Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns any Twilight characters and Twilight plot lines that may appear in this story. The remainder is my original work. No copying or reproduction of this work is permitted without my express written authorization.

Red Light Special – Part Three

BPOV

One blinding ray of light snuck in between the slightly parted blinds, waking me from a sleep that was deep and one hundred percent satisfying. I stretched my arms, feeling aches and pains in every part of my body and forgetting for only a moment who had put them there. Once I remembered, my heart ached…and it scared me.

I shut my eyes tightly, memories from the night before rushing back to me faster than I could comprehend them. His skin, his kisses, his frantic thrusts and the smooth gentle swiveling of his hips. The fire in his eyes and the gentleness he no longer fought to hide by the fifth time he'd entered my body. Sleep found us only moments after he came inside me that final time. God, it couldn't have even been two hours ago.

I kept my eyes shut because I couldn't feel him in the bed next to me. His skin wasn't on mine, his words weren't hot and heavy in my ear and I couldn't bear for it not to be there. I couldn't bear the fact that I wanted it to be.

Last night changed everything.

Fucking everything.

And then a fingertip along my spine. I froze. I held my breath. I kept my eyes closed because I knew anything he'd greet me with would destroy me. A devilish glare, confirming what I already knew – I was his fuck toy. A gentle longing for more, a look that I craved even though I couldn't bring myself to admit it.

Slowly up and down his finger slid, until warm lips followed each bump, until soft hair sent tingles throughout my body as he tasted up and down my back. Please don't break me, I silently begged.

He flipped me over and hovered above me, fully clothed, denim and leather and cotton pressed into naked skin as he knelt on either side of my open thighs, forearms trapping my shoulders and nose against my nose, lips against my lips. Heart against my heart.

I shifted beneath him, wincing slightly because he worked me out so thoroughly last night. His brow furrowed in concern, and I finally took in his eyes. His sweet eyes. His wary eyes. His 'I don't want this to end' eyes. And then I kissed him the way everything inside me said to.

His moan was like a sigh of relief.

I gripped his hair and pinned his lips to mine, letting them have a brief moment of respite after denying them the truth for so long. He spoke my name almost frantically between urgent push and pulls of our lips, his fingertips gentle on my body because he knew I would barely be able to move, let alone walk today. He promised me that.

Words scared me, but I had so many on the tip of my tongue. I was letting it pour out of me. This wasn't just fucking. This was so much more and he was here now, he was here, over me and in my bed and he was showing me the way he felt with sweet, sweet kisses and gentle hands.

And just as my lips were about to form words that would change everything from here on out, he broke away, pushing his forehead against my shoulder and breathing haggardly. His hands were no longer gentle as they slid beneath my back, lifted me off of the bed and crushed me to his body. He spoke my name and he was pleading. Begging with an intensity that had my stomach in knots and my heart hammering like a drum.

He was like a frightened wild animal, on the cusp of trusting but always, always wary. If he left me now, if the look in his eyes suddenly became masked…I didn't know if I'd survive the heartache it would cause.

My fingers dug into his hair with both hands, scratching along his scalp and pulling the tendrils gently as I did everything I could to keep him from pushing me away because of his fear. "Carlisle, just listen to me, okay? I'm not asking…for anything. There's no pressure. You know how we fit, it's just us and this is our release, okay? I just need to make you feel good, I need to be your good girl." Tears ran down my cheeks as I spoke the all too familiar words. Words I promised him when I was nothing but a fuck to him.

He cursed sharply and lifted his head from my shoulder, eyes telling me everything even though his jaw was tense and his features were hardened. "Don't say that…to me now, Bella. I don't… I don't know what I'm even…fuck!"

He clambered off of me then, one hand firmly in his hair as he paced the length of my bedroom and then made a beeline toward the door. I sat up, putting my feet on the floor, my heart beginning to splinter as I accepted his departure. But just as quickly as he left, he came charging back toward me, falling to his knees and pushing his face against my bare thighs, holding me so tight that it ached in the most perfect way.

"I'm trying to think so rationally right now, Bella. Trying to say what makes sense, but I have nothing. All I can say to you is that leaving right now is taking more effort than anything, anything I've ever experienced. Did I…was coming here last night a mistake?"

My hands made soothing passes through his hair until my fingers traced his jaw, cupping his face in one hand as I swallowed thickly. "This was always under the surface, just waiting."

