"Love at first sight." Alice muttered softly to me, her cup of water pressed to her lips. We were all seated at a round table in Twine's Thai Cuisine, where Rose and Emmett were feeding each other off of their own plates. I suggested to Edward that I introduce my cousin to his brother, and he eagerly agreed. It seemed Em was hogging up alot of breathing space at the office with spare time.
"Bella, my brother is driving me insane." Edward muttered angrily as he yanked at his tie, successfully ripping the satin into shreds. "Always putting his size thirteens on my desk, acting out during meetings, and on a call last night he was too distracted by a dancer's ass that he didn't see a man coming at him. Emmett could have easily knocked him out cold. Instead, i had to kill him!" Edward was sort of... pacing, and it was scaring me. "I don't care that we came in this bussiness together. He will leave my shareholders if he doesn't clean up his act." That was my finace, alwasy worrying and yelling and overreacting. He sat defeated on the edge of our bed and I scooted to sit behind him, swiftly wrappng my arms around his shoulder and torso for an intimate hug.
I propped my chin on his shoulder bone and looked lazily at the portrait of Cullen Manor in the Country Estates of Illionios. "Maybe he needs a girl to calm him? Keep him on the ground?" I suggested quietly, not looking to stir him up again.
His breathing was calm and his tone was even again. "Perhaps." I could feel him purse his lips. "Some molls sure do know how to calm their boys, don't they?" He teased to which I lighty bit on his shoulder for. He feigned an "oww" and chuckled when I proceeded to nibble at his neck and ear. "Emmett loves and leaves his girls; none have sated his thirst thus far. Gals are commonly used by him."
I shrugged against him and wrapped my legs, clad in no stockings- just bare skin, around his own. "My cousin, Rose, she is much the same with men. They are simply things to use and be disposed of." I helped him unbutton his white cotton shirt. "I believe she will do Emmett well. He will certainly get a taste of his own medicine with her, if nothing else. And Rose isn't the type to get hurt, I can assure you." When his shirt was completely off, I began ravaging the sensitive skin on the back of his neck and ran my hands up and down his back. We hadn't gone very far yet. Alice just left to her flat in the city and Edward worked long hours, if not with Cullenciano Enterprise, with his Mafia deals. But when we did touch... oh, that was heaven.
Edward was a donkey sometimes. When he wasn't so mean and bitter, he was a true sweetheart.
That was a week ago, but as Edward's hand slipped to my thigh, the blush enveloped on my face. We were hot nd heavy that day... Ed was nearly to his boxers before he reluctantly pulled away and went to the shower. "Rose?" I spoke a little louder than neccesary to get her full attention. Her blonde head of hair snapped to me as she pressed a napkin to the smeared scarlet lip stick she wore. "Have you heard from Angie? I've been meaning to meet up with her. Alice would just love a shopping partner like Angela." Angie was our cousin, by marriage. Our Uncle Sam married Angela's mom when Angie was four, and we grew up together as close as any trio of cousins could. Rose was my Uncle Riley's only daughter- all from my mother's side. My dad was an only child, but my mom had two brothers and two sisters. My two aunts, Jessica and Tanya, were the glamorous bunch who hardly visited town and kept little contact with the rest of us. We weren't miss much with them. The last I heard, my Aunt Jessica was working as a showgirl in a Burlesque spot and my Aunt Tanya was charming some fancy aristocrat. Rene looked modest compared to them.
Rose rolled her eyes. "She's with that wiseguy, Dwight." Edward visibly stiffened beside me, but I ignored it. He did that often, when in danger or spooked, and I chose to ignore this one. "He's been real controlling. I don't like it, but what can you do? We have to wait until Jared comes back from the Army until I can give that boy a piece of my mind." Rose wasn't afraid of what Dwight would do to her, but what she would do to him if he touched her. Jared was our Uncle Sam's son from a marriage before Angie's mom, making Jared two years older than Angie.
Alice wrinkled her small button nose. "This Dwight sounds like a real jerk. He would truly hit a woman?" She seemed outraged.
I swallowed a forkful of mashed potatoes before answering. "I never met the man. Rose and Angie are five years older than me, so they run with similar crowds. I'm sure she met him at her Univeristy." I shrugged it off and went to more important topics. Like the details of Esme and Carlisle's vow renewal. Alice didn't give much detail, because blabbermouth Emmett was sitting there. If you told Emmett, the rest of the world knew. I chuckled at the fact that not long ago, I had loathed the Cullencianos with a personal vendetta. Now, I was sitting down eating and introducing my own family to their kind! "Are you feeling okay?" I questioned Edward, who fell silent soon after we began talking about Angela's stupid boy.
He nodded and reassured me with a light squeeze of my knee. I brushed off his indifferent attitude and turned back to the table's conversation. "How about we meet up at Ed's country home this Saturday? Its out of the city and enough room to lodge everyone." Emmett offered haughtily.
"You cannot just barge yourself in his house, Emmie!" Alice reprimanded him quickly. "But that does sound swell...what do you say, brother?" Alice blinked innocently at Edward, who shifted uneasily. I wished then and there that I had a brother to make puppy faces at. The closest thing I had to that was Jared, but he was not my brother. He always had his hands full with Angela and the duty of carrying out the Hale family legacy his own dad carried. Rose's two twin brothers were just a year older than me; Paul and Eric were troublemakers that mostly stayed to themselves and rarely played with me as a child. They bugged the holy hell out of Rose all the way until she left for two years for college. My aunts never had children, but if they did, those kids would have ignored me as well. "Bella? Does that not sound like a super plan?" She smiled like the ball of energy she was.
"Shall we meet six in the evening?" I countered with a bright smile. Wonderful! The house would finally see new visitors. And perhaps Rose and Emmett's attraction would grow? "Invite Thello and Royce, tell them to bring their wives. A dinnerdate sounds delightful." I added gleefully. There was no stopping, i just made more and more plans with Emmett and Alice. I suddenly stopped and shook my head. I was merely seventeen, not some middle-aged housewife!
Rose eyed me with a twinkle in her blue opals. "Shall we invite Jasper?" I shrugged, not realizing why she would randomly offer such an option. Jasper was a boy she went to college with, and I met him a few times at social functions. He was a sweet charmer with a down south accent. Nothing majorly alluring about him. But then it suddenly clicked. While on a shopping date with Alice for her Art Gala appearence, she admitted to Rose and I about an attraction to cowboys. Jasper was nothing if not a cowboy; an old-style one, too. He traveled all the way to Chicago from Alabama to attend school, and he rented out a room in a muscian's apartment complex during University. He was an ambition kind of chap from the get-go, definetly. I nodded firmly; since when did I play cupid? Rose meeting Emmett was just a sort of favor for Edward, to get Em settled back down to Earth. Bringing Jasper into the picture... that was a whole other ballpark.
That was meddling. But a little bit of meddling was healthy, wasn't it?