A/N Thanks to my wonderful Beta jkane180 and all my lovely friends on Twitter for their support. I'm so sorry for the delay in getting updates out. Real life has been so busy and I've increased my hours at work for a while, but I'm trying to write when I can.
As always I really hope you enjoy this chapter and I would love to hear your views. I really do appreciate all your reviews and feedback. Ali x
This story is rated M for a reason, some bad language and sexual situations later on.
All recognizable characters belong to Stephanie Meyer!
xXx
They rode the bike along a winding coastal road with hardly any traffic. Much of it appeared to be uphill, and to Bella's relief, Jacob didn't go too fast. She was sure he was holding back because he knew she was nervous - another act of thoughtfulness that caused a bit of a meltdown to her insides.
Bella held on tight. She was a little frightened, but she was also really enjoying the ride. She could feel the excitement and adrenaline racing though her body, but she couldn't be certain whether to blame it on the bike ride or the fact that she was so close to Jacob with her whole body pressed tightly to his.
Thinking at one point that this was likely to be the only time she would ever be this close to him, she decided to take full advantage of the situation. She pressed into him as much as she could, and gripping his waist tightly, she breathed in his masculine scent. At that moment, she couldn't help thinking that Jacob Black was truly the epitome of 'all man.'
They'd been riding for about fifteen minutes when Jacob pulled off the main road and started along a dirt track. At the end of the track, there was a wooden gate. Jacob stopped the bike and killed the engine.
"We're almost there. We just have to go a little way on foot now," he said over his shoulder.
Bella loosened her grip on Jacob's waist with a tinge of regret and got off the bike.
Jacob followed suit and put the bike on its stand.
"So how was that? Fun, eh?" He grinned as Bella started to undo the strap under her chin, but Jacob was there before she had the chance to finish it herself. His fingers brushed gently against hers as he carefully undid the strap and lifted the helmet from her head.
"Um, thanks. Yeah, it was fun and not as scary as I thought it would be." She returned his smile as she brushed a few loose strands of hair from her face.
"Er... are sure you weren't that scared? You held on pretty tight most of the way." He chuckled.
"Oh, sorry..." Bella blushed as she looked down to avoid his gaze.
"Hey, don't worry about it. I certainly ain't complaining, babe." He gave her a wink as Bella looked at him with raised eyebrows.
"I know... I'm sorry. It just slips out so easy, you know, just rolls off the tongue... I won't call you it again, okay?" he offered with an exaggerated roll of his eyes.
"Good!" she replied as Jacob automatically started taking the
backpack straps off her arms.
"I'll carry this now." He put one arm through a strap, so it hung from one shoulder, and started walking towards the wooden gate.
"It's not far, but just watch your footing. It can be a bit tricky in some parts."
"Are we allowed up here, Jacob?"
Although there was a path, it didn't look as though if had been used often.
"Yeah, it used to be an old hiking trail, but hardly anyone comes up it now." He held the gate open, waiting for her to pass through it.
As they started making their way through the overgrown path, they walked at a steady pace. She knew Jacob was walking a little slower so that she could easily keep up with him – another one of those thoughtful little things to add to the tally.
The path was a little slippery but not too bad.
At one point, they came across a small bank that went down slightly and back up the other side. Jacob went first and waited at the bottom for Bella, just in case she needed his help. Then he climbed up the other side and held out his hand for Bella to grab. She gladly took a hold, and he gently pulled and helped her up.
Bella couldn't help noticing how big Jacob's hands were compared to hers, and how warm they were. As she reached the top, she reluctantly let go of his hand with a mumbled thanks, but she could still feel the warmth and a tingling sensation from his contact.
"So is that one of the bikes you fixed up?" Bella asked, genuinely interested in Jacob's little project that Billy had told her about.
"Yeah, it took a few months, but I'm really pleased with them. I'm hoping to the sell the other one soon, but I'll keep the black one."
"Where did you get them from?"
"Oh, they belonged to a friend of Sam's, and he was going to take 'em to a scrap yard. But Sam told him that I might be interested in them. Sam knew what I'd done to the Rabbit and thought it would be a good project for me."
