A/N: 1. Disclaimer. These characters are not my own. Recognizable stuff belong to Stephenie Meyer and associated publishers. 2. Last chapter. Sad face. 3. Uh, yeah... y'all pretty know what is going on here if you've read Sin & Incivility. But if you have not, I won't spoil yer fun. 4. Kisses and hugs to all my lovely readers. 5. Thanks a bjillion to ElleCC for being wonder beta. :-)
Love is of all passions, the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses.
—Lao Tzu
Accept that you might drown.
Don't wish for an extended paddle.
Don't hope for low hanging branches.
Do not want after midriver isles.
Float.
Churn with eddies. Dive with the tides.
And when you wake upon a beach, mourn not the burn in your lungs or the scrapes across your ankles.
Smile for the warmth of the sand.
Kiss the air.
It's late Friday morning. He's just walked out of meeting when he almost walks into her.
Rosalie.
She's wearing a suit, but she looks frazzled. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail. Her face looks clean. She's not wearing any make-up. "I need to talk to you, now," she insists. "Please?"
He feels a touch of apprehension, but he assents and follows her into her office anyway.
Instead of going behind her desk, she sits down at the table by the window. "I went drinking with Bella last night," she says, mostly to the wall.
Edward knows this, of course. He spent most of yesterday worrying about the event. He would have tried to put a stop to it, except that Emmett told him to, "butt the fuck out." Edward had let it be, but now he has to face the consequences of whatever happened, so he replies with an innocent, "Oh?"
"I like her," Rosalie murmurs, but then her lips purse, and she says, "I will say she is weird. Funny, too, but like weirdly funny, and she has no alcohol tolerance at all." Rosalie snickers softly at the last bit, her eyes flitting to the ceiling as she smiles.
Of all the possible results of Bella and Rosalie's "meeting," this was not the result the Edward has expected.
He's still trying to rationalize Rosalie liking Bella—and more importantly, what exactly came to pass with Bella having "a low alcohol tolerance," when Rosalie leans back and states, "She likes you."
Edward keeps his voice even. "I like her." That much, at least, is true—as for the rest...
"I figured as much."
Again, not at all what he expected her to say. "Rosalie... what exactly did you and Bella talk about?"
She doesn't say anything at first, but merely slides her hand forward.
He doesn't understand the gesture at first, but then he looks down and he sees that Rosalie's hand is bare.
She's not wearing her ring.
"No, I'm not," she responds, and he realizes he spoke aloud.
With hands clenching the table she breathes out, "We're not in love. We're not getting married."
Edward is confused. Something is wrong, he's sure. He's supposed to be the one to get up the courage to say this to her. Rosalie is the one who's supposed to be threatening his balls with scalding coffee. This not having happened, he sits there for a moment in mental disarray, but then he realizes that Rosalie is shaking, and her knuckles are turning white from gripping the table, so he reaches his hand out, reassuring her, "That's actually—"
But she lets go and holds up a hand, blocking him. "Also, I need to say this." She takes a gulp of air. "I'm pretty sure I'm in love with your brother—and Del—I love them both—but um, in this situation, the brother part is more relevant...?"
Edward blinks. He closes his eyes, and he's trying to rationalize everything: what the hell Emmett was really saying to him the night before last, and what Rosalie has been playing at all this time, especially with Del being in the middle of it, and how the fuck Bella fits into everything.
But then he stops. He stops and realizes he doesn't care. Well, or even if he does care, it doesn't matter, not enough to put any more thought into it. He wants this to end. Rosalie wants this to end. It's the end of their story. El fin. Over.
Edward takes a breath and let's it all go.
Somehow this is hilarious.
He doesn't understand why it is, but the fact that he's sitting here, and that Rosalie has just dumped him for his dumbass, older brother hits him in the stomach and bubbles up through his chest. He doesn't know why, but for some reason it is the best and funniest thing ever, because it only took five fucking years, and thus, he's laughing. He's laughing with huge, ear-splitting laughs, his eyes tearing from the force of emotion as he squeezes the rails of his chair and bends forward as he shakes with the crazed laughter.
