Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own a thing. :(
A/N: Thanks to every one of you, who has reviewed, favorited, put on alert or simply... read TPL.
Chapter-11: Losing Control and Finding Myself
BPOV
Edward and I wait for a few more minutes after Brody's departure before sneaking out of the bar. Once we're outside, Edward starts to walk toward the way where we left the Ferrari, but I stop him by grabbing his hand.
"What is it, Bella?" he asks, as his eyes look around to check for any sign of danger.
I shake my head and reply, "We cannot take the car, Edward. What if they find the car and catch us? We need to move and find a safe place."
"Where? Like you said, we can't go back to our places."
For a moment, I consider our options. It is fairly clear that Jacob Black has had me under surveillance since the night we had crossed paths. That means he might know about Alice. I couldn't pop in at her place so late at night.
Besides, judging by Edward's shy behavior, I am pretty sure he does not have many friends we can go visit late at night.
As I'm shooting off ideas, I remember the pay-by-the-hour motel Al and I had to go for a news story which is right around the corner. It is pretty much secluded. So there is slim to no chance that the Jerkob Team will even look for us there and if they do, there is plenty of ways to sneak out of there.
"I know a little place. It's not the best of accommodations, but it'll be safe for the night, I think," I say, giving his hand a slight tug.
He looks at me and asks quietly, "You're sure?"
"Pretty much."
Nodding, he entwines our hands. "All right then. Let's go." Wordlessly, he allows me to lead him.
~*~*~*TPL*~*~*~
"It doesn't even have a name? It just says '24-hour motel'!" Edward exclaims eighteen minutes later as he stares at the signboard hanging outside the motel.
I laugh a little at his incredulous tone. "Some people are simple like that. C'mon, we should check in."
Together we walk up to the front desk, and I smile brightly at the teenage boy sitting at the desk.
He looks startled at my smile and greets us in a high-pitched voice. "Hi! Welcome. How may I help you?"
I keep the well-practiced smile on my face and say, "Yes, we need a room for the night."
His eyes go to Edward and mine joined hands and he holds out a registrar book and a key. "Just sign your names and I'll show you to your room."
Edward takes the pen the desk boy holds out and signs our names. In a perfect cursive handwriting he writes the names: Tony and Isa Masen.
I frown at the names. I knew that we would have to use fake names to avoid getting caught, but how the fuck did he come up with these names so fast?
The feeling of his fingers squeezing mine brings me out of my thoughts, and I file the questions away for when we are alone.
"Cool. Right this way, folks. I'll show you to your room," Desk Boy says, standing up from his seat and motions us to follow him.
We walk behind him in silence for a few minutes before he stops in front of a door that has a wooden number 18 hanging on it. "Here you are. If you need anything, just come up to the counter," he says, with a side-eyed glance at me.
Right, kid, I'm not gonna go to you for a booty call if that's what you're hoping for, I snort inwardly.
"No, thanks, we're good," Edward replies angrily from beside me as he lets go of my hand and wraps an arm around my waist instead.
Desk Boy shrugs in a dejected way and hands Edward the key to our room before walking away.
I wait till Edward unlocks the door and closes it behind us before turning around to face him. "Was that possessiveness I detected, Dr. Cullen?"
His cheeks brighten, and he lowers his eyes to the floor. "Sorry if I was out of the line. I just didn't like the way that guy was looking at you," he mutters.
I nudge his chin with my hand and meet his eyes. "Edward, he's just a kid. I'm not a cougar, you know? And it wasn't out of line. After the way I assaulted you at the bar, it is quite all right if you get all possessive over me. I kind of like it," I finish with a wink.
His bright green eyes look even brighter behind those sexy glasses at my words, and he leans forward, touching his forehead to mine. "I like you, Bella."
Eagerly, I lift up my face and whisper, "I like you too, Edward." And then we kiss—a soft kiss, one that tells me that this is not just some fluke we are going through … that what we have can be long-lasting.
When he breaks the kiss, I ask, "So, who exactly is Tony Masen?"
"What?" he stiffens in my arms at the sudden question.
