A/N: Music for this chapter is from Colonies. Check em out.
Please excuse any mistakes, because I practically ran past my beta with it and then added a whole big chunk in the middle that she hasn't even seen. Thanks Adrena!!
OH! And for those of you who are readers of my story All Work and No Play, a new chapter is with my beta as we speak, so you'll hopefully get an update this weekend sometime.
BPOV
I hadn't spoken to Edward since our conversation the other day after the radio show and the extremely hot make out session, so I wasn't really sure where we stood. Would he be upset that I didn't stay and talk it out with him, or were we okay?
It's not like I'd meant to just leave when he was revealing his beliefs to me, but I also hadn't planned on feeling the way I did when he was talking about God and how I was part of a big plan. I was confused to find that I felt a longing in my chest for something that made me feel comforted like Edward's belief in God made him feel. I wanted to have a certainty that someone was looking out for me and that whoever it was cared about me, but the logical part of my brain whispered that I wouldn't necessarily find that just by subscribing to some religion.
I wanted Edward; that much I knew was true. I also knew that these differences between us wouldn't be an easy fix, but I wanted to fix them. I wanted to work it out so that we could find a way to be together, even if it wouldn't be...
I looked up from my book that I hadn't actually been reading at the sound of tires crunching on my front drive. It didn't sound like Charlie's cruiser, and I didn't have anyone else coming over, so I put down my book and ran downstairs. I really hoped it wasn't Renee trying to come back or something, because I really couldn't deal with that right now.
To my complete surprise, I saw Edward climbing out of his car looking better than he had any right to look. I watched him from the open doorway as he walked toward me with a nervous look on his face. He must have come over after band practice or something, because he looked a little bit sweaty and his hair was hidden beneath a black military cap. His tattoos peeked out beneath a dark Youth Crew t-shirt and black Dickies shorts that fell to just below his knees. He was wearing his battered black and white Saucony sneakers and his keys clanked on his keychain clipped to his belt.
I drooled a little bit as I watched him come toward me.
When he reached the porch, I opened the door all the way and smiled shyly at him. "This is a nice surprise," I greeted him.
His lickable lips lifted in a smile and I watched him rub the back of his neck self-consciously. "Is it? Because I haven't heard from you in a few days and I worried that maybe I'd scared you off with our last conversation."
I shook my head. "No, I was just...processing, I guess. I'm not the best at talking about serious things, you know? I guess I just felt really awkward and stupid when we were talking," I replied.
He closed the last few feet between us and reached out to pull me to him. I went willingly and buried my nose in the crook of his neck. I had to stand on my tiptoes to do it, and that made me grin. "Why are you all sweaty?"
He laughed and looked down at me. "I came over right after band practice. The guys cut it short 'cuz I wasn't focused."
I was surprised. Edward seemed so focused on his music. "You should come in," I told him. I took his hand and led him back into my house. He paused at the living room, but I didn't know when Charlie would be home and I wasn't really in the mood to have this conversation over the baseball game, so I dragged him past the couch and to the bottom of the stairs.
He pulled up short and looked up the stairs with an apprehensive expression on his face. I rolled my eyes and chuckled. "Don't worry, you don't have to be afraid of little ol' me. I just want some privacy so we can talk."
He sighed and looked down at our hands. "I'm not so sure I'm worried about you. I think I'm more worried about me."
I began to tug him up the stairs. "What do you mean?" I asked.
"I mean that the last time we hung out, I had a really hard time stopping when we did and I almost...didn't," he admitted. I looked back at him to see the uncomfortable look on his face. I was amazed that he was being so open about this.
"I had a really hard time stopping too, but then, I'm just a horny little heathen," I joked half-heartedly.
He squeezed my hand in his when we reached the top of the stairs. "Don't say things like that about yourself, Bella. I don't think that way about you, and you shouldn't, either."
His face was so earnest that I felt a little bit embarrassed by my lame joke. I suddenly felt like it was in bad taste and I tried to apologize. "I'm sorry, that was lame," I said with a self-deprecating eye roll directed at myself.