He's still laughing, when he recalls that Rosalie is sitting across from him, chuckling softly along with him but wringing her hands with a rather concerned look on her face.
He starts nodding and gasping out, "It's okay," between breaths of air, attempting to convey that this is not a mental breakdown.
Rosalie takes this as a clue to continue, "And, um, Bella actually more than likes you. I think she's pretty hung up on you, actually. She's not getting back together with that Jacob guy."
"Oh," he gasps out, nodding to show her that he's actually hearing her, though he knows he's still smiling and taking long breaths of air.
Rosalie shrugs. "Yeah, it's okay. You don't actually have to spill your shit to me now that we're exes. That would be weird, but I decided to tell you anyway, because..." She looks up at him with an earnest expression. "Because even if we make no sense as a couple, I do care about you—a lot—and even if you drive a Volvo..."
Edward laughs. "I feel the same..." Then he furrows his brow over the jab at his vehicle. "Well, even if you insult my car, I suppose."
Then, Rosalie laughs along with him.
Then they're just sitting there, both feeling relieved and weightless from the freedom and unexpected honesty.
"You have a meeting in five, don't you?" Rosalie asks.
"Yeah, with Aro and Felix."
"I'll walk you," she offers with another smile, and then she stands up. He does the same, and they both head for the door.
They're walking down the hall when Rosalie tilts her head to the side, and asks, "So... is there a certain amount of time that we need before we date other, er, specific people."
Edward looks ahead and sees that they're on the hall where Emmett's office is. From where they stand, he can see Emmett standing in his office doorway, and Rosalie's secretary, Jessica, standing opposite him. Jessica is leaning forward, her cleavage obviously bent in Emmett's direction as she speaks with him.
The entire lunch fiasco from two days before suddenly makes perfect sense. Edward gives a short laugh. "Uh, I don't think so?"
Rosalie turns and gives him a severe look. "So, if I jump your brother, you are okay with that?" she clarifies.
Edward thinks about it for a second. All he can feel is the euphoria in this moment. Jealousy isn't present, so he admits, "Remarkably, yes. Eh, be my guest?" He gestures ahead.
Rosalie gives him the most radiant smile he's seen on her in years, and then she strides down the hallway. Edward watches as Rosalie makes her way to the pair, mutters a quick, "Excuse me," to Jessica. Then, to Emmett she says, "I changed my mind," and before he can respond, she steps forward and pushes him back into his office door with a smack. The sound makes the entire hallway stop and jerk their heads to see. Jessica is looking back and forth in horror from the couple in front of her to Edward, and Emmett's eyes look like they're about to pop out his head. Meanwhile, Rosalie doesn't waste time. She grabs Emmett's by the jaw and yanks his face towards hers, locking him in a kiss.
There's the split second where Emmett and Edward's eyes meet, and Emmett looks terrified, but Edward... Edward smiles and shrugs. Emmett gives a bewildered nod back, and then he pulls Rosalie out of the hall and throws his office door shut behind them.
Then, the only sound that can be heard in the hallway is Edward.
Edward laughing.
Edward feels like a stalker, but when he hears her voice passing down the hallway, he wants to leap out of his skin and chase after the fading tone.
He can't, though. He's in a meeting. Although, the men in front of him are just self-important moving mouths, a blur of clicking teeth and animal-noises preventing him from chasing down the soft tones that are consuming his attention.
Edward's meeting lasts three fucking hours. By the time it ends, Edward is smiling and nodding and making a final yet glib show of thanks. Then he's out the door.
He's out the door and down the hall and in the elevator and going down 7, 6, 5, 4, and then striding out onto floor three.
