Thank you to my patient, super-speed beta Viola Cornuta.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
EPOV
I'd been slumped in the same position for over an hour; this was the closest I would let myself get to the elevator . . . to her. My back was pressed firmly against my front door, my knees pulled up and strangled tightly by my arms. I was sitting on the floor in my entryway when I simultaneously felt and heard the series of staccato raps on the door.
Remaining motionless for a moment, my mind bolted through the possibilities.
It was she, the knock on my door. I hadn't seen her in three weeks. It had to be.
I hoped it was she.
I wished it wasn't.
There really was no other possibility. For a comical split second, I entertained the unlikely chance I was strong enough to ignore the knock. Ignore her. Two inches of wood divided us. Hah.
I wasn't strong enough; I lifted myself slowly off the floor and admired her confident silence. I knew she was still out there, but she didn't make to summon me again.
She knew I'd open the door eventually. She was completely right.
The door followed my grip, slowly swinging open, and there she was. As soon as my eyes met hers, I was sure I hadn't breathed for days; I had starved, thirsted. Winded, famished, parched, I stared at her. So beautiful.
I had gone too long without the sight of her, and I allowed myself to absorb everything with my fervid gaze. Her rich brown eyes shimmered with golden glints of conviction, and frankly, the intensity she leveled straight back made me nervous. Her lips were warm, rosy, soft - yet set. The peach energy in her cheeks flushed, invigorated. Bella's determination was evident, but she didn't seem angry. An anxious breath escaped my lungs gratefully. The supple, creamy body she hid under her usual clothes was barely contained in today's gauzy sundress. Thin strings tied bows across her elegant collarbone and over her shoulders; kissing the inky bright flowers, which curled over her arm. My fingers twitched forward before my brain could rein them in. I wanted to tug those strings. I continued my visual journey down her front in an effort to distract myself from the easily corrupted trappings of her clothes.
Not my best distraction-plan ever. The collarbone led to her breasts, full and plush and, oh dear God, braless. The flare of her skirt just made me think of other undergarments she may or may not have been wearing. I huffed a short breath and settled my view on her leanly muscular legs. So beautiful.
"Edward." She said it. No question, no challenge, no animosity.
"Hi, Bella." I wanted to strip her down naked and lick her entire body, so I took a timid little step backward. Before I could move the whole step, a firm, warm hand slipped into mine. She tightened her grip to halt my retreat, but it was completely unnecessary. As soon as I felt her skin against mine, the hum tingling through my nerve endings, she glued me to the spot. I was doomed. Beyond five-second-stares and warm, slow elevators and disturbingly vivid fantasies and desperate, needy kisses. Doomed.
She didn't say another word after my name, and my heart thrummed at the thought of her starting and ending every day, every moment, with my name sweetening her tongue, echoing in my ears. She tugged my hand, and wordlessly, I allowed myself to tow along behind her as she turned toward the elevator. Her free hand pushed the button, and over her shoulder, I watched her face reflected in the steel doors. She studied me back, and I was unnerved by the ferocity as umber eyes met mine. Her dim mirror image glimmered brighter than any unhampered face I'd ever seen, and I was enthralled. Enthralled by the lick of her tongue over lips, the determination emblazoned across her reflection, the silently panted air swelling her chest.
The bell chimed, the doors groaned open, and she pulled me into the warm space.
She depressed the button for the lobby, and the doors closed.
I stared at our hands, joined, linked by warm, intertwined fingers. Soft skin on me; her thumb pressed tiny circles into my hand.
My feet dug harder into the floor, my weight shifted uneasily towards my knees, as I looked up to see the emergency stop button under her finger.
She fluidly turned to face me, and I could see the words gathering in her head, behind her eyes.
"Edward, I want to be around you, and no matter what you say, I know you want, no, need to be around me too." Whoa. I didn't know what I'd expected from the girl who silently dragged me from my apartment to trap me in an elevator, but that wasn't anywhere near the list. The most shocking thing about her statement was how true it was. Tingling bands of warmth started to spread across my chest. She wanted to be around me . . . but I wasn't healthy for her. For anyone.
My face hardened with determined disappointment, and I wracked my vacant head for something appropriate to say. Something to make her see. I was empty, hollow; I had nothing to offer her.
"Bella, I don't know who you think I am, but I'm not a good person. Not that I'm a really bad guy; I mean . . . I'm not dangerous or anything, ugh. I don't know what I'm trying to say. I just know I'm not good for anyone, especially you." I locked my glare on the floor. I couldn't see her face. I was so afraid I'd hurt her. I knew my words would, but I knew it would be worse if I let her think I was anything but . . . what I was.
"So have you always made up your mind about everything before you gave it a chance to happen?" Her voice was a thin hard edge, and she would have sounded tough if I hadn't detected the slight waver at the end. "You can't run away right now; you might as well talk to me." She was harsh; I deserved it.
I hesitantly raised my eyes to hers, and they mirrored my agony, which bloomed in my chest, pulsed through my veins and coursed into my limbs.
"Bella . . ." I started. I wanted to tell her. I wanted her to know how abnormal I was. I couldn't get the words out. "I . . . I've watched you."
I waited for realization to wash across her face, for her to slap me, to panic, to run screaming from the small steel enclosure as quickly as she could get the doors open.
"Watched me do what? What do you mean?" Innocence and confusion painted her deep eyes, rosy cheeks, plump mouth. I didn't want to elaborate. I elaborated.