He laid a fingertip on my lips and smirked. "Don't apologize."
Blushing, I led him into my bedroom and tried to straighten out the bedspread so we could sit down. He looked around with interest, and I tried to see the room through his eyes.
There were several posters on the wall, some of them for local bands and vegan outreach events. There were ticket stubs from shows, pictures of me with friends and family, and some set lists. I saw his eyes land on a particularly treasured cluster of set lists, and I was the one who smiled self-consciously this time. "Jake and Leah brought me those when I couldn't make it to the shows," I explained.
He looked at me and smiled. "It's kind of crazy to see something I wrote displayed on your wall like something important," he said.
My cheeks pinked again as I thought about that. I hadn't even really thought about the song titles scrawled in black Sharpie on notebook paper being something from Edward until this moment, but now that I had, I couldn't get over the strange little thrill at the idea of a piece of him being here, in this room all this time without my even realizing it.
"Makes me feel kind of famous or something. I'm such a loser, huh?" He laughed at himself and turned away from the set lists and I flipped on some music to kill the quiet that had enveloped the room.
"On the shore
we sing to the hearts of broken lore
in the land of fire and of fear
our best guess is all we have..."
"I don't think you're a loser, or I obviously wouldn't be so crazy about your band," I told him. I sat down on the bed and patted the space next to me. "Let's talk."
He looked reluctant for a moment, but quickly conceded and sat down next to me. "Let me start off by apologizing to you for proselytizing to you. I've never been that kind of Christian and I don't want to start now. I guess when you said you wished you believed as I do, it was an automatic reaction to tell you that you could if you wanted to," he said.
I shook my head. "It wasn't that, honestly. I know when I'm being preached to. I didn't feel like you were on a soapbox. It was just that, for the first time in a long time, I felt like something is lacking in my life. My words...my explanations of how I feel about God felt so empty and weak next to yours. And it's not like I'm saying that I want to convert or anything, it's just that I feel like I need to find something I can believe in. Leah and Jacob are atheists, and they believe in the lack of something. They're happy with that, but I'm not. I'm not a religious person, and I doubt I'll ever be, but I'm sick of being agnostic. It's so on the fence, y'know? It's so noncommittal. I guess sitting next to you, hearing you say what you believe, made me feel like there is something out there that I can believe in, whether it's God, or the absence of God, or science, or whatever. I just realized that maybe it's time I try to find something like that."
Edward looked a little bit shocked and a little bit impressed. I smiled shyly at him and chuckled. "Sorry for babbling, I just didn't want you to think that I left the other day because I was uncomfortable with what you were saying."
He smiled and bent over to drape an arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. "I'm glad. I mean, I'm glad that you didn't feel offended. I don't want to scare you off," he said into my hair.
I turned my face toward his and pulled his face down to mine. I couldn't think about anything anymore except for kissing him, so that's what I did. He went along with it willingly, and I gloried in the feel of his soft lips sliding against mine. We turned toward each other on my bed, and I heard the box spring squeak under our weight.
The sound made my heartbeat kick up a notch. It made me think of getting naked and getting Edward naked, and my hormones took over. I deepened the kiss, drawing closer to him. His hands dropped around my waist and pulled me onto his lap. I crawled over him slowly, anticipation lighting every inch of my sensitized skin. His tongue met mine and I hummed at the delicious taste of his mouth. I straddled his hips and rested my weight on his thighs. He groaned and pulled me even closer. It was my turn to moan when I felt his skin getting hotter under my hands.
I braced myself on his forearms, feeling the need to move against him as we continued to kiss. His lips and tongue were driving me wild. I felt wanton, free from the concerns that plagued me mere minutes ago. I just wanted him, and if the growing hardness beneath me was any indication, he seemed to want me, too.
I let my hips move in a slow gyration, bringing an electrified sensation of lust zinging through my veins. I dropped my hands down to his waist so I could find the hem of his t-shirt and push my hands up underneath. I wanted to feel his hot skin more than anything in that moment, and it burned into my palms invitingly. Edward's hands left my ass and he did that sexy one-armed shirt shucking that guys always do on TV but never quite successfully manage in real life.