He's writing his soliloquy with each step. She's fucking perfect and beautiful and beautiful and adorable and beautiful, and he loves how she's funny but never needs to feel like the center of attention—how she seems to live in a different world and yet seems to occupy his dreams and how he's memorized the shape of her mouth because he's analyzed it every second he's thought no one's looking—and sometimes, even when they have been looking—and how she seems to have read everything—and how he doesn't know what it means that they seem to understand each other perfectly and naturally even though they barely know each other, but how in a way he feels like he already knew her the day he met her, and how she's beautiful and... and... And then his half-baked internal speech writing is over, because he's at her office door, and it's cracked, and he almost doesn't push it open because it seems mostly dark inside, but then he does, and there she is.
She's sitting on the edge of her desk with her back to him, and her office is mostly dark except for a dull lamp, but what is bright is the city outside, so that her dark silhouette is framed by a halo of white and blue from the city lights, and he almost imagines it's the glow of the moon, because the milky effect it has on her pale skin makes him freeze in his tracks.
He pans the idea of any speech. His ability to speak is not to be trusted.
He almost expects her to turn around, but she doesn't, so he moves toward her.
When he's close enough, he can see that she's shivering.
She knows it's him.
For some reason, this makes sense. As everything seems to with her. It makes sense to touch her shoulder. When she gasps, it makes sense to pull her back and into his chest. To clutch her close.
He can feel the catch at the end of her breaths.
When her head sways and starts to bend back, he leans down. His lips fall forward, and then he finds her neck. It smells like flowers and salt, and the effect on him is maddening, and his hands move up to find the shape of her jaw, and then he nudges her face up—because he wants to see her. He wants to know. He wants to look into her eyes and know that this is what she wants.
Her eyes meet his.
They show no surprise, but like his own, they're questioning. They're asking questions that have been left unanswered since they met, and they almost make Edward almost wants to scream. He wants to drop to his knees and promise her "never again" and declare himself free of all obligations except the one that he owes to her in this moment.
He realizes that he's going on a mental tangent again, so he stops.
He kisses her.
He kisses her, and he groans into the kiss, because the energy of wanting to scream is being melted into the fact that he's finally kissing her—Bella—that her mouth is the one that is taking his in, and that the kiss is fluid and guilty and is making up for lost kiss after lost kiss, and because there's no talking, no soliloquizing—there's just silence and acceptance—and no questions asked because whatever needs to be said is being laid out on the table right here and now, and the thought makes him smile, but then he realizes that she's smiling, too—which makes him smile more, and he wants to laugh, because he's so happy that he half expects it to come crashing down at any moment, but then he realizes that it's not going to. This is real.
So he pulls back. He touches her face. The pads of his fingers brush just under her jaw as his thumbs sweep across her cheeks and her brows and lips.
She's just beautiful and beautiful and beautiful.
"Bella, Bella, Bella," he says her name while he thinks it.
Her eyes are hooded but bright, and she's still watching him with a smile, but then her lips part, and that distracts him. Her mouth is open, and the way light and shadow is playing off of the curve of her lips calls for more touching, so he traces the soft, inner ridges of her lips with his nails and finger pads, making sure to memorize with touch like he's memorized with eyes. It must tickle, because she smiles wider, and his fingers are scraping across her teeth until he realizes he's going to obsessive levels, so it's with his thumb that he pulls her mouth back to his, and realizes it's a bit of an odd thing to do, but Bella mouth comes back to his like it's a demand, and then there is only the pure sensation of her mouth against his again—of teeth dragging with pressure—of her lips being water against his but rough like rolling rapids, and their noses are brushing, and there's their mutual breathing filling his mind as much as how her body feels in his hands. Her hip bone under his thumb. His palm pressing against the flat of her back.
She breaks her lips from his with a gasp.
The disconnection shocks him, but then her fingers are pulling at his neck, sorting out the fabric of his tie.
He can only stare, half-lost to the disbelief that she could possibly be willing to give him more. That she could want him more. But it's clear in her eyes, in the way she's been kissing him, in the desperate way she's pulling out the loops: she wants more.
