Chapter 21:

Busted

Jacob's point of view:

Most guys would probably be concentrating on how quickly they could get off the ever-puzzling, pain in the ass enigma that women called a bra. Me? I was concentrating on the sound of Leah's heart. You are so not a normal dude, Jacob. I frowned at myself. I had Leah all to myself, and all I could do was count her damn heart rate.

Every time we got close, I could hear it speeding up. But even when she was resting, it was still really fast. It freaked me out how rapid it was now. But Carlisle was certain she was okay, and Leah certainly didn't act like anything was wrong. She was back to beating the crap out of everyone like nothing had ever happened.

We pulled our lips apart at around the same time. How I managed to stop mid-make-out, I'll never know. I grinned. Oh yeah, I was master of my Big Dog. Not many guys my age could just stop themselves from making out with a hot chick. Crap, had I just referred to Leah as a hot chick? If she heard me thinking that, she would probably kill me. I'd made the mistake of calling her a chick once.

"Do I look like I live in a nest and lay eggs?" she'd snapped at me. "I am a lady."

"Yeah, right. If you're a lady…then I'm the Queen of England," I'd snorted. "Since when do ladies call their ex-boyfriends 'anal sucking buttpirates'?"

"It's anal fucking buttpirate," she'd corrected me. I still didn't know where she got such a crude mouth. I often wondered if she just said the vulgar things she did just so she could keep up with the rest of the pack. It couldn't be easy being the only female among a group of males. But Leah somehow pulled it off. No one in the pack could ever top the things she said.

I looked at Leah. It was hard to read the expression on her face. I think she needed a break. Even though she would never admit it, I could see that she was light-headed again. I'm not sure what was causing that. I guess hormones did some weird things to people. She took a breath and I heard her heart thumping crazily.

I knew you wanted me. I had to bite my tongue. I really needed to watch what I said to her, because the slightest thing might piss her off, and I'd end up chasing her away again. Great, looks like you're going to have to actually think about what you say, Jacob. Normally I just blurted out what I was feeling, but if I was going to make this work with her, I was going to have to actually think about the things I said to her. At the moment, all I wanted to do was ask her how she was feeling, but I had a sneaking suspicion that if I asked her that, she might kick me in the balls. And bruised balls really kill the mood for passion.

I watched as Leah tried to catch her breath. I think I heard her heart actually skip a beat.

"I made your heart flutter," I chuckled.

She rolled her eyes as she responded, "That wasn't you, jackass. It's because my heart hasn't been the same since I died."

I grumbled to myself, thinking about how close she had come to dying. Hearing her heart actually stopping was one of the worst sounds I'd ever been subjected to. And I had once listened to Paul belting out Steven Tyler's greatest hits. But compared to the silence of Leah's heart, I would gladly take Paul singing Aerosmith and making my ears bleed.

I was surprised when Leah softly touched my chest. Normally, she didn't do anything softly. I did the best I could to keep my hormones in check, but I was fighting a losing battle. My skin freaking tingled when she touched me. I felt like a moron as I closed my eyes and talked to my dick like it was a god damn dog. Easy boy, easy.

Leah's fingers slowly traced across my chest. Yeah, I'm hot. I grinned in thought. I knew she liked my muscles. Being a werewolf effing rocked sometimes. You like that, don't you baby? God, I sounded like I was in a soft core porn flick. I frowned. That was probably one of the most conceited things I could have thought. I glanced at Leah. God woman, what the hell have you turned me in to? I had never really thought like that before today. Of course, I had mounds of testosterone and thought with my penis like every other male out there, but there was something about Leah that turned me into a mindless, self-absorbed douche.

I shifted all of my weight to my left side as I took my right hand off of the hood of Sue Clearwater's car and put it delicately against Leah's cheek. She felt warm to me. Maybe it was just the passion, but nothing ever felt warm to my touch. I took a moment to relish in the fact that she was actually letting me touch her. Leah wasn't a very touchy-feely person. Normally, she wouldn't let anyone near her, let alone touch her. The day her father died, I decided to give her a hug. I'd found out very quickly that it wasn't the best idea in the world.

She'd flipped me over onto my back and snapped at me not to touch her. And all I could do was glance up at the ceiling and grunt out, "I'm so sorry for your loss…"

She'd sighed and helped me off of the ground. "And I'm sorry I broke your collar bone. Just don't touch me again."

I scoffed, "Please, I'm not hurt…" Except my dignity is a little bruised… Having a girl kick your ass was pretty damn humiliating.

