Good morning...thought I'd sneak in one quick chapter before Christmas. Happy holidays, all! Many thanks to my super beta, happymelt, and prereaders (and re-readers, and re-re-readers) midsouthmama and faireyfan. I do not own Twilight.
Playlist (see link on my profile):
Love and Some Verses by Iron and Wine
~.~.~.~.~.~.
Chapter 13: Twenty Minutes
"Edward." My voice was raspy, and I coughed lightly to clear it. "Your beard."
The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes, squinting, was yet another reason to love my light-filled bedroom with its wrap-around windows: the morning sun filtered through Edward's unruly bronze hair. It cast shadows on his porcelain skin—his clean-shaven porcelain skin. He was sitting up, awake, already dressed in his cargo pants and tee from last night. He noticed me stirring and slid down to lie at eye-level with me.
"Mm-hmm. I shaved." He moved in to let me sample the goods.
I squirmed at the pleasant sensation of his smooth skin against my cheek. He smelled like shaving cream and soap. "I wanted to watch."
"Eh, it's overrated. Shaving a full beard is a messy process." He grazed his jaw over my skin as he spoke.
"You found a fresh blade, I guess?" I liked the nuzzling, so I did it back to him to see if he did, too.
"Yes. Mmm. Um." He exhaled heavily and rolled his head back, inviting me in. "So presumptuous of me. But you seem to have a decent supply. Good quality, too."
I reached up and palmed his face. He closed his eyes and rolled into my hand, his eyebrows crumpling as the corners of his mouth twitched.
"Well, I gotta say…I like this better. You were inching into Joaquin Phoenix territory a little bit."
"Hmm." He burrowed in closer, sliding his leg up between mine.
"There have been times when I was feeling not so far off from that. It's been better recently, but…you know..." he trailed off. He wedged his fingers into my hair like a comb and held his hand there, massaging my scalp. His mind was on last night.
His brow furrowed, and he smoothed a thumb across my own eyebrow as if seeing his reflection. "I'm glad we talked, you know…I never meant to keep all that a secret, it's just…I hardly knew how to talk about it."
"Well, sometimes just making a start helps. You've given me that advice before, you know—to keep from holding things in." I felt the warmth of his arm around my waist, where my tank top twisted away from my shorts. He kissed the lines on my shoulder where the bed sheets had left impressions.
"I hate the not understanding, all the questions she left unanswered. But…I imagine…to compound it with more layers of secrets might feel worse. If the Government Docs letters I've seen are any indication, Edward, that stuff just eats away at a person…"
"Yeah."
I lost my train of thought, gazing at him straight on. I would never get tired of looking into his warm, expressive eyes.
"What? Look at that smile of yours, B." The grin that spread across his face made my heart stutter.
"I like waking up with you."
He wiggled his eyebrows. "A first—well, just the first in this bed. I won't forget the bonfire, of course. Under the stars. But this feels different."
"Mmm. Are you sad we're not in your bed?"
"No. I don't care." He laughed at something. "I'm sad all we did was sleep."
"You are?" I was never sure anymore what his boundaries were.
"Yes. Of course. Ahh, I mean, last night was…we were both exhausted. But…" His finger made circles on my hip.
I made my own guess at what was coming and finished his thought for him. "But three years is a long time."
He laughed a throaty laugh, and his fingers gripped my hip, skin against skin. His eyes were embers. "Bella, I want you. I don't want to end my drought. I want you."
It was as if an invisible string connected us across six inches of air, and I felt it tighten until I was breathing his breath and pressing his soft lips with my lips, my tongue, my teeth. He grunted and returned my kiss, mouth open, lips slack, all tongue and panting and soft biting.
"Uh, that feels like a yes to me."
"Edward. I think you know it is. But you also know we have to hit the road in…when? Pretty soon."
It was Jasper and Rose's shared birthday, and since we were all on fall break this coming Monday and Tuesday, they were intent on a group camping trip. The others had agreed to delay until this morning to accommodate Edward, but they were anxious to head out.
"Do we?" He buried his nose in my hair.
"I think we do. They miss you, too, you know." I briefly considered a quickie, but shut down that idea. Not acceptable. "And besides, you promised me you were back for good, right? We have nothing but time ahead of us."
In my head, a mischievous voice translated that to: we have a whole lifetime ahead of us. My eyes widened at the thought. I felt caught off-guard by my own inner monologue.
"You're right, there. Anyhow, Alice already texted me twice." He flopped back onto the bed, shaking his head, and swatted me lightly on the ass. "It's just past nine, by the way. You'd better jump in the shower. Go on."
After a hurried shower, I debated between a skimpy towel and my robe. I chose the robe. We didn't have time for anything that went along with skimpy. I covered up and tiptoed back into the bedroom. Edward was nowhere to be found. I peeked back into the hallway and then my closet, calling his name.
