As always: Everything and anything related to the Twilight saga belongs to Stephenie Meyer. This is a work of fiction based on her writings. No harm is meant by it.
Special thanks and much adoration to my beta Kelly.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Eleven Down, Only Fifteen More to Go
It was ten when Edward finally woke on Saturday morning. The sun was peeking in through the tiny sliver between the semi-shut curtains. He hadn't had the heart last night to shut them completely; he had been entranced by the flashing lights of Madison Square Garden across the street. From his hotel room he could still make out the sounds of the busy New York City traffic on the street fifteen floors below.
He felt well rested, relaxed, and as he stretched, he couldn't help the sense of elation that washed over him as the heat spread throughout his stiff limbs. As he lay flat on the bed, staring up at the gold filigree lining of the intricate ceiling pattern, he couldn't help but think about his phone call the night before.
Last night had been amazing. He had hated that he wasn't able to see Bella touching herself, writhing on her bed, as he took command of her body over the phone. He loved that he could hear her though.
She sounded stunning as she called out his name. Her voice was raspy and gruff; the way it always sounded when she was aroused. It was so unbelievably sexy. Edward loved the way a woman's voice would become rough during sex. There was nothing sexier or alluring. Any man could attest to the fact, hell any man would be willing to listen to a lecture about menopause if the lecturer was speaking in a smooth and sensual voice. Angelina's lips were not the only reason men fantasized about her.
Bella's voice always lowered an octave or two, and Edward's name never sounded sweeter than in those moments. It never failed to make him feel like a hormonal teenage boy. It was science, really. All the blood would rush down to his dick whenever the first breathy syllable of his name would fall from her lips. Last night had provided him with those sounds, the sounds he wished he could hear every minute of the day, sounds he wished he could have been able to witness.
Even the sounds of the vibrator buzzing deep inside her, though faint over the phone, damn near made him come. He could just make out the sounds of it slipping between her wet folds, and it drove him mad that it wasn't him between her thighs. It had been so long since he had gotten to feel her that way, and there was a fire in his loins, and a yearning to feel her legs around his waist, to thrust deep into her warmth.
The images of what she must have looked like the night before were what sent him over the edge. Just thinking about what her naked body must have looked like writhing on her bed was enough to stir him, even now between his half-awake, half-asleep state; he could feel the familiar tingling of the blood flowing south.
With his hand placed tightly around himself, last night, he kept his eyes shut as he imagined Bella laying on her soft, down comforter.
He envisioned the way the sweat fell down her chest and the way it would pool in her collarbone to slide down her back when she arched into her bed. With his eyes tightly shut, he saw her body flushed red, her hair matted to her forehead, her toes curling, and her eyes rolling into the back of her head. He imagined the way her mouth dropped open whenever she could no longer make a sound; it was just a stuttered breath.
There was nothing more beautiful to Edward than watching Bella lose control, to watch her throw caution to the wind and be taken away by the all consuming ecstasy that he could provide her.
But the most amazing thing of all was feeling her close to him.
Just having her near was incredible. Just being able to hold her, and feel her smooth skin against his, her warm body against his, was the most amazing feeling, or so he had thought.
Her lips on the corner of his mouth… the searing heat he had felt… the almost kiss… that was the most incredible feeling.
He had been so confounded at that moment that he didn't even react. Thinking about it now, he wished he would have just turned his head to the side, the second time she kissed him, that way her lips would have met his.
For the last three weeks, the urge to kiss Bella had been growing. There was an invisible pull, a force that he couldn't fight, and quite frankly, he no longer wanted to fight it.
The game was changing, hell Edward whole-heartedly believed the game had already changed. It had taken on a new facade. Their rules were slowly being obliterated one by one and slowly but surely, Edward hoped that all of them would be gone.
Each time brought him closer to what he didn't want to admit. They were always trying to outdo the other, bring the other to the brink of bliss and back again. There was magnetism there, an inexplicable connection, a profound and mutual expression of emotions that he couldn't quite place what they were. He knew what he wanted them to be, it to be, but Edward brushed it aside and concluded it was out of the question.
Twenty minutes after his disheartening revelation, Edward finally worked his way out of his bed to pull the curtains open. He spent a few minutes staring out at Madison Square Garden, and the television ticker announcing a concert that night, and Knicks tickets for the upcoming season. He admired the haste in which the pedestrians walked along the sidewalk, and the way cars swerved and maneuvered their way around them. He could even spot who were the natives and who were the tourists by the way they moved about.