Yeah, Leah was a tough one. She inherited that from Sue. I had never met anyone more held together than Sue Clearwater. Sometimes, the woman scared me more than Leah did. It never ceased to amaze me how strong women could be. A lot of the time, they were braver than most men. But I could never admit that out loud. If I did, my brothers would kick my ass for thinking like such a sissy.

I looked at Leah and reminded myself that no matter how strong she may be, she wasn't completely invincible. There were flashes of the past four days in my head. I hated seeing Leah helpless. And I'm sure she hated being helpless just as much. It made me incredibly uncomfortable to think about how close I had come to losing her.

I felt her tense up. "This does not mean that I feel the same way that you do."

Whatever you need to tell yourself, sweetie. I grinned to myself.

"Sure, sure." I tried not to come off sounding like a smartass, but it didn't work. She didn't seem to care, though. Guess all of that making out tamed her anger for a bit. "How's your heart at the moment?" It was a loaded question, of course. What I was really asking was, You ready for round two?

She didn't answer me, but didn't shove me away either. I could barely contain my excitement. Hell, yeah! I exclaimed in thought. I got within inches of her mouth before a noise startled us both. I heard a gasp and then an angry growl.

"What. The. Hell?"

Shit. Round two cancelled. I glanced up and saw Seth glaring at me like he was getting ready to take my damn head off. Cock-blocked by her kid brother. At first, I just sat there like an idiot. My brain was blank. All I could see was little Seth Clearwater standing at the end of his driveway with his fists trembling in anger. I didn't know what to say. Hey Seth, can you come back a little later? I'm kinda busy ravaging your sister at the moment… He'd castrate me right here in his front yard.

"Oh, Jesus," I muttered, barely audible.

"Seth. Hi!" Leah exclaimed in a higher pitch than normal. The look on her face was "Oh, fucking hell."

Seth was shivering with rage. "How…why…what…"

He forgot "who," "when," and "where." Please don't make an ass of yourself… I begged my brain. I laughed bitterly. That was a given. There wasn't a day that went by that I wasn't an ass.

"What are you doing?" Seth was able to form a full sentence.

Rounding second base with your sister on your mother's car. What's it look like? Something told me that Seth wouldn't find that at all humorous.

I felt Leah knee me in the stomach. I had been so stunned that Seth caught me slobbering on his sister that I didn't realize that I was still on top of her. I pushed myself off of their mother's car and helped her stand up.

"So, little brother, did you get the classes you wanted?" Leah acted like nothing out of the ordinary was going on. Seth could be stupid, but he wasn't that dumb. And how in the hell could Leah be so cool about what was going on right now?

Seth completely ignored Leah and let out a growl that I think was directed at me. I had to contain my laughter, because he sounded like a kitten when he growled. He was so adorable. I had to fight back the urge to dangle a string in front of him.

"Jacob, you have ten seconds to start running." Seth was grinding his teeth.

"Oh, are we playing hide and go seek?" I asked sarcastically.

"Shut up, moron," Leah growled at me. "You'll only make him angrier."

"And we wouldn't want to see him angry. We wouldn't like him when he's angry. Does he get all green and explosive? 'Grr, Seth smash, Seth kill.'" I did my best impersonation of The Hulk that I could manage. It really sucked, and Leah just looked at me, shook her head, and called me a geek. But I couldn't help it. I pictured Seth running around as the angry monster, only he was so soft-hearted that he wouldn't be able to cause any damage to anything. It'd be more like 'Grr, Seth will write 'Jacob sucks' in sidewalk chalk so as not to cause damage to any property.'

I remember one time when Seth was trying to prove to the guys that he was just as bad as they were. So he decided to play a huge prank on us. We were all hanging out at Sam and Emily's place and Seth couldn't stop snickering to himself. Finally, Embry asked him what was so funny.

"You've all been drinking diet soda," he'd snickered. "When you guys asked me to pick up some drinks, I got diet!" He almost fell into the ground in laughter.

"Hmm…" Paul glanced at his glass and shrugged. "I thought it tasted different."

"It's diet!" He howled out laughter.

"Oh, you're one bad dude…" I'd rolled my eyes.

"A monster," Quil agreed sarcastically.

We let Seth bathe in his hard earned triumph that day. I'd never seen a smile so big on his face. That smile was no longer evident on his face today. He was actually frowning. I don't know if I'd ever seen him frowning. I wondered if it was hurting his facial muscles to pull into a grimace.

"What the hell is going on here?" Seth was over beside me and Leah in just a few strides.