He wants to give her everything. His hands slide under her to lift her up. He moves them to her desk chair, and he sets her down, and then he's kneeling between her legs. His tie slides onto the floor, and he wants to reciprocate, so he undoes her top button. He pushes it out, and there's skin—more skin—pale and moon-glowing and hinting at even more skin, and fingers aren't enough so he kisses the spot too, but then a kiss alone isn't enough so he licks the spot, tasting Bella and soap. When he pulls back, Bella reacts with fevered nodding and goes after his button, and then they're going back and forth with the kissing and licking and undoing buttons—each unloosing of plastic circle from fabric revealing more and more—and the shadows through the horizontal line created by her open shirt are wreaking havoc on his mind—and he's painfully hard—and he's nipping and licking as every new patch of skin is revealed, and every part of him has to be held back from just grabbing the fabric and shredding, but that would be a bad idea—since this is an office and not a bedroom—but then he's finished with Bella's buttons, but Bella's not done with his.
He would laugh—because Bella's lack of dexterity is causing her to fumble with the buttons—but he's already gripping Bella's knees so hard to deal with the tension that he's afraid his going to leave bruises.
He pushes her hands away. He takes over and then both buttons are nimbly undone, and he's pushing her shirt sleeves down her arm, and his thinking beautiful, beautiful again because the slope from the top of her neck to the line of her breast is so unbelievably delicate, and her skin is so perfect, clear and fair, and it's glowing, but he's able to touch it and know that it's her, and that they're both here, and that there are no barriers. No glass.
He can touch her. She can touch him. He can make love to her.
He realizes he's going to—which shouldn't surprise him, but it does all the same, and with the realization, comes the need to explain everything.
Bella's leaning in to kiss him when he stops her to slow them both down.
"Bella, there's so much I need to explain," he whispers.
She smiles at him. "No, Edward, really. Rose and I talked—I understand—"
He cuts her off with a kiss, only to quickly try and explain, "I was an ignorant, young fool when I first met Rose. The consequence of having everything handed to me and never questioning it. Rose appeared to be everything that I had come to expect. I had seen so little of the world that I could make no comparisons and see no defects." And I was such a fucking tool... he recalls, grimacing at the memory.
He expects Bella to nod or be understanding or simply kiss him again, but instead her nose wrinkles, and she shrugs. "Eh, maybe because she doesn't have any?"
Which makes him laugh.
He's still smiling when he mumbles, "I'm glad I can finally laugh with you. I couldn't laugh before—no matter how funny you were." He smirks slightly as he says, "I felt like I was locked outside the nursery window."
"Not the nursery window, Peter," she jokes back, but then her smile falls, and she whispers, "I always kept it open."
She did keep it open, so he yanks her against him, his lips pressing into her forehead, and confessing as much as rambling, "Bella, you are my perfect. I have dreamed about blushing cheeks and chocolate eyes since the day I met you. Seeing you at work was always the highlight and misery of my day."
She's staring back at him with a sense of wonder that he doesn't understand. "These green eyes," he hears her whisper.
He keeps talking, needing to explain, "Bella, I tried to find you that night, I mean, the night of the Christmas Party."
That admission finally seems to take the light out of her eyes, and she glances down before she admits, "You didn't find me, well not until..."
She doesn't finish.
He doesn't want to let her. He holds her tighter. "I have you now, is that enough?"
She nods. "Yes."
His voice sounds odd and high and ready to break, but he asks, "I'm in love with you, is that enough?"
Her eyes seem to grow impossibly bigger, and then her lips are moving, and the words, "I love you," are shaped upon them.
Once again, it's almost confusing. He wants to ask her how near-strangers, how smart, competent, and clinically sane people can utter such promises, and yet believe them to be true with such total instinct that they're willing to drop all the supposed rules that the rest of the world insists upon to fly off fancy free toward this sudden magic. He wants to ask her and pick her brain and dissect what about them defies logic down to its last neutron, but he has her feminine weight in his arms, and he has her watching him with flushed cheeks, and she's partially naked in this cold corporate office with commercial carpeting and overstock furniture.