"Before I m-met you, I watched you." She still looked at me as if she saw nothing wrong with what I'd said. I wanted to shake her shoulders, scream at her to comprehend how disturbed I was. "Shit, I don't even get in the elevator if I don't think you might be in it, Bella. I take the stairs." My eyes burned into hers, and I silently begged her to register what I was ineffectively attempting to explain.
"So you think you're bad for me because you wanted to be around me and didn't have the courage to introduce yourself?" She smirked, but her eyes were dead serious.
"It's not that simple." I countered.
"I think it is, and I don't care if you think you're not good for me. I don't care if you're not good for me. I want to find out for myself." As she spoke, her body pressed forward, and the invisible barrier I tried to maintain between us weakened as she barreled me into the wall. Finally, when I couldn't retreat any farther, she stepped towards me again, obliterating my bubble.
Sweet heat grazed my face, and I sucked in a hungry gulp of her breath. The scents of summer and sugar and lust flooded my head, dislodged my laughable self-control. I could taste her on my tongue, and a pleasant burn chased her down my throat, inflating my lungs with hope and freshness and her.
"Edward, I like you." I felt her lips whisper against mine, and I swallowed her words greedily. I would take and treasure anything she would give me. "You need me whether you're ready to accept it or not."
"Uh . . . I don't . . ." and before I could even try to be coherent, her lips smothered mine.
I tumbled into a sensory abyss, and all I felt were full pink lips, a soft wet tongue, Bella's gasps in my mouth and delicate fingers across my back. When she finally released my mouth and inhaled my exhalations, I tried to breathe some cognizance into her.
"Bella -" Her small hand muffled my thoughts, my lips, silenced my anxieties.
"Stop thinking so much, Edward." Her lips replaced her fingers, and I relaxed into the wall, gently taking her body with mine.
The loud ringing of a telephone shocked me. Out of heaven. Away from Bella. Her hands groped leisurely down my arms to my hips with a squeeze, then she stepped to the box, opened the little door and picked up the receiver.
"Hello?" She sounded weak, shaky and frail. My eyes snapped to her face, searching for the hurt I'd caused. It was clear in her voice, my doing, but her eyes twinkled mischievously and her face was aglow. She listened for a moment and then replied in the same wan voice. "No . . . no, Mike, the elevator's not broken. I was feeling sick, so I stopped it for a moment. The movement was making me woozy. I'll only be a minute; I'm really sorry." She smiled slyly as she dropped the receiver back into the box.
Before I could move, she stepped to me and pressed her body into mine.
"Bella . . ." I made another weak attempt to do the right thing. I needed to let her go, but what can you do when you muster every meager ounce of will-power left in your body, throw your arms wide to release the one person you desperately want to clench hold of and she grips tighter? I didn't have any energy left to reject her; no strength to peel her from me. My heart wasn't in it anyway.
"You need me Edward. I know you do," The more she said it, the less I could deny it to myself. She pressed her lips to mine, and fire jolted through my frame. A new unfamiliar thumping started in my chest as if my heart beat for the first time. My body moved of its own volition. My arms clung to her shoulders, and my hands groped her soft flesh, traced the colorful ink embracing her arm, touched every piece of Bella I could. While I could.
As she kissed me deeper, her tongue pushing passionately past my lips, swirls of music swelled into elegant patterns inside my head. All I could do was feel. Feel the diaphanous cotton fabric of her dress, the cushioned velvet lips pressed fiercely into my mouth, the milky skin of her arms under mine. Then my fingers skimmed down her back, ghosts of currents tingled the tips like electric plasma filaments restrained by a brittle glass globe. I palmed the curve of her hips, the swell of her ass, and, bending my knees, smoothed down further to her lean muscular legs.
Bella stole the air from my lungs as my hands migratedtowards her inner thighs. She pushed her fingers into my hair, gripping hard. I moaned against her mouth; in response, she emitted a quiet feminine sound, slid her hands to find purchase on my shoulders and hitched her leg onto my hip, resting the weight in my palm.
My thoughts became incoherent, drowned in whirling notes and scents of summer and the taste of her tongue all harmonized into a symphony of her. I moved instinctually, lifted her other leg and spun to press her into the wall, me into her.
I kissed her, pushed into her body. I melded to her hungry, needy touches, consumed her sweet, wet flavor, gasped lungs full of her languid summer scent, watched her eyelashes flutter gently against flushed skin. Stole everything she had to give.
She brought her hands down to the hip-level handrail, bracing herself, as she tilted her head back against the cool brushed steel. Warmth seeped into my lower abdomen from the burning heat between her legs. My lips dragged over her jaw and down her neck, scattered hasty desperate kisses over her delicate throat and paused to lap at the throb of her quickened pulse, as my fingers gripped her thighs, holding her tight to me. A sobbed moan hitched from her chest, betrayed the aching intensity of our touch.
"Bella," I uttered reverently to her chest, over her heart. Her head leaned forward, and she sucked my earlobe between her lips. Her tongue traced the edge up to the top and back down to the fleshy lobe again. Sucking harder, she bit down with a low rumbling purr. My chest felt as if it were splitting open to draw her into me, and I shifted my torso back slightly to watch her eyes darken, lids rolling shut. I settled her legs around my waist and reached up with both hands to the flimsy confines of her dress. I tugged the strings simultaneously and yanked them down, the filmy fabric yielding easily.
Her bare breasts were more amazing than her clothes and my imagination could ever conspire to suggest, and I quickly captured them with my hands. I watched the pert pink nipples harden and pucker under my touch before I leaned in to lick and suck and nibble. In return, her sighs and gasps and whimpers echoed seductively in my ears.