"I'm here, Bella." His voice was coming from the flat roof just outside my bedroom windows—the spot where I liked to sit with my morning coffee.
"Oh. What are you doing out there?" I cranked a second window open and leaned out.
"Cleaning leaves out of your gutters. There's a storm coming through. And this job is easy as long as this stuff is dry." He sat back on his knees, moving cautiously. He scooped brittle debris out of the gutters and threw it onto the lawn below, then wiped his brow with the back of his grubby hand. "And I like helping you."
"Um, okay. "
I heard Alice's voice coming to us from down below. "Edward! I know you're in there!"
"Where is she?" I could hear her, but I couldn't see her. Emmett's van was parked in the driveway between our two houses, half-loaded already.
"I don't know. At the back door, I guess." Then he shouted to Alice. "I'm up on the roof. Show yourself, Tiny!"
Finally I saw her shock of black hair against a backdrop of dull brown grass and twigs. Dark shadows from fast-moving overhead clouds swept over her.
She squinted into the weird half-light and shaded her eyes. If she was surprised to see Edward hanging around on my roof, she didn't show it. "Weren't you going to come say hello?"
He smiled. "Alice, we'll catch up on the drive, okay? It's good to see you, yes."
"Well–oh, hi, Bella! The weather map shows about a twenty-minute patch of torrential rain. As soon as that clears, I'm going to finish packing up the van and we've got to get to it. You guys will be ready? Half an hour?"
Edward rolled his eyes at her for my benefit. He was dusting off his hands, his chore completed. "We'll be ready, Al. Half an hour. Then if we can swing by the barn on our way out of town, it'll take me ten minutes to grab my stuff."
The sky rumbled. I saw Alice wave and make a run for her house. Edward climbed into my room from the roof balcony, narrowly dodging a smattering of heavy drops that began to stain the roof.
He closed the large windows behind him just as the skies opened up and water began crashing down onto the roof and the yard beyond, splattering back up in a white froth. A slate-gray hood of low clouds rushed in to block the sun. I felt the temperature drop a few degrees.
"Wow." I was amazed at the suddenness of the storm.
He looked me up and down, grinning. "I'm going to go wash up."
I checked my duffle bag for wet-weather clothes, just in case. I decided what I had in there was suitable…breathable layers, a hat, a parka.
And then Edward was behind me, his arms around my waist, and he was burying his face in my shoulder.
"Rain delay. I love this season."
"You don't think we'll be rained out, do you?" I was actually looking forward to camping somewhere besides the desert for once.
"No. This seems like a lot, but it's not going to flood us…we'll be in the hills. Besides, the storm is going east, and we're going south." He didn't lessen his grip on my waist.
"Speaking of going south…there's something I've been meaning to do since last night." He tugged and twisted the satiny belt of my robe. He was speaking softly, his voice a low rumble just audible under the hammering rain outside. "Did you think I would forget? Were you going to just let it slide?"
Oh. My. God. I remembered very specifically what he had been meaning to do last night. "Um…let what…slide?"
I leaned my back into him, feeling the broadness of his chest.
Edward threaded a hand through the widening gap between the edges of my robe, cupping my breast. He laughed into my skin, his voice rumbling through his chest. "You know what."
His hands were splayed across my tummy now, my robe a useless drape. I opened and closed my eyes to the wall of rain pounding down outside my window. The morning light was veiled in slate. My bedroom felt so much smaller, like a jewel box nestled inside a thick cloud. I let my head fall back onto his shoulder.
His voice was a warm and resonant contrast to the drone of the downpour. "This is what I call a wet storm."
I nodded, feeling nonsensical. My head was spinning.
He sucked on my neck gently. His hands roamed, skirting the tops of my thighs, and I tried to urge him downward, my hands on top of his hands.
He flexed his fingers to entwine with mine, stilling them. "No. Just my mouth."
Jesus Christ. Cue audible gasp. "Is there…is there time?"
"There's time. Twenty minutes. Maybe I'm overconfident…" The way he clenched my fingers drove home his determination. He certainly didn't seem to be rushing a single thing. His lips crept up the back of my neck to my ear, whispering. "You can tell me in twenty minutes if I've been overconfident."
My legs began to buckle. I was jelly. Talk like this was giving him a head start.
He tugged me away from the windows, walking me backwards, and finally released my waist to deposit me on the edge of the bed. He leaned his weight onto his hands, hovering over me, heat radiating off of him, the mattress yielding.
Floppy bronze hair tickled my forehead. His lips—no, fuck, that was his tongue—grazed the edge of my ear.
Then his breath: "Relax. Let me do this."