Her hands are still touching his face, and he kisses the inside of her palm before pulling her hips tightly against his torso, and then her head rolls back slightly, and the sight of her closed eyes, clenched jaw, and the way her neck is so exposed, Edward tackles the distance from collar bone to jaw with a wet swipe of his tongue, and she moans, and her legs squeeze tight around him while her hands are on his sides, and then Bella pushes him back, and then her head is shaking as if he's frustrating her in some way, and her fingers are attacking his buckle—an action which goes right to his dick—and then her unbuckling is causing her breasts to move and shiver in her bra in the most mind boggling ways—and he doesn't exactly want to halt the process going on with his buckle, but he also desperately wants to touch and cup her, so his fingers slide along the fabric, nudging at the curves, and then reach over her shoulders to find the clasp in the back.
She finishes with the buckle and buttons first, though, and she looks so remarkably proud of herself that he relinquishes his assault on her bra to do away with his pants, and he hops out of them, while she stands to slide out of hers, and then they are just in underwear, and it's goofy and erotic, but he wants her fucking bra off, so he jerks her back to him so that he can finish the job, and then it's off, and her body is before him, lit by the city-lights and shivering from the after-hours chill, and he just wants her, so he pushes them back until her ass knocks against the desk, and he pushes her back, more still, but his hands catch her head and lower back before she falls too fast, and then her mouth is open beneath his, and her breasts are full, and he has to kiss them and lick down and around, and Bella's body tenses beneath the licks, jerking away, so that he has to chase her skin, and chase it he does, and Bella is not quiet at all anymore but whimpering and gasping, and releasing the occasional long and low moan. The moaning coincides with her hips grinding into him, and he realizes that he's so unbelievably riled that he needs to either stop or come immediately. But no, he doesn't want that. He wants to come inside of her.
He pulls her up to him, and then his fingers search out the straps on the sides of her hips, and then he's kneeling and tugging, and there's the clash of white, highlighted thighs with dark shadow between, and Edward almost wants to stop and focus completely on her right there, but then she's already stood and her hands are tugging on his boxers, so he finishes with them, and then they are...
Their skin is covered in goose bumps except where their bodies touch, and he releases a string of low curses, because her teeth are cutting into his neck and her hair is tickling his shoulder and back, and he can feel her nipples hard against his chest and how soft her stomach is when his dick is pressed into it with her hips rocking slowly as they sway, and then she changes the angle and he's running through soft curls instead, and then he feels the wetness, which makes him press and grind harder, and he almost grabs her hips, lifts her up, and pushes in—but he stops himself.
He doesn't want this to be fast and rapid and over. He wants eyes contact. He wants to know everything she's feeling and see it directly.
He sits down.
Bella stands above him still breathing hard and looking lost.
He pulls on her ankles instead of speaking.
She leans forward, and his hands are sliding up the back of her tensing calves, but then Bella's foot slides too far left, and she jerks forward and her arms flail out, but—
But he catches her.
His hands are on her waist, and she's naked and open in his arms, and all he can say is, "I caught you."
Bella smirks back at him. "You did."
"You have no idea how many times I've wanted to catch you," he explains, his breath still catching.
"I fall a lot," she murmurs.
"I know." He nods. "You nearly gave me a heart attack every time," and then he pulls her to his chest, so that she's warm and low and close.
"Well, why didn't you ever catch me?" she tries to tease, but it isn't just teasing. Her voice cracks at the end.
"I wouldn't have been able to let you go," he admits, and he wonders what would have happened if he'd ever caught her in a hallway. If he'd ever held her uninhibited in his arms.
