouldn't put it past Edward to take me kicking and screaming. I find cold steak and pasta salad in the fridge, and I'm gnawing on a hunk of meat when Alice emerges from their bedroom.

"That's truly disgusting, Bella," she rolls her eyes at me.

"Don't be jealous of my meat, bitch. Want some?" I ask her through my full mouth, shoving a piece of steak in her face. She smacks my hand away and shakes her head at me. Pouring herself some tea, she turns around and gives me the Alice eyeball.

"Don't look at me like that. Yes, we slept together. It was amazeballs. He's asleep in my bed right now. If you want to go peek in and look at the pretty, I won't bitch slap you. Just this once, though."

She almost snorts tea out of her nose as she does a silent squeal-spin-twist move that's pretty fucking amazing and then launches herself towards me. I somehow manage to catch her before she tackles me and she gives me an surprisingly rib-shattering hug before she lets go.

"I'm so happy for you!" she whisper-screams. "You deserve it. But I'm telling you right now, if he hurts you I will scratch his eyeballs out like a rabid cat."

I can't help but laugh at her. "Ok. I appreciate it. But don't worry. I'm not getting hurt again. I'll never let myself get into another one of those...situations...again."

"Well, it's good to not be a doormat. But don't shut yourself off to him either Bella. You know how you are. Don't assume the worst, and don't be afraid of confrontation," she says.

"I know. It's not going to be easy, but I feel like he's not going to let me get away with that," I tell her. "It's like he knows how I'm going to react before my brain can process what's going on. And he makes me want to try really, really hard to not shut him out. I mean, you guys obviously won't let me do that, but how many other friends do I really have? It's a lot of work to have a relationship with anybody, but I really want to try for him." I almost add a dramatic sigh to the end of my diatribe because it seems appropriately melodramatic. But Alice just smiles.

"Good. Ok. I'm going to head next door and start getting shit ready for this afternoon. Jasper is in the shower and then he's got to run some errands and be back here to pick me and the food up by noon. We won't be out late tonight. It's a corporate retreat thing," she tells me without taking a breath. I just salute her and turn back to my steak as she skips downstairs. Jasper emerges shortly thereafter and fills his beat up travel mug with tea.

"Morning sunshine," I say to him.

"Hey," he grumbles. He's never been a morning person but he does manage to give me a shoulder squeeze before he heads downstairs behind Alice. And suddenly I'm alone in the house with Edward. I rip the stupid fucking ice pack off my foot and try to bring sexy back as I stalk towards my bedroom, evil plans spinning in my head. He's stretched out across the entire bed, laying on his stomach with his face smooshed into the pillows. He looks so peaceful I almost feel bad for what I'm about to do, but the feeling passes quickly. I take a running start and leap onto the bed, jumping as hard as I can and yelling "Earthquake!" a couple of times before straddling his ass.

"You're out of your fucking mind," he mumbles into the pillow, and then flips over so quickly I can't move to get away from him. "Waking me up like that. There will probably be consequences, you know."

I grin at him. "That was the idea, Cullen. What are you gonna do about it, now that you're up?" I emphasize the last word and waggle my eyebrows and my hips like a complete perv.

"How about I fuck the good morning out of you?"

Ok, that honestly takes me by surprise, so of course I lose my shit and burst out into hysterics. Fortunately he starts laughing too; I'm 87% sure he was joking.

"Dare ya to try," I tell him, and that seems to do the trick. He reaches up and pulls me down towards him and I kind of feel bad about not brushing my teeth after the morning steak, but he doesn't seem to mind so I roll with it. His hands are up my shirt and all over the place, and I struggle to get my penguin pj pants off at the same time I'm trying to rip him free of his boxers. I get one leg out of my pants and then gracefully fall off of him and onto the bed. He laughs and pulls the rest of my pants off, dipping his hand in between my legs on the way back up. I let out a Grade-A whore moan because goddamn, I'm seriously considering getting those fingers insured.

"So wet, Bella," he pants into my mouth as I take his erection in my hand. "You've been thinking about this all morning, haven't you?"

I answer him by arching against his hand and lifting myself up so that I'm straddling him again. I rub myself up his dick as he grabs my hips and eases me down on top of him.