"Edward," she rasped around a throaty moan, and her hand left the rail to sneak under my shirt. I lost track of what I was doing as she caressed my side, dragging fingernails across my ribs and bunching fabric. With an unintentional growl, I grabbed at the cloth and tore it over my head to fall to the floor. I watched as her entranced gaze followed her hand's exploration down my chest. Fingers dug into skin, pressed into muscles, dipped into the spaces between. Fire flashed in her eyes when she reached my navel and lighted through the trail of hair leading to my waistband. Her little fingers struggled between us where we were pressed together, fumbling for the buttons on my jeans.
Quickly, I directed her hand away and back to the handrail. I created more distance between our bodies by taking a half step backward, close enough to keep her ankles hooked around my waist. I wrenched the jean material away from the buttons, so thankful I'd forgone a belt. My thumbs hooked into the waist, catching my underwear too, and shoved the denim past my hips to fall down my legs. My erection, freed, rested between her thighs. I pushed closer to her again, trapped it with our bodies and elicited a delicious exhalation of sweet summer and fresh lust.
"Bella, you are magnificent." I spoke with borrowed air, eager to breathe her into my lungs. She leaned her head to my shoulder, resting her wet mouth on my skin and sending a shiver down my spine. She parted her lips, and her teeth bit sharply into me. I groaned loudly through gritted teeth. I was overwhelmed. Suddenly, I couldn't close enough distance, steal enough breath, swallow enough kisses.
My hands pressed urgently into her hips before they slipped over her thighs. I gripped the skirt of her dress and shifted it out of the way; the fabric brushed rapidly past my cock, causing another shiver to dance down my back. My hand dragged across the almost nonexistent lace shielding her wet heat from me, slid to the sensitive crease inside her leg and tucked under the edge of her panties. I shoved them aside, cupping her pussy in my palm; my fingers pressed gently against the smooth bare skin.
Her mouth found mine, recaptured my lips with her lips; my tongue teased hers. I rubbed her slick soft flesh rhythmically and increased my pressure to match the intensity of our kiss. Two of my fingers pushed into her as I circled her clit with my thumb.
"Ung, Edward . . . please," she hissed as her hands tightened on the rail. I pumped my fingers inside her wet warmth a few more times before removing them to grip my dick. I rubbed the head up and down her slit, swirling circles over her clit. I stopped at her opening and pushed forward with a miniscule amount of pressure. Then I stopped.
I realized what I was about to do, and I froze.
"You need me," Bella whispered pleadingly into my ear.
"I want you, Bella," I responded. Full of frustration and confusion and desperation.
"Edward, please. I need you." With that simple statement she stripped my tenuous self-control, and I plunged deep into her. Tightness and warmth and heat surrounded my cock, and we moaned together harmonically as I filled her.
I stopped once I was fully encased in her because the feeling was something I'd never experienced before. Never. Not in my whole life. I wanted to savor it.
I was experiencing déjà vu wrapped inside a dream, which was more like a fantasy, yet infinitely better because it was reality. My vivid imaginings were in the wings, offstage in the shadows, at best, compared to the spotlight in which I was standing.
"Edward . . ." it was a whisper on her lips, and her face once again mirrored the feeling in my chest.
I pulled back and thrust into her again. The sensations of Bella were indescribable. I would've thought nothing could compete with having my shaft buried deep inside her, stroking within her. As usual, I was wrong. The noises she emitted in response to my movements, her sounds, which surrounded me, blanketed me, transfigured me, her pleasure made audible, were miraculous things.
Bella's body felt like magic, her gasps, moans, whines cast a spell woven around my body, through my gut, binding in my chest.
I pumped into her with a hard, furious rhythm. I coaxed out everything she had. I gripped her hip, holding it in place against the wall, and used my other hand to squeeze her breast. I firmly rolled her nipple between pinched fingers as her tongue dipped past my lips to lick the hunger from my mouth, take it from my tongue. My fingers brushed her nipple again before trailing down her stomach. They dipped into her navel and tickled the delicate skin over her belly. I smoothed across the bare skin of her mound and slipped my thumb between her lips to find her clit.
If this reality was so much better than my dreams, I had to see her in the throes of an orgasm. I would hear her rapture, her bliss. I would feel her body around mine.
I pulsed my thumb into her clit with the rhythm of my hips, and her gasps became gradually more pronounced. Her lips melted with mine over and over until she finally threw her head back against the cool metal wall. I kissed my way down her chin, her jaw, her throat. I licked up to the sweet soft flesh just below her ear and sucked the lobe into my mouth.
"Please Bella," I rasped. "I need to see you; I need to feel you. Please come for me."
"Oh, I . . . I'm so close . . . harder." She whimpered softly.
I thrust into her, harder still, and my thumb flicked and circled her clit. She used her grip on the handrail for leverage as her hips pushed forward to meet mine.
"Baby, tell me what you need . . . please." I wanted to do anything she asked for. The more she felt the more of her I took into myself.
"I need," she paused as her body started to tense in ripples and waves around mine. "I need you . . . Edward." And with my name sweetening her tongue, echoing in my ears, her back arched. Her legs trembled, her chest hitched with gasped sobs, yet none of that held half a candle's weak light to the music of Bella unraveling around me. Her muscles clenched and throbbed and pulled me deeper, her feet, pressed firmly against my ass, held me still. I slowed my thumb's movements, simply pressing firmly over her clit, but I continued to push my body into hers, attempting to lengthen the beauty I composed all over her face.
