Chapter Nine
Getting physical with Bella opened a can of worms that I was unprepared to handle. Especially since that day, she has wanted to pay it forward, but I was content with staying where we were. Not saying it wasn't hard for me to watch her prance around in yoga pants and tight shirts—because it was, but I was determined to remain a good boy.
Waiting seemed more satisfying.
That's the lie I told.
The truth?
I was fucking nervous.
The pressure was high. It didn't matter that Bella was inexperienced. A girl knows with one stroke that the guy's lame. And I agonized over it.
What if I didn't measure up to her expectations?
It was frustrating. I shouldn't give a shit about performing well. I hadn't in the past, and girls left my bed happy. But Bella wasn't some girl. She was a game-changer. When we finally fucked, I needed to make her toes curl. And it was harder to gauge when dealing with a virgin. The first time was going to be painful for her, no matter how gentle and slow we took it.
That's why I was avoiding intimacy with her like the black plague. What happened when we installed the lock was stupid on my part, and until I've gotten things under control, it wasn't going to happen again.
No touching me.
No touching her.
Not until her eighteenth birthday.
Of course, it was an arbitrary date I used to keep me sane.
"What's this one mean?"
I lifted my head to see where Bella was pointing. It was an old tattoo that halfway faded into my skin.
"That's a Celtic design. I got it when I was fifteen."
We were lying in our bed and isolating ourselves from the family because all they did was try to guilt trip my ass. Emmett was the least annoying, but he didn't like me hooking up with Bella.
It interfered with our bro-time.
Fuck him.
I was happy.
"Your parents let you get a tattoo at fifteen?"
I scoffed. "No, of course not. Those pompous assholes shit themselves when they found out. I was an embarrassment to them, and my mom made me go to confessional three times a week for a month to cleanse that fucking sin."
That's when I started hating god. I fought him for years until the truth of his existence gave me comfort.
There was no god.
"I'm not much of a religious person." Bella propped her elbows on my chest. "Renee got into Christianity for a while, and we would go to church on Sundays, but that ended when she met her husband."
"Renee?" I asked. Bella never mentioned that name before.
"That's my mom," she explained, but something changed in her eyes. I saw sadness and loss, and I got a bad feeling in my gut.
"Can I ask you something?" I sat us both up, and pure anxiety washed over her.
"Um, that depends on how personal it is."
The kid had as many secrets as I did.
"How bad does something have to be for you to run away from home?"
She turned as white as our sheets, and I waited as she debated with herself. It hurt that she didn't trust me, but I understood. I've been her guy for a week. The only thing I could do was be patient. And so I waited. And waited. Until she relaxed and let it all out.
"Bad," she said. "But I was smart enough to leave before it crossed that point between bad and pretty fricken bad."
The kid chose a life with a drug dealer instead of her family.
That painful knot was in my gut again, and I tried my hardest not to sound murderous, but I had my fucking suspicions.
"How bad is that?"
Bella caught on and decided to clam up. I needed to soften my approach to get her to talk to me.
"Baby," I said and brushed the hair away from her tense shoulders. "You know that you can tell me anything."
"I know." She bit her lip and thought out her words. "My mom wasn't holding up her end of the bargain by protecting me. So I decided it was time to protect myself. If that meant living out on the streets, then so be it."
"How was she not protecting you?" I kissed her neck, ear, and the soft place on her collarbone, to prove I wasn't mad but a supportive boyfriend. She needed to trust me. If she held out and forced me to think the worst, I didn't know what I would do. "My stepdad…he would—sometimes sneak into my room at night."
My first reaction was possession.
She was mine.
My second reaction was protection.
I would kill anyone who hurt my girl.
Those two combined made me deadly.
"Did he fucking put his hands on you?" I asked, and my girl was too quiet for my liking. So I went for my gun. "Did he?"
My mind was racing. How do I figure out who this fucker was and how quickly could I fucking kill him? I haven't chopped up anyone in awhile. It wouldn't take me long. Maybe a few hours.
"No, babe," Bella said quickly, holding my hand in her lap. She was trying to stall me. "I left before anything could happen. Okay? I'm fine. Please, trust me."
