The phone rang once, twice, and then disappeared, only to be replaced by the gruff, albeit somewhat welcoming voice of her father. When he called her name she was already waiting, her bones held together with unyielding impatience as she stood hidden in the dark pool of shadows at the top of the stairs.
Her feet were clumsy underneath her as she rushed down the steps, her hand impatient as she snatched the phone from his unprepared grip. He kept his hold for a moment, waiting until she acknowledged her rude behavior with the little fall of her chin, but he didn't stray too far.
Bella watched him go, eager for him to leave as Embry noted the shift in breaths, the different heartbeats down the phone line.
"Bells?" He asked, and she shifted her attention from her father to the warm voice invading her auditory system.
"Hey Emb. So?" She asked irritably, unwilling to bring forth pleasantries that she didn't think deserved to be afforded.
"I'll tell you everything you want to know Bells. I promise I will…" He rushed, and she finished his words for him, "but?"
He laughed, a deep chortling sort of laughter that felt all too familiar as it reminded her of older times. "You know, I always hate it when you do that."
She didn't know what to do with his words, the melancholy regret that she felt washing over her, knowing somehow that he was talking about a version of her he'd already said goodbye to.
"But?" She pressed, unwilling to wallow in his presence.
"Like I said, I'll tell you everything you want to know… but I can't do it tonight. My Mom's pissed at me Bells, I haven't been around much recently and she's making me come home for dinner and what she calls 'quality time'." Bella could see the roll of his eyes, the frustrated drone of his words making it all too clear that he really didn't want to be appeasing his mother at all.
"So when?" She asked, strangely embracing the relief she felt knowing she had a little time before she had to face everything. She took a deep breath and Embry must have taken it as a wearied sigh.
"Bells? Please don't be like that. I promise tomorrow at noon I'll come pick you up, I'll have my Mom call and clear it with Charlie and then we can spend the day together. I'll tell you everything. That's okay, isn't it?" He asked, and she looked up to see Charlie sitting in his recliner, the Redskins game on with the volume dipped uncharacteristically low.
"Hey Dad, Embry wants to know what the score is?" Bella asked innocently and tried to hold back a broad grin as Charlie looked a little confused and then squinted at the screen, looking for the score. He wasn't at all convincing and when he turned and caught her smirking at him, he shook his head, the only acknowledgement he would offer though he'd obviously been caught eavesdropping.
"What was that about?" Embry asked and Bella laughed lightly as she told him the truth. Even from the back of his head, she could tell that Charlie was wearing a scowl.
"So tomorrow?" Embry pressed and then obviously felt like he needed to add a disclaimer as an afterthought. "Oh, and Bells… don't forget what I said about Paul. Okay?"
Running her fingers through the ends of her wavy hair, Bella thought about all the promises she'd made recently and the ones she was now refusing to make because of that. "I heard the first time, Emb, but when your Mom calls Charlie, can you leave out the part about you picking me up? I was kinda hoping to come to you." She said lightly, pulling away from his intensity.
He agreed with her request readily and after bidding him goodnight and putting down the receiver, she made nimble work of the stairs, heading straight for her bedroom. Picking up the book from her nightstand that had captivated her all afternoon, she meandered back out towards the bathroom, looking forward to a relaxing soak to drain the day away.
In her distracted haze, she didn't notice the man sitting in the corner of her room, a man who was watching her with deep attentive eyes.
Wrapped in a towel she lazily stepped back into her bedroom, dripping droplets of bathwater on the carpet with each stride. As she flicked on her bedside light, her eyes and her senses finally opened up wide enough to realize she wasn't alone.
"Fucking fuck!" She cried sharply, her language sending her eyes darting to her doorway, waiting for a coarse reprimand from below. He seemed to find her amusing as she distractedly looked back and forth; trying to decide which threat deserved her attention more.
Looking her uninvited guest up and down, she sensed no immediate threat from him, despite what she'd been told. Having made her choice she tip-toeing lightly to the doorway and listened intently, finally pulling her door closed with a gentle touch when she decided if Charlie was coming, he probably would have been there by now.
"What the hell are you doing here?" She hissed as the door clicked shut, turning her body to press herself against the only way out.
"I told you to call me if they came back. You didn't." Paul stated quite mechanically, but his eyes were full of passion as they roamed her body, reminding her that she wasn't exactly dressed for company.
"Oh Jesus!" She exclaimed and pulled her towel a little closer, not realizing the action lifted the hem by a good two inches, exposing more of her slender thighs. Rushing to grab a fistful of clothing, she didn't stop to look and see what she'd procured, so when she had to reappear in a pair of tiny shorts and a thick sweater, she was already covered with a soft pink blush.
Paul openly admired her, his lips pulling up in an appreciative smile as she all but ran into the room and threw herself under the blankets, her wet body sending her scent flooding through the confined air.