Depends. How much did you actually see? I wasn't sure whether or not he had seen Leah and I making out. Perhaps he just saw me straddling her over his mother's car. I could come up with about a million different explanations for that. I could just say that Leah was feeling light headed…which I knew that she was when we were kissing, even though she wouldn't admit it…because she was a stubborn brat. I could just say she passed out, and I was just checking her vitals. There was a hole in that story though. What if he asked how she passed out on the hood of the car? What was I supposed to say to that? She was sunbathing…even though there's no sun out today. Oh well, I could bullshit him better on my feet. Plus, he was kind of naïve sometimes, so he probably wouldn't even think about that.

"First, I phased and no one was around. So, you know, I'm thinking 'crap, what if they're all dead?' because I know Embry and Quil were running today, and the fact that no one was around freaked me out a little. And then I run home to make sure Leah's okay, and I find you on top of her?" Seth exclaimed.

"Plus side, I'm not dead," Leah grinned.

"You will be when mom gets home." Seth threatened her.

I saw Leah roll her eyes. "I don't think mom is in any position to give me advice about my love life." I'm pretty sure the only reason that Leah hadn't chased Charlie off with a pitchfork was because she felt bad that his daughter abandoned him to go suck on a vampire's frozen toes.

"Jake, how could you, dude? My sister on my mom's car?"

"Would you believe that she fainted? I caught her before she hit her head on your mom's car. She was just waking up when you got here," I lied. Please buy it, please buy it, please buy it. He didn't look convinced. And I had managed to piss Leah off, too.

"You dick. Now he's going to make me go back to Carlisle," Leah snapped. She rolled her eyes, "Look, lying to him isn't going to do any good," she grumbled. "Seth, this was exactly what it looked like."

Aw, Leah, WHY? She couldn't at least try and make up some bogus white lie to fool her brother?

As expected, the angry little bunny turned towards me and showed me his teeth aggressively. I fought every urge in my body to avoid patting him on his head and cooing at him. He looked pretty damn pissed, and I highly doubted that calling him cute was going to help my case.

"Jacob, my sister? My sister? You made a move on my sister!?" Seth squealed like a little girl.

"Technically, this time she made the move on me." Crap, why did I blurt shit out? I saw Seth's lips twitch in irritation.

"Run, Jacob," Seth snarled. "Run now."

"This is none of your business, Seth," Leah interjected. "Go back to your comic books and action figures."

"Look kid, it's not what you think…" I tried to calm him down.

"Don't call me 'kid,'" Seth snarled. He shook his head, "I just…don't understand how this happened. I mean, you two hate each other! This morning when you dropped me off at school, you were talking about killing each other! How the hell did you go from 'die, you bastard' to this!?" Seth started to hyperventilate.

"God, relax before you phase, Seth," Leah warned him.

Seth ignored his sister's warning as he squared himself up against me. I had to hold in my laughter. Seth fighting me? I hoped that someone could catch it on camera and then post it on YouTube. All around the world, people would see me holding back Seth with one hand and telling the little guy to calm down. He saw me grinning like an idiot.

"You think this is funny?" Seth frowned.

Did I think that it was funny that a Chihuahua was trying to fight a Great Dane? Yes. Yes, I did. I glanced at Leah, and she was just staring at me. Her facial expression just yelled, Why the hell are you smiling?

"Seth, chill out." Leah noticed that Seth was shaking.

Nothing ever pissed Seth off, so the fact that he was trembling showed me how much he cared about his sister. I needed to let him know that I cared about Leah, too, and that this wasn't just because I was some seventeen-year-old horndog trying to get in his sister's pants.

"Look, I know you're freaked right now. I remember how it feels. When I found out about Paul and Rachel…"

He interrupted me before he let me finish. "Did you find your sister making out with Paul in your driveway?"

I took a moment to pause before I answered, "No." A slight grin washed across my face. "They were in the bed of his truck."

Leah punched me in the shoulder. "You. Idiot."

Ohhh, I'm shaking, I chuckled. "What's he going to do? Come after me with his light saber?" I snorted.

I had a hard time seeing Seth in a fight…especially against me. I was his buddy. I glanced at Seth and something crossed my mind. I wasn't his friend right now. I was just some guy taking advantage of his sister. Oh, and I knew that look. The look that he was giving me was the, "You fuck with my sister, and I'll fuck you up" look

"I care about her, Seth," I assured him.

"Did you imprint on my sister?" he growled.

