A/N: Here we go again guys, I swear, I wasn't sure I'd be sending out another chapter so soon, but I must say I'm pleased as punch that I am. I've been so encouraged by your reviews and comments, thank you, seriously! Also, I went back and revised a few small details, they aren't major plot points, but in case anyone is interested, they're just a few small things that hopefully make this all flow a little better. Kisses to you my readers, you may be small, but you are MIGHTY!
Chapter 14
Foolish heart, hear me calling
Stop before, you start falling
Foolish heart, you've been wrong before
Don't be wrong anymore.
"What are you doing?"
I look up from my fortress of solitude, also known as the corner of the couch and dip another animal cracker into the jar of Nutella that I'm holding.
"Eating my emotions, what are you doing?"
Alice huffs and grabs the jar from me, and sets it on the counter.
I shrug and pull out the bowl of popcorn and Cheetos I've got stashed under my blanket.
"Stop it!" She tries to take that away as well, but I dodge her.
"Bella! You're going to blow up to be five hundred pounds if you keep shoving food down your throat like that." She taps her foot and crosses her arms.
"Okay. Could you move a little to the right, you're blocking the tv."
"No, I won't move, in fact..." she switches the old episode of Saved by the Bell off with an indignant flick.
"I don't know why you're so huffy, your boyfriend isn't lying to you." I mutter.
"No he's not, but my best friend's boyfriend is, and instead of asking him why, she decides to eat us out of house and home, Bella I swear if you put one more cracker in your mouth, I'll deck you!"
"Geez, fine, here" I hand her the bowl which she snatches quickly.
"What is the matter with you? Why aren't you demanding to know what the hell he's up to?" She sits next to me, which is really, pretty brave of her because I haven't taken a shower since Friday and I'm wearing the same sweat pants and the 'it ain't easy being green' t-shirt I put on Saturday morning after Edward left -at the butt crack of dawn because he needed to "take care of a few things at work before they opened for a private function that afternoon".
He had barely made it here by four that morning as it was. He stripped down, slid into bed and then slid right back out a few hours later.
Nice seeing you, buddy, thanks for the cuddle time.
"I haven't asked him, oh-nosy-one, because I haven't seen him. He's been texting me excuses as to why he can't come by or hang out all weekend, even though I've yet to call and try to make plans."
"Ok, but still, why can't you call him? Funny thing about them cell phones, you can talk and have conversations on them as well as check the weather and ask Siri where to eat dinner."
"You're hilarious, you should go on the road." I get up irritably. "Look, I don't want to have the conversation on the phone. I'll deal with it, but please back off...and give me back my animal crackers."
She frowns at me, but pulls the bag from behind her where she thought I didn't see her hide it.
I didn't really want anymore food, in fact, I'm feeling fairly disgusting at the moment, but I don't want her to think she can boss me around either, so I take them with me to my room on principle.
I pass my mirror and take a good long look, it isn't pretty. Making a face, I turn back around and head to the shower. After a scalding hose down in the bathroom. I wrap my pink towel around me and pad back into my room. Edward is sitting on my bed looking sheepish.
"Edward's here!" Alice bellows from her room.
"Got it, thanks." I yell back rolling my eyes.
"Hey."
"Hey yourself," I close the door behind me and grab the brush off my dresser. Drops of water fall as I comb through the wet tangles.
"I'm sorry about this weekend, it probably seems like I've been blowing you off, but I promise, I haven't. It's just been really crazy."
"I don't think you've been blowing me off." I say carefully. "I think you've been lying."
He goes deathly pale.
"What?"
"Lying, you know, like not telling the truth." I supply, now rubbing lotion on my arms and legs.
"Why do you think I've been lying to you?" he runs a hand roughly through his hair.
Okay, we'll play this game, no problem.
"I know you have, because Friday night, I went to Winston's and you weren't there, even though you told me you were." I drop the towel and let him take a nice long look while I dig a pair of icy blue satin panties and a soft gray t-shirt out of my dresser and put them on.
"You went to the bar after I asked you not too?" His voice cracks.
I tilt my head and watched him curiously. This isn't quite how I pictured this conversation going, I thought he'd either confess immediately, or he'd get angry and slam out the door. Neither of those things were happening, instead he was sitting there, looking fairly guilty and fishing for information.
"I was already there when I called you, you had assumed that I wasn't."