"Are you sure?" I knew she wasn't a hundred percent with me. A one-inch scar was on the corner of her left eye, like someone had smacked her around. I'd determined it was that shit father of hers, and my Glock was calling on me to end the fucker. "Don't you dare hold anything back from me—I swear to god, kid."
"I'm not. It's fine—I'm fine. Look, listen." Bella was using my tactic against me. She was kissing my lips and my neck. It felt good to have her on me like this, and the distraction worked. I was calmer. "Can I ask you a question now?"
"Sure."
"Why did you leave home?"
It was my turn to get tense.
I was a man in his late twenties and well-established. So why did she assume my home life was bad? There was no way the kid deduced this on her own.
I knew who snitched even before I asked.
"Who said I did?"
She winced. "Emmett."
"That motherfucker." I laughed because it was typical. "What else did the big mouth tell you?"
"Umm. Well, Emmett also happened to mention that your parents are rich. Is that true?"
"Yup," I said. There was no denying it—Emmett fucking told her every goddamn thing about me. "Richer than fucking god himself."
After a few million, you would think a person would have enough and retire off the coast of Tahiti, but not my folks. Instead, they craved power and influence and didn't give a shit who they fucked over to obtain it.
The mood had shifted, and she could feel the hate rolling off me.
"Um, we don't have to talk about this if you don't want to," Bella stammered and quickly removed herself from our bed.
Fuck, I thought as the realization of my idiocy hit me.
"Baby…" I grabbed Bella by the waist and pulled her back to me. Holding her in my lap, I gave the girl my fucking heart. "I'm sorry for being a dick. The last thing I want is for you to feel like you can't ask me about my parents. If anyone has a right to know about my past, it's you."
"Are you saying that I have unlimited access?"
The kid was the first and last person I'd ever say this to: "Only you."
"Okay!" She smacked her hands together and gave me a mischievous grin. "What do I want to know? Oh, I know. What's your father like?"
I expected her curiosity to venture toward the man who raised me, and my response was unaffected and straightforward.
"He's a senator in Illinois."
"You're kidding?"
"I wish I was."
Angling her body better, Bella stared at me, trying to decide if I was full of shit. It was a good minute of silence, and I'm not sure what she saw on my face that finally convinced her.
"But senators don't make that much money…I mean, do they?"
"The crooked ones do, but it so happens that my mom is an oil heiress." The story goes like this: I was supposed to inherit twenty-one million when I turned twenty-one, but it went to my father's reelection campaign instead.
"This is so wild. How is this possible? How does the son of a US senator become a convicted felon?"
"It was the better choice," I said, and now looking into her sweet, innocent, and beautiful face, I thought it was the best choice I'd made in my worthless life.
"Better than what?"
I opened my mouth to tell her about Kate, but Emmett chose that moment to interrupt and fucking save me.
Bang, bang, bang!
"Fuckers!" Emmett shouted.
It scared the shit out of Bella, and she threw her arms around me. "What the hell?"
"Come on!" Emmett went on. "Stop screwing like bunnies and get out here! We're partying in an hour."
"Fuck off," I yelled back.
Emmett laughed. "Just put on some clothes, you horny bastards, and get out here."
I held on to my girl a little tighter and for a little longer, but the reality was crashing down around us. "You know he's not going to go away."
"I know." The warmth of her body disappeared. I saw her hands out and waiting for me to grab them. "So, let's get out of here and go someplace where it's just you and me."
I was skeptical of her motives. "And where do you suggest we go?"
Bella looked around the room and then turned back with a playful but dangerous smile. "Let's go pop my cherry."
She purposely misled me. I'd asked for clarification on popping her cherry and was disappointed when Bella told me she wanted to boost a car. Usually, I would've held her off and planned our outing, but the party in the apartment was filling up with people I wanted to keep away from the kid. So, for example, as we left, I had some asshole look at her and fucking come over on me.
"Who's she? Will she take a gram?"
The fucker just insinuated my girl was a junkie and prostitute.
Emmett knew me and what I would do and was able to intervene before I had a chance to react. The guy was drugged out and had no idea that my boy had just saved his life. I got Bella the fuck out of there after that.
I cruised around the streets of Phoenix and decided where to take her for the first boost. It was a Saturday night, and I had two options: Mill Avenue or Old Town Scottsdale. What cinched it for me was the black Lambo that cut me off on the freeway.