Guilt, his old friend, passes through him, but then Bella is leaning towards him again, and her expression is sheer happiness and lust, and he's worrying about going soft with this stress of the string of regretful confessions but then the texture of her rubbing against him brings him right back, and her tongue flicks out and gives extra attention to his bottom lip, and it's slick and wet and hot, and then all he can think about is what's waiting for him between her legs and how it's wet and hot and slick, and she's rocking upward, so he holds her there and adjusts himself, and then he feels the start of the tension and the heat, and he's watching her eyes flutter at the same time that his eyes want to roll back into his head, and it's all he can do to not ram her down, so he's digging his fingers into her hips, and she's lowering herself and shaking as they meet, and her lips are swollen and her hair is frizzing and she looks so fucking gorgeous and disheveled and fucking hell, she feels amazing, and when he's all the way inside of her, the look in her eyes is honest and open and...
Then he realizes that tears are forming.
But she's not sad. He knows it, even as he kisses the tears away, because her hips are flowing with his hips, and she isn't smiling but her mouth is open brushing against his, and she feels loose against him even as he feels her muscles flexing and releasing beneath his hands.
They're lost in the up and down and gasps of pleasure until the "up" part becomes harder because his legs are getting sweaty and sticky, and Bella is looking amused, but he wipes the hint of a giggle off her face when he tightens her against him and rolls them over on the floor.
Then her legs are around him, and her heels are digging into his ass, and below him her hair is splayed on the carpet, while their mouths are open and brushing and moaning and gasping while they look, while they stare, while he moves in and out of her. They're partially shaded from the city light by her desk, so that every time they rock forward, the shadow moves across her face, and he's playing catch with the highlight that seems to dance all over both irises as it fades and brightens.
Her hands comb through his hair, pulling at it with a lazy strokes, as if the fact that he's pounding her into the floor is the most natural thing that he could be doing, and it's only when her nails start to scratch and her eyes go hazy at the same time that her head jerks back and her mouth is stretched open with a loud continuous, rolling moan. He simply gets off on watching her—because her face is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and he wants to whisper in her ear that he wants to do that again and again and again, just so that he can see her fall apart this way.
But then her eyes are open, and she's smiling almost shyly and nodding at him, and so he moves with more speed until the exertion and pleasure combine and his jaw snaps shut and his teeth grind, although he's still forcing himself to watch her, and then she's feathering his face with kisses when he finally releases inside of her.
Then they just are.
They are a sweaty, knotted, sex-smelling heap.
He's listening to Bella's breaths, slow and steady, and he's thinking of all of the ridiculous grieving and imagining that has gone into this wanting her and only being able to imagine her, but now he has her, and he has to conclude that no conception on his part could possibly have added up—because she's better than the dream—she's not just a pretty painting to be ogled. She's his landscape—she's the dreamscape with cragged, high mountains and a rushing river. She's his dream made real and in the flesh.
He whispers in her ear, "This is permanent."
She shivers and kisses him and smiles.
But he wants her to know that he means it completely. He doesn't want to half-ass anything anymore. He doesn't want plan and hesitation. He wants her in every way, and he doesn't want to wait for tomorrow or next week or next year, so he lifts up slightly, even as he keeps their position, and his hand traces her stomach, stroking the shallow dips. He's imagining a fireplace, an ugly but happy dog from the local pound, white sheets, and Bella full with his child and smiling as he strokes her just like this. His future.
"Are you on anything?" he asks.
"Like the pill?"
He nods.
She nods back.
"Please stop taking it."
She gives him an incredulous look. "Are you planning on knocking me up?"
He hopes that's okay, because he's hard all over again, and so he bites her neck, while thrusting inside of her and murmuring, "That's exactly what I'm planning on doing."
Bella's tone is caught between a half-moan and gritty sarcasm as she manages to say, "Oh, and if I pop out a kid, are you planning on marrying me, too?"
"Is tomorrow, okay?" he proposes.
She gasps.
He laughs, because she's going along with it—she's not protesting it—she wants him—and there's nothing more perfect.
He kisses her through her moan, and then he breaks away to repeat, "I told you, Bella, Bella, my Bella. This is permanent."
Yay! Okay, I think there's going to be an epilogue, but I haven't written it yet... but I'll get on that. Anyhoo, thanks to all for reading!!!