Zenith

Chapter Twenty-one – Kept Promises

"I can't believe you'd never gone bowling before."

"I can't believe I'd never gone bowling before, and I still outscored you three to one."

"Oh, hush," I muttered, taking advantage of the fact that he was driving by poking him in the ribs. "At least we won."

He chuckled at my feeble efforts and clutched my left hand warmly in his right one. "Yeah, no thanks to you. Well,"—he shot me a thoughtful look—"maybe you did play a small role. I think Angela and Ben might have been so focused on avoiding the destructive path of your arm that they got distracted from the game. You're lucky Ben ducked that one time."

"I was not that bad!" I laughed over my frown. "As if I could even throw the ball high enough for him to have to duck to avoid it."

Despite Jacob's teasing, bowling with Angela and Ben had been a somewhat surprising success. When Jacob had first agreed to the whole outing, I had been sure it would be a complete bust, certain that I wouldn't be able to put aside Victoria's shadow long enough to enjoy myself. I had been wrong. Somewhere amongst the hideous shoes, glowing bowling balls, and mundane whining about classes, I had succumbed to the enticement of normalcy.

"He was diving for the helpless two-year-old, Bells!"

"Well," I huffed defensively, trying to assuage my own guilt, "the boy's parents shouldn't have let him wander off like that. And it was really dark in there!"

Jacob snorted.

"Really, really dark."

"Sure, sure. Super dark. It's amazing toddlers aren't crushed by 8 pound bowling balls on a regular basis." I couldn't really mind his sarcasm when he was smiling like that, so I grinned and shook my head. "Hey, do you mind if we swing by my place before heading back? I need to change clothes."

I glanced at the Rabbit's glowing clock—12:20—and nodded. I had called Charlie before we'd left Port Angeles, so he would be in bed already and wouldn't know if we were late. I knew Jacob had to patrol tonight, and he wanted to get out of his long jeans and button-down shirt so they wouldn't be a hassle to carry.

"You look really nice." It was rare that I got to see Jacob in anything aside from his standard cutoff jeans and occasional worn t-shirt. I never really cared what he wore, but that night he looked extra dashing. And more than a little irresistible.

Better at receiving compliments than I was, Jacob sort of smiled and risked looking away from the road long enough to give me an appraising once-over. "Not as nice as you."

Predictably, I blushed hotly. But I didn't look away.

"Your hair. You did something to it."

Absently I fingered a voluminous mahogany curl. "Leah curled it for me."

"Leah did your hair?" He sounded astonished. "And she didn't try to maim you with the iron?"

"No. She was outside patrolling when she heard me…struggling." Unsurprisingly I was not adept at wielding a curling iron. "It was really kind of her to offer to help."

"Hence the shock."

I didn't want to argue about Leah. "Just don't think about it when you phase. I told her I wouldn't tell anyone."

"The next time I want to tell you a secret, remind me not to. Cite this occasion."

I rolled my eyes. "Telling you doesn't count as telling someone."

He clutched his chest, looking wounded. "Cuz I'm a 'nobody'?"

"No." I thought about how to explain it. But I didn't know how to put in a way that didn't sound silly. Telling him something was the equivalent to scrawling it in a journal or contemplating it while lying in bed at the end of the day. He was an extension of me, entitled to all of the menial details and soul-baring secrets. "It just doesn't count."

Jacob put the car in park and got out, as I squinted into the darkness and barely made out the outline of the small, red house.

"Does this mean there are things you don't tell me?" I asked as he opened my door and took my hand. I snaked my arms around his waist as we headed inside, huddling into his warmth. The softness of his nice shirt felt wonderful against my cheek.

"Of course." Jacob flipped on the light in the living room before leading us into the kitchen and hitting the switch there as well.

I had to blink my eyes to adjust to the brightness. "Isn't Billy sleeping?" I whispered against his chest.

"The man sleeps like the dead." Jacob chuckled. "Not that the dead sleep, apparently." He released me with a gentle squeeze before stepping over to the refrigerator and retrieving a gallon of grape juice and acquiring a cup from the overhead cupboard. He filled the glass and handed it to me. "I'll be right back. Don't play with the carving knives."

I eagerly sipped on the juice and then—when I couldn't contain myself any longer—whispered after him, "What things don't you tell me?"

He continued on to his room with a vague wave of his hand. "Lots of things."

I scowled at his retreating back. The one time he decided to be mysterious. I was still frowning into my half-empty glass when Jacob returned sans shirt and a worn pair of cutoffs slung low on his hips. It was no small effort to force my eyes away from the tiny sliver of slightly paler skin peaking out over the top of the denim.