After her body relaxed, she continued to meet my hips thrust for thrust. I moved both of my hands to her ass, and pulled her into me forcefully. She began to clench her muscles around my shaft, and in moments, I felt the fire of my orgasm burn up my legs, through my hips and abdomen. My seed pulsed into her, flames timed with my thrusts, and my chest swelled, so full of her.
"Fuck!" I growled against her mouth, panting and heaving with my release. "Bella, you're so beautiful," I whispered, kisses accompanied words.
Her legs tightened around my waist, and her arms wrapped my neck as she clung to me. With my softening erection still buried inside her, her body pressed tightly against me, I felt better than I've ever felt before. I was euphoric and punch-drunk and I felt normal, whole.
She kissed me and kissed me, and I wanted to stay in this elevator with her forever.
Her legs slowly released, moving down my body. I slid out of her as her fingers braided into my hair, pulling me deeper into our kiss. Gradually, we broke apart, rejoining with gentle kisses between breaths. I pulled my pants up quickly, leaving the buttons undone, and I reached carefully for the thin ties of her dress. I knotted an easy bow across her collarbone, fixing one side of the fabric in place. I reached for the other side, and my eyes stayed at the flowers on her shoulder. I looped the second bow slower, interrupting my work with kisses dusted on colorful skin.
Her eyes were fervent as she watched me straighten her clothes, and her teeth bit gingerly into her bottom lip. How she could appear both shy and at ease in the same moment, I didn't know.
I dusted a kiss across her lips again, and a half smile decorated the corners of her mouth.
"I like this dress." I smoothed my hand over the already righted fabric covering her waist and hip.
Her smile turned impish as she looked up at me sheepishly from under fluttering lashes. "I thought you might."
And then the phone rang.
Bella moved to pick it up again, and answered with the same feigned weakness as before. I only partially heard her words as I picked up my shirt and pulled it over my head. I watched her. She was so beautiful, so pure. Pure feeling, pure emotion. She felt what she wanted. She did what she felt. I could never be like that.
My chest caved in on itself as I felt the sharp jab of reality puncturing my euphoria. I wasn't different because I devoured her against a wall. I was exactly the same. I took what I wanted, what I'd wanted from the first time I saw her, and still, I had nothing to deliver in return. Surely, I'd hollowed her out. After what I'd acquired from her, what could be left behind?
I couldn't make myself normal for her in recompense. I would have. I didn't know how.
All I knew how to be was what I was. And I was not good for her. Unfortunately, my resolve hadn't been strong enough for me to maintain my distance, and I didn't know how to fix myself. I retreated back to the wall, fingers fruitlessly worked in my hair.
She hung up the phone and whirled to face me. She was smiling and glowing and . . . happy. Her face dropped into a serious mask as soon as she met my eyes, and I knew I hadn't kept the torture from my gaze.
"Bella, I . . ." I searched her eyes pleadingly. I wished I could will understanding into her. I wanted her to just see. See me for what I was. See I wasn't good for her.
Silently, she reached her nimble fingers into my pocket, fishing out my phone. After a few moments of pushing buttons on her part and utter distraught confusion on mine, she tucked it back into the denim of my jeans.
"Edward, I had a feeling this might happen. I'm not going to push you any harder than I already have . . . for now. I understand this isn't simple for you even though I may not clearly understand why. I put my number in your phone, so you can call me when you're ready or if you need to talk." She reached up to hold my face, her thumb stroking my bottom lip, and the thrum on the surface of my skin was static electricity on a cold day. "Please, don't take too long." She smiled imploringly at me, and turned to release the emergency stop button.
I was in shock. The elevator reached the lobby, doors slid, bells pinged. Warm fingers caressed my jaw, lips skimmed my mouth, pulses thrilled my face. I was in shock.
The most amazing woman on the planet stepped out of the elevator, pivoted to wink over her shoulder at me, and walked away.
And I let her.
I let her.
The cumbersome doors closed. I stared. At the spot where she had been on the other side of steel. I stared. Into my own vacant metallic reflection.
The hollow endless void of my eyes reflected back the emptiness in my chest. Where my heart had beat a new rhythm against my ribs. A rhythm percussed its memory into my bones. Into my flesh. Into my soul.
I marginally registered the stillness of the lift as I stood and stared. Numbly, I reached out and touched the seven until it illuminated.
My body pulsed with the reminiscence of her. Once my mirrored cell, which steeped me in the scents of Bella, stopped, I trudged a comatose trail to my door. Slumping to my piano bench, I dropped to the cool black seat. The seat once of comfort and focus. Now it was just cold, slick. A bench.
Her melody wove through my head, swirled into my limbs and infused my hands. I played and played. I poured Bella out of my body, spilled her from my fingertips, bled her onto white and black. I played and played. As the notes mingled, braided, married, their symphony swamped me, replaced the emptiness in my chest. I forced her from me into the keys, into the hammers, into the strings. The cohesion of her, her rhapsody, penetrated, saturated and imbued, welded to my flesh, my very bones.
My eyelids crushed together as the last lingering sounds plucked from the belly of my piano, reverberating inside my chest.
My whole body vibrated with her, tattooed into my muscles, my skin. I felt the impressions of every touch between her skin and mine. Every fingerprint. I smelled the sweetness of every exhalation from her lungs to mine. Every breath. I saw the flood of every capillary coloring her ivory skin against mine. Every blush. I heard the timbre of every utterance of her voice mixed with mine. Every sound. I tasted the flavor of summer from her tongue laced with mine. Every kiss.
Every sigh. Every gaze. Every flavor. Every gasp. Every stare. Every pulse. Every . . . every single moment. Every single thing. Bella.