Before she could settle herself he was standing, stalking her from across the room. She thought for a moment that he might never stop, that he might actually just tear back the sheets and join her, but then his body stilled abruptly and he sat, holding himself back at the end of her bed.
He brushed his fingers over the purples of her bedspread and she just couldn't keep herself from watching, catching the way he deliberately missed her body by only centimeters, each and every time.
"As I was saying, you didn't call me." He repeated and she closed her eyes, trying to remember what it was she'd promised him this time. Finally it clicked and she opened her eyes, her eyebrows drawn down in confusion. "I told you I would call if Alice came back. She didn't."
His fingers paused for a moment, a stall in his movements so indiscrete that no one else would have noticed a thing. But no-one else was watching him the way she was.
"My mistake, but for future reference I'll clarify for you. If any of the Cullens approach you again, you call me." Lifting his body, she found her lungs pausing, her whole world acknowledging that having him close meant something primal. His fingers were warm as they lifted her hand, turning her wrist over so that her palm looked clear to the sky.
"You washed it off." He said with a low disbelief and she pulled back her arm, holding it to her body to hide what she refused to believe was shame.
"I didn't mean to. I just forgot, I guess." She didn't want to admit that she could tell him those digits forward and back, that they'd burned themselves into her mind with the same indelible print her own name bore.
She couldn't tell if he was angry or not, but she watched him stalk back and forth in her room, his footsteps surprisingly soft and for that at least, she was thankful. "Where's your phone?" He growled, his pacing finished as he whirled to face her.
"Umm, downstairs?" She responded.
"Go get it." He barked, and she lifted herself slightly, her body pulling up. "I can't. I mean it's one of those old ones, with the cord and everything."
He seemed confused for just a moment and then he corrected her with a hint of exasperation. "No, your cell phone. Where's your cell phone?"
"Oh, yeah… I don't have one of them." Charlie had promised her recently that he would put her on his plan, but now that she was on lockdown it didn't really make sense, at least not to her oblivious father.
"Great!" He sighed and rubbed his hands through his dark hair. She felt embarrassed for the first time about her lack of inclusion in the twenty first century, and maybe he felt it too, because he softened his features slightly, throwing himself down again at the foot of her bed.
"You need to get one, in the meantime here's my number… again." He spoke with finality, grabbing a pen from her bedside table. She wanted to tell him how Charlie would barely pay to keep the heat on in winter and so she doubted he would spring for something frivolous like a phone, but she didn't, she just told him she'd try, and that was that.
Silence fell between them and Bella began to wonder why he'd come, if it really had only been to find out why she hadn't called, but she decided that just seemed silly. "I want you to meet me tomorrow at twelve." He said abruptly, drawing her from her trailing thoughts.
"Oh… umm, I can't. My dad is pretty serious about me not going anywhere after everything that's happened." She couldn't look at him directly as she omitted the fact that she was meeting Embry tomorrow at that exact time, his warning too recent in her mind to ignore fully. She reminded herself that they were brothers, distant and recent, but still brothers.
"You could tell him you were meeting a friend from school." He persisted.
"I would, but I know for a fact he would call and check with their parents first." She felt about six years old as she admitted to him how enclosed her life actually was, but at least she wasn't lying. Thankfully he didn't push it this time, because she really didn't want to have to sit here and admit that she didn't actually have any friends in school at all.
"Okay. Another time then, we'll figure something out about your Dad." He said gruffly and she wondered if by 'we' he meant her and him, or him and someone else. The whole thing confused her, so she just nodded, and that seemed to be the right thing to do.
A rumble in his pocket drew his attention away and when he scowled down at his phone, he stepped to the window before she could say another word. She watched enthralled as he opened the glass pane, bringing a frosty swirl of air into the room.
"Come here." He beckoned lowly, and she wasn't sure why, but she stood almost instantly, walking towards him as if she was being pulled by an invisible string.
She stood barely inches from his body, trembling in his proximity. He reached out to her, his hard fingers lifting her chin slowly, drawing her to him with an almost painful pace. Trailing a path from her chin to her lips, he traced his thumb over the moist flesh, his eyes dark as he watched her mouth open slightly.
"Just remember, Isabella, you're mine."
She felt certain that he would kiss her, lower his head just slightly and mark his claim on her body. But the kiss never came and she felt him twist around her, circling her body with his invasive heat and overpowering presence.
When his fingers danced over her thick sweater, she jumped slightly in surprise, but as she welcomed his touch, she lost herself to the feelings that seemed to ooze languidly to the surface whenever he was near.