"Wow. That was good of Sam. It's lucky he thought of you."
"Yeah. Sam's cool. Hey, we're here!"
They came to the end of the path, and in front of her, Bella could see a small, open, grassy area at the top of a cliff. There were a few old tree stumps and logs lying around and some colorful wild flowers. Bella also noticed some big rocks here and there.
"Oh my god, Jacob, this place is beautiful!" Bella exclaimed, looking around her.
"Yeah, pretty special, uh?" Jacob put the backpack down on a log as Bella moved towards the edge of the cliff.
"Hey, just don't go too close to the edge," he warned.
"Woah, it's really high up here!" Bella looked out to the ocean and could see a small island not far out to the left. Looking down, she could see and hear the waves crashing against the rocks below. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the assault on her senses. She could even taste the salty air on her tongue.
"Uh huh, this is one of the highest cliffs. There are some lower ledges a bit further down, but I love it up here. Hardly anyone comes up this far, and it's so peaceful."
With her eyes still closed, Bella felt him come to stand close beside her.
"This is one of my secret places you never found, eh?" he teased.
She turned her head to look at him and rolled her eyes. "I never came looking for you, Jacob. Honestly, I didn't. I tried to find places where I would be out of your way, but you always found me."
Jacob gave a small laugh. "Yeah, I thought I was doing the same. I think the great spirits were playing with us, Bella," he said as he looked up to the sky, shaking his head.
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, just something the Big Chief told me once. Maybe I'll tell you about it one day." He chuckled again.
"The Big Chief?" She looked at him, confused.
"My dad, Bella!" He smiled cheekily.
"Oh, wow, I forget who he is... well, not who he is. I guess what he is."
"Mmm... Wish I could sometimes," Jacob mumbled as he turned and walked back to the log where he'd left the backpack.
As he sat down, Bella walked over to join him.
"You wish you could forget what he is?" she asked curiously as she sat beside him.
Jacob sighed as he looked ahead. "Just kinda reminds me of the responsibility that lies ahead."
"You don't want to be Chief?" she heard herself asking.
Jacob looked at her, and Bella wondered whether her question had annoyed him, but he smiled and Bella quietly sighed in relief.
"It's not that I don't want to be Chief. I just think there are other people who deserve it more. Just because I'm his son doesn't mean I'll be any good at it."
Bella listened as Jacob continued, "Sam would make a good Chief. He works with the kids here, and he's done so much for the community. He's helped me out a lot, Bella. I was on the verge of going off the rails and fucking everything up, but Sam stepped in and made me realize what an idiot I was being. He got me the job at the garage too."
Bella could only watch Jacob as he spoke.
"So how its right that I'll be Chief one day when someone like Sam is more deserving of it?"
"Have you spoken to your dad about it? Have you told him how you feel?" The questions were leaving her mouth before she even realized it, but Jacob seemed to be okay with answering them.
"I don't want to disappoint him. He knows I'm not stoked by the idea, but I haven't really talked about it with him. Plus, he'll just say that it's in my blood so it has to be blah, blah, blah."
"Do you know what you'll have to do, you know... when you're chief?"
"Well, for obvious reasons, I'm hoping it's a long way off yet. But no, not really. I've never taken any interest in it."
"Well, maybe you should. I'm sure it would make your dad really happy to see you taking an interest, and it might help you... You know, if you knew what was involved. Are you allowed to go to the council meetings?" Bella was half expecting for Jacob to either snap her head off for interfering or just clam up and stop taking. So she was relieved when he continued.
"Um, yeah, I think so. Well, some of them, now that I'm eighteen."
"Okay... well, maybe you should start going to a few, you know... just to see what happens."
"Yeah, maybe, we'll see." He smiled at her.
Bella put her arms behind her on the log and leaned back, lifting her face to the sky, and closed her eyes. The sun had decided to make an appearance as a warm breeze caressed her face.
She couldn't believe where she was and who she was with. She was sitting next to Jacob Black, the boy she grew up hating. They were together in this beautiful place, and she had never felt so happy, so at ease. She felt like she belonged. She belonged here, in this special place, with him, and that feeling confused the hell out of her.
xXx
He couldn't stop looking at her. She was smiling with her eyes closed, and her face lifted to the sun.
