I so totally suck.
When I was uploading the first 15 chapters to FF, I skipped Chapter 14. So, uh, surprise! Go back to 15:Chapter 14 and it's brand new for you FF readers. Big thanks to alert reader Nic01e for pointing out my error. Sorry if I confuse anyone...rest assured, no one was more confused than I.
And now, for my favorite chapter so far...enjoy!
Edward found Bella a fuzzy blue bathrobe to put on over her pajamas and escorted her downstairs. He still didn't quite trust Jasper to keep his fangs to himself – Alice's battle-scarred lover fantasized about Bella's jugular far too often.
His siblings were lounging about in the sitting room, watching a football game on TV. "Where's Esme?" Bella asked, looking around. The Thai food had arrived and was arranged on a tray on the coffee table.
"She left," Emmett said, his eyes on the game. "She got all pre-menstrual when you and Edward were talking about Carlisle."
Seeing Bella's shocked look, Edward gave Emmett a nasty glare and rubbed Bella's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said. "Emmett never learned tact as a child."
"You could hear us?" Bella asked. She sank gingerly into a squashy armchair and started perusing the food.
"Oh yeah." Emmett grinned maniacally. "It comes with the undead thing."
"We all have very sharp senses," Edward explained. "That's why I, ah, stopped you from talking about our little problem."
"Esme doesn't know about Jacob," Alice said. She was lying on the couch, her head in Jasper's lap. She looked at Bella upside-down. "We're not sure how she would take it."
"Why don't you just decide to tell her and watch the video preview?" Emmett threw out.
Alice pursed her lips. "I did. It doesn't go over well. I'll keep working at it, try to find an approach that doesn't make her flip out."
"Why not use the amazing skills of our boy Jasper?" Edward asked.
Jasper snickered. "Well, that would help, definitely," he said. "But I couldn't keep it up forever, of course. Alice anticipates that it would take quite a while for Esme to calm down."
"What are your abilities?" Bella asked curiously.
Rosalie laughed. "Edward hasn't told you? Planning on keeping it a secret, brother mine?"
"No," Edward said indignantly. "She fell asleep before we got that far."
"Oh, sure." Rosalie rolled her eyes.
"What is it? Tell me," Bella said, gazing at Jasper as if they were going to tell her he could turn water into wine.
"Jasper is what we call an empath," Edward said, sitting down on the arm of Bella's chair. "He can feel, and also manipulate, the emotions of the people around him."
"Oh!" Bella abruptly put down her Pad Thai. "This morning, when I showed up here…"
"Sorry," Jasper said, looking sincerely contrite.
"What?" Edward demanded, his eyes narrowed.
"Oh, relax, Edward," Alice said, waving her hand. "He just helped her feel a little more comfortable coming inside to talk to us."
"She was terrified," Rose volunteered.
"I thought you were going to kill me," Bella accused. "But I couldn't seem to care."
"I'm really glad that you're on our side," Edward sighed, rolling his eyes at Jasper.
"It's completely unethical!" Bella spluttered.
"So?" Emmett asked.
"We're vampires, not lawyers," Rose chimed in.
"Just be glad Edward didn't ask for his help in seducing you," Alice said with a wink.
Bella's jaw dropped. Her gaze darted from Jasper to Edward and back again.
"You didn't, did you?" she asked in a hushed voice.
Everyone but Bella and Edward burst out laughing. Edward glared at them all.
"Nah," Emmett said, when he could catch his breath. "We figured we'd let him wade through those waters all on his own."
"Besides," Jasper said, deadpan, "It would be unethical."
Edward's family persuaded Bella to spend the weekend at the townhouse, with the promise that they would let her go home Sunday night as long as there were no problematic developments. After picking at her dinner and listening to the others banter back and forth for an enjoyable evening, Bella found herself thinking of the warm, cozy bed upstairs and longing for another eight hours of sleep.
"Bella," Alice said gently, "You're exhausted. Go on up to bed. Everything you need is in the bathroom."
Bella was too tired to argue. She nodded and stood.
"Is there anything we can get from your apartment?" Rosalie asked quietly. "We were going to go by tonight and take a closer look around."
Bella bit her lip. She found Rosalie to be the most intimidating of all of them, despite Emmett's size and the others' extraordinary gifts. The girl had a solemn, slightly detached demeanor that barely hinted at some unacknowledged hostility. If Rosalie didn't like Bella, she didn't want her to know it.
"I, ah, I could use my laptop," she said shyly. "Is there internet access here?"
"Just hooked up yesterday," Alice said cheerfully. "God knows how Edward ran a business in this modern world without it."
"Come on," Edward said quietly. "You're dead on your feet."
Still in the satin pajama set that she'd donned for her afternoon nap, Bella slipped out of her robe and slippers and snuggled into the voluminous bed upstairs. She watched Edward as he walked around the apartment, turning off lamps and lighting a fire. She smiled drowsily at him, marveling at the incredible beauty of his silhouette, lit by the firelight.
