Yeah, it's been a hell of a while, but you're probably used to that since I'm such a terrible updater, lol. But what can I say? It's nice having a job that works me so many hours during the holiday season... Not to mention spending time with the cute guy who works with me ;P
This chapter is dedicated to each and every one of you who never doubted that I'd continue this story... it might take a while, but I always come back, and thank y'all for being patient... A gift to you all in this chapter: a REAL kiss between Edward and Bella! XD
As usual, I think this chapter is less than perfect, but I'm tired of waiting to post it, and I'm excited to get to the next chapter (which is already a third finished) so I guess I'll just go ahead and post this because I ahev to leave the library soon and I don't want to have to wait another couple weeks to post this chapter. So... Yay for sooner updating? XD
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or its characters, despite the fact that I'm such a Twilight nerd that I immediately think of Newton's Outfitters when someone mentions their sucky job. Now that's nerd-dom commitment...
Without further ado, please Read, Review, and ENJOY!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Monday, Week 2
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Edward and I elected to stay back at the house when everyone wanted to drive down to Santa Cruise the following morning.
The sun was shining, and the beach and Boardwalk were waiting, but Edward finally managed to convince Alice that he would have preferred to just hang out for the day after an hour and a half of begging. I personally was just pleased to be able to spend a day alone with him without any complications or grieving people nearby.
I really couldn't blame Edward for wanting to come back here instead of spending his day being delivered bundt cakes and soups and casseroles from people all wearing sad expressions and pitying him. He already had to deal with the loss of both his parents, and he surely didn't need to have to deal with all the extra stuff that went along with it.
He had tried to convince me to go off and "have fun!" with the rest of the gang at first, but nothing seemed more appealing to me than spending a day relaxing alone with him. I told him such, and he stopped trying to turn me away, smiling broadly at my blush as I admitted such to him and kissed the top of my head.
I could have really gotten used to all the affection he was spoiling me with.
We cuddled together in bed as we waited for the house to empty out, which seemed to take much too long with everyone popping in to say hello, and good morning, and not-so-subtly checking in on how Edward was coping.
And he was doing surprisingly well, in my opinion. He was sad about his parents, of course, but he still laughed at jokes and smiled at me and he even paid attention to the smallest of details about our visitors as they came and went.
"Did you see that?" he'd asked me incredulously once Emmett and Rose left our room.
"See what?" I asked in return, rubbing my hand over his bicep as I snuggled closer into his side.
"They seem closer, don't you think? She leaned her head on his shoulder," he said, his eyes almost bugging out of his head.
"She what?!" I'd never seen Rosalie do anything of the sort. The gesture might seem simple and innocent to the unaware observer, but I'd known Rose for a long time and she had a stubborn streak a mile long and had been intent on being independent from anyone for her entire life. She would consider it a weakness to lower herself down to use someone else's shoulder to lean on for support, even in a casual circumstance.
It was obvious that she was going to be serious about Emmett this time around if she made such a big step with him, and I could only hope that Emmett felt the same way regarding her. He probably did, considering how easily he took her pregnancy, and the way he did his best to take care of her.
I sighed happily. I knew they would make it this time around if they both put their whole selves into it, even if they could only manage a long distance relationship.
"They're definitely making progress," Edward said, smiling down at me. "That was a big step for her."
"I know. But we're on a truncated timetable, remember. We're only here for two weeks, and then we all have to go back to our regular lives. Big steps are the only way to make something real happen for them."
The truth in my statement resonated through me, especially when I considered the parallels between Emmett and Rose and Edward and myself. I pondered what big steps might need to be taken for Edward and I to continue on.
"Big steps, eh?" he smirked at me in response, a thoughtful look on his face.
We spent the rest of our time in our own thoughts until we heard the last car pull out of the driveway, and then I stretched lazily before getting up and out of bed to go to the bathroom and brush my teeth.
When I exited the restroom, he was still lying in bed, not having moved a muscle. He had that sad expression on his face again, and his frame was slumped down. He was feeling down again, and I wondered what he had been thinking of in the past couple minutes that could have changed his demeanor so completely, or if he'd just been hiding his sadness from me.
I logically knew that having those negative emotions was healthy during this time, as was mourning, but I couldn't help wanting to cheer him up. After all, it wasn't too healthy, especially when he had left Forks to avoid the majority of all that depression.
"Alright, Edward," I said, an authoritative tone in my voice. He looked up at me in confusion. "Get your hot little ass in the shower. Pronto."