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before blowing it out and gripping his hair with both hands. "Yes, I lied, I wasn't there when you called, and I've been...exaggerating the truth on more than one occasion this weekend, but there is a very good reason."
"Okay, I'm listening." I cross my arms and lean on my closet doors and wait.
"I can't tell you what it is." he licks his lips. "But I promise, it has nothing to do with you or us."
"Very reassuring. You expect me to be okay with that answer?"
"I don't expect it, but I hope it." He gets up and walks towards me. "I love you. So much. And I know that I'm asking a lot of you, but please, please can you trust me?"
He cups my face in his hands and kisses me lightly.
This all goes back to our conversation on trust... and while it feels very suspect to me, I don't want to jump to conclusions like before...even if he's making it very hard for me not to. And as much as my pride wants to say, 'there's the door, bucko, don't let it hit that sweet ass of yours on the way out', I don't. I'm invested now, I'd like to play this out a little bit longer.
He pulls me into him as I think through these things and his scent is surrounding me, delicious fucking smoke and lemons.
"Are you sleeping with someone else?"
"No, I promise I am not." He looks me straight in the eye.
"Are you going to give me an explanation soon?"
"I don't know, I want to tell you yes, because I know that's what you want to hear, but I just don't know sweetheart." He kisses my forehead.
"Can you give me something? Anything? I'm trying to work with you here, even though I'd kind of like to kick your ass." I finally say leaning my head onto his chest.
He squeezes me tighter.
"All I can tell you is that I would never do anything to hurt you. I would never cheat on you. And I would never lie to you if it weren't absolutely necessary."
I make a face. "That's not much." I punch him lightly in the ribs.
"How about I spend all night showing you how I feel about you?" He tilts my chin up and kisses me deeply.
"That depends on what you do to me." I say knowing that he's won. For now.
He laughs softly and pulls me towards the bed. "I bet I can come up with something."
"Fuuuuuuuuck!"
Seriously, I should really think about doing voice overs for porn, because I feel like I've been a freaking soundtrack of sex noises tonight. When that boy said he'd spend all night convincing me, he wasn't joking.
"Come on baby, give it to me, you're so close, I know it," his husky voice is whispering hotly in my ear as he pushes hard into me from behind. I'm on my knees, gripping the headboard in front of me while he palms my breasts.
He's right too, I am so freaking close if I blink, I'll fall over the edge into sweet, sweet bliss. But I don't want to yet, I want to sustain this beautiful torture, and I want to make him suffer too because I know he won't cum until I do. He may not be able to tell me where he goes when he's not with me, but when he's here, inside of me, I get to maintain a little control.
A low moan rumbles in my chest as he pulls me back against him and I'm moving up and down on his lap. One of his hands slides down and grips my hip, pushing me harder onto his cock.
"I know what you're doing." he licks the shell of my ear, and I grit my teeth to hold it together. "It won't work, I can make you scream, my love. I can make you beg."
Fuckity fuck fuck FUCK!
Lock it down, Swan! I coach myself.
The sweat is sliding down both of our naked bodies and mixing together to drench my sheets. It should be thoroughly disgusting, but for some reason it's so fucking sexy, I have to stop thinking about it so that I don't trip off the edge.
He starts to slow down his thrusts, but still pushes himself to the hilt, caressing that sweet spot inside of me. It makes me quiver every time he hits it.
"What makes you think I can't make you beg for it?" I ask him, feigning more confidence than I actually have. It's all I can do not to detonate all over him.
"Oh you can, baby. I was ready to beg when you dropped that little pink towel tonight, I swear I caught a whiff of your sweet pussy and about dropped to my knees. But nobody," He punctuates with a swift, hard thrust, "touches you like I do, no one makes you feel like you're going to lose your mind like I do."
Shit! Don't think about what he just said, don't think about how hot he looks with his eyes bright, and his face flushed from exertion and his hair wild from my hands running through it!
SHIT!
He wraps a hand lightly around my throat, not even squeezing, just placing it there on that vulnerable part of me and picks up his pace, and nibbles my jaw.
"I lose my mind every time I bury my dick inside you, I think I'm going crazy each time you make me cum, it doesn't matter how you do it, hands, lips, pussy, it just matters that you're the one doing it to me, it makes me fucking insane baby, so. fucking. insane." He growls
The noise that comes out of me doesn't even sound human. I want to contain it, but I can't, I can't fight it as I explode around him and he's groaning behind me as he shoots his seed deep into me.
