A/N: A little Edward point of view for my lovely readers :) Also, Twilight still isn't mine...I just checked.
Chapter Twelve: Three Tequila, Floor
EPOV
"My turn?" Bella asked in an unnecessarily hopeful tone. I mean, really, did she even have to ask whether or not I wanted her to fucking lick my skin after she had so generously offered hers to me?
I winked at her. "Just tell me where," I said boldly, my statement a sure testament to the tequila that was beginning to enter my bloodstream.
Her eyes widened and she sat back a little, clearly surprised by my answer. As she plotted her move, she pulled her lower lip in between her teeth like she always did when she was nervous or unsure of herself.
"Will you take off your shirt?" she asked slowly, carefully.
I nearly chocked on my own spit—that was the last thing I had expected her to request. How fucking long had she been such a vixen?
Misreading my reaction, Bella quickly made a move to cover her tracks. "I mean, if you don't want…I could just…I mean...your elbow would work, too, or your neck," she spluttered.
"No, no, I want to," I shook my head as I spoke. "I was just surprised is all."
"Oh, okay," she grinned at my answer and then fell silent, clearly waiting for me to oblige her.
I smirked and wordlessly lifted my black t-shirt over my head before tossing it to the side carelessly. When I glanced at Bella, she was biting that damn lip again.
Without looking, she reached to her left to pick up the shaker of salt. As she did, I reached for a lime to place in my mouth.
"Can you, um, lie down?" She was so nervous—it was adorable. "On the floor," she added, pointing to the grainy wood floor of the balcony.
I nodded and slid out of my chair and onto the floor, moving quickly until I was supine. I was dying to know what she was up to, but I didn't bother to ask. The suspense she was leaving me in was hot as Hell—I was getting hard from anticipation alone. Well, anticipation and tequila.
"That's better," she mumbled and I grinned around the lime that I had placed in my mouth.
I was definitely a fan of bold, buzzed Bella. Tequila was quickly becoming my new best friend.
Suddenly, and without warning, she moved so that she was straddling my thighs, her hair whispering across my bare stomach as she leaned forward and licked a blazing trail across my navel. My body stilled in complete shock.
Based on the nervous tone of her voice earlier, I would have thought it impossible for her to gain enough courage to take so much control. But, damn, she was surprising me. Instantly, I was craving more, much more, than she was giving me. My dick had immediately responded to her; there was no doubt in my mind that she could feel my growing erection beneath her body.
"Shit, I forgot the salt and my shot," she said before climbing off me to retrieve the necessities. It's possible that I groaned a little as she brushed against my hardness in her haste.
She moved quickly, dropping the salt onto my wet skin as she settled onto my thighs again. My hands flew to her hips once she was settled in an effort to keep her from inching upward. I knew my efforts were pointless, though; she could feel the sexual energy as well as I could.
And then she was leaning forward again, her tongue retracing the path it had made earlier as she gathered up the trail of salt in preparation for her shot. I had to bite my tongue to keep the moan from escaping my lips in response to her actions. It didn't work. I felt her chuckle against my stomach as the sound escaped.
Oh, she knew exactly what she was doing to me. And she liked it. Fuck, she was going to be the death of me.
She sat up quickly to throw the shot back before she was leaning down again, this time trailing lazy, wet kisses from the base of my throat upward until she was nibbling on my chin. Her ability to go so long between the tequila and the lime was a feat in itself, but my mind was more focused on how amazing it felt to have her body pressed against mine.
When her lips closed around the lime in my mouth, my hands tightened around her hips. She gently sucked the juice out of the lime before pulling it from between my lips, dropping it onto the floor beside my head, and grinning down at me with fire dancing in her eyes.
I licked my lips, collecting the lime juice that had spread around them. Bella was glorious, all glowing and lovely as her hair fell around her face, highlighted by the sun that was gleaming behind her.
"Your turn?" she asked playfully before rolling off me without further contact.
Damn tease.
I sat up slowly and regained my composure. "Yes, my turn."
It would have been wise of me to grab the shot glasses and tequila and insist that our next shot be taken in the innocent, traditional fashion. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on who you're asking, the wise part of my anatomy wasn't doing the majority of decision making in that moment. Instead, I was starting to think with my, uh, little brain.
Bella was sitting up Indian style, her arms stretched behind her supporting her body. I didn't bother to hide the perusal of her figure that I made as I plotted my move. Even in my inebriated state, my eyes skimmed every perfect inch of skin that I could see and my mind imagined the bits that I couldn't.