"God, no." Great, that sounded really shitty. I wanted to look at Leah to make sure that I hadn't pissed her off or hurt her, but I didn't want to take my eyes off of Seth, because I was sure he was going to hit me the first chance that I lowered my guard. I did my best to backtrack. "I mean…I wouldn't want to. And Leah wouldn't want it, either. We both hate imprinting." Against my better judgment, I glanced at Leah. She was staring at me, curiosity in her eyes. I knew exactly what she was thinking, I can't wait to hear your explanation for this…

"Who says we can't fall in love the normal way?" I questioned. By making out, hanging out, holding hands, having lots of sex, fighting over stupid shit, having more AWESOME make-up sex, and then deciding that we want to spend the rest of our lives together? Sex. Fuck, I hated being a guy sometimes. I knew I had to edit myself a bit for Seth. If I started talking about what I wanted to do to his sister under the sheets, his head might explode.

I closed my eyes and thought about Paul and Rachel. I reminded myself that I needed to handle this better than Paul had handled it with me. He knew that I hated the fact that he imprinted on Rachel. Unfortunately, there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it…except make his life a living hell. But it's not like he made my life easy.

"I…want to bang your sister," Paul had blatantly declared one day.

"You're going to fucking die, asshole." I'd leaped to my feet and raced towards Paul in a rage. Imagine my surprise when my sister had stormed into the room and thrown a snowglobe at my head.

"You leave Paul alone!" Her hit had nearly knocked me unconscious. "Who I bang is none of your business!"

I'm pretty sure I saw Paul stick his tongue out at me. The child in me wanted to throw a fit, But Raaachel! It's Paul! He's a complete turdhole! Personally, I think my sister could do better. I could sympathize with Seth. Even though he fought with Leah constantly, he still loved her and wanted to protect her. That's just what brothers did. We spent our entire lives causing our sisters nothing but grief, and then beating the shit out of anyone else who caused them harm.

"Come on, man, you know me…" I tried to talk Seth down from his temper tantrum.

"Yeah, I do. And you aren't helping your case any," Seth grumbled. He folded his arms across his chest and stared at me.

Great, I had finally convinced Leah to give me a shot, and now her menopausal brother was standing in my way.

"Seth, this is my life." Leah finally had enough of his overprotective bullshit.

"Yeah dude, she's right. Calm down," I shrugged.

He clenched his jaw, and his body tensed up. Crap, was he going to phase? I took a step back just in case. I pulled Leah with me.

"Let go of me, Jacob." She jerked away from me. "I'm not afraid of my brother."

This was the angriest I'd seen Seth in his entire life. In fact, I think this was the first time I'd seen him truly pissed off. There had been a couple of times when he'd grumbled and groaned about something that was bothering him, but I had never seen him turn bright red in anger.

"Stop acting like such an overprotective older brother. You're four years younger than me," Leah complained.

"But you are still my sister, and it's my job to protect you."

"Why does everyone I know think that I need protecting? Do I need to hire a bodyguard to get you sissies off of my case?" Leah snapped.

"Emmett would be perfect," I joked. I could see him walking around the Rez with a serious look on his face, showing his teeth anytime someone got near Leah. Plus, listening to the two of them banter was flippin' hilarious.

"Jake, you're my friend…but Leah's my sister…so, I'm warning you…"

"Seth, I love you, but you're being a moron," Leah interrupted him. "What I do is none of your business."

God, she sounded exactly like Rachel. Had I been this annoying when I found out about her and Paul? I frowned. There was a huge difference in the two situations. Paul was a horny loser, and I wasn't. But I realized that's what Seth was seeing me as right now. No one would ever be good enough for his sister. I got that. I felt the same way about my sisters.

"Hey, Leah, let me talk to Seth alone for a minute," I said.

"Why?"

"It's a guy thing," I shrugged. "You don't have a problem with that, do you Seth?"

"The less witnesses, the better," Seth snarled.

"Whatever. You two are idiots. Have fun beating the shit out of each other." She mumbled something about us being overprotective as she disappeared into the house.

Okay, it's time for a serious conversation now. This was going to suck. I didn't do well when it came to "serious" conversations.

"Look, I know you're pissed right now…"

Seth laughed angrily, "No, you would be lucky if I was pissed. I am infuriated."

Infuriated? Sounded like a thirty-year-old woman yelling at her husband because he forgot to take out the trash.

"How could you, Jake?" Seth growled at me again. "You know how lonely and vulnerable she is…"

Yeah, well so am I. I rolled my eyes. But the pack didn't really give a shit about what I was going through. Because it was different when guys were lonely. We automatically got branded sissies if we admitted our feelings.

"I didn't take advantage of your sister," I frowned.