"Uh…wh-what sorts of things don't you tell me?" I cleared my throat and met his eyes, which at that moment were fixed raptly on the subtle trembling of my lower lip. When Jacob looked at me that way—like he was resisting the urge to pull me to him and slowly devour me in the most gratifying of ways, the gap between my brain and body tended to widen and stretch to immeasurable lengths. My brain knew that it was impossible to actually fall into someone's eyes, but standing in a silent, dimly lit kitchen where Jacob's dark irises melted into the blackness of his pupils as he stared down at me, my body begged to differ. I teetered precariously on the edge.

Jacob stepped forward and I resisted the self-preserving urge to move back, allowing his almost overwhelming presence to wash over me as he took the cup from the vice of my clammy hands and set it in the sink behind me.

"I wasn't done with that," I murmured, suddenly breathless and very, very hot.

"Yes you were."

I was.

He moved closer again, and this time I had no choice but to move back or risk stumbling over when his chest pushed unyieldingly against my shoulders. One and a half paces and I was pinned between the refrigerator and a furnace. A furnace with soft skin and incredibly dark eyes…

His proximity was doing funny things to the synapses of my brain, and my mouth was no longer under my control when it opened and stuttered out, "What…what sorts of thin-things?"

The touch of his rough fingers against my cheek was familiar and inviting. I pressed my face into his palm.

"Things"—he brushed a curl behind my ear—"that would make you blush."

So, of course, I did. But the pink coloring of my cheeks was nothing compared to the heat of his breath along my temple as he lowered his head.

"Like…" I prodded mercilessly into the closing distance between us. Space was becoming scarce, filled to the brim with Jacob and the anticipation humming unnervingly along my skin.

"Like…I think you're beautiful, Bells." A butterfly kiss was dropped on the corner of my eye. "More beautiful than anything."

The stutter-step of my heart was audible. "More beautiful than even…um…"—I racked my suddenly sluggish brain—"Heidi Klum?"

His lips parted in a smile against the shell of my ear. "Blonde. Yuck."

My hands crept from their place at my side to his naked waist, pressing my thumbs to the smooth indentations above his jeans. "What about…Megan Fox? She's a brunette and, according to Embry, puts the 'hot' in 'hot bitch'."

Jacob snorted quietly. "That's only because they both have scarily-sized foreheads."

I bit my lip to keep from snickering and was glad to find a distraction in Jacob placing open-mouthed kisses down the side of my neck. I hummed in appreciation.

As I pressed our bodies closer, a bead of sweat trailed down from my hairline. Jacob slowly licked it up. "I'm hot."

"That's what I was trying to tell you."

"No, I'm actually hot." I could feel the flush in my cheeks and the dampness at the back of my neck. Jacob's physical presence burned me both inside and out, and the long-sleeved shirt I was wearing certainly wasn't helping matters…

The memory of a very specific time in my bedroom swam to the surface, and I smiled devilishly. Reaching for the bottom of my t-shirt, I began to tug it up, only to abruptly stop as I remembered.

The scars.

"Bella?" When I went rigid, Jacob pulled away so he could see my face, but I dodged his questioning eyes. "Hey," he said softly, "what's wr—"

And I knew he understood.

"Bells…"

But I didn't want to hear it, and I shook my head while trying to will away the building tears. "I'm not, Jacob. You're wrong. I'm not beautiful."

There were several second of heavy silence, and then Jacob was prying my fists from the edges of the shirt and taking it in his own hands as he pulled it up over my head. My arms rose limply without resistance.

He tossed the shirt—still inside-out—onto a kitchen chair before turning back to me. I felt small and painfully self-conscious as he scrutinized me from head to toe, not lingering on the violent splash of pink skin across my abdomen any longer than he did the curve of my shoulder or the length of my jean-covered thigh.

He stepped close again and took my hips between his hands as he rested his forehead against mine. "Still more beautiful than Megan Fox."

I chuckled darkly through my tears and sniffles. "You're a really good liar. I appreciate that."

He sighed. "Not convinced, huh?"

He dropped to his knees on the linoleum kitchen floor.

My eyes widened. "Jake. What are you—"

"Shut up, Bells."

His firm hold put an end to my squirming and I leaned back against the refrigerator, resigned.

The heat of his lips against my navel turned my skin to gooseflesh. I shivered.

"Is this where it hurts?"

I nodded to the phantom voice, closed my eyes, and recalled that unassuming afternoon when we'd both made seemingly hopeless promises. Promises to understand, promises to try. And somewhere—somewhere amongst the first kisses, learned laughter, and easy afternoons—trying had become needing, had become effortless to the point where giving Jacob everything I had left was no longer a decision. I couldn't choose to love Jacob anymore than I could choose to take in my next breath or choose to feel the warmth of the sun when it touched my skin.

I thought of our kept promises and wanted to cry in relief.

Instead I buried my hands in Jacob's hair, running my fingers along his scalp as he revoked my scars with restorative kisses and passes of his nose.