Having her take off her shirt so that I could repeat her actions was definitely not an option; if her shirt came off, all of my control would be swept away with it. Her arm was also out, having already gone that route. That left me with two options since her back was inherently included with her stomach: her legs and her neck.
Her neck was tempting as always, though my tongue had tasted there before. The desire to taste something new, something unfamiliar to me was strong so, I chose leg.
"You're plotting," Bella observed at the same moment I came to a decision.
I chuckled. "I prefer to call it strategizing." Her eyes narrowed.
"Whatever you want to call it, have you come up with something?" Her tone was playful, giddy almost.
I nodded slowly. "I have."
"Are you going to share?"
"I'm about to," I said before moving to pull the tequila off of the small table it had been on before the body shot extravaganza had begun. "You could start by lying down…on your stomach."
Her eyes widened in question no doubt wondering what path I had chosen. "Okay…" she said as she moved to lie on her stomach, her head propped up on her hands.
Employing the same approach as she had earlier, I leaned down without warning and left a trail of wetness on the back of her knee that I quickly doused with salt. As I went through the familiar routine, I ghosted my unoccupied hand across her calf. I heard her inhale sharply when my tongue met the often-ignored skin. Silently, I handed her a lime, leaving it up to her as to whether or not she wanted it in her mouth before returning my attention to the lower half of her body.
With the fingers of my left hand, I traced a teasing path from the middle of her calf to her knee. In response to my touch, goose bumps rose on her skin despite the warm breeze circling around us. "Fuck," she breathed in response to my simple touch.
After making the same circuit from her calf to where her short shorts ended, I leaned over and slowly trailed kisses along the back of her thigh, savoring the sharp intake of breath that came from her the moment my lips met her skin. Eventually, I moved on to licking the salt from the back of her knee; her skin tasted as sweet there as anticipated.
I sat up and swallowed the shot quickly before stretching out next to her and searching for the lime; it was in between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. "Looking for this?" she asked, holding it in front of me with a playful grin.
I nodded, my throat burning from the tequila. She moved her hand forward and I met her halfway, taking the lime into my mouth and biting down quickly and dropping it from my mouth when the juice was gone.
Bella and I were lying parallel to one other, both of our heads propped up by an arm as we stared at each other, both of us waiting for the other to make a move.
"Are you giving up?" I asked when she didn't seem to be preparing for another shot.
She shook her head back and forth. "Of course not, Cullen. Who do you think I am? Alice?"
"Fair enough," I answered. "It's just that…it's your turn." My mind was racing as I tried to guess where she might go next.
She smirked. "I know."
"What do you want me to do?" Damn if I wasn't putty in her hands.
"Nothing."
What?
My eyebrows shot up. "Nothing?"
She nodded. "I think it would be best if I took care of this one myself. Also, you should probably put your shirt back on." At the end of her statement, she nodded towards the beach and frowned.
I sat up quickly and turned to see what had captured her attention. After scanning our friends' set up on the beach, I didn't see anything amiss.
"See Alice?" Bella asked as she sat up and grabbed my shirt.
I shook my head. No Alice.
"I saw her skipping towards the house a few minutes ago," she said quickly as I pulled my shirt over my head.
"Shit," I mumbled.
"Here," Bella said as she handed me a full shot glass and a lime. "Pretend we're toasting to something really important, like the wedding."
I chuckled and agreed, holding up the glass she had given to me and muttered in a bored tone, "To Jasper and Alice."
She giggled and we downed our shots at the same time, both inserting the limes into our mouths as a squeal sounded from the doorway.
Alice.
"What are you two doing?" she said in a worried voice as she stepped onto the balcony.
Bella turned to face her. "Shots?" she said in an innocent tone.
"But…but we have dinner reservations in two and a half hours." Alice's tiny foot was stomping on the ground. "And, Bella, we have final dress fittings in the morning and brunch…with my mother, Jasper's mother, and my grandmother."
"And?" Bella asked with a challenging stare on her face. Shit, she was drunker than I had realized—bold Bella was in full force.
Alice's eyes narrowed and I'm pretty sure that, if it were possible, her head would have exploded. "You cannot be a mess at dinner and you cannot be hungover tomorrow. And you," her index finger pointed in my direction, "you have tux fittings and brunch with the men."
I shrugged. "Don't pretend you don't know that brunch with the Hales and your father is code for drinking whiskey at noon, Alice."