He started to protest, but I cut him off.
"Then I want you to put on some fresh pajamas, because we're not doing anything strenuous or hard or in need of brain energy to think today."
He sighed dramatically, a small smile on the corner of his lips, and his eyes lit up at me. "I suppose I can agree to those terms... maybe not the 'nothing hard' one though," he smirked as he rolled out of bed.
I giggled as he kissed my forehead and his hand lingered lightly on the mark on my neck as he walked past me to the bathroom. I couldn't help the smile that graced my features as I headed down the stairs to make some breakfast for us. The same smile was on my face as I returned back to our room with a tray full of eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee just the way he liked it.
I had just set the tray on the nightstand and was climbing back into bed when Edward emerged from our adjoining bathroom with only a towel covering his lower half.
I blushed as he smirked, though he was obviously surprised to see me there as he adjusted the cotton around his waist. And then his eyes grew darker and that determined look of his crawled over his demeanor again.
I opened my mouth to comment on it, but he approached me fast and tackled me farther into the bed, smothering my body with his own.
I was already out of breath and laughing when he seemed to decide that torture was in order and began tickling my sides, making my legs spasm out and my arms try to uselessly remove him from me. He kept eye contact the whole time, and just when I felt like I was about to pee my pants (I was just glad that I had attempted to empty my bladder earlier when I first got up) he raised an eyebrow at me before leaning farther into me and blowing raspberries on my neck.
I squealed in delight at his playful attitude, and my arms wrapped themselves around him despite my protesting bladder. I shouted at him to stop, but my laughter gave me away, so he kept going, kissing and nipping and tickling and blowing raspberries over any and all available skin.
Soon, I couldn't even draw an adequate breath, so Edward took pity on me, pausing to let me catch my breath and prevent hyperventilation. He rolled off of me, and fixed his towel back around his waist, making me sigh internally; I should have thought to take advantage of his nearly naked body on top of me earlier during our tickle war.
As I watched him fold the flap inside to hold the towel in place, I caught sight of something I hadn't remembered seeing before. Did he have a birthmark I wasn't aware of? Impossible—I knew every mark on his body from when we were younger. Was it a bruise or an injury? No, Edward's skin was nearly impossible to bruise, I'd learned in the past.
I leaned over the top of his body as he laid back down on the bed, and he smiled contentedly up at me—it was a beautiful sight, and I hoped I'd get to see it much more in the future—almost distracting me from the task at hand. I kissed his neck lightly as I tried to subtly lower his towel just a bit to glimpse what might have actually been a tattoo resting on his hipbone, but he caught me in my act, resting his hand atop mine when it reached its destination.
And he took the opportunity to flip me over and begin his tickle-torture anew, effectively making me forget all about the dark mark that graced his otherwise flawless flesh. This time he pressed his limits—as if I'd ever actually impose any on him—and copping a feel on me whenever he could, lifting up the shirt I had put on to sleep blowing on my bellybutton, causing me to shriek and thrash around, the light breeze I felt alerting me to the fact that the underside of my breasts (at the very least) were exposed, though I could hardly mind. It wasn't anything he hadn't seen or felt before, after all.
Being the smart man that he is, Edward noticed that I didn't protest to his cheap feels, so he grinned down at me and looking like the devil himself, he positioned himself more steadily over me and pulled down the center of my shirt to show a fair amount of cleavage.
He gave a short warning. "I remember for a fact that you're very much ticklish here," he said before planting his lips between my breasts and blowing a loud raspberry there. I howled and hollered and if anyone had still been in the house, they would probably have thought I was being attacked... which I suppose I was, in a way.
His laughter blew cool air on my damp skin, giving me a chill and hardening my nipples as his shaking body pressed into my own, and his face rested on my breasts. I was very much positive that my trembles weren't just from the cold.
His laughter stopped when he noticed my body's admission of my emotions, and he looked up at me, his expression hungry and his eyes intense. He was serious now, and so was I. We weren't playing.
I lifted a hand up to stroke his face, and he cupped it with his own, light smile gracing his features that I couldn't help but reciprocate.
"I really want to kiss you now, Bella," he said, though I already knew from the way he was looking at me.
"Then why don't you do it?" I asked him softly, leaning back on the bed. I could tell from his expression that he was debating with himself in his head, and I wanted to be more comfortable as he sorted through his thoughts. What he was thinking over, I had no idea, because we'd already gone far beyond kissing in the week we'd been here, but he still looked unsure.