"Yeah, like she made the first move on you?" Seth rolled his eyes. "Leah can't stand anyone, let alone you…"

Obviously she can, or else she wouldn't have been French kissing me earlier… Thank God I was able to keep my smartass comment to myself.

"I can't believe you, of all people, would sink so low…"

"I love her, Seth!" I finally lost control of my thoughts. It felt very odd to be saying that out loud, especially to Seth. But I knew the only way I was going to get Seth to understand what was going on here was to just be honest with the little hardass. "This isn't just about raging teenage hormones. Leah means a lot to me. And I'm not going to let you ruin this."

Seth looked surprised. His mouth was hanging open and he was struggling to speak, but nothing he said was making any sense.

"Love?" he questioned.

"Yeah."

"What? Since when?" Seth still had the same look of shock on his face.

"The moment she reached for my hand when she was dying at Jared's house." It was in that moment that I realized how much she needed me, even though she never said it. I felt it. And when she took my hand, I didn't want to let it go. I realized how much she really meant to me. The two of us had been through so much crap together. And even though we didn't always handle it in a traditional way, we made sure to be there for one another when life got really sucky.

"You…really love her?" he asked. I nodded. How many times did he want me to say it? I hated to repeat myself. "Does she know you feel this way?"

No, the make-out session that you caught us in is completely unrelated. I rolled my eyes. "I haven't said it to her, but yeah, I'm pretty sure she knows how deep my little girly feelings run."

"And what about Leah? Does she feel the same way?"

"I don't know. I don't think so," I sighed. "At least, not yet." I shook my head. "Look, I'm not going to force anything upon her that she doesn't want. You know Leah can take care of herself." I reminded Seth that he had a tough-ass sister.

"She thinks she can," Seth said solemnly. "And believe me, she has gotten very good at pretending that everything is okay, but underneath it all, she's still hurting. Because of Sam and his stupid imprinting. You have to know there's a possibility that you'll do the exact same thing to her that he did."

"I won't, Seth."

"It's not something you can control," he reminded me.

Neither is my love for your sister. I mumbled in thought. "You're trying to look out for her. I get that," I nodded. "But this is between me and her. Let us handle it."

"Leah acts tough, Jacob, but you can hurt her. She's strong, but not strong enough to have her heart broken again," he sighed. I could see that he understood this was not an argument he was going to win. "Don't fuck it up," he frowned. "I mean it, man. Hurt her like Sam did, and I will end you." Seth threatened me. I couldn't help but picture tiny little Seth Clearwater trying to fight me like a little girly man. I let a chuckle slip out and he cocked his head in confusion. "Something funny about that?"

"No. No, not at all." I squeaked out another laugh. "I just pictured a Boston Terrier named Seth biting my ankle viciously."

I watched his face harden for a moment, but then a smile slipped out. "A Boston Terrier?" He rolled his eyes.

"I was going to go with Dachshund, but I was afraid you'd think I was calling you a weenie." I shook my head in amusement. I looked away from him and over at Sue's car. I didn't really think about the damage the two of us might have caused rolling around on the hood. Looking away from Seth probably wasn't the brightest thing I'd ever done.

"Hey, Jake?" Seth questioned. I turned to face him again and saw his fist flying at my face. The blow caught my cheek. I brought my hand up to my face and cracked my jaw.

Had Seth Clearwater just punched me? Damn, I didn't know the kid had it in him. I chuckled out a groan.

"Nice one, dude."

I saw immediate regret wash across his face. I think he was just trying to warn me that if I hurt Leah, he would kick my ass. At least now I knew he was capable of it. But he looked like he felt guilty.

"Crap, I'm sorry. I didn't really hurt you, did I?"

Uh, Seth…you don't apologize to someone after kicking his ass. It's not very manly.

I could see him punching someone in a rage. "Take THAT, you asshole! Oh no, let me get you an icepack…"

"I think I'll be fine," I assured him. I couldn't help myself as I let another smart aleck comment slip. "Leah hits harder," I shrugged. I saw him raise his fist again, and I let out a laugh. "Joking!" I rubbed my jaw. "Easy, killer. What do you say we go tell Leah that we're friends again?"

I saw Seth smile in amusement. He looked smug. But I could tell that he wasn't just grinning about punching me in the face. There was something else on his mind. He laughed quietly.

"What's so funny?"

"You really think Leah's still around?" Seth questioned.

"She went in the house." I pointed out.

"Our house has a back door, idiot." Seth rolled his eyes.

Little Muhammad Ali was right. Leah had probably taken off again. That girl was so hot and cold that it was driving me wild. And even though she was driving me insane, I couldn't care about her more…