She had the most gorgeous porcelain skin, flawless, apart from the splattering of freckles across her nose and a little darker patch just under the outer corner of her right eye. She was so fucking perfect.
He'd never really looked at her this closely before. Sure, he knew she was pretty - no, beautiful - but he'd never really seen her beauty up this close.
It took all his strength to not reach out and run his finger across her cheek and down to her lips. He wondered what it would be like to kiss her and hold her.
At that moment, while his eyes were fixed on her lips, she licked them, parting them slightly, and let out a contented sigh. Holy fuck! What the hell was she doing to him?
He was mesmerized by her, not just her looks, but her whole being. He'd opened up to her. He'd never told anyone about how he felt having the title of chief passed onto him, but there was something about her that made him want to share; his feelings, his special place, a part of himself. He was definitely under her spell. This wasn't a curse. He knew that now. Curses were meant to be bad things, and there was no way that this was bad - whatever 'this' was.
"It's so beautiful here, Jacob. I could stay here forever." She sighed again. "What do you do up here?"
Jacob turned his head and gazed at the ocean. "I usually come up here to think... or read sometimes."
"Oh, you read?" She sounded surprised, and Jacob turned to look at her and frowned a little.
"I can read, you know, Bella!" He sighed loudly and shook his head but smiled, so she'd know he wasn't angry.
"Oh god, no, I didn't mean it like that," she blurted out, "I guess what I meant was... um, what do you read?"
Jacob grinned at her. "Oh, you know... 'The Great Mechanics Handbook.' Oh and 'Playboy.'"
It was Bella's turn to sigh loudly.
"Hey, I'm joking about 'Playboy.' But I do read about cars and stuff though, and I sometimes come up here to do school work. Other times, I just sit here, thinking and watching..."
He was watching her now, and when her eyes fixed on his, he felt his own face grow warm and a tingling sensation in the pit of his stomach. It seemed that neither one of them could look away from the other, but Bella suddenly broke the moment.
"I imagine your girlfriend loves it here too?" With the question, she turned her eyes away from him and looked down at her hands that were now in her lap.
"Um... I've never brought her up here." Jacob was still watching her.
He didn't really want to think about Lauren at the moment, and certainly didn't want to talk about her, but there was something about Bella. If she asked a question, he felt compelled to answer.
"She's not really an outdoor kind of girl."
Jacob thought of how Lauren preferred to snuggle up indoors or go for a coffee or to the movies. She wouldn't want to sit up here with him for hours. In fact, the most time they spent outside was when they were having sex somewhere, since they could rarely do it at her place or his.
"Yeah, um... You're the only one I've brought up here," he continued, "I kind of thought you'd be the type of person who'd appreciate it." He shrugged his shoulders, trying to seem casual, but still watching her, wanting to see how she'd react to what he was telling her.
He was pleased to see she was smiling and nodding her head in agreement.
"Oh, it certainly is wonderful, but I wouldn't have thought you'd be the kind of guy who'd like a place like this."
She gave him a coy look from under her lashes, and Jacob was transfixed again. He knew she had some hold on him. He was beginning to realize that was the case many years ago, he just didn't recognize it then or want to admit it. But being here with her in this place - his special place - everything seemed so much more intense but at the same time so natural. He had never felt so relaxed, so... himself.
He sighed as he began to speak. "Well, there was a time when I hated it here, not actually here, but you know... the reservation. I guess I knew I'd be destined to stay here, not being able to move away and live somewhere else, and that shit really pissed me off. It made me resent this place, my heritage, everything, so fucking much..." He wasn't proud of what he was saying and felt a little ashamed to admit it out loud.
Again, he'd never told anyone about it, not even Lauren, but this was Bella he was talking to, and for some reason, he couldn't shut the fuck up.
"I guess that's one of the things that pissed me off about you!" He gave a small nod in her direction.
"Me?"
He laughed when he saw her eyes grow wide and a little bit of shock on her face.
"Yeah, you." He nudged her playfully with his elbow.
"Why?" she asked.
