A/N: Let's get on with it.

S. Meyer owns all things Twilight. I just toy with the characters every now and again.

~NT~

Chapter 6: About Time

Bella tossed and turned as much as her sleeping bag would allow atop the air mattress in her tent. She kept checking the bottom of the bag anytime she felt even the slightest brush along her toes.

"Ugh. Stupid Emmett. He just had to mention snakes. I'm never going to be able to fall asleep now."

Yes, she was afraid of a snake crawling into bed with her, but in all honesty, what was keeping her up was the fact that she hadn't been truthful with Edward when he had asked if he was wrong about there being something more than friendship between them. While she hadn't outright said no, by her not giving him any sort of answer, she had led him to believe that this was all one-sided, and it really wasn't. She had always found him attractive, and now that they had kissed, she could see that they were compatible physically. But it went beyond that. In the years that they had been friends, she had gotten to know how big his heart was, how deeply he cared for the ones he loved. She saw it in the way that he interacted with Alice, and since his declaration, she had started to see how he had been hinting at it with her for some time now. She had been caught off-guard by both the kiss and his words, and she had let her fears of changing their dynamic still her tongue, which had just made everything worse. She should have just told him she needed some time to think. Anything would have been better than her non-response.

If she had any hope of being able to get some rest, she needed to clear the air with Edward. She needed to tell him that he wasn't reading too much into their connection, but that she wasn't sure what they should do—though maybe some more kissing wouldn't hurt as a start.

She unzipped her tent, immediately getting assaulted by Emmett's loud snores—they would definitely be safe from any critters—and she tiptoed her way over to Edward's tent. There was no point in knocking since even if he wasn't asleep, he'd likely not hear her over the rumble. She opened the flap, slipping inside and closing it behind her.

The sight before her stole her breath. Edward lay on top of his sleeping bag, his torso bare, rising and falling in his slumber. His hair was mussed, strands falling forward over his brow. His arm was bent over his face, obscuring her view of his face.

"Edward," she whispered as she crept closer to him. She knelt beside him on the mattress, doing her best to balance her weight with his so as not to cause the mattress to shift too much.

"Edward." She tried again to rouse him.

"Mmm, Bella." His arm came down from his face, blindly reaching for her, connecting with the skin of her thigh, his fingers gliding along the hem of her sleep shorts.

"Soft."

"Edward," she gasped. This wasn't why she had come here so she knew she had to wake him.

She shook his shoulder, jolting him awake.

"Bella?" He stared at her in confusion. Lines covering his face from where it had been pressed into his pillow. "What are you doing here? Is everything okay?" He scrambled to sit up, but she pressed on his chest, slowing his motion. She did her best to ignore the feel of his warm skin against hers. The light smattering of hair that dotted his pecs. The way her fingers itched to trail over his large flat nipples and down his chest, tracing the path of hair as it dipped below his sleep pants.

She needed to snap out of it. This wasn't about sex.

"Everything's fine." She shifted to the side, allowing him space to sit up and getting more comfortable now that he was more alert. She rested her hands in her lap, playing with the sleeves of her sleepshirt.

He let out a breath of relief, pushing his hand through his hair so that it was out of his face. "So, what's up?" His tone had shifted from panicked to aloof, holding that same cool air that had taken residence during the return from their hike. She didn't like the distance that had settled between them, so she knew she needed to get everything off her chest.

His face was so open, so inviting, her frantic thoughts slowed and coalesced and she blurted out the reason that she had crept into his space in the middle of the night. "I don't want you to wait for me, Edward."

"Okay. I understand." His smile, which had just been light and carefree, fell into a dejected grimace.

Realizing that the words that had been meant to reassure came out all tangled up, giving him the wrong impression yet again, she clarified. "No I don't think you do."

She threw caution to the wind, straddling his thighs, leaving her weight just above him, placing her arms on either side of his torso. She leaned in, so that their chests just barely touched. "I want you too. I think part of me has always wanted you. Our timing just never was right. Or I was too scared. But I don't want to be scared anymore."

"Thank fuck." He gripped the back of her neck, leaning back and pulling her down with him, forming a connection with their upper bodies, angling his head so that their lips met.

She released a moan from deep in her throat as his strong hands cupped her face. Their kisses ranged from quick pecks to long, lingering ones, where their lips molded together, with him sucking on her bottom lip, her sliding her tongue along his top lip. Lips trailing down the stubbled skin of his jaw. A nip to the juncture of her neck and her shoulder. The feeling of being so wholly consumed forced tears to the corner of her eyes. A sense of being overwhelmed, wanting and needing for this to go on endlessly, surged through her limbs.

Edward pulled back to catch his breath and grew worried when he saw the moisture on her cheeks, where the tears had finally spilled over.

"Why are you crying, baby?" Sweeps of his thumb flicked them away, leaving just a trace of their presence.

Bella shook her head and said, "Happy tears."

His shoulders relaxed in that moment, hugging him to her, placing a kiss on her forehead. "I never want to see you cry, but if you must, they definitely need to be happy tears."

She snuggled close to his chest, content in his embrace. His hands roamed the span of her back, his fingers played with her hair as it hung over her shoulder. "That feels nice," she whispered.