He looked so deeply into my eyes. Minutes passed, and he kept on searching, melding into them, speaking silent words he just couldn't voice.

And then he got up and walked out of my apartment without another look in my direction.

-x-x-

Three weeks later, I found myself somewhere I knew I shouldn't have been.

In fact, I should have skipped this night altogether. Nothing good was going to come of it, I knew that. And yet I remained at the table in that dimly lit bar. I surrounded myself with my co-workers as we drank and laughed and ate cake because Doctor Carter had decided to retire. A going away party for a man I had barely said two words to since I'd started at Mercy, and here I was, eating his cake.

I felt like I had no right.

And still I did shots with my fellow residents. I acted like a twenty-something woman for once in my life instead of a prisoner to my career. I focused on acting my age because I had to. Because, if I focused on Carlisle Cullen at the corner table, sipping whiskey with his arm artfully dangled over petite shoulders, I was sure to do something I'd regret.

I never thought he'd actually bring her.

Or maybe I did.

It hadn't even been a month since we surrendered to ourselves in the middle of the night and altered the unspoken arrangement we'd had since we started sleeping together. He'd kissed me slow, looked at me with something more…it wasn't just a rough fuck from behind anymore, and it had frightened us both.

Jake was now gone. And I didn't break up with him because I was obsessed with an unattainable man. I did it because it made me sick to kiss his lips and promise that I loved him. He wasn't right for me, he was stifling me into being someone that I never ever was.

I didn't tell Carlisle that Jake was out of the picture for several reasons. One, because we never would have talked about anything other than how hard I wanted it or how hungry I was for his cock. But mainly, it was because, up until one week ago, he had ignored me ever since he walked out of my apartment that fateful morning where so much was left unsaid. Not a word, not a touch, not a kiss or a suck or a bite. I kept a straight face around him, balling my hands into fists so he wouldn't see them tremble when he passed. I never cried because I fucking refused to. I wouldn't breathe when he was around me because inhaling his scent would make me hit my knees from its intensity. So instead I blocked myself off just like he was blocking himself from me. I wouldn't speculate over why he didn't want me, why he felt the need to distance himself after what we experienced in my apartment that night.

I was on a graveyard shift when he'd finally surrendered to it all, a mere six days ago. It was so quiet on the floor, barely staffed on a typical Sunday evening when he grabbed my upper arm so tightly I could feel the black and blue his fingers were pushing into my skin.

I let him drag me like a caveman, his expression almost murderous as he opened an abandoned exam room door and unceremoniously tossed me inside. Nothing about our encounter scared me, because I knew this man would never cause me harm. I shook in anticipation, hummed from the sensation of his hands on me when I'd been yearning for his touch for so long, and gasped as he stood a foot away from me, staring like I was either the devil incarnate or his own personal savior.

With him, I could never be sure.

His arms were crossed, fingers stroking his chin, his breathing wild as his eyes burned red-hot into mine. Perhaps he wanted it to come off as anger, but I knew it was his passion building up, the pain of trying to suppress something monumental that was taking its toll emotionally and physically.

There was so much we probably should have said to one another. Confessions that we both deserved to hear. Instead, I took the heaviness away, took the words and the need and the emotion that he clearly wasn't ready to deal with. I wanted to save him, because he was mine to save.

All I wanted was for him to feel good. Relief. A hungry pleasure that only I could provide him.

I'd save my love for another day.

I didn't possess the strength to deny myself the truth any longer.

I'd silently backed up against the exam table, not taking my eyes from his as I hopped up and straddled the narrow surface. He was so incredibly on edge, every inch of his body humming like a livewire as he waited to see what I would do. He seemed anxious about what my next move would be, but I was intent on keeping my feelings buried for his sake.

I slid my hand down my chest, squeezing my left breast and twisting my nipple through my scrub top before sliding it down my stomach, my fingers dipping below the waistband of my pants until they met hot, wet skin.

I rubbed myself in slow circles, watching the fear leave his eyes and the dominance take its place. And a silent thank you was there as well. He was so grateful that I spared him the truth of the matter for another day. "Well…" I had a hard time keeping my voice even as his arms unfolded from his chest. "Did you bring me in here to stare all night, or are you going to get over here and fuck me?"

He was on me then, hard and frantic, grabbing my ass, squeezing it so fucking hard, pushing and pulling my body just like I needed. "I thought you were my good girl? Keep on with this fucking attitude and I'll put my cock down your throat to shut you up. Or was that your plan all along?"

