Wow, it's been a long time. This is just a one-shot, not a story really, just a moment that popped in my mind and I sat down to put it on paper. It has not been edited or proof-read so errors exist, I'm sure. I hope someone enjoys it.
A Winter Bloom
Shattered ice rained down on them, a giggle piercing through the last echoes of the shotguns blast. She sat smiling on the back of a four wheeler, shaking the cold shards from her hair, cheeks rosy in the chilled air, lips red from the flavored chapstick she seemed to carry with her everywhere. He stood, grinning in return, ejecting the empty shell from the gun only to replace it with more.
"Bella, I'm telling you, this isn't as easy as you're making it out to be. You're emasculating me." He winked her way, then turned, took aim and fired several more shots.
She watched as his body, covered by layers of flannel and denim, absorbed the recoil from the gun. Her mind immediately went to just hours before, when they'd been inside, warm and hiding from his family. There on the floor between his bed and his bookcase, she felt his muscles move, sway, and undulate beneath his skin with each movement he made to bring them closer.
Theirs was a young love, both still teenagers, but a true love nonetheless. They were high school sweethearts and they both knew the blessing they had received when they found each other. They gave themselves to one another wholeheartedly and with a passion that neither of their young hearts or minds was able to fully understand.
She sighed, confused as to why she was still so needful of him, his time, his attention, his body. She only knew that she wanted him in more ways than she could comprehend or express. Out there, in the otherwise silent ice and snow covered woods, it was like the world belonged to them alone.
As he stood appraising his most recent attempts of retrieval she quietly made her way to him, wrapping her arms around his waist from behind. She was much shorter, barely to his shoulder, and she ached to make a physical connection.
He released a warm breath in to the air, watching it swirl away as she eased the gun from his hands. He smiled at her lovingly, indulging her by placing one single shell in to the shotguns empty chamber.
Without a word she stepped to his side, took aim at his prize, and gently pulled the trigger.
He watched with unabashed pride as she sauntered forward, bending low to retrieve her winnings. He paid no attention to what she returned with, as when she ever so delicately bent over his mind was sent elsewhere in time, recalling the slight flare of her naked hips, bare breasts bouncing with his movements, pale flesh gripped tightly against the backdrop of his favorite childhood blanket. He had yet to feel any remorse for the desecration of that treasure. He would make no apologies to anyone for loving the person he loved most, on the thing that he loved most. The patchwork creation no longer a herald of times past, but for him, a beacon of light and love that would be forever treasured even more so than before.
He watched her approach, yearning to put hands on her, yet fearing that she would feel their relationship was becoming more and more about just sex for him. Part of him didn't care.
It wasn't until she placed her cold lips against his that he was fully back in the moment. His mouth met hers in equal fervor, their tongues lightly touching, breaths mixing in the chilled air. He held her closer, hands wandering beneath a sky blue parka searching for just a bit of skin to call home for a moment or more. When they did, she pulled away from the coldness, laughing happily in to his mouth.
She reached around, placed the gun on the four wheelers gun rack, and presented him with a hand full of mistletoe.
He laughed and shook his head, giving her a wry smirk, "You're killing me, Swan. It was a lucky shot and you know it."
She simply shrugged and smiled in return, dodging his hands as she sat again at the back of the four wheeler. He sat in front of her, cranked the engine and began the short trip back to his family's home.
He lovingly rubbed her hands as one wrapped around his waist and one slid beneath the opening of his coat, at his chest, and lay over his heart. He turned his head slightly, "Tuck your head down, I'll get you back to the house so you can get warmed up."
The thing she wanted to tell him, but didn't know how to say, was that, with him, she was always warm. Simply being near him made her heart beat faster, her blush always waiting for the slightest reason to appear. Everything about her felt closer to the surface when she was with him, it was exhilarating and frightening to her young soul.
They pulled in to the opened garage, removed their snow and mud covered boots, placed their wet coats on hangers to dry, and walked hand in hand to the kitchen. He dutifully placed their bounty on the kitchen counter by his mothers working hands as he gently kissed her cheek. Bella smiled at the interaction, secretly disappointed that he shared affection with others so easily, when she found it hard to touch anyone but him.
The evening was spent with his brother and sister, their significant others, and a DVR full of Saturday Night Live episodes that they pretended to understand.
As their time drew closer to an end he pulled her from their perch on the couch and led her down the hall to his room once again. His father was still at work and his mother had just gone to her room for a shower. He had been waiting impatiently for this opportunity all day it seemed, and so had she.
No sooner than they were through his door, the lock was engaged and so were their mouths. Their youthful hands fumbled with buttons and zippers, curiously touching one another looking for the desired reaction. Both were too caught up in simply being with one another again to even notice their complete lack of skill at pleasuring the other.