"I'm not quite sure anymore. Maybe because once I start I'll never want to stop?"
"You won't ever need to," I responded, knowing that wasn't all that was on his mind.
"Maybe it's because I'm nervous how it will go over, then. We haven't really kissed—more than a peck or a quick brushing of lips—since high school, and I don't want things to go bad again." This was closer to the truth, but I knew it still wasn't quite it.
"That won't happen again. It was all such a big misunderstanding, and now we're..." I paused.
I was about to say We're sure of how we feel about each other, but I realized that neither of us had ever actually voiced anything—not really. I said I'd be around as long as he wanted me, and he said he wanted me for eternity. As friends or lovers?
If I thought about it rationally, I knew that he wanted me as more than a friend. The way he kissed me and the way he touched me and just the way he looked at me said a million things that he hadn't voiced aloud to me.
Or had he? I thought suddenly, glancing down at the ring on my finger.
"We're what?" Edward asked, looking at me intently, as I had stopped in the middle of my sentence.
He had told me he loved me when he gave me that ring, and the way he'd said it—so easily, as if what he was saying was common knowledge and no big deal—had led me to believe he meant it as a friend, as we had known each other for so long. I loved Jacob and Emmett and Jasper and Alice and even Rose because I'd had them in my life for so long, after all, and thought that it was the same thing with Edward, but now I wasn't so sure.
I knew now that Edward cared for me back then, and he said he loved me in the past—multiple times, even—and I had never realized what he truly meant by it.
And Edward looked at me now the same way he looked at me back then. He had to feel the same way. It was more than a possibility that he was in love with me, instead of just loving me as I thought he had. Such a slight change in words, but a very distinct difference, I knew.
Fucking hell, what an epiphany to have when you're trying to convince the man you love to kiss you.
"We're-" in love "-obviously not as stupid and naïve as we were back then."
"Then what are we?" he asked, staring intently into my eyes.
"We're..." I paused, trying to find the right words "...Involved," I finished with a smirk. It was a good word to use, considering how we hadn't actually settled anything between us, but it was a given that something had to come from what was happening between us. I liked the idea of us being involved with each other.
"Involved," he repeated, turning the word over in his head, trying to see if he approved of the word. He raised an eyebrow at me, and that confident grin was on his face again.
"Satisfied?" I asked, propping myself up on my elbows to close some of the distance between our faces.
"Not yet," he said, waggling his eyebrows at me playfully.
"Well, you're not going to be getting any unless you kiss me first this time," I teased back, meaning the words as I said them. It had been nine long years since I'd last kissed Edward, and I still remembered the way his lips moved against mine... I wanted that feeling again.
He effected a long exhale, responding in an exasperated voice, "For an English literature instructor, you certainly have an impulsive way with words."
I paused to laugh at my own blunt wording for a moment before comprehending what he had said. "You know that I teach?" I asked, realizing that I'd never told him that.
He blushed. "I've been asking around about you through the years. I couldn't stand not knowing how you were doing."
I leaned back down on the bed, flattered by his actions as a blush overtook my own cheeks. "I guess now I have to admit that I did the same thing."
He smiled down on me again, and brushed his hand across my crimson cheeks, moving stray hairs away before he leaned down on top of me, resting his cheek against my own and insinuating his arms underneath me, holding my body close to his. I felt contentment in his touch, and I couldn't help but mirror the emotion emanating from him.
"I don't ever want to move from here," he breathed into my skin, the hot air giving me shivers all over again.
"Neither do I," I replied quietly, running my fingers lightly through his hair as his hands pressed harder into my back.
"We'll have to eventually," he said as he rubbed his nose against my neck affectionately.
"Nope. We can stay here forever. We'll only get up to shower-"
"Together," he interrupted, and I grinned.
"And open the door for the deliveryman-"
"Holding hands."
"-Because we won't want to leave long enough to cook-"
"Justifiably so."
"-And if we have to go to the bathroom."
He didn't say anything.
"What, nothing to add to that?" I giggled.
"Naw, we can do that on our own," he chuckled, his body shaking my own most pleasantly.
"Kiss me, Edward," I said when our gazes met.
He stopped laughing, and leaned down to do so, effectively stopping my entire world.
Now, I don't know what I was expecting. Sparks, tingles... Fireworks, maybe? I didn't really have any expectations besides the fact that kissing Edward would be amazing, and even my wildest fantasies were wrong.