I'd whimpered as his fingers flexed around my throat with the perfect amount of pressure, his index finger sliding along my mouth until I took it inside and sucked.

He chuckled darkly and bit my neck before pulling away, standing right in front of me and gesturing to the floor in front of him. "Get it. Put my cock in your mouth. Suck it hard, lover…and don't you fucking make me wait another second."

His words made me shudder in desperate need.

I never knew eroticism such as this even existed.

Suck it hard, lover…

"Bella, another shot!"

Ben Cheney's drunken booming voice interrupted my memories of that night, and I gritted my teeth before accepting the glass. My eyes were hard as I glanced over toward Carlisle and his wife. She was laughing at Dr. Carter's nineteen-year-old girlfriend as she spoke to them animatedly. Probably about her trashy co-ed roommates or her 'totally epic' spring break, and why the hell was sixty-year-old Carter fucking a teenager anyway?

Disgusting.

Just then, the other female at the table caught my attention.

I watched the way her hand landed against her throat, her fruity cocktail balancing in the other hand as she smiled. Her face barely moved, flawless, lacking character, blank, generic, nothing like him.

She was nothing like him.

I swallowed thickly, bringing the shot glass closer to my mouth just as his eyes pulled mine away from his wife. His expression was unreadable as I let the burn of tequila coat my bottom lip. "Cheers," I whispered, drinking it all in one gulp and slamming it down against the table.

I looked away without another thought.

"Do you want to dance?" Angela asked me in a slurred, chiming voice. She was the introvert of our little resident posse, so I knew she had to have been hammered to suggest something like that. Instead of answering, I took the untouched shot that was sitting in front of her and downed that as well.

Nothing good was going to come from this night.

I just fucking knew it.

Time went on, and the tequila came more prominently. If Ben wasn't fucking Angela on the sly I would have thought he was trying to get me drunk. Either way, the fuzzier the alcohol made my brain, the lighter my body felt.

"Angela, why don't we wish Dr. Carter good luck?"

She looked at me quizzically. "I don't think he even knows who we are, Bella. Besides, he's been holed up with Cullen and his bombshell wife all night."

Her words dragged across my skin like nails on a chalkboard. "No, we shouldn't be antisocial. After all, we're drinking at his open bar and eating his farewell food. We're going over there." I slammed the rest of my beer and grabbed her hand. She let out a squeak as I pulled her right off the stool, my eyes burning hot on the side of his face where his dimple showed when he smiled.

It did nothing but piss me off.

I played it cool as we approached the table. Angela had no qualms about showing just how drunk she was, and I didn't necessarily blame her. It was well past one a.m. and the majority of the attending hospital staff was taking advantage of a rare night of refreshment and enjoying themselves. The entire scene was loud, music sultry, bodies dancing and grinding to the beat. Initially I was surprised that a going away party for a senior citizen was going to be at this bar, but then I met his toddler girlfriend and…well…that explained that.

Carter turned to us as we approached, his eyes nothing more than drunken slits as he grinned at us salaciously. "Hello girls," he yelled over the music.

Angela waved but said nothing as her hips began swaying to the beat, and I soon realized I was alone in this. "Doctor Carter, we just wanted to wish you good luck. You'll definitely be missed at Mercy."

Despite how drunk I was, my words came out smoothly with a hint of professionalism, and I was almost viewing this as a social experiment now.

What would the gorgeous man do when the woman he was fucking and his wife breathed the same air? How would he control his passion for his little fuck toy when he so obviously belonged to me and felt nothing for her?

Maybe I wasn't acting as smoothly as I'd thought.

Carter's hand rested on my shoulder and slid slowly down my arm until his fingers enclosed my wrist. I would have been recoiling in disgust if it wasn't for the look of rage on Carlisle's face. His jaw clenched as he stared at the spot where Carter was touching me, and as his angry eyes met mine, I shiver of need ran through my body.

He was flaunting his wife in front of me, making me feel like a fool, and yet he had just proven that despite all that, I'd do anything for him. I'd fuck him whenever he demanded, get on my knees whenever he pleased…because I was too far into this not to.

What kind of a person did that make me?

I looked around quickly and snapped myself out of it, taking in the angry glare of Carter's girlfriend. I laughed and pried myself out of his grip, holding out a hand to the girl and introducing myself. She was semi-cordial to me after that, and with a smile, I looked Carlisle in the eye. "Hi Doctor Cullen, is this your wife?"