I thought of our kept promises and realized there was more I was willing—wanting—to give. There was more that I wanted from him.

"Jacob."

He paused and pressed his cheek to my belly as he look up at me with half-lidded eyes.

I traced his jaw with my thumb. "Make love to me?"

The barely whispered words were nearly lost in the low rumblings of the refrigerator at my back and the suddenly conspicuous drone of rain against the small kitchen window above the sink. The whir of the feeble bulb inside the light fixture hanging from the ceiling was a scream in my ear as the silence condensed into an intangible weight against my chest, crushing my ribs from above while my heart thrashed demandingly against them from beneath.

He didn't respond, only stared mutely at me. But the hammering beat against my chest was the only betrayal of my anxiety. Air continued to leave and enter my lungs in deep, even breaths. My fingers tugged gently at his exposed ear.

I waited. I waited, and it was with the eagerness of watching the sky purpling at dawn, the expectation of the first fingers of light to stretch from the horizon. It was with the certainty that the sun would rise and when it did, it would be magnificent and worth the sacrifice of sleep and effort it took to find the perfect break in the tree line so that it was framed just the right way.

And so I waited.

"When?"

The wide smile on my face had to be absurd. Bending down I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders and pressed my face to the warmth of his neck, inhaling deeply. "Now."

I dropped a grateful kiss on his russet skin before standing and attempting to pull him up after me.

He resisted, catching my chin in his free hand and catching my gaze with those dark eyes. "Are you sure?" And he wasn't asking just to ask.

Gently I slipped from his hold. "Come on." I smiled reassuringly and started stepping backwards toward his room. My lips twitched coyly. "Show me how badly you hope I choke."

I turned and didn't have to hear his footsteps to know he was following me into the dark.

"Mmmmm."

Blinking away the stubborn remnants of sleep, I moaned and rolled away from the overcast light trickling in from the window to bury my head in the familiarity of my lilac pillow. But as I moved to curl my legs up toward my chest, my muscles protested the effort. Frowning, I shifted my legs again, willing the dull ache away. Ugh. Of course I'd be getting cramps when I wasn't even…

My eyes snapped open, and I shot up so fast my vision swam. A quick appraisal of the room confirmed that it was in fact mine. My window, my desk, my old, crotchety computer, my bed. Bed. Jacob's bed. Last night. Last night on Jacob's bed.

For five seconds I wondered if I had dreamed it. Maybe Jacob had driven me straight home after bowling, and I'd just had an extremely vivid dream about me, and Jacob and his bed. That was a completely normal thing for hormonal teenage girls to do, right?

But then I flexed my legs and knew. And I'd never been happier to be in pain.

Hurtling to my feet, I stumbled out of my bedroom door and across the hall into the bathroom, where I shoved that door closed and flipped the lock before practically lunging to the counter to scrutinize my reflection.

I looked like I had had sex.

My hair no longer held the voluminous curls Leah had effortlessly coaxed from my brown locks the previous evening. Instead it more closely resembled a mass of straw and dried mud stuck to the top of my head.

I tangled my hands through my hair, fighting off the scream that was whimpering for release in the back of my throat.

My eyes were too wide. Even when I squinted, they just snapped back open the moment I relaxed.

"Look at me, honey. Open your eyes so I can see you."

A healthy blush colored my skin, the rosiness of my cheeks standing out against my pale face.

His fingers skated my skin, unhindered by cotton or indecision as they detailed every rise and fall of my body. His nails scratched lightly at my hipbones. "Your chest blushes."

A conspicuous red and purple mark at the base of my neck ached pleasantly when I pressed a finger to it.

"Jacob!" I hissed, gasping as his teeth nipped harder than before.

"Yeah?" He soothed the ravaged flesh with a sweep of his tongue.

I traced the matching mark on the other side.

"Do that again."

Then there was the frightening state of my lips. Raw, chapped, swollen, and slightly bruised.

"Jake. Jake. Jake." I gasped, bit my lip, and tasted copper on my tongue. Jacob swooped down and stole the rest of his names from every corner of my mouth.

And—I attempted to drag down the corners with my fingers—my lips wouldn't stop smiling. It was like they were stuck that way, my teeth shining brightly through.

Wonderfully slowly my heart calmed and my panting slowed so that I was able to focus solely on Jacob as he fell to his back beside me. A beautiful, satisfied smile turned up one side of his lips, and I immediately dubbed it his "crooked sex smile."

I grinned ridiculously into the mirror for several moments. Wondering at how perfectly obvious it all was.

And then my smile slowly fell away because it was perfectly obvious. The butterflies in my stomach abruptly turned to rocks.

Oh, God. Charlie was going to know. He was going to take one look at me and know. And Jacob was going to get shot. My anxiety skyrocketed.