"Earlier, at the registrar …" I explain. "You signed your name as Tony Masen. I know your middle name is Anthony; so the Tony part is clear to me, but who exactly is Masen?"
He remains quiet for a moment before asking in a soft voice, "Bella, do you trust me?"
I nod, and then he says, "Then please know that I would not do anything wrong. I'll tell you all about that name later, I promise."
Suddenly the air around us feels heavy and serious so I murmur a soft 'okay' before asking in a brighter tone, "Do you want to get cleaned up first? We only have one bathroom."
He sighs in relief. "Sure. I won't be long."
With a quick kiss to my temple, he walks toward the bathroom, leaving me to my thoughts for the moment as I wait for my turn.
~*~*~*TPL*~*~*~
The moment I get out of the bathroom, I feel like something is different. Looking at the bed, where I left Edward before heading to shower, I find the spot empty.
A sickening feeling grips my heart as my mind goes through all the scenarios that might cause him to not be here.
What if he's caught? Fuck! Did Brody find us already? How the hell am I going to find Edward now? I think, starting to panic.
As I stand there, in just my tank-top and jeans, I hear someone turning a key on the door lock of our room. Quickly, I grab the intercom handset, ready to fling it to the asswipe coming in.
The door opens slowly, and closing my eyes, I hurl the thing in my hand toward the door.
"Shit! What the hell, Bella?"
The sound of his voice makes me open my eyes, and I find a wide-eyed Edward standing at the door with a brown paper bag in his hand.
"Edward! Fuck! I'm sorry. I thought you were one of Jerkob's men. Did I hurt you?" I ask, rushing to him and checking his face for bruises.
He closes the door with his foot and smiles at me. "Nah, I have pretty good reflexes. I moved out of the way in time."
"Good," I reply before launching myself at him and hitting his chest with my fists repeatedly.
"Ouch! What are you doing?" he asks, restraining me with his hands and looking at me like I am a crazy person.
I shoot daggers at him. "Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea how worried I was when I got out of the shower and didn't find you here?"
He points at the bag he dropped when I attacked him and says, "I thought we could use some food. So I walked to a diner next door and got us a few sandwiches."
I try to rein in my irrational anger and ask stonily, "Did it even occur to you that you might get caught? What would I have done then, huh? I just found you."
Smiling softly at me, he takes my hand which sits limply on his chest and kisses the back of it. "I'm sorry, baby. I just didn't think you would be worried for me."
"Well, I did worry for you," I say petulantly while trying to hide the smile threatening to take over my angry façade at his sweet behavior.
He grabs the bag from the floor and then leads me to the only sitting area in the room—a loveseat—to sit down beside him.
When he hands me a sandwich, I kiss his cheek and say, "Thank you for taking care of me."
His only response is to smile.
For a few minutes, we eat in silence—not awkward silence, just a comfortable one. Then he takes a sip of his water and starts talking. "You asked me who Masen was. Well, Masen was my birthfather—Edward Masen, Sr. When I was born, I was named Edward Anthony Masen, Jr., but I changed it to Cullen the moment I could. I never wanted to have anything to do with that man."
"Your father?" I ask softly.
He nods, letting out a ragged breath. "He was a good enough man, I suppose, when I was a kid. But when I was nine, he lost a lot of money in his business and started drinking heavily. There were many nights I woke up hearing the sound of my mother's sobbing as he beat her. He had turned into a monster."
His usually smooth voice sounds hoarse as he recounts the horrible memories of his childhood. I don't say anything, allowing him to say what he felt like sharing with me.
"When I was eleven, he died," Edward continues, avoiding looking into my eyes. "He was drunk as he drove home from work and he crashed into another car coming from the opposite side. I think the moment I heard of his death, I felt relieved. Does that make me a bad person, Bella?"
I put my food down and take his hand in mine, pulling it to my lips just the way he did before. "No, Edward," I say softly. "It makes you human. It means you loved your mother so much that you preferred him dead than being alive and hurting her."
He looks at me then and gives me a grateful smile. "Thank you. I do have Carlisle now though."