He left my earlobe with a soft bite. And then he was making his way down my neckline and chest, pausing where my breasts tented the fabric of my robe. His tongue soaked the blue satin.
"Twenty minutes, fuck. I could spend twenty hours right here. Twenty lifetimes. Rain check, you." He left off teasing my nipple through the robe. I propped myself on my elbows, weakly.
"Do you want to lie back?"
I shook my head, feeling myself blush. "I think I'll…watch."
His jaw hung open briefly. The color rose in his cheeks. His glinting eyes narrowed. And then all I saw was the top of his head, retreating.
I felt his hands encircle my ankles.
"I haven't just been waiting since last night, you know. I've been thinking about this since our day at Sam's farm."
He peeked up at me with a smirk. He was on his knees. His fucking knees.
"Tell me you remember."
"Cullen." My voice was a white flag of surrender. I couldn't manage a conversation.
His hands came up around the backs of my calves, coming to rest in the sensitive hollows behind my knees. Fingers stroked tendons and thumbs dragged across kneecaps.
"Here it is…do you remember me, spot?" I felt a cloud of humid air there. His breath. "Because I remember you. Let's see how you taste today."
His head nudged my thighs apart and his tongue came out to bathe my knee—a world apart from that night in my truck weeks ago—brazen and strong and wet.
It loosed something in me, and I felt an old, pointless restraint fall away. "Ungh. Teeth, Edward. Please."
He pressed his mouth to my knee harder now, bracing himself with his teeth, drawing a sharp line—enamel finding muscle and bone. He grunted. "Fuck, Bella. Always, always tell me. So fucking good."
He was breathing ragged breaths, and I liked it. I gasped to feel him moving against my inner thigh with more urgency, licking and biting and holding himself back to draw out more noises from me. His mouth on the tender skin of my inner thigh was a drug.
And then it wasn't a drug. It was nothing, forgotten, because his mouth moved higher, and this—right where I craved him most—was sweet torture, madness and cure knotted together.
"Fuck, Edward! Oh!" The sensation made me lose track of my limbs and propriety and language. And time. Christ, his tongue.
A soft ah! sound from him made me see that my hand was tangled in his beautiful hair, and I willed myself to loosen it. "Oh, sorry!"
His head shook back and forth and I felt him chuckle, vibrations shuddering through my pubic bone, the pressure of his mouth against me increasing and slowing, softening and speeding. My wriggling seemed to spur him on.
Somehow, I began to hear a noise that I identified as my own gasping breath, no longer drowned out by the pounding storm. Edward, between my thighs, slowed his tongue and shifted directions. Counterclockwise now. Sliding so slow and...fuck, I wanted him to stay there for an hour. Or—maybe ten seconds. I wanted to come. My back began to arch.
And then he moaned. He reached and grasped my hands in his, clumsily, connecting. He was sweating. He pressed our clenched hands against my hip bones and I knew he could feel it, too.
He was anchoring me for the final stretch…and when I came, my body writhed like a serpent, quaking, and I cried his name with a shout, my voice faltering and breaking.
Gradually, steadily, the room lightened around me, the deluge outside giving way to gentle rain. His hands smoothed the shuddering of my thighs, his mouth easing me back down to earth.
I blinked, seeing stars. Then I opened my eyes and saw colors.
"Edward." I gasped, "Ahh…rainbow…rainbow!"
I pulled at his shoulder, laughing and certain I had lost a bit of sanity.
"Really, now? That's…very inspired." He smirked, his head lifted, cheeks flushed with exertion and satisfaction.
"No, I mean literally—the sky! You're going to miss it!"
Finally, he turned and saw what I was gesturing at.
"Well. Oh." He laughed and dropped his head back onto my thigh.
I sat up and pulled him to me, pressing my lips to his hair, the back of his neck, his pink, swollen, smiling mouth. He rested his body on me lazily and let his eyes travel over my flushed skin.
We had four minutes left. In four more minutes, Alice would be pounding on the front door, and I would be racing to throw clothes on. I could already hear her down in the driveway debating with Jasper on who would drive the first leg.
But for now, we had four more minutes. Okay, three minutes. He stroked my damp hair, and I murmured soft things in his ear.
Two minutes. I chose to concentrate on his face—memorizing it with my hands, my bliss-tender mouth.
One. His eyes.
A last good-morning kiss. A peck on the lips. And we were up, beginning our day.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
AN: Thanks to all of you for your amazing responses and reviews, it truly is a pleasure to share this story and see others enjoy it! Thank you to wordninja_ali who, last week, wrote a beautiful review of Branching Inward at http:/twi-ficpromotions dot blogspot dot com/search/label/Branching%20Inward (take out the dots) - it warms MY heart!