I was done. It was complete. Gently, I lowered the fall over the keys. I shifted forward, and rested my forehead against the piano. Cradled by the cool inky black surface, eyes shut against my solitude, I let my mind wander over her. I drifted, swallowed whole by my feelings of completion, need, fear, remorse.
Somewhere in the back of my skull tapped an inkling; an inkling of a dream born of desperation and desire. A dream of a wish come true; a wish for something more. For the first time, I could imagine Bella belonging to me as I already belonged to her. I still couldn't fathom how I'd get there, but I was dizzy with a sense of possibility.
I'd never truly understood the precious intensity of this feeling before now. I'd never known the zealous faith of pure hope.
Hope.
Hope that somehow I could be what she deserved; more than what I was.
Better.
A better man.
BPOV
I'd harbored a completely irrational hope. Secretly, tucked away in the corner of my mind, I'd wished Edward would come to his senses immediately, sweep me into his arms and dash into the sunset. Cue ridiculous music. Okay, so I wasn't waiting for this to happen, and I wasn't exceptionally disappointed when it didn't. I wasn't. Not really.
My only true goal was to try to get Edward to see me, to talk to me. I wanted him to see he shouldn't just throw away whatever sparked between us in vibrant crackling arcs. It felt so much more intense than anything I'd ever experienced, and if the energy between us was even half as palpable for him, it was worth anything. Everything.
When I'd knocked on his door, I had to fight the bubbling in my stomach, which promised I'd vomit if I didn't leave. I ignored my twisting gut and stared at the numbers on wood. The daze in my head was infused with determination, and I felt every muscle in my body clench and release, over and over. I had been so sure. I'd made a very intentional decision to wear a light summery dress, and I'd composed a speech, a dissertation really, in my head. A discourse for Edward. I'd contemplated drawing my thoughts out on tri-fold poster-board for visual support. I'd entertained making him a mix CD which told him in every chord, every verse, why I couldn't leave him alone. Why he needed me.
My mouth was ready, written over with my confidence, my eloquence, but doubts like nervous impulses stalled my thoughts. The yes's and no's circled and parried; I became a totem of indecision frozen to the spot. My glutted tongue was locked behind apprehensive teeth when Edward opened his door. I said his name because it bubbled from the throbbing pulse in my chest, avoiding the uncertainty flowing from my head. I saw his eyes roll desirously down my body, and I knew I'd made the right decision to come.
Then his face glazed with a combination of fear and rejection and deprivation, and he started to move backward. I grabbed his hand because I was here for a battle, and I would fight before he could retreat. I needed to martial him somewhere he couldn't run, somewhere we were equals. Where we started this struggle, and if my hopes were made real where we might finish it.
He watched me in the hazy silver of the elevator doors, and I couldn't tamper the intensity I knew my eyes held as I stared back. My whole body thrummed at his proximity, and I'd surpassed casual behavior. It took every ounce of my self-control to stay still while we waited. My brain knew I would scare him back into his apartment, but my body just countered with a desire to follow him. Follow him through his door and to his bed and where ever he'd let me. Forever.
Barely managing to question his broken, sad logic in the small, warm steel box, I couldn't find the eloquence on my tongue. Finally, I silenced his fallible convictions with the warmth of my mouth against his, and his body broke the resolve to which his head tried so desperately to cling.
I wanted to tell him everything, give him everything, and my lungs breathed a wordless monologue full of my need, my want, my longing into his lips, his tongue, his heart. His body answered mine with the same ferocity of our last elevator kiss, but this time I wouldn't let him panic and run. Not until his arms and mouth and hips told me everything they had to divulge. I wanted his body to whisper the secrets his mind couldn't. I wanted him.
I was overwhelmed by him; pressed into me, around me. My heart throbbed and welled tightly behind my ribs, pulsing out a rhythm to parallel his own. My body felt as if it were fissured open, and as I poured out, he swallowed me down greedily. I'd never been so devoured, consumed, absorbed. I'd never been so whole. His body coveted mine, and his overwhelming desire replaced all of the things in me he took, filled all the aching, empty spaces.
He was a frantic, desperate, voracious lover, and he felt better pressed against me, into me, than any dreams. I pushed all my lust, my pleasure, my love into his skin, his hair, his lips. He made my body tremble, and his face was beautiful in his release. It was painted with sheer joy; all the apprehension and doubt disappeared.
I knew his bliss wouldn't be permanent, and I was ready for him to panic, draw away from me. He would need space, and I would give it to him. I would give him anything. Everything. He needed to know I was okay with his indecision. I was willing to wait.
I practically bounced all the way back to my apartment; the glances and smiles I received told me my face was clearly mirroring the joy which expanded in my chest and saturated all my cells. Lost in memories of his fingers, his skin, I entered my apartment and sighed dreamily into the living room.
By the time I noticed Alice and Jasper cuddled together on the couch, they were both examining me curiously with identically arched eyebrows. Quickly my face fell into an empty mask, and I hoped they would let me disappear into my bedroom. I knew the zeal in my eyes unmasked my false apathy, and Alice made it very clear to me with her eyes I should take a seat and prepare for an inquisition.
I huffed at her with a bit more aggravation than I felt, but I figured I should start out with more resistance to guard against a full emotional disembowelment. I plodded to the chair and flopped down.
"Oh, please," Alice snorted. "You're giddy. Don't try to hide it."
I couldn't help the huge smile, which contorted my face. A quiet giggle escaped my throat. Jasper's eyes darted back and forth in a volley between our faces and his mouth quirked into a lazy smirk. I struggled to straighten my features and keep a more serious expression, but the corners of my mouth still twitched traitorously. Alice continued to stare at me, her eyebrows raised and a question in her smile.