His face brightens up as he talks about his stepfather. "Carlisle was my mother's best friend when she was a kid. He went to Italy to attend college when he heard about her engagement to my birthfather."
"Then how did he come back?" I ask, wanting to know more about his life.
"Carlisle had come back to Washington after becoming a doctor. When he died, Carlisle was the one who came to take care of us. The next year, he asked me for my permission to marry my mom," he says with a smile in his voice.
I cannot help but smile at the thought of a doctor asking a twelve year old Edward for permission to marry his mother. "What did you say?"
This time, his smile is a genuine one as he replies, "I told him that if he promises to never make her cry, he can marry her, but I get to remain the number one man in her life."
I laugh at that cheeky response and ask, "And then?"
He shrugs. "And then, he married her, adopted me, and I changed my name to Edward Anthony Cullen as soon as I could. He hasn't allowed a drop of tear to come out of my mom's eyes, and I think he's the best thing that could have happened to her."
His words and the fact that he shared a bit of his life with me make me want to share some of mine with him as well. So taking a deep breath, I start talking.
EPOV
"I wasn't always like this, you know?" Bella's quiet words make me look at her questioningly.
"What do you mean?"
With a humorless laugh, she says, "This reckless girl that you're seeing right now. I wasn't always like that. I mean, I always had been a bit of a tomboy, but I wasn't so desperate to know the truth all the time."
Silently, I keep looking at her, waiting for her to continue, which she does.
"My dad, Charlie Swan, was the Chief of Police in the Seattle P.D. He was a very brave man. I loved seeing him dressed in his uniform every evening when he came home. Then one day, he didn't come back home. My mom and I kept waiting for him, when at the dawn the next day, an ambulance drove up to our home. Turned out, someone had murdered my father and left his body around the street corner while he was on duty."
I gasped. Fuck! It must have been like hell for her.
She stays quiet for a bit and then says, "He is the reason I changed my major from Physics to Journalism in college. I seek out truths everyday so that no family gets to live with the question we always face—why did this happen?"
"Did you ever find out?" I ask, touching her knee.
She shakes her head. "No. Not yet, but I know that I will find the fucktard that did this to me … to my mom."
Instinctively I say, "If you need any help, I'm your man."
She gives me a soft smile and whispers, "Thanks."
Seeing this incredibly strong girl looking all sad and broken, tears at my heart and I wrap her up in my arms, hoping like hell I could take away her pain.
She lays her head on my shoulder and sighs. I drop a kiss on top of her head and say, "I don't think of you as a reckless girl, you know?"
"What do you think of me as?" she asks back.
I smile down at her. "I think you are the most beautiful, smartest, funniest and strongest girl I know."
She quirks an eyebrow at me. "Am I the only girl you know, Edward?"
Shaking my head at her, I reprimand her softly, "Don't sell yourself short, Bella. I like you just the way you are."
Her cheeks redden slightly as she smiles back at me. "Thanks."
We remain like that for some time before Bella asks me out of the blue, "Hey did you see any payphones around here when you were out?"
"Umm …" I think for a moment. "I don't think so. Why?"
She slumps back against me. "I need to contact my best friend, Alice."
"I think I can help you with that," I say smugly as I pull out the all-purpose charger I got for her phone from the brown paper bag.
She lets out a squeak of delight and grabs it from my hand. She quickly gets her phone out of her pocket and hooks it in to the charger before turning to me. "Where did you get it?"
"I borrowed it from the old lady who owns the diner," I reply.
She smiles as she comes back to me and exclaims, "Thank you so much, Edward. I could kiss you right now!"
In a moment of bravado, I stand up and bring her flush to my body. "Who's stopping you?"
"No one," she says back before brushing her lips on mine. We kiss softly for a minute, and then I lick her bottom lip, savoring her taste. She opens her mouth to me as she threads her fingers in my hair.
I let my hands fall lower and cup her ass in my hands as she tries to wrap her legs around me. For the first time in my life, I don't feel ashamed or embarrassed when I press myself against her. Instead, I feel the urge to join her in the most intimate way.
