Chapter 11

Before Jake stormed into my home high as a fucking kite the other night, Edward asked me why I changed my mind. Why was I suddenly willing to climb so easily onto his lap? Why wasn't I resisting any longer? And, truth be told, I hadn't had a reason yet. I still knew it was wrong, but I stopped caring when he convinced me his fiancée was sleeping around on him, too. He very well could have been lying through his teeth, but for reasons I didn't know, I believed him. Not that it made it right, but it made it feel more... okay.

What really changed my mind, though, was the way he held me after the shit hit the fan. When he'd wiped away my tears and said, "What you do with your body doesn't change who you are."

They were words I didn't know I'd been aching to hear.

—

I'd lost my virginity at fifteen.

Unbeknownst to my father, that was when I started dating my first boyfriend. Dad thought I was spending my afternoons doing homework with Pastor Weber's daughter, Angela. While I did spend time with Angela—she was a great friend—I spent a lot more time with Austin Marks. Had my father known, I would have been locked in the house or sent to an all-girls' school.

Austin was 17 and obviously had more experience than I did. His kisses, his attention, and the things he did to my body felt so good. Honestly, I never regretted being with him, even though I was so young.

My mother had been long gone since then, so I'd had no one to explain to me what was happening in those few years where I suddenly stopped being a child and became a woman. Aside from the school nurse and a movie shown to us about our changing bodies, I had no one to guide me.

But Austin had been sweet. He'd been gentle when he could have rushed everything and blamed it on the libido of a 17-year-old. He'd woken something up inside me, making me realize that I was a sexual being, and that the desires I felt weren't wrong. I was crushed when he turned 18 and had been called off to a war that no one agreed with. I was young, but I still heard people talk as I wandered the halls of my high school.

He'd done his time and come back, unlike so many other men, but he was not the same. He'd come back with different thoughts and ideals than when he left. We no longer meshed together the way we once had, and I spent my time chasing those feelings he'd once sparked. Feelings of being wanted and desired. Feelings of being good enough for someone.

My father was a cold dictator of a man, and I was sure the emotions I was chasing, the desire to hear him say a kind word to me, were the very same ones that were the catalyst for my mother leaving.

—

I had few memories of my mother. She'd stood her ground and demanded a divorce when I was around four. I could remember playing dress-up with her and baking cookies. I could also remember her tear-stained face on more than one occasion. In the end, she left because she couldn't live under my father's thumb any longer. At least, that was how it was told to me by my maternal grandmother.

Once the divorce was granted, she'd hopped on a bus headed to California and never looked back. She reached out a handful of times to her parents, only asking about me in passing. It was obvious she wanted no part in my life if it meant dealing with my father. It had been years since I'd heard anything from her.

Both of my grandparents had always been ahead of their time. Neither had ever truly liked my father, so they weren't disappointed in her getting divorced. However, their disappointment in their daughter's actions in leaving her only child to be raised by a controlling, demeaning bastard was evident. Still, they never spoke badly of her to me. They tried their best to spoil me, to give me what I needed to grow into a well-rounded woman, but my father only allowed them to visit with me once a week for a few hours at a time.

Visits always took place in our home, never theirs. He wanted to keep an eye on our interactions. Since they had raised such a flighty and immoral daughter, he didn't want me to be influenced by them. Regardless of the fact that I'd already made choices he wouldn't have approved of.

Little did he know that when my mother left, my grandparents had immediately set up a trust fund for me. When I turned 18, I'd become a rich woman, but I'd let my father believe my grandparents were paying my rent and tuition. It was easier that way.

—

I tossed and turned in my bed, sleep never coming. I pulled the covers off, heading into the living room to open the drawer on my end table and pull out a bag. I took out a joint and put it to my lips, ready to light it.

"Having fun without me?" His voice was rough with sleep as he stood there in nothing but a pair of pajama bottoms.

"I didn't want to wake you."

"Are you okay?"

I raised an eyebrow. Aside from a few sweet moments, he hadn't exactly been gentle and loving. That wasn't what this was about to him. This was about sex, which I knew going in.

I also knew men like Edward didn't just randomly have moments of sweetness; my father was living proof of that. There had to be another side to him, one he kept locked up tight. I saw it in his eyes on occasion when he was on top of me, inside of me. "Do you actually care?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know."

I pushed a hard breath out through my nose. "I guess I should have expected that answer."

He rolled his eyes before plopping down on the couch next to me. He pulled the joint from my fingers, lighting it and taking a drag. "What do you want from me, Bella?"

I smiled at him sweetly, climbing onto his lap. We only had a couple of weeks left together before he was gone. I'd once again be searching for someone or something to make me feel whole.

With such little time left, I didn't need to ruin this moment. "Just you," I whispered before leaning forward and kissing his jaw.

Once again, just an FYI that when I send you your teaser after you've reviewed, you'll have to check your inbox here on FanFiction, because you won't get an e-mail alert. I typically try send them out by Saturday evening and post in my group when I have, and then I send them out whenever reviews come in after Saturday.