It was a Lamborghini Gallardo. I knew it right away. I'd only come across one before it in Albuquerque. The bright neon-green beauty belonged to a dealer I'd worked with before moving to Arizona. He got high one night and let me drive it down the forty. I've been in love since, but the only issue was they were a problematic boost and not worth the risk.
I'm not sure why I followed this Lambo into Scottsdale. It could've been my attempt at being spontaneous. When we left the apartment, the kid and I had no direction, but this gave me a focus.
I lived off being clear-headed and in control.
What I found odd was the driver's decision not to take their 250 grand car through valet. Instead, they chose a meager, pay-by-the-hour, self-parking garage. No one in the right fucking mind with a Lambo puts it at risk of being dinged or fucked with by some careless stranger—not even I would feel comfortable parking the Chevelle in that garage. The need to find out who was driving took over.
Keeping a decent distance, I parked and watched as two young kids popped out of the car. They looked no older than Bella—fuck, maybe even younger. It was jarring but piqued my interest more.
Bella and I followed them through the streets of Old Town Scottsdale. My girl figured we were scouting, but I wasn't going to tell her the truth—I'd already decided that tonight would not be the night she turned criminal. But, like sex, I needed to prolong that shit as much as possible.
So, I made up some bogus rules that rebuked every boost she suggested.
I drank a few whiskeys in the restaurant, and Bella sipped on her virgin daiquiri as we ate steak and fries. It was good food and a good time with my girl, but still, I was distracted by the two kids from the Lambo. They sat across from us in a group with other kids. They were dropping money as if that shit grew from trees. I had no intention of boosting their ride, but goddamn, these little pricks deserved it.
Bella and I left long before they did, but I had to remove myself because my thoughts were too consumed by what the Lambo kids were doing and not on my girl. It was already nearing nine at night, and I still hadn't popped her cherry.
And she fucking noticed.
"Seriously, Edward! Are we going to steal anything tonight?" she shouted.
I looked up, panicked, and met the gaze of some rent-a-cop. The guy eyed me and settled a hand on his nightstick. And all I knew was shit could go sideways in two-point-zero seconds if I didn't think fast.
"My girl can't handle her tequila," I said jokingly.
The guy looked at the kid and scoffed. I guess he's seen his fair share of drunken girls.
I grabbed Bella's hand and led her away from him.
She looked up at me with her face flushed a berry red. "Sorry."
"Baby, I know you're getting antsy, but what was rule number one?"
She blinked a few times before coming up with the answer. "Don't be overly eager."
And that was a rule for life in general.
"Exactly. For instance, what if I asked you to steal that car?" I pointed over to some nondescript sedan. "What would be the first thing you do?"
"Um. I don't know. Check underneath the car for a LoJack?"
"So, you would get down on your hands and knees to look under a car with that guy standing right there watching you?" I nodded toward some dude vaping on the corner and staring at my girl. I was making a point, but the longer he looked and ogled what was mine, the more unstable was and pissed I became. Finally, the asshole caught on to my glare and scrambled away fast.
"Right. I forgot." Bella groaned. "Rule number two: always be aware of your surroundings."
"And that's why we're not going to steal anything tonight and probably won't for a couple of weeks. We need to get you comfortable with the act of stealing first."
"I'm comfortable. I swear. I stole a roll of tape, didn't I?"
Ah, her claim to fame. It was wise to keep my mouth shut and let her think what she wanted, but in my experience, false confidence lands you in prison.
"But did you?" I asked.
Bella yanked her hand out of my grasp and stopped dead on the sidewalk. She glared and crossed her arms over her chest—closing me off. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Oh, Fuck, I thought, but damn me, if she wasn't sexy, all pissed at me and fired up.
I smiled and placed a dismissive kiss on her head. "Nothing. It doesn't mean anything."
"No!" She took another step away from me.
"Here we go," I muttered.
She didn't hear me.
"Tell me what you mean by that?"
Putting my hands up, I wanted her to see me as harmless. "Don't get mad, but you almost got caught shoplifting."
"What?" Bella was in disbelief. She stared at me with pleading eyes, hoping it was a lie. "No, I didn't—hello, I walked out of the hardware store with no problem."