He blinked at me, giving me the look he usually gave right before he told me what piece of furniture he wanted me bent over. At least he had the good sense to remove his hand from her shoulder before we approached them. "Yes, Doctor Swan, this is my wife."

The words stung deep inside me, and I didn't know if I wanted to punch his perfect face or let him fuck me until I passed out. I couldn't handle those words. I just couldn't.

I held out my hand and she took it, smiling and introducing herself, not having a clue that when he gave her two pumps and a pat on the head, he was fantasizing about being buried inside of me.

I had no room for guilt. She could smile to my face all she wanted to, but I knew what she was about. She was so fucking transparent she gave glass a run for its money. She was so intent on being a doctor's wife that she didn't give a shit about who Carlisle was, how good he was, how hard death hit him when no one was looking and how brilliant he could be day in and day out.

She valued his pretty face and hefty fucking paycheck.

This was all too much to feel, and suddenly I was so warm that I couldn't breathe. I looked behind me to see that Angela had retreated at some point and was now grinding up on Ben on the dance floor. I rubbed my throat that suddenly felt constricted, heat spiraling throughout my body as the music and loudness began closing in on me.

"Are you all right, dear?" Carter questioned, taking it as an excuse to touch me again as his hand caressed my bare shoulder.

I nodded and swallowed thickly, backing away from the table and smiling as genuinely as I could manage. "I'm fine. I just need a little air. Well, good luck again. I hope you all have a good night."

I couldn't meet Carlisle's eyes because I felt the concern there. The remorse. The need. Everything he relied on me to ignore.

I couldn't anymore.

I pushed through the crowd of bodies until I hit the back of the club, sliding out the back door and down the steps until my forehead was against the cool brick of the building. It was so dark. Voices in the distance were the only company I had and I knew it was stupid for me to be out here all alone.

I could feel the pulsating beats of the music from the inside push into my skin through the wall, making my heart race that much faster from the heaviness of it. I didn't know what kind of panic attack this was, but I felt like I needed to run. Run until my lungs were burning, my sides aching…until he was far away from me and the reality of this situation was even further, left behind me by miles of pavement.

It was then that I realized I couldn't do this any longer.

I refused to.

I held the tears inside me, determined not to let them spill as my fists clenched against the wall, the brick cutting into my knuckles and easing some of the pain that was ripping me open from the inside out.

Damn the alcohol coursing through my veins. I'd never have felt so much if I wasn't so intoxicated. I wouldn't be like this.

I let out a breathless cry as I felt something warm and solid push up against my back, and I knew it was him before my instincts had the time to be alarmed.

I felt like I would crawl out of my skin as he held me there, trapped against him. The last place I wanted to be but the only place I needed. His breath was warm and heavy against my ear, the scent of whiskey wafting across my cheek and invading my senses.

I closed my eyes tightly, willing myself to pretend that this was all just a dream. I wasn't in the throes of an emotional breakdown. I wasn't pushing against a man in a dark alley whose wife was surely seconds away from discovering us. I wasn't shuddering as his breath hit my skin, body to body, a dark little secret in the middle of the night.

My name on his lips proved to me that this was entirely, irrevocably real.

"Bella…"

He didn't have to say another word. Not a single one. He said it all with my name, the intonations of his voice and the brush of his bottom lip sliding across my earlobe.

His husky whispering stirred something deep inside me, not just need but a sense of belonging, and as the first tear spilled from my eye and down my cheek, I knew it would be impossible to keep them hidden any longer.

"Goddamnit," I whispered, pushing my forehead against the wall as the tears streamed out of me.

My despair triggered a reaction out of him that I truly didn't expect. He didn't apologize. He didn't wipe my tears or beg me not to cry.

Instead, with a grunt, he drove both of his fists into the brick wall on either side of my head, and rested his forehead against the back of my neck. I began trembling from the intensity of it all, his breathing strained and unforgiving as it tickled and moved my hair against his lips.

"Do you think this is easy for me?" he rasped.

A jagged cry fell from my lips as I blindly reached behind me to grab the lapel of his jacket, yanking him forward until his body was crushing me into the wall. His cheek was against my cheek, his words frantic, hot and fast in the bubble of desperation we had created in that vacant alley.

