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Rated M
Notes: continues scenario & characters established in "Curtains". We're near the end of this storyline; the next one will be the last. Not beta'd.
Prompts: Petal, order, escape, cascade
So, I love her.
Even as I want to consume her, and slide into her, fold myself over her and escape inside her til I forget who I am, I do in fact… love her. She's been patient with me, maybe even when her love for me had all but been smothered, letting me feel what I feel.
Even in the car I peek at her sideways, watching as she gazes out the window, smiling sometimes. Without looking she reaches for my hand and I give it to her, unfamiliar but really enjoying these feelings.
There's something about Bella that whispers "long-term" to me, and I try to push it away, not because the idea of commitment frightens me, but because I want to take this day by day. In order to really let this happen, to let it breathe, to make it work, it needs to be free of expectations.
She glances at me with one of her blushy smiles.
Yeah, right. I have expectations.
Both the forever kind and the kind that make me wish it was acceptable to pull the car to the side of the road, lower her seat and have her with the shadows and trees as our witnesses.
"Where are we going?" Bella asks, her thumbnail scratching softly on my palm.
"I don't know," I shrug. "I'm just in the mood to drive."
"If it wasn't so cold we could go somewhere to watch the stars," she says wistfully, looking outside once more.
"We could still do that."
"Yeah, but it's not the same when you're inside the car."
"No, I guess it's not," I concede.
Ten minutes later I pull up to my house.
"Really, Edward?" she laughs softly.
"What?" I think it would probably be very gentlemanly to open her door for her, but she's already out.
"You just want to get me back in your room," she teases, and I know she's thinking of the night before, when we kissed for the better part of an hour.
"True. But have faith," I say, leading the way inside the door and up the stairs.
I take her past the door to my room to the end of the hall, and then up the next flight of stairs.
"What's in the attic?" she asks, her voice floating behind me in the almost-silence like it's not attached to her.
"Probably the same stuff that's in your attic," I say, pausing on the landing. "This is the third floor. The attic is further up."
"I didn't know you had a third floor," she says, and I know she's frowning, her forehead all wrinkled as she tries to remember.
"Alice and I played up here a lot when we were really little." I switch the light on as we enter the room. "Mom was using it as storage space until last spring when she redid it as a guest room."
It's nice up here, soothing greens and grays and blues, different the rest of the house with its cooler colors. Its windows face the back, looking toward the woods behind the house, the wide expanse of sky stretched over it. Set up at the window is the telescope Garrett and Kate gave me as a graduation gift. I'd practically become nature boy up there in the Alaskan wilderness, hiking and camping and stargazing. Many a night had found me out on the porch, one or twins spilled across my lap, watching the endless cascade of stars and occasional comet.
Forks is just as majestic at certain times of year, especially winter when it is cold and clear and crisp.
I peer through the lens, adjusting it so I can see, and then draw Bella closer.
"Wow," she breathes, holding the telescope gently with both hands. "It's…"
I flop back onto the bed, pleasantly surprised by the down bedding beneath me, and watch her watch the stars.
"The sky resembles a back lit canopy with holes punched in it," I say, kicking my sneakers off. They land with muted thumps on the rug beside the bed.
Bella turns to me, smiling as she walks over. "It really does… and, I love that song."*
"So do I."
It's cold up here; maybe central heating doesn't reach quite this far, and she shivers as she sits.
I get up and peel the blankets back, then get under, pulling her with me. She resists, leaning over to unzip her boots, and then lays down, facing me on her side.
"I knew it," she smirks. "You just wanted to get me in bed."
"We looked at the stars, didn't we?" I say, twirling a piece of her hair in my fingers.
"Mhm," she scoots closer and kisses me.
I kiss her, easing my body onto hers, finding my place between her thighs.
Previous thoughts aside, it wasn't even my intention to love her right here in this bed but it's impossible to maintain the same level of low intensity when your heart is racing and your cock is throbbing and the girl you've chose has chosen you, and she's beneath you now, moaning and whispering that she really does love you.
I work her jeans off, starting at the waist and tugging at the knees and frayed hems; girls wear such tight pants. Kneeling on the bed, I shrug my jacket off and hook my fingers around the neck of my t-shirt, pulling it off. Bella stares at me like she's never seen me without a shirt, and I wonder if maybe she never has.
I know I've never seen her without her shirt, though, and I pull her up to sitting, wasting no time in helping her get her shirt off, liking the way her hair gets messy, dark brown shine in the light. She has a front hook bra, which is nice, and I watch as she lies back against the pillows, opening it with both hands. I pull it off of her all the way, and let my lips go where my eyes want them to, rewarded by her hands in my hair and her legs around my hips.
Like a flower I open her, petal by petal, just as pretty, just as soft. I won't go slow when she lets me inside, but I can go slow now, knowing after this the then will be over and we'll be forever in the now.
*Incubus - "I Wish You Were Here"