The Hale men were notorious for starting the party early. Apparently, morning drinking was okay as long as it was done at the country club.
My statement earned more stomping from the frantic pixie.
"Whatever," she said. "Just know that I will very disappointed in both of you if you ruin tonight and tomorrow for Jasper and me with your childish actions."
"Yes, Alice," Bella and I said in unison, our mocking tones matching.
"And you will be at dinner? Presentable? We will be dining at a very nice restaurant downtown."
We both nodded. "We will be downstairs with time to spare," I added.
Her eyes narrowed down at us, her eyes calculating as she bore an angry stare into our faces. "Good," she said before turning on her heel and marching back into the house.
Bella turned to me as soon as Alice was out of earshot and fell over in a fit of giggles.
"That was close," she gasped between bursts of laughter. "I felt like a damn teenager being caught drinking for the first time."
I joined in on the laughter. "Damn, so did I. Is she always that demanding?"
"Always, don't you remember?" Bella confirmed. "And because of that, I need another shot."
"Me too," I admitted. "What does that bring the count to?"
Bella bit her damn lip again and shrugged. This time, I couldn't help but lean across and save it with my own teeth. She gasped when I pulled away quickly.
"I had to," was my simple explanation when I settled back into my sitting position.
She smiled. "It's okay," she said. "I have no idea what the shot count is, though. Not too high, I'm sure."
I nodded my head in agreement. "How about we do a few more vanilla? Just to be on the safe side?"
"I think that's a good idea," she murmured before reaching for the tequila.
One hour and three shots later, Bella and I were both officially drunk. As we lay on the floor, our legs against the balcony's railing so that our bodies were both making an L shape, we attempted to carry on something that resembled a conversation. In reality, though, it was just a lot of random statements. Eventually, we both gave up.
"Draw?" Bella asked, reaching across with her right hand to shake on it.
I nodded my head, ignoring her hand and moving to kiss her. "I kiss on it, remember?"
She giggled. "Sounds familiar." Her voice was slurring, but her eyes were alight with a carefree happiness that I was seeing for the first time since college.
"We should probably start getting ready for dinner," I commented, making no move to get up.
"Yeah…" Bella agreed lazily. "I need a shower, for starters." She gestured to her elbow and knee that were no doubt sticky from my tongue and the salt.
My mind was instantaneously filled with images of Bella in the shower, the water cascading down her body. "I do too."
We turned to face each other. "We could conserve water," Bella suggested with a wink.
It sounded like a great idea to me. "I like how you think," I reached across and tapped my index finger on her nose.
She smiled at me and moved closer, her eyes on my lips. It was obvious she wanted to kiss me, but I was still a little scared of another Alice entry.
"No," I said, holding up a finger to her lips. "Inside."
She nodded. "Let's get a move on, then."
I nodded and stood slowly, the world spinning around me as I did. Shit, I was drunker than I had realized.
This could be very, very bad.
Bella scrambled to her feet before my mind told my body to help her up. Clumsily, she wrapped her arm around my waist and pulled me inside, sliding and locking the door behind us. I wasn't sure why she locked it, but I'm sure it made sense to her drunken self.
I gently pushed her towards the bathroom, telling her that I was going to lock the actual bedroom door to be safe.
Fuck me, when I entered the bathroom, she was sitting on the edge of the Jacuzzi tub wearing only her panties and bra. "Bella," I said in a warning tone as my eyes raked over her body.
I would not fuck her while we were drunk. I just wouldn't.
Shit, this is going to be hard.
She licked her lips. "Edward," she drawled my name, enticing me to her near-nakedness.
And then, she was giggling.
"What are you giggling for?" I asked, suddenly self-conscious.
She shook her head back and forth. "It's just…do you remember that time at the beach after graduation? The bathtub?"
I narrowed my eyes at her, my mind drawing a complete blank, before I remembered.
xXx
Edward POV
Summer 2010, Post-Graduation
(250): do you remember how we all fit in that bathtub?
(1-250): tequila
"To the real world," Jasper announced as he held up his shot glass.
From our seats in the sand, we all mirrored his actions, echoed his toast, and downed our tequila.
Alice was next. "To being friends…forever," she said, a tear gleaming in her eye.
Like with Jasper's toast, we all echoed and swallowed the liquor.
The cycle continued until we had gone around the circle, each of us equipped with our own small bottle of tequila, our own saltshaker, and our own little bowl of limes. It had all been Alice's idea: a final toast to our college years on our last night at the beach.