She felt his fingers at her throat; a thick pressure on soft skin and instinctively her eyes fluttered open. Bella observed the intensity in his eyes, the look of concentration as he watched his own hands grip firmly. She was too focused on him to notice at first, but as a soft cold rolled across her chest, she looked down in shock to see his fingers rip the thick fabric of her sweater in two, tearing it with ease as though it were nothing more than a flimsy sheet of paper.
She was too enraptured to entertain anything resembling rational, so when he pushed the now useless garment from her shoulders, exposing her to the world outside her window, she didn't think to hide herself from him.
Standing just far enough away, he watched her skin react under the cold exposure, her flesh tighten as her pupils burning into his body with a desire so strong that it was taking everything he had to hold himself back. She was his and he didn't need anything more to confirm that, anything other than the fire in her eyes that he knew burned solely for him.
His hands started at her tapering neck, learning the curve of her body as he trailed over her fragile shoulders, before skimming her breasts with just a taste of what would have to be postponed for another time.
Just as she was about to reach her hand out to touch him, he gripped her narrow waist and pulled her close, pivoting her body so that her exposed spine pressed against him, her hands now useless as he continued his exploration.
His fingers brushed back and forth over her flat stomach, leaving behind a burning memory until he continued lower, taking all of her prudence away as she held her breath in anticipation. The tip of her shorts didn't stopping him like she thought they might and he dipped underneath the light cotton, going places no-one had ever been before. Her heart hammered wildly in her chest and he delved ever lower. Just when she thought she might lose herself to him completely, her eyes fluttered closed, her senses so heightened it hurt to think about anything other than his touch.
"You'd let me bend you over and take you right now if I wanted to, wouldn't you?" Paul asked, his voice husky and raw as he pressed her forward just slightly, her body bending willingly underneath him, answering his question with unspoken words.
She didn't know her body had already spoken for her and so she trawled to the depths of her desire, looking for the answer that she tried to deny was on the tip of her tongue. Accepting the truth, she nodded her head, a slight whimper of desperation dropping from her lips as he curled one finger inside her, her fingers gripping into a tight fist as she tried to hold back a wanton moan. The feel of him was exquisite, the exploration of her body so incomplete that when he pulled away, she writhed with him, not willing to let him go so easily.
He held her in place with a firm hand and as time stopped for Bella, the excitement of what she thought was about to happen stilled every single atom in the newly found reaches of her soul. But as the warmth that had encapsulated her gusted away and a cold breeze rustled over her skin, she accepted with a bitter disappointment that he was gone.
Her dreams were torn that night, filled with moments when fingers hadn't stopped, fingers that had delved over and under, morphing into tongues that tasting her with a need impossible to satiate. So when she woke, groggy and poorly rested from a twisting night, she looked to her clock flashed out crimson lines and groaned.
It wasn't even thirty minutes later when she turned the key in her cumbersome truck, the old engine spluttering to life in protest to being roused. The country music blaring from her speakers broke the sleepy cobwebs from her mind.
The roads were so familiar that she paid them little mind, coasting round the bends in delight at being free from a home which recently had felt more like a prison. The truck was old, so old in fact that it didn't have a light to warn her when her gas had reached a critical low. So when the old beast began to cough and splutter, she cast her eyes down in surprise.
"Oh, come on!" She pleaded, bashing the steering wheel with the base of her palm. She could remember driving to school midweek and making a mental note to fill up on the way home, but the day had been too long and the thought had passed, obliterated into this very moment.
Crawling to an undignified stop on the hard shoulder, Bella's eyes fell to the road. She was surrounded by trees, nothing but tall imposing trees. It took a moment for the magnitude of the moment to actually sink in. Looking behind her, though she knew it was a useless gesture, she checked to make sure nothing was coming before she stepped from the cab into the road, slamming the door behind her just because she could.
She was so angry with herself and the old thing that she didn't even bother to lock it. The best case scenario, she decided, as she took her first steps towards La Push, would be that it would be stolen by a deserving criminal. The worst, it would be there when she got back.
Her steps were angry and therefore her pace was a little faster than normal, her focus on her own foolishness that she didn't feel the sensation of eyes on her, the strange crawling awareness of being viewed from afar.
The woods around her were wild with nature, but the usual rustle of leaves, the constant songs sung by lively birds, all of it was missing. She might have noticed if she wasn't chastising herself, berating her own stupidity and the price she was now paying in her head.
She didn't notice them step out of the trees, didn't catch their graceful bodies as she strode on, she didn't even notice the gnarled root of a tree that brought her tumbling down. But once she was on the floor, her bloodied hands breaking the worst of her fall, she finally saw their russet feet, waiting for her to notice it all.
a/n: I'm so disappointed I couldn't get this out yesterday... my laptop died and my world fell apart as a result. Anyway, I'm back and as always I want to say a huge thank you to my beta Twiticulate and to all you lovely readers.
I'll see you all again on Wednesday, so until then... x