Let's get right to it.
"You're hurt."
With the fingers she previously placed on his face, she uses her thumb to tilt his chin toward the light. He doesn't stop her, but she watches him wince when she brushes against the tender part of his cheek near the slightly opened cut beneath his eye. He hisses softly before turning his head, gently moving her hands.
"I'm fine."
"It doesn't look that way," Isabella disagrees, her hands coming to rest on her hips while she watches him walk back to where he left his bottle of whisky on the bar. With a raised brow, she stares at him and waits while he finishes another gulp from the bottle.
He shakes his head, placing it back down once he has finished his sip. "It looks worse than it is."
He doesn't offer anything else after that; instead, he quietly runs a hand down the untouched side of his face, reaching blindly into his pocket for a smoke. Once he has it lit and brought to his lips, he lets his chin drop to his chest, exhaling loudly in the almost-empty room. With his back to her, he leans over the bar, hands braced against the polished wood, his cigarette resting between two fingers. His head is swimming in deep thought; his shoulders slumped in complete exhaustion as he thinks again about his evening and everything that will happen because of it.
Sighing, Isabella rolls her eyes in exasperation. "Can I at least take a look?"
He opens his eyes, turning around to face her. He brings his cigarette back up to his mouth again, pulling the nicotine into his lungs forcefully. He doesn't answer her, even when she pushes past him to get the First Aid Kit they keep on the shelf behind the bar. He releases a patch of smoke into the air just as she places the tin next to him. He eyes her as she opens it to assess what she has to work with.
"So you're a barmaid and a nurse?" Edward asks, his cigarette pursed between his lips as she takes out the gauze and mercurochrome and places them on the bar with a soft clang.
"When I have the time," Isabella replies, trying to keep the amusement off her face, but he manages to catch a glimpse of it anyway. She looks upwards to meet his gaze. "May I?"
"If you must," Edward says, resigned. He doesn't want to argue. After the last two nights, all he wants to do is nothing. He wants to maintain his pub and keep his guests happy. He wants his sister to live the life he promised their mother she would. He just wants to go about his business like he used to.
He doesn't want to worry about protecting some barmaid's virtue.
He doesn't want to care.
But he knows those days are a thing of the past. Now, as she warns him of the sting of the antiseptic, he knows he can't go back to being the man he was.
Because the man he is now cares about the barmaid; and more than just her virtue, he realizes as the first sting of the mercurochrome seeps into his skin. He stares down at her, his gaze unwavering as she gently saturates the gauze and brushes it against the tiny sliver of opened skin beneath his eye. It's a small cut, not even worthy of a single stitch, but the soft look on her face as she worries over him warms him from within.
This is why he feels the way he does. Of all the people he has come across, whether in his childhood, his time in the war, or here at The Lost Key, she is the only one who takes the time to put him back together again.
And it didn't start with a tiny scratch from a thug.
It started the day she walked through the doors and into more than just his pub.
"How did this happen?" Isabella asks him quietly, her eyes slightly squinting as she focuses on cleaning the cut.
"I went to see Marcus," Edward answers, recoiling slightly at the burn of the antiseptic.
"I thought you weren't going to say anything to him," Isabella says, traces of confusion and disappointment in her voice. Obviously, he knows how to handle these situations better than she does, but the thought of her name coming from Marcus' mouth makes her stomach turn.
Edward shakes his head slightly before she turns his head back into the light again so she can see better. "I wasn't. I had gone there to speak to him about other things."
"I take it he didn't like what you had to say."
"He didn't do this," he points to his face. "One of his men got a little ahead of himself, is all."
Satisfied with her work, Isabella discards the gauze and tosses it into the small garbage can beneath the register. Leaning her back against the bar, she crosses her arms across her chest. "What happened then?"
Edward takes a breath, taking a small step back, allowing Isabella space to stand in front of him. "Marcus showed up and apologized on behalf of his men." He pauses to take a final drag of his cigarette. He looks back down, blowing smoke down his chest and towards his feet. "Went inside and told him again he's not to go near Rosie's house."
"What did he have to say?"
"Not too much," Edward chuckles. He shakes his head and continues, "Of course, he doesn't see anything wrong with checking in on his women."
The way Marcus views women as mere objects makes Isabella nervous. She asks him a question she isn't sure she wants the answer to. "Did he say anything about me?"
Edward pauses, then looks her straight in the eye. "He didn't need to," he says. His voice lowers. "He saw my face."
