EPOV

Bella chokes on her wine before she can answer me. "Right."

"I have a thought, but I want to know what you're thinking." I scoot my plate to the side and stare at her.

"I … I don't know what I'm thinking." She looks up and smiles. "The sex was amazing, and I don't doubt it would continue to be—"

"But?"

"But, if we're thinking about and talking about distancing ourselves from Alice and Jasper, what would it matter? We probably wouldn't see each other that much anymore." She shrugs, and I see where she's going with this.

"We have other friends in our circle," I remind her. "Other friends who we do really like and who I'm sure would be delighted if we were getting along."

"So, you think we should use sex as an outlet instead of fighting with each other?" I nod. "Do you hate me, Edward? I mean, really?"

Her expression is so open, and I get up and move around the table to crouch next to her. "No. I think I just got comfortable with part of how we were. Do you hate me?"

Sighing, she shakes her head. "I guess not. Especially not now that I know what you can do with that mouth instead of insulting me," She tosses me an exaggerated wink, and I bark out a laugh. "Maybe we just take it as it goes? Okay?" Her eyes look a little wild, and I quickly agree.

"Sure thing. I'll clean up if you grab the clothes from the dryer. I'll build a fire, and we can play cards." I leave everything open for her to change her mind or run and hide. Instead, she simply nods, and I gather up the dishes.

After we've separated our laundry and put it away, we sit down to pick up our game of gin. Bella is beating me by at least a thousand points or more, but it's nice and quiet, so I don't care. We play a few rounds as we polish off the bottle of wine, and I offer to make her another drink.

"I'll just have water," she says, smiling at me and scrolling on her phone. She's actually been on her phone for the better part of the evening. I place the wine glasses in the sink and grab two waters from the fridge, handing one to her.

"I think I'm going to go to bed. It's been a weird day." I walk down to my room, flipping on the light and shutting the door. I don't hear anything for a while when I change into some sleep pants and crawl under the covers.

I'm thinking about getting up to turn the light off when I see some lights sweep across the driveway. I hop out of bed, assuming Alice and Jasper have come back, but when I walk out to the entryway, I see Bella standing at the door, talking to a dark figure.

"Bella?" She turns, and in the porch light, I can just make out her friend Rosalie.

"Thanks, Rose. I'll call you when I get home." She shuts the door and locks it. Turning to face me, she holds up a small paper bag. "Rose is a good friend who likes long drives and knows how to keep her mouth shut."

She tosses me the bag as she passes me. "I'll be in my room."

I watch her walk away before I peer inside the bag. I see two boxes of Trojan condoms—thirty-six to a box. My mouth goes dry as I try to swallow. Looking down the hall, I see Bella peek out of her door.

"Rosalie has always had a lot of faith in me."

She doesn't say anything else, but before she can disappear into her room, I'm down the hall and scooping her up. Her laughs fill my ears as we crash onto her bed.

We spend the remainder of the week making up for lost time, as Bella calls it, by trying every surface in the cabin that seems steady enough to hold us and attempting to use up all seventy-two condoms. In the early morning hours of Saturday, Bella and I are lying in my bed, staring up through the skylight and talking softly.

We spent the last night cleaning up the place and packing. I got a text from Jasper, telling me the car would be picking us up at ten AM, and we just never went to sleep.

"What's gonna happen when we get home?"

Bella is sprawled across my chest, and my fingers are combing through her hair. "I don't know. I guess we go back to normal."

She looks up at me and sighs. "It's never going to be normal again, Edward."

I sit up, pulling her with me. "Do you want to go out sometime? Like, try a date?"

Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, she shrugs. "I don't think I do. I'm sorry. I haven't really dated anybody for a while, and I like being single."

Her words sting more than I care to admit, but we haven't had a single argument since Alice and Jasper left the other night, and I don't want to start now.

"Edward, what if we just kept this up?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, this is our new normal, I think. What if we just try this out and see how it goes?" Straddling my hips, she runs her fingers through my hair.

"So, like a booty call?"

She chuckles. "I'm not sure if the kids are calling it that these days, but yeah."

My hands come to rest on her thighs, and she wiggles a little. I can feel myself start to harden under her, and she reaches up to remove her tank top.

"I've had a rough day at work, and I can call or text you, and then we can have sex?" Dragging my hands up her thighs to her chest, I cup her bare breasts and she nods.

"Yeah. I think we have to understand that there have to be some limitations, some rules."

"I can't always be available when you say jump." I thrust my hips, making her laugh.

"Exactly. But we live pretty close to each other, and I already have a key to your place—"

"Yeah, I'm gonna need that back." We stare at each other for a few seconds until she sighs.

"Fine." She leans down to kiss me, and I struggle to free myself of my sweatpants. "One last time here?"

I nod, reaching for the box on the small nightstand and start to laugh when I come up empty-handed. "We actually used them all."

"That explains why everything hurts." She huffs a little, and I shrug.

"We already chanced it the first time …"

Bella smirks and climbs off of me to remove her panties. She's standing by the bed, nude, and I want my hands all over her. I want to mark her, to leave her with a reminder of this week. I grab at her, pulling her back to my body, settling her over my hips.

I've learned that Bella isn't shy about her body or how she looks. She's very comfortable in her sexuality, and frankly, I really admire that. I reach out to slowly rub at her exposed clit with my thumb, and she sighs deeply. She comes on my hand, and in the afterglow, I lift her hips to slide into her core.

We've tried every position we could come up with, set every pace, and tried every minor kink the other could think of, but this slow, unhurried lovemaking in the dawn of the morning, with golden light filling the room, is the one I'll probably remember the most. With our fingers laced together as Bella rides my cock, cooing my name. This is what I'll dream about in the weeks and months to come.

Just as I feel my orgasm start to break, Bella leans down, framing the two of us in a curtain of her hair, and kissing me deeply. "A girl could get used to this."