"Fuck, Edward," I say as I lift myself up and come back down in one swift, hard movement. He groans and thrusts into me, reaching up and fisting my hair. "Harder." That seems to let loose some sort of sexy beast, because he growls and flips us so that he's on top now. He pulls out and then thrusts back in, filling me to the point where I can no longer form coherent thoughts. I would be ok letting this man pound the ever loving fuck out of me for the rest of my life. His mouth is on my neck, my ears, down my chest and then sucking and biting at my nipples. I can't take much more when he finally reaches down and brushes a finger over my clit. I swallow a scream, because that would be what Alice would refer to as uncouth, but I'm seriously about to explode. I bite down on his shoulder as I come and I swear to god I can hear angels singing and smell cupcakes baking. He thrusts into me one more time, hard, and I feel him climax as I dig my nails into his back. He collapses on top of me, both of us out of breath and panting. He rolls over and pulls the sheets up around us when I shiver underneath of him.

"Sorry, baby," he says quietly.

"I'm not cold," I reply. "Don't fucking apologize. That was...yeah. Fuck. I can't even..." I trail off and then shut my mouth because I've obviously lost the ability to speak properly. He just smiles and pulls me closer to him. I think about going back to sleep, but then remember we were supposed to go to the barn.

"You still wanna go with me this morning?" I ask him.

"Without a doubt. I've been looking forward it," he smiles. I sit up and kiss his nose and then hop out of bed and into the bathroom before he can swat my bare ass. I clean up and dig my riding pants out the hamper, throw my hair up on top of my head, and figure I'm presentable enough for the barn.

"Hey, can we run by the hotel so I can take a quick shower and put on clean clothes?" he asks.

"Yeah," I reply. "I'm in no hurry. I think it's supposed to be cooler today anyway. I'm gonna have to borrow Leena's car since Jasper is out running errands, so as long as we're back by three, we should be cool."

"How about I walk to the hotel, do what I need to do, and then you can just pull up to the front and pick me up in about a half hour. That work?" he asks.

This is so fucking domestic. I love it. "Sounds good," I say. He leans in and kisses me before clomping down the stairs. I hear him say good morning to Louie before he heads through the back door.

#########

Marsha is wrestling with one of her youngsters when we pull up to the barn. Embry and Sam rush up to the car, and Edward doesn't give the dogs a second glance as he kneels down to say hello to them.

"That dog is almost as big as your cat," Edward laughs. "What's going on over there?" he asks as he points towards Marsha and the roundpen.

"Oh, well, that's Marsha. She owns the place. And the horse is Ben, I think. One of her babies. She breeds really, really nice horses, but they're all headcases," I explain. Moosey is standing at the gate nickering for me, so I grab Edward's hand and lead him over.

"This is Moose," I tell him as I clip a lead rope onto the big gelding's halter. Edward reaches out and runs a hand down his head and Moose promptly sneezes all over him.

"I guess that's his way of saying hello, huh?" he laughs. I lead the horse towards the barn and Edward walks beside us. He asks lots of questions while I'm tacking Moose up, and seems really sincerely interested. This is new territory for me, because Jacob was always jealous of the horses. He and Sera hated each other. She knew he was douchebag; I should have listened to her and saved myself a lot of grief.

I finally get Moosey ready and pull on my boots. Edward follows us out to the arena and I point him in the direction of a couple of chairs set up in the shade. I take my time warming the gelding up, letting him stretch and sneeze and shake his head until he's loose and ready to do some real work. I've been trying to clean up his lead changes; he's lazy and always changes in the front before he switches leads with his back legs. We canter over some poles so he starts to lift his back and pick up his feet and then I turn down the diagonal and ask for a change in the center of the arena. He snorts and bucks when I tap him with the whip, but mid-buck he switches leads, so I give him the reins and let him canter off in the new direction. He feels awesome today; collected, soft, and energetic, and I'm grinning ear to ear when I notice Edward has stood up and looks distressed. I sit back and Moose comes back to a trot, and then a walk, and I head over to Edward to see what the problem is.

"What's wrong?" I ask him as Moose shakes his head.

"Nothing. I was just worried for a second. Why did he jump up like that? And then he took off running. I don't want you to get hurt," he tells me.