My turn was last. "To…the hot tub!" I toasted, knowing it was stupid but not caring because everyone else had taken the good ones.
I was met with blank stares from my friends. "What?" I asked.
"Edward," Emmett began, "there is no hot tub here."
"Yes, there is," I argued. I knew that I had seen one somewhere in his parent's enormous beach house.
He shook his head. "No," he paused, "there isn't."
"But it's fucking freezing out here and the water would be warm and…really?"
"Really," Rosalie deadpanned.
I turned and glared at her. "Well…fuck."
Jasper reached across and patted me on the back. "It's okay, man."
I nodded. "I'm just going to go inside and shower, then," I said, standing slowly and wobbling a bit.
Emmett jumped up and stopped me. "Wait!" he exclaimed. "We could always do what I used to do when I was kid."
I cocked my head to one side as I stared him down, wondering where on earth this story was headed. "Enlighten me," I said.
He looked confused, so I chose a different strategy. "Sorry, Em, tell me what you did as a kid."
"I just filled the Jacuzzi in the master bath with water and pretended it was a hot tub."
"You're kidding."
He shook his head back and forth. "Scout's honor."
"You weren't a boy scout, dumbass," Rose yelled from behind him.
"So?" He turned around to face her.
"So," she said, "you can't say it, then."
"I can say what I want, Rose," he argued. "It even has those jets that make it seem more realistic."
I grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him back around. "You know what, Em?" I asked, eager to quit the arguing. "Let's do it."
"Yes! To the bathtub!"
It really didn't take that much convincing to get everyone else in on the plan to play in the bathtub. Within ten minutes, we were all standing in the bathroom wearing varying styles of swimwear as the water flowed into the porcelain tub.
"Is this shit kickin' or what?" Emmett asked as he fiddled with his iHome in search of the perfect music.
We all slurred in agreement.
Bella was the first to climb in, followed by Jasper who pulled Alice into his lap. I climbed in next to Bella, not bothering to keep my body far from hers; the Jacuzzi wasn't small by normal standards, but it wasn't made for six people. Emmett and Rose were last to join, taking up the remaining space.
Once we were all in, we talked and laughed and drank some more until the couples got handsy. Bella and I turned to each other and rolled our eyes. Water was splashing over the sides of the tub and, thanks to Emmett, there were water guns being used for extra fun.
"Wanna leave them to it?" she asked me with a slight chuckle.
I nodded quickly, eager to get away from the PDA. "Yeah, after you," I gestured for her to step out.
After grabbing towels, we slipped out of the bathroom and down to the kitchen. I'm certain that neither of the couples noticed our exit.
"Emmett and his ideas…" Bella murmured as she dug through the cabinets, no doubt in search of something good like cookies or cheese-its.
"It wasn't so bad," I said. "There was a jet in my back."
Bella rolled her eyes. "Well, lucky you," she said.
"Lucky me," I agreed as she handed me the box of Oreos she had discovered.
"Should we check on them in a bit? You know, make sure no one has drowned?" she asked before popping a cookie into her mouth.
I shook my head. "No," I answered quickly, afraid of what we might stumble upon—once Rose and Emmett or Jasper and Alice got into the 'zone' as Bella as I liked to call it, all bets were off, no matter who was around.
Bella scrunched up her nose. "You're probably right."
xXx
"How could I forget?" I asked, our laughter filling the room around us. "That was a fun night."
She nodded. "Yeah, it was. Such a mess the next morning, though."
"It was," I confirmed, making a conscious effort to keep my eyes on her face and away from her breasts. "Much like we are right now," I was eager to shift the conversation back to the present.
Bella shook her head as if bringing herself back to 2013. "Right," she said, "shower."
"Yes, shower."
She stood and walked over to me. I couldn't take my eyes off of her perfect curves and shapely legs.
"You have on too many clothes, Cullen," she said as she gripped the hem of my shirt. "They might cause a problem if you're trying to get clean."
Or dirty.
"As will these," I said, reaching down to pop the elastic band of her panties.
She gasped. "Edward," she said in a scandalized tone and playfully slapped me across the chest.
I trapped her hand and pulled her to me, stealing the kiss that had been stopped on the balcony. The playful, innocent tone of the last few minutes was gone in an instant, replaced with the damn near constant sexual tension that saturated the air when we were alone.