When his shirt was off, he smirked at me and it was the sexiest thing I'd ever seen. His hands pressed between my shoulder blades to bring my mouth back down to his, and this time, I took the lead. For all his relative inexperience, I still felt lost whenever he touched me like this. I couldn't help it. I tried to keep the control by pushing him back onto the bed, but the way we went down implied that he wouldn't have been quite so easy to push if he'd been against the idea.
We were side by side on the bed, and I had my leg hitched over his hips as he ran his hands up inside my shirt. I arched against him and moaned into his mouth when his hands came to rest on my breasts over my bra. I felt his hot palms through the thin fabric, and my nipples pebbled in reaction. "May I?" he asked as he removed his hands to tug on my shirt. I nodded and went back to licking and nibbling on his earlobe.
Once my shirt was off, his hands went to the clasp of my bra and I helped him remove that, too. I continued nibbling on his ear, and I could tell that he loved it by the way his hips would jerk towards mine every time the tip of my tongue would dip into the shell of his ear. He played with my nipples, experimenting until he found just the right way to pinch and stroke them. I was practically panting now, and I still hand my pants on, even though my panties were now soaked through.
I stroked one hand down his chest and over the fascinating bulge in his pants. His hips jerked again and his mouth stilled on my neck for a moment, but he didn't say anything, so I kept rubbing against him through the heavy material of his Dickies.
After a calculated time, I laid my hand on his belt buckle and waited for a protest. I unbuckled his belt and toyed with the button, just waiting to see if he'd say anything, but his mouth moved to mine and his tongue thrust between my lips with an intensity that made me believe that he really wanted this.
The air in the room was heavy and thick with the heat coming off our bodies as I slowly unzipped his shorts. I could hear every click of metal against metal, and the sound zinged along my consciousness, causing all my synapses to fire off. I wanted to touch him so much, I felt like I would cry if he stopped me now.
He had one hand in my hair and one hand on my waist as I reached between the folds of cloth and found the opening in his boxers. I carefully pulled him free and felt along his silky skin with the tips of my fingers. He was so smooth and yet so hard, and I felt compelled to explore him. The tip of my thumb brushed against the head of his dick and I felt the moisture gathered there. He hissed into my mouth and my hand jerked. I didn't want to hurt him, but I couldn't stop touching him.
"Is this okay?" I whispered against his wet lips.
He laid his open mouth against mine. "Oh yeah," he moaned, and I felt a rush of lust hit me like a ton of bricks.
Our mouths played a game of advance and retreat as my hand stroked along his length. He was big, but it didn't scare me. I wondered if he'd ever let me suck him, but I figured that would be way off in the future so I just focused on touching him with my hands.
I found a rhythm he seemed to like, but I thought maybe it was too slow. I knew a dry hand job wasn't ideal, but I didn't want to freak him out by pulling away to find something to lubricate the situation, so I just tried not to chafe him too much.
His kissing was fervent now, completely devoid of the restraint that held him back the last time we were together like this. I felt the tension in his chest and shoulders where he pressed against me, but it didn't feel like what I was doing was wrong. It felt right to be with him, to touch him like this. I wanted to make him feel good.
When I thought he was into it enough that he wouldn't stop me, I blindly reached out for the lotion on my bedside table. I uncapped it and poured some into my hand, hoping he wouldn't mind the spicy scent. I went back to massaging his dick and I thought I heard him curse when I was able to slide against his skin effortlessly.
The lotion made a slick sound in the quiet room and I watched his face. His hand came down to cover mine, and I panicked, thinking he would pull away from me, but to my surprise, he gripped my hand in his and helped me jack him off.
I kept watching his face now that he was too lost to focus on kissing. His eyes were shut tightly and his jaw was clenched. His cheeks were red and his lips were swollen from our making out. I felt high on the look of rapture on his face as I continued to touch him.
He showed me how he liked it, and I kissed his lips, neck, and chest as I kept up the steady pace. His breath was coming in short pants now, and I waited for the moment when he would lose himself completely.