Forcing myself to take a composed breath, I tried to think logically. It was Thursday. Charlie wasn't home; he'd be at work until five. That left me plenty of time to…destroy the evidence.

This was reason enough for me to perk back up. What I needed was a shower. A nice, long shower to relax and pull myself together.

Feeling slightly more optimistic about my deception capabilities and concurrently Jacob's chances of survival, I walked to the tub and got the water to start warming. I pulling off the t-shirt I'd pilfered from Jacob's room the night before and turned to hang it on the back of the door, when my reflection once again caught my undivided attention.

"What the…"

There on my shoulder. There was something on my shoulder. A big black glob.

I frowned and angled my head to peer down at the mysterious stain. It looked like…ink. Frowning, I rubbed at it with my hand, but to no avail. It wouldn't come off.

My breath hitched, and I tried to fight down the panic invading the nerves of my body. In an attempt to get a better look, I leaned over the sink toward the mirror, pulling down my obstructing bra strap.

It wasn't a shapeless blob. It was a hand, a solid black handprint that had to belong to a man; it enveloped my entire left shoulder.

My own hand started to shake as I scrambled to pull a washcloth from the cabinet and dampen it beneath the faucet. I rubbed and rubbed at the ink, feeling tears of frustration burn my eyes when I only managed to scrub my skin raw.

"No. No. No."

Letting out an alarmed cry I threw the washcloth down into the sink

"No! This…this can't just…" Something vague was whispering at the back of mind, ordering me to understand, to see.

My breaths turned shallow as the shaking spread from my hands to the rest of my body. I retreated back against the bathroom door.

"Bella?"

I jumped, every hair on my body standing on end in response to the person on the other side of the door.

"It's Emmett. Are you okay in there?"

"I…I…" I couldn't find the air to speak.

There was a quiet snap as the lock broke and the door was pushed open to reveal Emmett's towering form. I instinctively shrunk away.

"Whoa!" His eyes widened. "You're not dressed. Give a man some warning could ya?" He began swiftly retreating through the door when his gaze fell on my exposed shoulder. It caused him to pause. "Hey, cool tattoo! I bet that'd make Edward totally flip. In a good way if you know what I mean."

The suggestive look he shot me quickly dissipated into concern when he noticed the look of utter terror on my face.

"You alright?"

I didn't get the chance to prove that I couldn't even respond. Another miffed voice sounded from the hallway.

"What the hell are you doing in here? Bella?"

Embry. Relief washed over me in cool, invigorating waves. Embry would help me.

"Em-Embry," I managed to gasp out. The edges of my vision were going black.

There was a curse followed by a loud thud, and then Embry replaced Emmett in the doorway. He looked down at my shaking hands clutching Jacob's shirt to my chest and scowled. In a dizzying blink he was stepping back out into the hallway. "What did you do to her?"

I'd never heard Embry sound so angry or so hateful, and I stumbled forward to soothe him. "No. It's not—"

"Look, kid, I didn't do anything," Emmett said dismissively. "You guys were the ones who had her on the Rez last night against the agreement. I just heard her freaking out a minute ago and was just checking to make sure she wasn't passed out in a pool of vomit or something."

The urge to heave the contents of my stomach was suddenly very strong.

"Yeah, because who knows what kind of trouble she could be getting into while undressing for a shower," Embry growled. He was starting to tremble.

I shook my head in denial. "No—"

Emmett's eyes narrowed, clearly picking up on Embry's slipping control. "I think you should go outside before you finish what your little girl started."

A less than human growl erupted from Embry's clenched teeth, and Emmett reached out and yanked me behind him.

My vision spun, and as Embry shot forward, everything went black.

I pitched backward, landing roughly on the ground. Once I'd managed to blink the darkness away, I looked up, ready to see Embry and Emmett going at each other's throats…only to find myself completely alone. And surrounded by trees.

I was dreaming. I'd passed out and now I was dreaming.

But seconds continued to unfold and the only thing that changed was the amount of green light reaching past the canopy of branches. Felicity didn't show up.

A shiver jarred my spine and I realized how cold I was. I looked down to find that my hands were still clutching Jacob's shirt to my nearly naked chest, and I was sitting halfway in a small stream, the majority of sweats complete soaked through.

Forcing myself into action, I pulled on the t-shirt and stood on shaky legs.

But as I turned to take in the surrounding forest, hoping against hope to find anything familiar orrecognizable, my eyes encountered something that decidedly didn't belong to the crude, natural landscape: a blond boy about my age, standing ten feet away and staring at me with intent, scarlet eyes.

AN: So, who knows who the guest is? And did anyone get the strange feeling that they'd seen that hand before? Hmmm.

My apologies to those thoroughly dismayed with the fade to black and complete lack of hot refrigerator sex (oxymoron much?). Sex scenes aren't my forte, and it really wouldn't have flowed with the story, in my opinion. You probably disagree. ;)