There were no sparks, but rather streams of electricity, like a shock that kept penetrating my entire being, sending waves through my skin wherever it touched his. My entire body felt like it was sizzling, starting from my lips and working outward as the warmth of his mouth spread through me, frazzling my brain as well as well as heart.
There were no tingles, but all out spasms, as if my body were contracting and expanding, trying to find the position and angle that would bring about the most pleasure from his touch. The fine hairs on my arms rose and my nipples that were already hard began to ache as he pressed his chest firmly against them. No, tingles weren't present, but my body thrashed under his expert touch as his lips manipulated my own to bend to his will, parting and panting and whimpering as his tongue caressed my own.
And as for the fireworks? Yes, that description might have been accurate as he kissed me. The clarity and light and explosions and beauty were all there in spades.
I'm sure that Edward felt all the same things I did, because his breathing got heavy as mine did, his moans echoing my own, letting us be on the same pace for once, rather than one person starting and finishing before another. We were in sync, finally, and no one was here to interrupt or ruin the moment for us as things got more heated.
The breakfast tray sitting on the nightstand fell to the floor, possibly kicked by myself, though we'll never know the truth of that guess for sure. Glass broke as the tray fell to the floor and I heard the coffee spilling all over the ground.
"Esme will be pissed if that stains her hard wood floors," I breathed into his mouth.
"I'll pay for a fucking new floor," he murmured back, giving me another small glimpse of that lovely, filthy tongue that he usually kept hidden away... before he proceeded to insert it back into my mouth, leaving me groaning in response, and not at all in the state of mind to argue the ridiculousness of his statement. I wasn't about to stop and clean up the mess when I had Edward in my arms and between my legs, after all.
His mouth was kissing, his teeth were nipping, and his tongue was licking, and I couldn't think to do anything except pull his shirt off his glorious chest, letting my lips explore its expanse of lean muscle. Edward was quick to reciprocate, removing my shirt as well, followed by my shorts, and I hurried to remove his boxers so that we were both panting and touching and kissing as we laid naked in our bed.
He climbed atop me once again and his long fingers disappeared in the apex of my legs, causing me to moan his name and arch my chest into his own.
"Bella," he spoke softly into my ear. "Bella, are you sure you want to do this? Now?"
I nodded frantically as I ran my hand down his chest, grasping hold of him as he lowered his face to the valley between my breasts to-
BANG!
"What was that?" I asked him as we both sat up quickly.
"I don't know," he said, leaning over to grab his boxers from the floor, pulling them on and covering up that dark mark on his hipbone that I still had yet to get a clear look of... though I didn't think that now would be the proper time to ask t see it, as there very well might have been an intruder in the house. "We should get dressed again," he continued as he pulled a plain shirt on.
"Yeah," I agreed, pulling the bed sheet over myself as I studied the room, looking for my discarded clothes.
Another bang was heard from downstairs, followed by a voice.
"BELLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!" called the voice of our own personal cockblocker.
I looked at Edward in chagrin as my rush to put on clothes died. It seemed Nessie had decided to show up against my wishes after all.
Yes, I'm a fcking cockblocker, I know. It just wasn't time for the two of them, yet XD. And you know? This chapter didn't go the way I had planned it at all... It began and ended the way I had outlined, but the middle kind of came out of nowhere, and didn't follow anything I had laid out for it at all... Interesting how characters can run away from you, yes? XD
Thanks for all the awesome reviews from last chapter. They made my heart soar, and made my face smile. Please continue doing that to me, even though I hardly get the opportunity to update or respond with life as crazy as it is :P
I have a Twitter. Use it to see what I'm working on and how far along I am in chapters when I take way too long to update as usual. www(dot)twitter(dot)com/MuffNbutter. Also, check out the Twilighted thread for this story! It seems that a lot of you have forgotten that it exists XD
Check out all the new stuff on my profile when you get the chance... I think I've uploaded a oneshot and a whole new chapter story since the last time I posted a chapter of this, lol. And put me on author alert, because there's only a few more chapters of this story, and then I'll start posting the prequel! That's something you won't want to miss!
I'm no longer offering the previous extras for this story. All previous requests will be honored to the best of my ability (meaning if I can EVER find what the hell folder I saved the list of people who wanted them in), but no more after that. My apologies, but it's come to my attention that I barely have a chance to update, nonetheless worry about extra stuff. Sorry. If that changes, I'll let y'all know.