"Mmmhmm." He shifted, the air mattress making a squeaking sound beneath them. His movement brought their pelvises in contact with one another and Bella moaned as she felt him between her thighs. Though she had not come here with sex in mind, it was where her mind had gone with that small change in position.

She swirled her hips minutely, grinding her pelvis against his straining erection. Hard against her soft. He let out a groan as he placed his hands on her hips, stilling her rocking.

"Bella … we should slow down. There's no rush. We've waited this long; we can wait a little longer."

"No. I want you. I need you. Please."

His hands landed on her ass, his thumbs rubbing just below the hem of her shorts. The fabric had started to dampen from the proximity of their bodies.

"Are you sure?" Edward captured her eyes, looking for any bit of hesitation.

She nodded and then followed it with a quiet "Yes."

Edward sealed her lips with his, hooking his fingers in her shorts, urging her to remove the barrier. When she sat back to undress, he shimmied out of his pants as well. Her sleepshirt was lifted and discarded, leaving them fully skin to skin.

They sighed simultaneously, luxuriating in how their bodies fit so perfectly together.

"Fuck. I don't have anything," Edward said.

"It's okay. I'm on the pill and I'm clean. I trust you." She had always used condoms with Riley, and she was never more grateful for that than when she had caught him cheating. She had been tested since and everything had come out clean.

He nodded, lining himself up with her entrance, rubbing the tip against her clit, eliciting a sharp intake of breath from her. In one fluid stroke, he entered her, groaning at being connected in such an intimate way.

"I never imagined … it's … fuck, Bella." His words came out in a garbled mess as he thrust his hips, sliding in and out of her heat. His thumb found her clit, rubbing small circles along it, varying the pressure based on her reaction.

"Ah, yes. I like that. Please don't stop." Bella bounced and rocked, angling her body to take him deeper with each motion.

Their breaths mingled as they drove each other toward completion. "I'm close. Are you close?"

She nodded her head feverishly. "Yes, I'm going to come. It feels so good."

As her orgasm hit her, her body spasming, he found his release. "Fuck." He let out his exclamation in a gust, their sweat-slicked skin sticking together as she collapsed onto him.

He kissed her lips, their breaths threading as they came down from their highs.

"That was perfect," she said.

"Couldn't have said it better myself." Edward chuckled.

He slid from her, moving her to the side and blindly reached out to pass her something to clean up with. "Sorry, this is all I could find," he said as he handed her the t-shirt he was wearing earlier in the day.

"It's fine."

Once sorted, Bella nestled to his side, barely any space between them.

"I'm sorry I made you wait," Bella whispered, her fingers tracing circles along his chest.

"No apologies. You will always be worth the wait." He hooked his arm around her shoulder, yawning. "But we have all the time in the world to make up for what we've lost. We should get some sleep."

Bella hummed as she felt her eyelids start to droop. "You're right. Good night, Edward."

"Night, Bella."

"Edward," she said.

"Yes, Bella?"

"Did you check your tent for snakes?" Her voice was timid.

Edward let out a laugh. "Fucking Emmett. Sweetheart, this tent is snake-free. Well, on second thought, there was one snake in here earlier…" Bella gasped, starting to scramble up off the bed before Edward pulled her back down "...but I think you're already acquainted with it, so you should be all right." He continued to laugh when he took in the expression on her face.

"Jerk." She swatted his shoulder, settling in for the night. "Night."

"Night, baby."

Before long, the sun was streaming through the slats of the tent, illuminating the space with the morning rays.

Bella stretched, her hand connecting with Edward's solid frame. "Mmm. I thought I was dreaming."

"Best dream ever," Edward said.

"So how do we do this? Do you want to go out first and I can come out when the coast is clear?" Bella worried her bottom lip with her teeth. She had never done the friends to lovers thing, so she wasn't sure how to go about it.

"No. I'm not ashamed of what happened last night. You're nothing to hide. We can go out together. I don't care what anyone has to say. It's none of their fucking business anyway." He kissed away her protests, leaving them to die on her tongue.

After they had pulled themselves together, they emerged from the tent, Edward's arm slung over Bella's shoulders, and they were met with whoops and cheers from the guys and a smirk from Alice before she bounced in their direction.

"Finally," she said. "It's about time."

Edward ruffled her hair, causing her to swat at his arm in frustration.

"She's right, you know? It's about fucking time I told you how I felt. And now that I have you, I'm not going to let you go." Edward held her close, showing her with his whole being that he meant every word.

Bella had no plans to ever find out what it was like to be let go by Edward, or to have to let him go. She had never been happier to belong to someone and have them truly belong to her. Not now when time was finally on their side.

~NT~

Well, that's all she wrote. Who knows if I'll catch up with these two later in their journey, but for now this was all there was.

Thanks to Ronnie, Meg and May. I wouldn't have even considered this without their support. Thank you to everyone who's given this a shot and read all the way through.

You're likely already reading these, but I'll leave you with some recs just in case.

Breaking Waves by RMacaroni (Surfward meets PhD researcher Bella in Costa Rica)

Shiver by iambeagle (Bandward)

Il Dottore Della Mafia by Cullenlvr83 (Bella is a mafia doctor with a cantankerous Edward)

Marriage Material by LozzofLondon (virgin Edward getting some love lessons from wild and carefree Bella)