I laugh, and he glares at me. "I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you. Honestly, it's nice that you're concerned. No one has ever really cared before," I tell him and his expression softens. "Moose is lazy so I have to tap him with the whip in the changes. That pisses him off, but it gets him moving. He bucked, but he switched leads, so I let him have the reins and canter off. It's like a reward to him," I explain. "Believe me, this horse isn't going to hurt me. He does everything in slow motion. I'd be off of him and back to the barn before he ever got that far."

Edward looks a little better after my explanation. "Ok. I guess you're the expert," he laughs. "I'll just sit back down and keep my mouth shut."

I smile and gather up the reins as Moose snorts in protest. "You didn't really think we were done, did you big guy?" I ask the horse. We trot away from Edward and do some lateral work before going back to the changes. Moose nails them in each direction, so I let him finish on a good note and drop the reins, letting him walk to cool off. After his breathing slows down, I head back towards Edward.

"So what did you think?" I ask him.

"Bella, I'm honestly amazed. You seem so happy and comfortable doing that. Like it just comes natural to you. And it's pretty fucking hot too," he grins up at me.

I roll my eyes. "I don't know about hot. Unless you mean it literally because I'm about to fucking sweat to death," I say as I hop down off the horse. I loosen his girth and the noseband on the bridle and the three of us head back towards the barn. Marsha has Ben in the wash stall and is still fighting with him, this time over the fact that he won't let her anywhere near his head with the hose. I laugh and hand Moose's reins to Edward.

"Hold him for a sec, ok? He's not going anywhere." Edward warily takes the reins and side steps as Moose tries to rub his sweaty head all over him. I walk over to the wash stall and take Ben's lead rope from Marsha, and wordlessly we work together to get him to stand still long enough to wash the sweat and dirt from his face.

"Thanks, hon," Marsha says to me. She leads the young horse back outside, and he follows her hopping along and nipping at her. She elbows him in the nose a few times, but it doesn't discourage his antics. She's going to have a rough time breaking him. By the time she comes back into the barn, I've got Moose untacked and have given him a quick bath.

"Just throw him in a stall with some hay. He can stay in until it cools off later this afternoon. Who's your friend?" she asks as she eyes Edward.

"Marsha, this is Edward. Edward, Marsha," I introduce them and they shake hands. Marsha is a lot warmer than Leena, but she could still probably take Edward to the ground if she really wanted to.

"Oh hey Bella," Marsha says to me. "Jasmine only has one kitten left. He's a gray tabby. Needs a good home."

"I need another cat like I need a hole in the head, Marsh," I tell her.

"Just come look at him," she tells me, knowing I can't resist. She leads Edward and I into the feed room and a little stripped head pops up between two bales of hay. I know I'm a goner. Jasmine comes over and rubs in between my legs, and I pick her up.

"Hey mama," I say to the cat. Edward scratches her head and she leans into him, purring. I shuffle her into his arms and grab the kitten.

"Well, you know Edward, I think your new lease says that pets are allowed. Don't you want a little friend?" I ask as I hold the kitten up to my face. New kitten smell is the best in the world.

"If I say no you're never speaking to me again, right?"

"Pretty much, yeah," I tell him. He sighs and then shrugs his shoulders. I squee in delight and then trade cats with him, shoving the kitten in his face and giving Jasmine a kiss before setting her back down into the hay. The sight of Edward holding a kitten is pretty damn orgasmic, if I do say so myself.

"What's his name?" Edward asks.

"Boy, I don't name 'em! If I name 'em, they stay," Marsha laughs.

"Satch," I say.

"Satch?" Edward questions.

"Yeah. Satch. Satchmo. That's his name."

"Ok then."

I take the kitten from Edward. "Thanks Marsha. I'll be back soon. Edward, you're driving home." Marsha smiles and waves and Edward salutes me, much like I saluted Alice this morning. I giggle and we head towards the car.

"He's really cute, baby," Edward says after we get on the road. I grin and reach over to him, running my hand through his hair.

"Yeah. I kinda love him," I smile.

You know, if everyone who has this story on alert left a review, you'd get me up to 100. Just sayin'. ;-)