"Well, I just couldn't understand why you kept coming here. You'd lived in Arizona with your mom. Then you came to Forks to live with your dad. One day, you'll be able to live wherever you want. You'll be able to live anywhere in the world. But you always seem to keep coming here, all the fucking time." Jacob shook his head, grinning.
"But it wasn't my choice to move to Forks. I had to when my mom started travelling with Phil. At least your parents are still together. Do you know how shitty it is to be torn between two people? And the reservation is amazing. I love it here, so I came to visit with my dad whenever I could. The only downside of course was seeing you. That's why I tried to avoid you, but... well, you know what happened then."
He could tell she was a little pissed at his confession. She was suddenly being all defensive, and although Jacob didn't want to upset her and ruin this moment, he couldn't help thinking how fucking hot she was when she got annoyed.
"Hey, I can understand all that now. But at the time, I kinda felt you were rubbing my nose in it... I suppose I was a little jealous, you know. You could live anywhere, go anywhere..."
"That's just stupid, Jacob. How could I rub your nose in it when I had no idea what you were thinking or that you were jealous? Is that why you were so mean to me?"
"I know... Fuck, it sounds really stupid, but I was a moody, dumb ass kid, and besides, that wasn't the only reason." He just couldn't seem to stop talking, opening up to her, but it felt good to get it off his chest.
"Oh, what other reason was there?"
He heard her take in a deep breath. Yeah she was definitely pissed at him now, but shit... she was as hot as fuck.
"Um, well... You always had your nose stuck in a book. Whenever you did come to visit, you never spoke to me. You ignored me." He looked at her, biting his lip.
"You didn't exactly try to speak to me either, Jacob. I just thought it was best to keep out of your way, but that obviously didn't work." She was looking at him defiantly now, and the way she said his name, hell... his jeans were beginning to feel pretty tight suddenly.
There was something in the way she was looking at him, almost challenging him, that made Jacob think that she could be pretty explosive if they ever had a real fight.
He had thought she was a timid little goody goody, but he was beginning to realize pretty quickly that Bella had some spunk, and she certainly wasn't a pushover.
Suddenly, those thoughts took another path, and his head became full of images of him and Bella engaging in hot, angry, passionate sex. Shit, he really needed to think of something else.
He shifted a little uncomfortably on the log, hoping she wouldn't notice his raging... predicament.
"Look, Bella, I'm sorry, okay? Really, I am, for everything I did to you. But you know it wasn't really that bad. My sisters did that kind of stuff to me all the time. It was just kids' stuff."
"Yeah, well, I didn't have the luxury of having any brothers or sisters to introduce me to your kind of torture!" she said sarcastically, "So excuse me for not being used to that kind of stuff. Seriously, you were pretty mean, Jacob."
"What more can I say, Bella? I'm really, really sorry. I hoped bringing you here would go some way to making it up to you a little," he offered sincerely, trying to get his mind back on track and away from his lustful thoughts... for now, at least.
"Oh, and I have another little surprise..." he said, smiling warmly at her.
He noticed the hard edge in her eyes softening.
"A surprise?" She looked at him with a raised eyebrow, and he couldn't help laughing at her expression.
Jacob grabbed the backpack and, after rummaging around, brought out a couple cans of soda and the foil package.
"Lunch!" He grinned at her as he opened up the package and offered her a sandwich. "Made by moi..."
"Um, are they edible?" she teased as she took one.
"Of course they're fucking edible!" He laughed. "I don't know, Bella. First you think I can't read. Then, I can't make a simple fucking sandwich. You don't have a lot of faith in me, do you?"
Bella laughed softly at his pained expression and took a bite.
"Mmm, can't say it's the best I've ever tasted, but it's not bad as far as sandwiches go," she mumbled with her mouth full.
"Hey, I was in a rush and didn't know what you liked, but don't worry, next time you taste something of mine, it'll be the best experience of your life!" he promised, and inwardly congratulated himself when he saw the sudden flash of color in Bella's cheeks as she swallowed her mouthful with a large gulp.
Well, shit, it looks as though Bella has a bit of a dirty mind too, Jacob thought as he looked out at the ocean with a cocky smirk.