"Every. Fucking. Day. I have to see you, talk to you, work with you… I have to watch as you make the sick and injured breathe a sigh of relief. I watch them stare at you with hope, smile at you because it's impossible not to. I see the men fall over themselves because you're just so fucking beautiful, Bella. And I'm supposed to feel nothing. I'm supposed to do nothing. I'm supposed to pretend that the honor of having you accept me inside your body means nothing more than a fucking orgasm. I need…I need to make you believe that you are nothing more than that because the alternative…" he drifted off, cursing as he pressed his lips into my hair and whispered his confession against my scalp. "Because the alternative scares the shit out of me. I don't know how to feel this way, I need you to understand that."

I didn't say a word, only tilted my head until my lips were against his knuckles, kissing the blood that pooled on them from his assault on the wall.

His lips moved to my temple, his body wound so tight as his fingers flexed against the brick. "I'm the asshole who cheats on his wife, Bella. I fuck young, sexy residents like yourself because I can. I get off whenever and wherever I choose, because being inside of the woman I'm married to is barely enough to keep my dick hard. That's who I am."

I shook my head slowly. "You want me to believe that's who you are. I know better."

He chuckled harshly. "You really think you're the first woman I've lured into the on-call room?"

I scoffed. "I'm not an idiot, Carlisle."

"Then why do you insist on sticking up for me when you know exactly who I am?"

His sharp words were cutting through me, my stomach doing somersaults as I swallowed down the bile rising in my throat. "You haven't touched anyone besides me and your wife since we started this. I know that. I know it." I fought to keep the waver out of my voice, and when he gave no response, I continued. "Your reputation preceded you, Carlisle. I knew what you were. I knew what you wanted. And from the very second you tried to convince me that I was nothing more than your fuck, I knew the truth. Maybe you were a whore before we came together. Maybe you've treated your wife like shit. Maybe she's amazing and doesn't deserve a single bit of your infidelity. All I know is what I see in your eyes when you gaze at me like I'm your fucking salvation. We've cheated together, we've sinned together…but we've also created something amazing that we're both too terrified to admit. It's so palpable you can taste it in the fucking air, Carlisle, and that…that's not something that can be fabricated."

He was shaking violently against me as his hands found my hips, his fingers squeezing and releasing as the silence enveloped us both. Without a word, he slowly began rocking us from side to side, regardless of the thrumming beat coming from inside the club. He held me close, lips against my jaw, breath sliding down the column of my neck as serenity washed over me and I merely allowed myself to feel him just like this.

His hands slid around my stomach and wrapped around my body until my back was tight to his front. He kissed my cheek, whispered my name….and said the words I would never be prepared for.

"You already know everything I've ever wanted to confess to you, lover." His lips moved against me slow. Gentle chase kisses against my cheek and jaw as he continued to rock me. "You embody everything that I will never ever deserve."

"Please don't," I quietly begged him.

He shushed me, his words becoming stuck in his throat as he continued. "Don't put me on a pedestal, Isabella. I will do nothing but hurt you. You're crying in a filthy alley in the middle of the night because my wife is on my arm. Believe me when I say I had no idea you'd be here. Damnit, Bella, you don't even know Carter. He refers to you as the brunette with the perfect ass. I want to kill him when he does. Why are you here?"

"Because I knew you'd be here," I answered automatically.

"Didn't you think I'd bring her?" he demanded.

"Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment. Maybe I'm addicted to the jealousy that fills my entire fucking being when I see her staking her claim on you. Maybe I want it," I challenged.

His breathing became labored as he grabbed a handful of my hair, pulling backwards until my head was resting on his shoulder, my throat arced and exposed for him to taste and suck.

But he didn't.

Instead, he simultaneously made me soar and broke my will with a mere handful of words.

"I belong to no one but you. I worship the fucking ground you walk on, and that's a truth I'm left to suffer with alone. You want to hear romantic words spill from my lips? You want to hear what it sounds like when I break down and tell you that I'm so fucking in love with you it aches?"

I moaned deep in the back of my throat as everything became hazy and overwhelmingly powerful.

"I am. I fucking am," he insisted.

Silence rang out between us until the air was so emotionally charged I was gasping for breath. With one sentence, he stole it all away.

"Every time…in the hospital…every time we were together, I let Angela blow me soon after. I needed something meaningless to cover up what meant everything," he murmured. "And you are everything."

Suddenly, I was falling

He dragged his body from mine without another word, leaving me painfully alone in the deserted alley. I fell to the dirty street below, trying to comprehend his confession made blurry by alcohol and need and despair.

And the despair…

It was staggering.

-x-x-

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