My heart broke for the kid.
"Baby, no," I said and gently touched her cheek. "I had to pay off the cashier."
"No, you didn't." Her eyes welled up. "Did you?"
"I had to! The guy knew something was up," I defended, but it was a shitty thing to hide from her. "He was about to ask you to lift your shirt when I slipped him a hundred."
"So, I didn't steal anything? In fact, that hardware store owes us, like what, fifty rolls of tape?"
I did a mixed head bob and shrug. "Well, if it makes you feel better, I doubt that money went to the store."
"Ugh, damn it, Edward!" She threw up her hands in frustration and stormed away from me. I had to run to catch up with her. Bella was mad for a good reason, and I wish I didn't lie, but why ruin her good mood? She was horny and excited that she had done something dangerous and illegal. I liked that side of her.
It got me hard.
Now, things were out of control. The kid was upset, stomping down the street and muttering about all our misdeeds in public. She was the cutest brat, but I had to end her rant. Grabbing her waist, I yanked her off the sidewalk into a narrow breezeway until we were out of view and away from prying ears. One couple got too nosey, and I had to stare them down until they got smart. I waited another minute for people to disperse before addressing my girl.
When I faced Bella again, she looked at me with a playful smile.
Oh, this was a game to her, I thought. Touché.
Everything in me ached for this beautiful girl.
"Listen, baby. It wasn't about jacking tape. I just wanted to see if you had the guts to do it." My hands found her breasts. I felt her excitement under my thumbs. The smile that came over me was pride. I wasn't wrong about her. "I was pleasantly surprised to see how horny it made you."
Bella jerked me by the loops on my jeans, and we roughly slammed into each other. "It made you horny, too," she said.
I wanted to laugh but decided to kiss her rising chest and sweet neck, finally settling on her adorable, slightly curled ear. "You're the one that makes me horny," I said. "It doesn't matter if you're jacking tape, shooting my gun, or doing my laundry." That happened the other day. Emmett was gone, and the kid was playing housewife. She loaded the washer, wearing boy shorts, and when she leaned over—holy fucking shit. Her ass cheeks slipped out, and I had to leave the apartment. "I'll be there watching you and fighting the urge to bend you over."
Bella gasped and pulled me closer. "Why are you such a tease?"
"Did I tease you today?"
Like she always did, Bella started on me earlier that day, provoking and testing my will. She wanted to further things, but I was a distractor. My fingers slipped inside her before she had a chance to touch me. The girl came hard. Shaking and quivering, I got the most painful blue balls—to date.
"No," she said, and how her breath fanned across my neck made me rethink some things. My body responded, pressing into her, forcing her back against the wall, and my hands were getting more aggressive with her tits. "You tease me in other ways."
"How so?" I laid my teeth into her neck and sucked on the skin.
Bella didn't say a damn word. Instead, she showed me by palming my dick. I panicked and grabbed her wrists before things got too far.
She sighed. "You see what I mean?"
I stepped away. "I'm not trying to be an asshole. I'm just not used to this."
"Used to what exactly? Having a girl touch you?"
"No!" I wasn't a punk. "Used to this—you!" I gestured between her and me. "Us! Having to be conscious of someone other than myself and making sure their needs are taken care of before mine."
"Edward," she said, her tone condescending. "It's just sex."
She equated what we had to something meaningless without emotion or connection angered me. "It's not just fucking sex."
Not between us.
Fuck, man. Bella was more. We were more.
"Fine!" she said with a roll of her eyes. "It's not just sex, but it's not some space launch either."
Oh, I thought. You wait, baby girl. I'll fuck you to the moon.
"It's because I'm seventeen, right?" she asked. It was my turn to roll my eyes. Her age had nothing to do with anything. "And you can't fathom that someone like me would have any life experience."
Now, she was on to something, and I agreed.
Before me, no man touched her, and I liked being the first lucky asshole to discover every inch of Bella, but it also pressured things. I didn't want her to regret her first time. You never remember the sex the day after, only the one that took your virginity. I will always be that accessible memory.
"Okay, then." Bella pushed herself off the wall and got one step closer to me. "Let me see if I understand this. I'm old enough to boost cars, and maybe, or maybe not, steal a roll of tape, but I'm too young to have sex with you?"