A moan escapes me as her fingers slip under the hem of my T-shirt and runs over my chest. The next thing I know, she's tugging the shirt up and over my head before throwing it down on the floor.
"Bella …" I start, trying to stop her when she starts kissing my chest any and everywhere her lips can reach. A shudder runs through me when I feel her hands on the waistband of my jeans.
Slowly, I trace the line where her tank top meets her skin, and she looks up at me with blazing eyes. Without taking her eyes off of mine, she grabs the hem of her top and pulls it over her head, making my eyes pop wide open in surprise.
The sight of Bella standing before me in just her jeans is the sexiest sight in the world. I don't let my eyes trail below her neckline as I ask in a hoarse voice, "Bella? What are you doing?"
She raises her eyebrows at me and asks, "I believe I'm getting ready to have sex with a very sexy scientist who has promised to take me to a dinner once this shit with aliens is over."
Even in the half-naked state, I cannot help but chuckle at her words. "Are you sure you want this?"
She looks hesitant for a moment as she asks, "Don't you?"
"Yeah … Can we? I mean we can, right? Fuck! I'm hopeless," I blab, not knowing what the right answer should be.
A smile stretches over her lips as she walks up to me. She stands on her tiptoes and kisses the tip of my nose. "We can, Dr. Cullen."
Her smile encourages me and I finally let my eyes fall down to look at her perfect breasts and flat stomach. I feel myself getting harder at the sight and take a sharp breath when she stands close to me, making our chests brush.
"You're perfect," I whisper as I cup the back of her neck in one hand and kiss her passionately. Slowly, I let my other hand slip downward to her jeans and then I stop.
"Take them off," she says to me, and I do.
Once she is standing completely naked in front of me, she reaches for my jeans once again and this time, I let her take them and my boxers off.
I step out of my clothes and then before I know it, I find her pushing me to the bed right behind us.
I fall down at the bed with her on top of me. She gives me a smile as she kisses my adam's apple and brushes her hand over me.
With a groan, I grab her hips in both hands and roll us over until our positions are reversed and I am the one hovering over her. As I kiss her, I cup her breasts in my hands.
Bella lets out a soft moan at the touch as her back arches off the bed. "Fuck, Edward! I want you."
The sound of her voice goes straight to my groin and I duck my head to take one of her nipples in my mouth. Sucking it in my mouth, I groan, "You're so sexy, Bella. I want you too … so much."
"Then take me," she whimpers as she takes me in her hand and brings me to the apex of her thighs. The heat and softness of her makes me feel like I can explode right that second, but I hold off.
As we grind against each other suddenly I realize something. With panicked eyes, I look at her. "Bella, baby, we can't."
A small frown appears between her eyes as she stills beneath me. "Why?"
"I don't … I don't have a condom," I mutter helplessly.
Her frown disappears and she smiles. "I'm clean and on the shot."
I feel the tips of my ears getting warm as I mumble, "I'm clean too. I haven't had sex since I came back to the states, and I had a full check up done before leaving CERN."
"Good to know," she says, and with a wink, starts to inch me into her.
Finally, I take over from her and thrust myself into her slowly, trying not to hurt her.
Once we're joined, I remain motionless for a moment, allowing her to get used to me. When she wriggles underneath me, I start moving in and out of her.
"You're beautiful, baby," I whisper when she kisses my shoulder.
When she wraps her legs around me, she whimpers, "You feel so good, Edward."
Slowly, we let the passion build and when we can't hold on anymore, we both jump off the cliff … together, holding on to each other tightly.
When we have regained our breathing, I move, separating us and then pull Bella to my chest. She lets out a contented sigh and places a kiss on my chest … right over my heart.
Just before falling asleep, I think I hear her say, "Who knew my crazy science guy would turn out to be Prince Charming?"
BPOV
In the morning, I wake up at the feeling of a warm body pressed against mine. I open my eyes and find myself looking at the adorable face of Edward Cullen—my crazy science guy.
I reach out and brush the hair off of his forehead as I remember the way he had loved me the night before. Yes, although it might be just sex for him, but to me, we made love.