"What?" I demanded while I attempted to appear irritated. The tug in my cheeks just made me giggle again, and I rolled my eyes back with my head to stare at the ceiling.
"Why are you so effervescent? You're bubbling." Alice leveled me with a suspicious stare, and Jasper continued to smirk, watching her with adoring eyes. Her eyes narrowed and she turned to her boyfriend. "Jas, what's today?"
"Mmm? Uh, Monday, Sweetness," he hummed into her ear before he pressed his lips to her cheek langorously, reverently.
"You saw Edward, didn't you?" She snickered through her words, and Jasper's attention was redirected to my face again; he was genuinely curious.
A bloom of heat licked across my cheeks, I pressed my lips into an anxious line and dropped my eyes to the floor.
"Oh!" She pointed at my face like a crazy person. "Spill, Bella," she demanded. I glanced up to see Jasper nod his head violently. Seriously, what was he? A teenage girl?
"Don't you have to work Jasper? And why are you home?" I attempted to redirect each with questions, but I knew I'd be lucky to stall.
"Jasper makes his own schedule, and I don't have classes anymore. So?" With one sentence and one word she took my only misdirection away. I briefly considered darting for my bedroom, but Alice was faster than me. She was not above shoving her foot in the door and then using the injury guilt as an added manipulation tool later. I took a deep breath. I conceded.
"I went to see Edward." I stated finally.
"And?" She whirled her hands violently in the air, urging me to proceed.
"And I sort of forced him to talk to me . . ." A smooth low whistle left Jasper's lips, and his eyebrows were knitted, tense, disquieted. Alice's face contrasted the man's who sat next to her. His was scrunched with uncertainty, and hers was open, wide with surprise and disbelief.
"What do you mean forced?" Jasper's suspicious tone betrayed he was having a hard time with the marriage of forcing Edward to do anything and my current ebullience. I realized what my answer was a moment before it escaped my mouth, and my cheeks raced ahead of the words, burning red hot.
"I sort of pulled him into the elevator and pushed the emergency stop button," I mumbled to the inside of my cheek. Alice bounced once, unable to contain her exuberance, and a high-pitched peal of laughter burst from her mouth. Jasper's chin dropped so low, I worried his jaw had unhinged.
"You trapped him in an elevator?" I nodded to his overly loud question. "In an elevator?!" His volume rose again, but he didn't appear angry, just incredulous. My eyes jumped to Alice with concern, begging her to translate his outburst. She shrugged her shoulders at me, looking equally confused. After another moment of apparent shock, Jasper pulled away from Alice and folded himself at the waist. A gigantic guffaw escaped his lungs and his shoulders vibrated with laughter. I tried to frown disapprovingly at him, so when he looked at me again, he would be able to see my annoyance plainly on my face. The reason for his laughter escaped me though, and I was too interested to be truly offended.
"I don't understand. Why's this so funny to you?" I queried after his chuckles started to subside.
"Edward doesn't even get in elevators unless you're in them. He doesn't like them. Never has." A small whoosh of air sucked into Alice's lungs in response to Jasper's explanation. Her face softened and she studied me.
"See?" She whispered faintly, knowingly, to me, and I wasn't sure exactly which of her assertions I was supposed to be realizing at the moment. Edward was chock full of issues. Check. Edward definitely wasn't perfect. Check. Edward was in love with me. I wanted to know the last affirmation to be true more than anything else I could know, yet I didn't.
"I know about his thing with the elevator, Jas," I sighed. "Although, he didn't tell me until I had already trapped him and attempted to pour out my heart."
"Oh," Alice brought her hand to her chest. "You poured out your heart?" She sighed, and her puppy dog eyes asked as much as her words had. Quite frankly, she was starting to scare me a bit. Jasper's face softened inexplicably as he waited intently for my answer.
"Well, no. I mean not really, anyway." My tongue twisted around my explanation the same way it had twisted around my declarations for Edward. "It was all very ineloquent. I basically ended up telling him he needed me over and over again. In retrospect, I was rather pushy . . ." I groaned and dropped my face into my palms. I was surprised when Jasper's voice was the one to offer me reassurances.
"Actually, Bella, that's a good thing where Edward is concerned." My eyes came up to meet his, and solemnity had replaced the jovial glow in his previous expression. My eyes widened minutely, relieved Edward's best friend was offering honest confirmations I had done the right thing.
"So-o . . . what happened next?" Alice's body buzzed with her excitement.
"Um . . . uh," I stalled, feeling my skin enflame again. "I kissed him." I finished with a whisper. Jasper let out another low whistle, and Alice gasped with anticipation. She knew we had kissed before, so the important part to her was his reaction.
"Then what?" She breathed like a child at a campfire listening to ghost stories.
I stopped. I hesitated because I didn't know how to explain to Alice what had happened next, let alone Jasper. Why was Jasper still here? I didn't want to tell him I'd had sex with his best friend within the last two hours. Really amazing sex with his best friend. The best sex I'd ever had. In an elevator. My eyes slipped out of focus as fresh memories assaulted my body. I felt his skin like an echo, against me, loving me, in me. A shiver tickled through my body and goosebumps puckered my skin. A quiet breath rolled slowly over my tongue and it was infused with the aftertaste of Edward. Rich and warm and biting.
I was brought back to my unfortunate present by my all too perceptive best friend as she gasped more dramatically than a histrionic prima donna in an Italian opera.