"Are you going with the others tonight?" She murmured, folding her arms on the cushy pillow behind her head.
He glanced at her. "I was planning to stay here," he replied, rising from his crouch by the fireplace.
"And how do you spend your nights, O He-Who-Never-Sleeps?"
He returned her smile. "I used to read. Listen to music. Write."
"And now?"
He approached the bed slowly and sat down on the edge, leaving a good buffer between them. "Lately I've been keeping my eye on a certain sweet-smelling young human."
"At night?" Bella lowered her arms and rose up on one elbow. "Did you come to my apartment at night?"
He nodded hesitantly. She could see remorse and embarrassment and…something else in his eyes, eyes that mirrored the firelight that illuminated the room.
Bella shook her head and sighed. "That's just perfect. You might as well be able to read my mind, then."
"Don't be embarrassed," he said quickly. "Watching you sleep…watching you dream…it's the closest I've come to…peace, to happiness, in a long time." He reached out a hand and laid it on the bedspread, near her leg. "I wish I could dream of you, too."
Bella swallowed. The dark room, the flickering firelight, the starry, clear sky visible through the bay window – she felt the romance of the setting sinking into her sleepy brain like the effects of sweet red wine…but it was Edward, sitting there looking at her, his eyes hot and intense, that made her body ache and her breath hitch.
"Come here," she whispered. She reached for his hand and touched the backs of his knuckles.
His eyes flared. Without a word, without a noise, he rose and skirted the bed, coming to stand by her side. She gazed up at him steadily, her heart pounding, knowing that he could hear it and not caring.
"Tell me, Edward," she murmured, sliding towards the middle of the bed and patting the vacant space next to her, "What would you dream of?"
He inhaled sharply, though Bella had learned that afternoon that he didn't need to breathe. Warily, as if wondering what she was up to, Edward sat down on the bed next to her.
"Oh…the usual, I think," he said quietly, toeing off his shoes and swinging his legs up onto the bed. He slipped between the covers, scooting closer to her but not close enough to touch.
"Just 'the usual?'" Bella frowned at him in mock hurt. "No fantasies about…oh, cornering me in the basement of the library? At the aquarium?"
They were facing each other, Bella nestled down in the blankets and pillows, Edward rigid, tensely balanced on one elbow.
"I guess I'm not the exhibitionist type," he admitted. "I'd much rather have you somewhere very private…quiet and dark…where my voyeuristic family can't hear every whisper."
Bella's eyes went wide at the reminder. "They can hear us…right now?"
"Bella, they could probably hear us from outside the house."
She didn't much like that. She bit her lip. "Oh."
Edward sighed. "Guys," he said in a normal speaking voice, "Could you all turn on the stereo or something? Give us some privacy?"
"Aw, man!" Emmett's dismayed shout floated up the stairs. Bella smothered a shocked giggle.
Edward lay still for a moment, listening. Then he snickered. "They turned on some jazz music. Very romantic."
"Thanks," Bella whispered. Her palms were sweating. She wiped them on her thighs and scooted closer to her demon lover. Felt his cold limbs beneath his jeans, cooling the bed. She dragged her toes up and down his calves, shivering at the sensation of the denim juxtaposed against the soft silk sheets.
"What do you dream about?" He asked, reaching up and twirling a lock of hair around his finger.
"Mmmm." Bella thought for a moment, gazing into his hooded golden eyes. "Many things. My favorite…well, I had one earlier, when I was trying to sleep. I thought…how nice it would be, if I could travel back in time and meet you. I would have liked to be your first."
Edward's eyes grew darker. He slipped a hand around her head and drew her to him. "Oh, Bella," he whispered, kissing her lightly, "You don't have to worry on that score. I was changed when I was a seventeen-year-old boy, much more interested in the war than in girls. And in all my years on this earth…" he slipped his tongue neatly into her mouth, lightly tracing her teeth, "I have never wanted to be with a woman this way. Not once."
Something powerful and frightening went off in Bella's chest. She fought off the drugging effects of his kiss. "You mean…you're a…"
"Innocent as newly fallen snow," he murmured, trailing his lips across her jaw to tease at her pulse point. "Does that excite you, Bella?"
He knew that it did, of course. Somehow, Bella had assumed that Edward was infinitely experienced, a Lothario to humans and vampires the globe over. The idea that he had never been with a woman was a singular thrill. She felt tingles skitter up her back at the thought that she could be his first lover.
If she wanted him. He was there for the taking.
"Are you just a born flirt, then?" She asked breathlessly, her neck going boneless, her head lolling back as he tongued that delicious spot beneath her jaw.
"I believe I'm just inspired…by the beauty revealed to me here," he whispered, his cool breath blowing on the damp patch of skin on her throat. "And…I'm a scholar, you know."