As an added precaution against being caught, he dragged his homemade quilt to the floor once again between the bed and the bookcase. No words were spoken as they both removed the remainder of their clothing, her needing additional coaxing, but he couldn't fathom why.
Once they laid together, eye to eye, he kissed her slowly. There was a question in his eyes that she couldn't decipher. Though that mattered little, for didn't he know that she could never deny him anything?
He began kissing her jaw, her ear lobe, her neck and collar bones. He descended to her breasts, full but not yet mature with adulthood, and thrilled with her muffled moans and grasping hands. He kept one hand there, inexpertly touching her nipple which she liked aside from the occasional pain of twisting and pulling too hard, but she would never tell him.
She felt a roughness against her lower belly, and noticed that he had stopped kissing her body. She lifted her head and saw him looking down there. There, green against ivory skin, sat a small piece of mistletoe that he must have hidden away just for this moment.
They both stared at the inoffensive thing, watching it rise and fall with each stuttered breath she took. This was the question in his eyes. Only once before had she allowed him this, her misguided thought that this was horrible for him to endure did not allow her to enjoy it. She had been reluctant to even talk with him about it afterwards, let alone let him do it again.
She watched as he lowered himself, nuzzling the twig with his nose and skimming her delicate skin, his warm breath washing over the place that ached for him. She watched as he raised his eyes to hers once again and moved his hand to take hers, while the other gently caressed her waist, his thumb stroking the curve there reassuringly.
His eyes matched the mistletoe perfectly. She let out a few shaky breaths then slowly nodded. She couldn't watch, but tightened her grip on his hand which he gladly held tighter. As her head lay back against the floor his mouth made contact. The feeling was familiar yet different. He moved slowly, testing her reactions, excited to be given this opportunity. Slowly, but surely, she began to relax beneath him. If she kept her eyes closed she was able to simply feel him and all the things he was doing.
Moments later he placed a finger in her, then two, just like he'd heard others say. She, however, felt too full, like she needed to go to the bathroom. She reached down and pushed his head away, disappointment and confusion evident on his face.
Instead of stopping him altogether she simply held his other hand in hers, and lay back again. He took the hint and continued what he had been doing.
Minutes later she was coming undone beneath him.
He made a few last passes with his tongue then crawled up her body, intent on making love to her. As he lowered his face in a kiss, she shook her head and covered her mouth. He changed course, placing a kiss on her cheek then buried his face in her neck and shoulder, as he buried himself within her.
Hours later, after she had returned home to her father, and his family had all turned in for the night, a light shone dimly from beneath his bedroom door. Inside, a single bulb burned in his small closet. There the lovesick teenage boy placed a small piece of mistletoe in a shoe box. It had a new home there, among other things that reminded him of her.
He smiled at the box, remembering her whispered words as she left. He had been teasing her about not being allowed to kiss her until he'd brushed his teeth. Twice. Though when she asked him if he would kiss her after she'd had him in her mouth, he could see her point.
As she had hugged him goodbye she turned her lips to his ear and said, "I'll do anything you ask of me, Edward Cullen, just give me a second chance."
His mind was reeling from knowing that he would be given another opportunity to make her feel pleasure like his again. Each time they were together she became a little more his, and he, a little more hers.
He knew that they needed practice, and a lot of it, which to him was no burden to bear at all. He smiled slightly as he thought about the way her hips moved almost shyly, and cringed as he thought about his lack of rhythm. He wondered at her anxiety over her uncovered intimate skin, and also at his unapologetic freeness with his own, trying to decide which one was considered normal.
He lowered the lid of the box, hid it behind spare blankets and pillows on a shelf, turned off the light and waited for his eyes to adjust to the new darkness. He closed the closet door behind him, picked his blanket up from the floor, and held it to his nose. He breathed deeply, the smell of her hair still strong in the fabric.
He fought away a brief moment of panic at the depth of his feelings, unfamiliar and as frightening as it was exhilarating, life altering, no doubt.
He lowered himself beneath his cool sheets saying a brief prayer gratitude and closed his eyes to the night. Thoughts of young love turned to muddled consciousness, and one teenage boy, in the quiet of winter, drifted to dreams of the scent of pine and swirling, warm brownness.
Across town, bathed in low moonlight, the owner of his affections smiled in her sleep. Colorful greens filled her dreaming heart to bursting and she twitched slightly in her sleep, her hands still yearning to hold him.
They both drifted happily in to worlds where their young love would live forever, blooming unhindered, and free to grow beyond their wildest waking dreams.