Isabella gasps out loud, her hand moving to the side of his face without thinking. She looks at the soft bruise in a whole new light. "This is because of me?"
"They won't say your name without repercussions from now on," Edward clears his throat, breaking his gaze to look away from her. He swallows down a wave of vulnerability.
She sees it. Maybe not with words, but she knows him well enough now to know that isn't his nature. His actions are his words, the ones he cannot say.
The bruise on his face, the way he must have stood up for her honor, speaks volumes. Moving away from the bar, she steps closer to him, and this time he doesn't back away. She's close enough to have to tilt her head up slightly in order to see his face.
"Marcus knows to stay away from me?" Isabella whispers, her eyes looking deep into his in the dim light of the pub.
"Yes," Edward answers, his voice lower than anything she has ever heard from him before. "He won't be going anywhere near you."
She nods, and the warmth flowing through her body is not from the reassurance regarding Marcus. It is from the intensity of his stare, the weight of it heating her skin from the inside out. She closes her eyes for a moment, trying to remember how to think with him in such close proximity. Eventually, she lets her eyes flutter open as if preparing herself for what will come next. "What did you tell him?"
He hears his final restraint snap away as she looks up at him, and in his true nature, he uses few words before showing her instead.
"I told him you were mine," Edward says, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her against his chest before crashing his lips onto hers.
It takes her a moment to realize what is happening, that she is, in fact, in his arms with his mouth on hers. But it doesn't take long for the surprise to be replaced with a desire so intense she ultimately succumbs to it completely. Sighing against his lips, she slides her hands up his chest, eventually winding her arms around his neck, giving him room to wrap his other arm around her waist. He pulls her closer, pressing her body against him as he angles his lips against hers, amazed at how it feels to have her like this. He imagined what it would feel like for so long but ignored those wants for as long as he could.
Now that he's here, he isn't sure if he can go a single day without her kiss.
Their kiss deepens as they let go of their previous apprehensions, finally caving into the feelings that had been there all along, despite how much they pushed them to the side to focus on more important things.
But now, standing behind the bar where it all began, nothing else but each other matters.
Her lips are soft and innocent as they move with his, and he guides her in a rhythm that is a balm to his every ailment. With her, he thinks to himself as their tongues touch and their mouths slide; he is healed.
Especially the wounds she can't see on the surface.
He pulls away from her, both of them catching their breath but cannot stay away for long. He lowers his lips to her cheek before running a trail down her jaw to the place behind her ear. The only thing better than the feel of her lips on his is the sound coming from them. Somehow she pulls him closer so there isn't a space between them. "I didn't go there to tell him that," Edward breathes against her skin, closing his eyes at the feel of her fingers at the hair at the nape of his neck, "but I couldn't leave with him thinking he could have you."
"I'd never be his," Isabella answers, pulling his face to hers again. He locks eyes with her once more, giving her a slight nod before bending to her again. She sinks into his kiss, this time slowing down to savor the way he tastes on her tongue. He is warm with a tinge of citrus, a scent of his own crashing into hers. She feels like she might slip away if his arms weren't encircled around her.
"Are you upset with me for saying that?" Edward asks.
"God, no," she whispers before her words are swallowed by Edward once again. His hands move down her back and up again, the cotton of her dress just thin enough under his palms to drive him mad with wonder about what her skin feels like beneath the fabric. Isabella pushes against his shoulders, their chests heaving as she looks into his eyes. "Haven't I always been yours?"
In more ways than she has ever admitted to herself, she acknowledges the truth in her own words. Ever since she walked into his pub and heard his voice from behind her as he walked into the room, she knew Edward would end up playing a role in her time here in Port Angeles. As time went on and she got to know the man beneath the mask, she knew no one else would make her feel things the way he did.
Pressing his forehead against hers, he closes his eyes and lets all his burdens disappear with a heavy breath against her skin. He doesn't think she'll ever know how long he has waited for her.
Long before the day she entered The Lost Key.
He holds her there, in his arms behind the bar, not worrying about the late hour or the danger lurking in the shadows. He thinks of her question, and answers her as truthfully as he can. "Always."
You know slow burns are my thing. Sigh. Finally.
Thanks for sticking around!
Some of you have asked why Victoria hasn't told anyone who the father is yet, especially Isabella. It's coming. I feel Victoria being enveloped by her own trauma would inhibit herself from revealing such a heavy, vulnerable truth before she's ready. But, like I mentioned in my last author's note, more things are starting to fall into place each chapter. Hopefully you're still willing to stay and see!
See you soon!