When he came, his eyes opened skyward as if he were seeing something incredible. His breath stopped in his lungs and his mouth dropped open in a silent shout. I felt the hot liquid of his release run down my hand, and I smiled almost shyly at him.
I wondered if he'd feel awkward or angry, but he just pulled me in with his clean hand and kissed me deeply.
I got up and went to wash my hands, and when I returned, I told him where the bathroom was. He went to clean up and I put my shirt back on, not bothering with my bra. I sat and waited for him on the bed.
When he returned, he sat down next to me without hesitation and kissed me on the forehead. "That was...awesome. I would return the favor, but I can see you're already dressed and that was a pretty hard act to follow, so I guess I'll have to wait 'til next time," he said with a relaxed grin.
He looked so happy that I couldn't resist pulling him to me for another kiss. It was sweet and devoid of the tension that had taken over the room earlier. In this moment, I was happy, and I think he was too.
EPOV
I scooted back onto the bed so that I could hold Bella in my arms. She rested her head on my chest and I imagined what it would have been like if we'd met under different circumstances. So many of our early encounters were hard and mean, and though we both admitted to liking each other, I still felt moments where our individual natures would rise up and make things awkward between us.
I hadn't imagined that we would go as far as we had today when I came over, but I couldn't say I was disappointed. Yeah, I should have known better to climb onto the bed with Bella when I wanted her as much as I did, but we hadn't broken any of the promises I'd made to myself or God, so...
The truth of the matter was I started questioning myself the minute we laid down. I worried that I would hurt her feelings if I stopped again, or if I would curse myself later for what was sure to be a really bad case of blue balls if we stuck to just kissing.
I asked myself if people really abstained from everything before marriage, or if they fudged a little here and there. Though I wasn't a virgin, thanks to the awkward night in the back of my father's car during my teenage years, I was still hoping to maintain a level of purity for my future wife. I wanted her to know that I'd thought of her, even years before I'd met her. I wanted to be able to say that I tried my best to keep my heart, mind, and body pure for our love.
But that was before I met Bella. She made me question my beliefs, but not in a bad way. I wasn't about to give up everything I'd always believed in, but still...there were questions arising in my mind all the time now.
For instance, how much of what I believed really came from me, and how much came from my father? How many people did I know who hadn't waited for marriage, but who were still devout Christians with a pure heart and a hardy faith? Perhaps having sex before marriage didn't really have much to do with your relationship with God so much as a relationship with yourself.
So many of the teachings Christians are given come from a practical, common sense sort of place. I mean, obviously it is wrong to kill, steal, or cheat people. Of course it's not good to talk badly of another person or wrong your fellow human beings. So...could it be possible that having sex before we're married was borne of a cautionary measure that called for people simply not to have children out of wedlock? Because that would seem practical. Children born to a couple not ready for marriage might be more of a burden or a difficulty if they were unexpected. Maybe that was the biggest reason behind the teaching that we should wait for marriage.
But still...I didn't want to give up everything I'd worked for and believed in. I didn't want to rationalize a decision to have sex merely because I was too attracted to Bella to stay away from her. I wanted her, more than I'd ever wanted anybody, but it would still feel wrong unless...
Unless I loved her. If I loved her, if I truly loved her, then I knew that I could make love to her and it would never be sinful or wrong. My actions would come from love, much like the actions of prayer and worship. I would give myself to Bella the way I gave myself to God.
And yet, I knew I did not love her, at least not yet. I felt close, but I was still held back by our differences. I wanted to be with Bella, and I wanted to touch her and kiss her and that was good enough for now. I wouldn't make any hasty decisions or rush myself into something that couldn't be taken back if it turned out to be a mistake.
No...if I had sex with Bella, it wouldn't just be because my dick wanted her; it would be because I couldn't imagine life without her, because I needed her, because I loved her as much as I could love another person.
We watched a movie in her room, and I left after her dad called to say he was coming home. We weren't really ready for meeting the parents yet, and besides, I was looking a little bit too much like I'd rolled around in bed with his daughter to shake the man's hand.