"Bella!" There was a long pregnant pause after my name, which tricked me into believing Alice was too shocked to speak. "You slept with him!" It wasn't a question or an accusation. Just a declaration, and the pointing at my face again. As if any of the three of us in the room was unsure to whom she spoke. It was enough to keep my eyes trained on the wall while my face caught fire. Maybe I would burn quickly.
"I didn't sleep with him Alice," I muttered under my breath adolescently, petulantly. I really wanted to sleep with him, nuzzle into his hair, press my soft body against his long hard frame. I wanted to sleep knowing he slept with me; I wanted to dream while he dreamed next to me. She glared at me when I looked back to her face. I cringed.
"Oh? Would you prefer I say you had sex with him? You screwed him? You did the dirty? You fucked him?" She stopped her torture and giggled for a moment, and a knowing expression replaced amusement. "But he fucked you, didn't he?"
"Alice! What the hell?" I was too stunned, too embarrassed, to express proper anger in my voice.
"Sorry Sweetie," she looked remorseful. "I didn't mean it that way. I just meant he let go, didn't he? He opened up a little."
I didn't know how to respond, and the immensity of how much of my heart I had invested in his potential reaction overwhelmed me. My eyes welled with my relief and his need. He hadn't rejected me, and I was saturated with my hope now, flooded with it. I nodded silently in response because no words could ever make my answer more poignant than it already was. My eyes moved back to them lazily, and I was surprised to receive a really warm genuine grin from Jasper.
"Hon, what happened . . . after?" Alice asked calmly, obviously trying to curb her excessive enthusiasm.
"Well, I was kind of ready for him to panic, but he didn't, not at first. Then I could see the anxiety in his eyes, and I did what I'd planned to do. I let him know he could have space, and I wasn't going to disappear or push too hard." I shrugged my shoulders. "I gave him my phone number, asked him not to wait too long and left."
I earned my third whistle from Jasper, and Alice let out a whispered, "Wow."
"So, now I guess it's his decision. His timetable. I'll just wait for him to process . . . whatever it is he needs to process," I shrugged and tried to smile. Really I was happy, but the uncertainty still hovering around me cloaked my usually effortless joy.
"No, Bella." I was shocked to hear Jasper's serious tone. "It's good to give Edward a bit of time to process, but you can't just leave him to his own devices indefinitely. No." The last word left his throat with a slight vibrato as he shook his head left to right rapidly.
"I don't want to push him anymore though. He seemed to realize finally I like him and he likes me . . ." I trailed off because I didn't know how to explain what burned and pulsed between us. Something had shifted, solidified, and I wanted him to acknowledge it himself.
"I get what you're sayin' hon," Jasper paused to better organize his thoughts, "Trust me, he already knows how much he likes you. For Edward, that is, most assuredly, not the problem."
I groaned with frustration. "I don't get it. What's the problem, then?"
"Well, I can't really explain it. It's more about Edward himself; there are some things about him you may need to know." He shrugged his shoulders and rolled them back, leaning into the couch again.
"I don't really want to understand him through his best friend. I want him to tell me the things about himself he needs me to know." I knew my infatuation with him was plainly evident by this stage in our conversation, and it made the discussion even more difficult.
"The things you need to know are things Edward might never tell you. Some he doesn't even realize and others are things he's never told me. His mom and I had a few in depth conversations when we were still in college, but if you don't want to talk about it . . ." His eyes opened and closed slowly as his head tilted towards his shoulder and then back up in a dismissive gesture.
"What do you mean 'he doesn't even realize'?" I couldn't help myself, curiosity boiling in my stomach.
Jasper snickered under his breath and then began to unravel Edward for me. "Well, naturally he is very self-conscious. He memorizes every misstep, misspoken word and egregious intonation and abuses his psyche with each perceived error. It's just in his nature. He's apologized to me recently for small off-hand comments he made in our Freshman year of college. His brain doesn't let those memories fade like everyone else's does." He stopped briefly to measure our silent comprehension. "As a young child, he was extremely gifted. His musical talent is savant-like, and he was playing complex pieces in Kindergarten. Now, you take a kid who is brilliantly talented and therefore highly misunderstood amongst his peers, add in his innate social discomfort and his hyper-analytical self-torture, and you have a very shy and unpopular child. His mom told me he was teased mercilessly at school. They told him he was weird, a freak, didn't belong, and he believed them because he'd been slowly convincin' himself it was true anyway.
"Some of that stuff, Edward will talk about, but he doesn't seem to get just how affected he was by all of it. What he has never mentioned to me is his relationship with his father. His mom told me once that she thinks his father did the most damage. He apparently admired his father immensely, but his dad was a perfectionist with a bad temper. He constantly told Edward he was a failure, wasn't good enough." Jasper stopped to take a deep breath, and his eyes met mine with a sad gaze. Alice sat silently, hand pressed over her mouth, eyes swimming with empathy.
"You've probably realized by now that Edward is very non-confrontational, right?" He smiled knowingly at me, and I chuckled lightly under my breath, nodding my head. "Okay, he always has been; he never even defended himself when he was bein' teased or beat up. Now, imagine Edward as a teenager waitin' in the kitchen every evenin' for his father to come home, so he could intercept his rage. He spent every night before dinner pickin' a fight with his dad, so Daddy wouldn't take his shit out on Mama. Every night, so the man he loved could tell him he was a worthless piece of shit. His mom told me her husband wasn't horribly violent, thank God, but he was likely to slap her. That's why Edward started intercedin' in the first place, he took the hits. And remember, Bella, Edward doesn't forget. Any fault you show him, he's already noticed times ten, and by showing him, you're just confirmin' it. He really thinks he doesn't belong in the world sometimes. He believes he's the only person on the planet who feels out of place, inadequate, uncomfortable."