I know it because all the times I have had sex, I never felt so emotionally connected to the person like I did with Edward. It was like he has wriggled his way into my heart.
That crazy thought made me smile. Last night, just before falling asleep, I had realized something. I had realized that I was falling for crazy science guy. The way he talked about his parents, the way he looked at me like I'm the most beautiful girl in the world, the way held me when I told him about my dad and the way he loved me in bed make me realize that he might be my Prince Charming.
"Morning, beautiful girl," his sleepy voice brings me out of my reverie and I find those beautiful green eyes looking at me.
"Mmm …" I hum. "I'm back to beautiful girl today?"
"What do you mean?" he asks, looking confused.
Biting my lip, to hide my smile, I reply, "You called me baby last night." Then as an afterthought, I add, "I liked that."
He smiles shyly at me and runs his hand up and down my side, brushing the side of my breast and stopping at my hip. "How are you feeling, baby?"
I smile at the sweet way he calls me baby and reply, "I'm perfect, just like you said I was last night."
He takes hold of my hips and makes me lie over him as he says, "Let's test that theory, shall we?" And then, he is slipping inside me again, making me forget the outside world where jerks like Jacob Black and his cronies are looking for us.
~*~*~*TPL*~*~*~
Once we're showered and dressed, I switch on my now fully charged phone and call Alice. It only rings once before my eardrums explode.
"Bell, what the fuck? Where have you been? You haven't been home in days and Reneé and I are worried sick." Alice's angry shriek makes me grin.
"Hiya', Al. How's the flu?"
"Don't you dare, young lady!" she thunders over the phone. "Do you have any idea what I've been through? You call and tell me about the science guy being kidnapped and then disappear without a trace. Your Harley is found at the impound. And then Reneé gets a call as your in case of emergency contact, saying that you've been spotted collapsing in the middle of the road by a Sea News reporter. How the fuck you think we are?"
When she shuts up to take a breath, I start talking. "I'm sorry, Al. The kidnappers got to me too. They drugged me … that's why I collapsed. But on the bright side, I found Edward and we're both safe … for now."
"Wait, you were kidnapped?" Alice's voice rises up a notch.
"Sheesh, cut out the shrieking, Short Round. Yes, I was, but we managed to escape. Now tell me, where's my mom?"
"Reneé is at my place. I checked out the Jacob guy you told me about the last time. He seemed pretty shady so when you pulled a Houdini on me, I thought it will be best to have Reneé with me since I have security guards at the apartment building."
Her words make me calm down a little. "Thanks, Al."
She pshshaws at that and says, "She may have given birth to you, but she's like my mom too, B. Now where the fuck are you? Can I come to see that you really are alive?"
"Yes, please," I reply with a smile. "I'm at the place where we went for the report on stolen gold bars, remember that one?" I try to tell her without actually giving up the address in case someone has tapped into the line and is listening in on the call.
"Gotcha'!" she says. "See you in a few hours then. I'll bring food and clothes. And, B?"
"What?"
"I'm so freaking happy that you're alive!" Before I can respond, she disconnects the call.
"What's that smile for?" I feel Edward wrap his arms around my torso from the back as he kisses the side of my neck.
Grinning, I turn to face him and kiss his lips. "Prepare to meet my best friend, Hurricane Alice."
A/N: *fans self* So ... thoughts? Good? Bad? Boring?
Hit me with them and leave a review, please?
I know we missed Carlisle in this one, but he'll be back in the next one. ;)
With a sad note, I have to tell you that there will be no updates this coming Friday. I have my midterms approaching and I have to study. Hopefully, I'll get the next chapter out by the Friday after next.
Meanwhile, keep an eye out for my Halloween one-shot which will be posted soon. ;)
If you're into The Vampire Diaries, try out my TVD one-shot, A Beauty for A Beast for some Halloween fun. :D
The song rec for this chapter: If I Lose Myself Tonight by One Republic. If you haven't listened to it, go and do so ... NOW!
Thanks for reading.
Until next time.
Take care.
Ann