Our kisses were frantic, tongue and teeth and lips everywhere as clothes were shed and tossed away and one of us, I'm not sure which one, turned on the shower. We stepped inside, arms wrapped around each other, hands everywhere and bodies pressed together, as we stepped beneath the warm spray.
Not now, a voice inside my head reminded me as our wet bodies collided and Bella, or maybe it was me, moaned at the contact.
Damn.
I reluctantly pulled back from her, my hands stilling on her hips. She whimpered and launched herself forward again. "Edward," she whined against my lips as her hands landed on my shoulders.
My frustrated groan echoed off the shower walls as her hands trailed down my chest and stomach, stopping just above where I wanted them to travel the most.
"We can't do this, Bella, not now, not like this." The words were painful to say as I grasped her hands in mine.
"Why not?" she asked, her breathing heavier than it had been moments ago.
Shit, she was turned on. I could tell just by the tone of her voice before she began to trail kisses and licks across my collarbone, her hands slowly moving lower, just inches from my aching dick.
"Because," I forced myself to say despite her distracting nips and bites, "if we do this now, there's a possibility I won't remember it in a couple of hours and I would hate myself for that."
Really, I knew that I would remember, but I wasn't so sure about Bella; there was no way her tiny body had anywhere near the same alcohol tolerance as mine.
She pulled back, moving her hands up to thread them through the hair, skimming them along my sides on the way. "Really?"
As her fingernails scratched against my scalp, it took every ounce of willpower in my body to say, "Yes," in a weak tone as my eyes rolled into the back of my head.
She nodded in understanding. "Okay," she whispered as she looked down at our feet. "We'll just shower." Her tone was pouty and sad and it pained me to make her stop. More than she would ever know, I'm sure.
I placed my index finger under her chin and lifted her head. "Hey," I said, "blame Carlisle Cullen for raising me a gentleman. I promise you, if I didn't respect you at all, we would have fucked ten minutes ago. Forget that, we would've fucked on the balcony."
Bella snorted and took a small step back. "We're naked. In the shower…and you just mentioned your father?"
I shrugged. "It was the first thing that came to mind."
"Just hand me the shampoo," she said with a smirk, her anger over being stopped seeming to have dissipated.
We finished our shower quickly after it was clear that there wasn't going to be any activities that didn't aid the general getting clean process. As we were toweling off, though, Bella gasped.
"What's wrong?" I asked quickly.
She turned to me with wide, worried eyes. "I didn't get clothes out of my room before the shower and our rooms are at opposite ends of the hall. Someone will see me if I try to sneak over there in a towel."
"I'll go get you something," I said without hesitation.
Bella's eyes lit up. "You would?" she asked.
I nodded. "Sure, just let me throw on some pants. What do you want to wear?"
"It doesn't matter. You can just choose something as long as it's something Alice will approve of for dinner at that fancy place with the something or other," she said as I stepped into my room to get dressed. Her words were a little jumbled, and I knew I had made the right decision in the shower, no matter how hard it had been.
"Alice approved, got it," I said as I pulled the khakis I was planning to wear to dinner out of my closet and pulled them on, sans underwear. "Anything else?"
Bella didn't answer, so I stuck my head in the bathroom. She was standing there, biting that fucking lip again.
"Um, could you bring my make-up? And, um, don't forget…undergarments." She whispered the last word, her face reddening as if I hadn't just stood in the shower with her completely nude.
Her undergarments, though? Shit, I hadn't even thought of that.
"They're in the top drawer of the dresser," she added. "Just, uh, grab whatever I guess."
"Okay," I squeaked out before practically running out of the room in search of clothes and, more importantly, Bella's panties and bra.
I stared at the top drawer of Bella's dresser for five minutes after choosing a navy sundress that I was sure would show off her tits. Yes, I had stopped us from making a rash decision in the shower, but I was still a warm-blooded man.
Shit, there were just so many damn options.
I desperately wanted to pull out the sexy pair that I found on the bottom, black and made entirely of lace, but I thought that might have been a little presumptuous. And then there was the simple cotton pair with little limes printed around the elastic band, but those seemed too childish and…friendly. Of all the things I was feeling toward her, friendly definitely wasn't one of them. Eventually, I settled on the black cotton pair with the ivory band made of lace; they were a little sweet and a little sexy.
After grabbing her make-up, the dress, the panties, and a strapless bra just in case she wanted one, I picked a pair of sandals for her to wear and darted out into the hallway as fast as I could.
"Edward?"
Fuck.