"Woman!" I fucking growled like a caged animal. "I didn't fucking say that!"
She needed to get her age out of her head.
It didn't matter to me.
"What is it then? My virginity? Are you afraid it's contagious?"
"No."
Her voice turned sweet, and she placed her hands on my chest. "I'm not attached to it if that's what you're worried about, okay? I'm not one of those girls who sees it as something valuable or worth keeping until marriage," she said.
And I swear to god, the first thought that popped into my head was, 'I could fucking propose right now and make it right.'
It scared me how fucking deep I already was.
"It's not like this is the sixteen-hundreds, and my family will get an extra goat for it," Bella said, trying her best to convince me. It was funny, and I smirked. "If anything, it's a pain in my ass. No one seems to want to take it."
How many fuckers did she offer it to?
The thought gave me a migraine.
I pinched my nose to ward off the physical pain she was causing me. "Jesus, kid."
"Don't call me a kid," Bella said.
I snapped my head up and saw the anger there. The age difference between us was a crutch for her. She wanted me to see her as a woman, and that nickname stung.
"I'm not saying you're a kid. It's just what I call you."
"Don't call me kid," she said, and now it was my turn to be stung. "Take me home!"
"What? Baby?" I stammered, but she was gone.
Bella bolted down the street. I turned on my heel and followed her. She swayed her hips and caught every guy's attention—which pissed me more. Jesus, it was exhausting being her boyfriend. This girl was smoking hot, moody as fuck, and driving me crazy. She treated her virginity as a burden. Just something she was itching to toss away. I showed that piece of innocence some respect and treated it like a gift, one that she would only give to me, but that wasn't her attitude. Any asshole that was willing would do, according to Bella. That infuriated me. She was like a smarmy car salesman pressuring me to buy today because tomorrow it might go to someone else.
I was her guy.
Me.
Edward Cullen.
No one else.
But my hand was being forced.
When I caught up with Bella in the garage, I was livid. She was leaning against my car and popping out her hip. Her shorts wouldn't past the fingertip test and showed off her gorgeous legs. The flimsy tank top she wore hugged her chest and shone a spotlight on her rosebud nipples.
I roared in frustration. "What the fuck are you doing to me?"
"Hello? I'm trying to jump your bones every two seconds."
Barely glancing at her, I mostly talked to myself as my hands ran through my hair. "I should've fucked you by now."
"You know what? You keep saying that, but here I stand, fully dressed and un-fucked…so, what?"
How do I stall her for just a little bit longer? The kid wanted to push me because she needed a release, but would some illegal activity satiate her?
Then it hit me.
I stopped my pacing and reconnected my gaze to my earlier obsession.
"Come here," I said and held my hand out to her.
Bella scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "What? No."
I wasn't in the mood to play. We had limited time, and this shit was happening now.
I thrust my hand out to Bella again, more forcefully. "Come on."
"Ugggh! Fine!" She took my hand, and I pulled her forward.
We walked up a short ramp to the fifth floor. Bella kept on whining and asking where we were going, but I was more concerned about the eyes and ears of this place. It was quiet there. No cameras to speak of, and security was non-existent. The more confident I became, the more the knot in my stomach tightened.
I stopped only a few feet from the prize and smiled. "There."
"Okay? What?" The kid was confused. "What am I looking at?"
"That's your boost."
"My boost?" She arched an eyebrow at me with skepticism. "I thought we were going to wait until I was ready?"
My girl gave me two options: We do this or that.
She deserved the best of that, so I was giving her this.
But I shrugged and played it off like it wasn't me avoiding intimacy or anything. "You want to go from zero to ninety in a day? Well, I'm having you steal a car that goes from zero to ninety in three-point-six seconds."
"Are you kidding?" Bella's eyes lit up, and the smile she gave fucking stunned me. "Well, what car?"
I put my arms around her and nodded. "The black one in the corner."
Bella needed glasses, and it took her a second to focus. When she did, I could feel her heart stop. "Oh, my god—what is that, Edward?"
"That's a Lamborghini, kid."
AN: First of all, can I just say how much I love writing Edward's POV. I don't know why, but it's just fun. I hope everyone's enjoying things so far. If you haven't guessed, the next chapter is...the game changer.