"Oh my gaaa..." I can't finish my sentence, I can barely breathe, let alone talk. I'm light-headed, I swear I see spots and I think my body is going to melt into my bed.
I lean my cheek on my hand that grips my headboard again and focus on sucking air in and letting it back out. Edward is softly kissing my back and shoulders.
"Are you ok, sweetheart?" He asks running his hands gently over my body.
I turn around and wrap my arms around his neck, breathing him in. "Yeah" I whisper.
He lays us down and I notice that the sky is beginning to lighten outside.
His heart beats loudly in his chest beneath my head as he strokes my hair.
"Please don't break my heart." I whisper so quietly I'm not even sure he can hear me.
"Never." He breathes, pulling me even tighter against him.
The meeting at work that I'm currently sitting through is almost over, at least I sincerely pray that it is. I downed three, yes three caramel macchiatos in a desperate attempt to stay alert all day. Edward's 'convincing' lasted until I had to finally threaten bodily harm if he didn't let me dress in peace and then hustle it to Baker's at 7: 48 a.m. I'm currently buzzed as hell on caffeine and need to pee so bad I think my eyeballs are floating.
"Okay, I think that's about it, thank you everyone." Mr. Peters, one of the partners, wraps up and thank goodness, people start getting up to leave.
"Oh Ms. Swan, can I talk to you for a minute?"
Spoke too soon.
"Of course Mr. Peters." I try not to cross my legs as I stand up and make my way over to him.
"I just wanted to congratulate you on your promotion, and give you these." He hands me a box full of papers. "New authors' manuscripts. Go through them, see what catches your eye and discuss with Angela. They will be your authors, but for this first batch, we thought it best to bounce your ideas off someone whose been through it. Good luck."
"Oh uh okay, of course. Thank you." I take the box, it weighs about a million pounds and I try to carry it out and not wet my pants at the same time. I barely drop it on my desk and make a beeline for the bathroom.
Angela is sitting at my desk chair when I come back.
"You know I was thinking, this just isn't going to cut it anymore."
"What do you mean?" I say confused.
"I mean, a real editor needs a real office, besides, I'm kicking you out so that my new secretary can sit here." She smiles at me.
"Where's my office going to be?" I try to maintain some professionalism, but I won't lie, I'm completely excited to have my own office, like it verifies that I've truly become an adult. I know that's stupid, but I can't help it. I try not to imagine my reaction when they tell me I've got my own extension and fax number.
"It just so happens to be Charlotte's old office. And you will be pleased to know, there's a window." She leads me back from the little lobby on our floor to the opposite hallway and down three doors.
"I don't care if it's a closet with coats still hanging in it, it's my own office!"
She laughs and ushers me inside.
It's way better than a closet, it's about 8x8 feet and actually has a huge window. There's a desk in front of the window with a computer and phone on top.
"Start moving in." Angela smiles. "Oh and don't forget to call down to Lauren. You need to get names and numbers to start interviewing for your own secretary."
"My own secretary?" I pause not having thought of that. "Is it strange that I feel a little like Melanie Griffith in Working Girl?"
Angela just laughs.
"I sure am going to miss having you right outside my door." She squeezes my hand and leaves.
It takes me two hours to get all my stuff moved to my office and set up how I want it. I call down to maintenance and let them know I need a filing cabinet when they have a minute and I'm about to call Lauren when she rings me instead.
"Hey! I was just about to call you."
"You were? What did you need?" She asks.
"I need the list of secretary interviewees." I think that's what they're called anyway.
"Oh ok, I'll email it to you, and I called you because I have a very lovely bouquet of flowers here with your name on it."
"You do?" I sit up surprised and pleased. "Okay, I'll, uh, just come down and get it."
"Okay, see you in a minute." She disconnects.
Odd, maybe Alice sent them, it certainly can't be Edward, I still haven't even told him about the promotion, unless he just sent them because he's still trying to suck up to me for lying.
In which case, smooth move, he should.
Lauren's right, the flowers are gorgeous. They are a thick spray of white and purple orchids mixed with pale green waxy leaves.
"Lucky girl." Lauren winks and turns back to her computer.
I laugh and take the white card off the holder and open it.
You're still mine, no matter who you let touch you.
Whaaaaaaat?
Ruh-roh!