"Yes?" Bella's eyes drifted closed. He had shifted so his body leaned into hers, pressing her back gently into the bed.
"Indeed. I've read books on every subject ever written on. And I've learned…quite a bit…about human sensuality, I think." His breath tickled her ear before he delicately traced her lobe with his tongue.
"How…enterprising of you," Bella breathed. Her arms crept around his shoulders, feeling the steely muscles beneath.
"Though I have to say, academic knowledge is not quite the same as…hands on experience." His knee slipped between hers and he kissed her again, a drugging, clinging, spine-tingling kiss that made her fingers clench into fists around the fabric of his shirt.
"And what have you learned…in your experience tonight?"
He was pressed fully against her now, his hips cradled snugly against hers. Her knees rose slightly on either side of him. She could feel the soft-rough fabric of his jeans through the thin pajama pants. The crisp cotton of his shirt abraded the skin of her arms gently where she clutched at him.
"That your toes curl when I do this," he murmured, returning to pepper tiny kisses over that spot under her jaw. She hissed, and indeed her toes curled and her knees rose higher to clasp him tighter against her.
"And your heart speeds up when I do this." He trailed his lips up to meet hers, kissing her softly, teasingly, first at this angle, and then at that, refusing to deepen the kiss or allow her to reel him in closer.
"I wonder what will happen…if I do this," he said raggedly after several minutes of intense play, and he gently, slowly pushed his hips down against hers.
Bella groaned, her head thrown back against the pillows, he fingers scrabbling frantically at his shoulders.
"Fascinating," he murmured, and did it again, this time rocking gently from left to right, working closer, finding the perfect angle.
"Edward," she moaned. "Oh…oh…my…"
He was hard, and long and full, and Bella felt like he was igniting all her nerve endings at once with his slow, deliberate rocking. Her knees rose even higher and she wrapped her legs around his hips, willing him closer. His cool chest brushed against her breasts lightly, despite her determined attempts to pull him down atop her.
"Quiet, darling," he whispered, and she realized that she was whimpering and moaning, gasping and huffing, all but crying in her desperation for release. "Don't worry, I'm here for you." And he reached down, his hand ghosting along her thigh until he reached her knee. With determined gentleness he forced her to uncross her ankles and lifted her knee high, high up, granting him a greater range of motion against her aching sex. With shocking suddenness the coiling tension within her gathered and snapped, sparks and flame igniting in her body and brain, burning through her blood until she was completely sapped of energy, falling limply back against the bed.
"Bellissima," he muttered, raking his fingers through her sweaty hair and gently levering himself off of her.
"Edward," she sighed. She wanted to turn to him, to slip the buttons of his shirt out of their holes and slide the sleeves down his arms, to kiss his chest and his belly and run her hands over his back. But her eyes refused to stay open. She faded away into a flushed, sated slumber.
Edward pulled carefully away from the already-sleeping Bella, arranging the blankets over her and kissing her forehead gently. He had his jeans unzipped and his throbbing cock in his hand even before he closed the bathroom door.
Downstairs, he could hear the sensuous strains of Marc Broussard over the sound system that Emmett had installed. And he could hear two couples engaged in heated exchanges in their respective bedrooms, their thoughts no longer on him and Bella and what they could hear despite the nod to her modesty, but on alleviating the urges that their eavesdropping had ignited.
It was particularly bad for Jasper, who, as he had explained, had absorbed all the outpouring of sensual energy that he and Bella had created. Alice was currently doing her enthusiastic best to minimize his discomfort.
Emmett and Rosalie…well, their sex life had never been what one would call sedate. Apparently this had not changed since he'd last spent time with them. At the first indication that he intended to do more than just put Bella to bed, Emmett had had his hand up Rosalie's skirt.
And while he could hardly expect anything different from his siblings, their heated couplings downstairs didn't make it any easier for Edward to leave her, slumbering and untouched, and attend to his painful erection in the non-privacy of the bathroom.
He stroked himself hard, fast, trying not to think of the look on her face when she'd come in his arms, the way her nails had dug into his unyielding flesh, the way her knees had clutched at him so tightly. Her strength had surprised him.
I wonder what she'd be like as a newborn…would she allow herself to be taken, or would she do the taking herself?
The thought was too much. Growling low in his throat, Edward came hard into the pristine marble sink of Bella's new bathroom.
Dude. I mean dude. This story got rec'd by wolvesnvamps over at A Different Forest, as well as a boatload of people including Spanglemaker, Nerac, Carnl, Deirdru OFaolain, Quiet Ruby and who the hella knows, and I've had to disable the review alert function on my FF account because I was getting so many. It's been an awesome couple of days for my ego.
Bella's blue bathrobe is a nod to In_A_Blue_Bathrobe, who is the author of the awesome Tropic of Virgo and several companion pieces. Features lots of awesome music and a whole truckload of lemons. Plus a Jasper with a really whacko sense of fashion.