I'd wrapped my arms around my shoulders without realizing it, and a small silent tear escaped my eyelashes. Warm salt spilled for the pain of his past and the loneliness of his present.
"So, Baby Girl," Jasper had picked up Emmett's nickname for me during his many visits to the restaurant, and he used it in this moment lovingly. "Edward thinks he is not good for you, and even more so because of the intensity of his feelin's."
My stomach felt as if I'd swallowed a brick or a lead weight. My veins ached with the angry pulse pushed out by my frantic heart. It was . . . Edward was heartbreaking. I was willing to be patient, but I wasn't sure what good I could do him. It sounded like he needed counseling, but how much would change? One can't un-remember when they've already gone and remembered forever.
He was beautiful to me just the way he was, especially his quirks; they made him beautiful. If he wanted to dart from the elevator every time we kissed, I would be okay with that as long as he was in the elevator, as long as I got to kiss him again and again. Maybe, eventually, I could retreat with him instead of watching him leave. I wanted him as he was. I didn't want to try and change him, to make him feel as if I were another standardized mold into which he couldn't compress himself. I wanted to encompass him in my arms and legs, hands and feet locked, deviant and conformist as my inked promise. I wanted to mold to him.
"What should I do?" I breathed, begged, to Jasper as the heavy weight of needing but not owning, wanting but not having crushed my lungs into my spine.
"Leavin' him alone at first was a good thing." His eyes rolled to the ceiling in thought. "Trouble will be if he goes too long; then you'll know he's just buried in imaginary guilt. I think we should give him a day or so to think it out."
I quirked my eyebrow querulously at his use of the word 'we'. He responded with a pleasant rumbling belly laugh. "Who do you think is gonna drag him out of that damn apartment? You can't keep goin' over there and makin' it so comfortable for him. Next time I'm bringin' him to you."
Jasper nodded definitively once, and it was settled. Apparently, becoming a conspirator was simpler than I would have thought because we were now in cahoots. My stomach roiled with worry and guilt and uncertainty, my mind conjured reasons to weep and ache and crack, yet my heart continued its ostentatiously joyous rhythm. It throbbed with elation and the heady delirium of Edward pressing himself into me against an elevator wall. I redirected my thoughts into memories, my stomach flipping for alternate, more appealing, reasons. I still noticed the echo of his skin, his heat, on mine and I wondered if it would ever fade. I didn't want it to. I yearned to tingle like this every day. Every hour.
I was startled out of my blissful memory of a dream come true by Alice's sharp little fingers snapping in front of my face.
"Sweetheart?" Her eyes betrayed her feelings, and she was truly concerned for me. "You look a little flushed. Are you gonna be okay?" She squeezed her body next to mine on the chair and wrapped me in her lithe arms.
"I'm fine. No, honestly, I'm better than fine. Even if I shouldn't be. I think I'm going to try to sneak in a nap before I have to go to the restaurant." I squeezed her back and she nodded at me, smiling. I stood to walk to my room, and stopped in the kitchen to grab a glass of water.
My room was cool and inviting. The scent of him on my skin flooded my senses in the empty space, and all I could smell was Edward mixed with Bella. I bounced backward onto my bed; I wished his smell would seep into my sheets, and my cheeks tightened with a wide effortless smile. Through all of the nerves, my mind kept racing back to the memories of sweeping arms and sparkling green and blinding heat and tingling peppermint and sunlight through amber and his lips. And Edward.
An hour passed while I dreamed without sleep. Dangerous, potentially subversive dreams. I dreamed of Edward loving me for hours and days and years and lifetimes, feeling his heart beat against the inside of my ribs, and if I wasn't careful, my head would thoughtlessly break my heart. I merged tangible imaginary with inconceivable reality; in the middle, where they met, where they knitted and married, I loved him and he loved me. Dangerous. Unwise to think about. Portentous to wish for. Shaky, delicate hope. My head could wash itself in different pools of my subconscious, but my heart had only one home. It was in the elevator. It was at his door. It was on his piano. It was already beating against his ribs, inside his chest.
I loved him. I loved Edward.
I was crazy for it, because of him.
I was insane and jubilant and sated and warm and starved and in love.
I was imbued, despite my best efforts, with hope.
I was in love with Edward.
a/n: I reserved this for the end because I wanted you to dive right in to the beginning of this chapter. Hopefully, now some of you readers who have been wondering about Edward's behavior will understand him a bit more. I've been horrible about review replies lately, but I will eventually reply to them all. This is where I have to thank everyone who tells me they love my story, and everyone who offers any words of support! I love you h00rs so much.
Sorry I take so long to update; it is apparently part of my process. This isn't a promise for speedier chapters, just an apology for slow ones. If you want something to read in the mean time, I'm betaing a sweet little fic by hookedontwi called Long Journey Home. Read what she's posted so far and get comfy with it cause I have it on good authority *wink* that it won't always be kittens and rainbows.
Now, since the last chapter went up, Rhapsody has been alerted and faved by quite a few people. I can't say how warm and tingly each and every one of those notification emails makes me. If you'd like to make me feel even warmer and tingly-er, send me a review or a PM or tweet to tell me what you think. Good or bad; I want your words.
Windycitywonder is my perv and she started a thread for Rhapsody. The link is on my profile. Come play; I post recipes and teasers and we talk about obsessive tendencies. What's not to love?