I kissed her goodbye and held her close, swaying under the dim yellow glow of the porch light. Bella buried her face against my chest and I felt a little wavering sensation around my heart. I wanted to steel myself against it, but when she raised those big brown eyes to look up at me with such tender hope, I found I couldn't.
I was really getting closer to the point of no return.
When I got back to Rose and Emmett's, I was happy and relaxed. I hadn't felt this good in a long time, but I knew that had a lot to do with my "activities" with Bella earlier in the evening.
I walked into the living room to find Rose and Em cuddling on the couch watching television. They liked those medical and cop dramas, so they filled up their TiVo with stuff like Fringe and CSI and watched them whenever they both had the night off together. I didn't want to disturb them, so I just said hello and turned to leave when Rose remembered I had a message from a woman on the counter.
I went to grab the message and read the short note. Esme had called me earlier in the day, but I'd been at school. I wondered how she knew where to find me, but since Rose and Emmett still went to church on Sunday, it probably would have gotten back to her that I was staying with them since my fight with my father.
I hoped it wasn't too late to call her back, but luckily, she answered on the second ring. "Hello?"
"Hey Esme, it's Edward. You called?"
She released a big breath. "I wanted to talk to you about something. Can you meet me tomorrow for coffee, say around 10?"
I mentally looked through my schedule tomorrow and decided I could do it. "Yeah, where at?"
We made plans and I hung up the phone, wondering what she wanted to talk to me about. I hoped that it wouldn't be about my father, because the last thing I wanted to do was listen to Esme try and fix things between my father and me. I didn't want her to feel like she had to be in that position.
The next morning, I waited for Esme at a table in the middle of the small coffee shop close to campus. She blew through the door with sunglasses and a nervous smile. "Edward, can I get you something to drink?" she asked politely.
I nodded toward the cup of black coffee in front of me and gestured for her to sit down. "But I can get you something, if you'd like."
She thought for a moment and said, "Yes, thank you. I'd like a decaffeinated ice tea, if they have any, please."
I nodded and went to the counter to get her drink. When I returned, she took a nervous sip and pushed her sunglasses up onto her head. Her eyes looked wide and a little bit worried. "I'm sorry for calling you to come here today. You're probably wondering why I'm being so suspicious."
I smiled and laid a calming hand over hers. "Don't be sorry. You've been a lot of help to me in the past few months. I just wonder what you need."
She looked down at our hands and pulled hers out from under mine so that she could toy with the paper from the straw wrapper. "Goodness, I don't even know where to begin..." she said breathlessly, with worry tingeing her tone.
I sat back in my chair and decided to wait until she was ready. Finally, she took a deep breath and looked up at me with a helpless look on her face. "Edward, I'm pregnant. Your father and I...well, before we broke up, we...well, you don't want to know that, but it's your father's and I'm really amazed because I didn't think I could even have children, let alone this late in my life."
I felt like the air was knocked from my lungs. My dad was going to have another kid? "Does my father know?" I choked out.
She shook her head. "I haven't told anyone, except for you. My doctor knows, but that's it. I only told you because I'm worried about telling Carlisle. He was so miserable and angry the last time we spoke, and I don't know what to do about him or the situation. I know I'm going to have the baby, but I don't know anything beyond that. God, when I think about how difficult everything will be..." she trailed off helplessly, but I could detect the small measure of happiness in her eyes.
"I'll help you any way I can," I told her firmly, even though I was freaking out inside. I was going to be a big brother, and that fact alone blew my mind.
She wiped a couple tears from her cheeks and clutched my hand in hers. "You have no idea, Edward. No idea how much that means to me. Even if this baby can't have a loving father, I hope that you are at least willing to come around every now and then."
I nodded. "Um, so what are we gonna tell my dad?" I asked.
She laughed, but it wasn't a funny laugh. It was a nervous, scared laugh. "I have no idea."
A/N: So this is a twist, but don't think this was made just for shocks. This has a purpose. Trust me. :)