This was one of those moments that Edward wished he could be sharing with Bella. She would have loved to see the hustle and bustle of the grandiose city.
As the soundtrack of the city played on, Edward sat in a chair and continued staring out of the window. For a few brief moments, he was in a state of remorseful stillness, until his cell phone started vibrating.
"Edward!" Emmett shouted into the phone, and Edward was taken aback from the loud noise, and held the phone away from his ear.
"Was that entirely necessary?" Edward chastised as Emmett chuckled loudly over the phone.
"Of course it was. Everything I do has a purpose," Emmett reasoned. This time Edward made a loud, disapproving sound into the phone.
"I'm sure. Care to enlighten me?"
"Oh, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed," Emmett commented before Edward grunted to let him know that he was in no mood, and that he should hurry up.
"Emmett. Say what you have to, and let me be."
"Fine, fine. Care to explain what it is that Rose tells me about you and Bella?"
At the moment, Edward felt like the world had just spun off its axis. He was so blindsided by the comment, that he nearly missed the bed when he went to sit down.
"What do you mean?" he asked apprehensively. He didn't want to give anything away if Emmett in fact didn't know.
"Don't play coy with me little brother. You know damn well what I'm talking about. Since when have you two started fucking?"
Edward shouldn't have been shocked by that statement but he was.
"What exactly has she told you?"
Edward almost swore himself stupid as he heard the gasp from the other line. He knew right then and there, that he had just given himself away.
"So it's true? You two are really…" Emmett let the sentence hang until Edward confirmed it with a simple 'yes'.
"Wow. I can't believe you guys finally got your heads out of your asses and realized how much you two are practically married."
"What are you talking about Em?" Edward asked, even though he already figured what Emmett was trying to say.
"Oh for fucks sake," Emmett groaned.
"I really don't know what you meant by that."
"Who started this Edward?" Emmett asked, and by the tone of voice, Edward knew that his brother knew that he was the one to initiate the game.
"It was mutual," Edward answered and Emmett swore at him.
"Fuck that. Be honest with me, Edward. Who initiated the game? Whose idea was it?"
Edward couldn't help but laugh as he hung his head down. He felt like a little boy all over again, being reprimanded by his parents, only this time it was Emmett doing the scolding.
"Why are you laughing?"
"Nothing," Edward brushed him aside, stifling his laughter.
"So it was you, wasn't it?" Emmett asked and Edward again found himself having to laugh as he rolled his eyes to the cell phone in his hand.
"Why would you ask a question to an answer you already know?"
"Because I want to hear you say it," Emmett voiced. His tone of voice was becoming stern, much like it was right after he got done with a session with one of his patients.
"There's nothing really to say Emmett. Yes, I initiated the idea, but Bella was the one who thought up the rules," he admitted and heard a little victory cheer from Emmett.
"So you two are really having sex, every weekend using the alphabet?"
"Yes," Edward replied, mumbling. "And sometimes the weekdays."
"Wow, so how many letters have you done?"
"Eleven. Why?"
"This has been going on for three months now?" Emmett yelped into the phone in surprise. Edward knew that three months hadn't passed yet, but he didn't feel like correcting Emmett because that would lead to further discussion about his and Bella's weekday rendezvous.
"Yes, now is that all you wanted to know?" Edward, clearly annoyed, questioned.
"No," Emmett quickly fired back. "I have one more thing to ask."
"Shoot."
"Remember back when, like ten years ago when you asked me about losing your virginity?" he began and cut him off.
"If you're wondering if Bella and I kiss, we don't," Edward stated and Emmett gasped.
"You don't kiss when you have sex? What is wrong with you?"
"You told me when I was sixteen that I shouldn't kiss someone I don't plan on forming a relationship with," Edward incredulously protested and Emmett scoffed.
"You're an idiot. I said if you were willing to risk your friendship with Bella then go ahead and kiss her, if you weren't then don't."
"So you're telling me now that I should kiss her?"
"Yes!"
It was a simple statement, one word that made Edward's heart fluttered and a searing heat to travel up his spine.
"Why say yes now? Why not ten years ago?"
"Because ten years ago, I don't think you knew then what you know now," Emmett answered cryptically.
"And what would that be?" Edward replied nastily. He was getting frustrated by Emmett's ability to always be right.
"When you asked Bella to play this so-called game. Did you ask her because you knew she was going to say yes or because you wanted her to say yes?"
And there it was, Edward thought. The question that ten years prior had been so easy to answer, and now he didn't know how to answer.
"So?" Emmett goaded as Edward remained silent.
"I don't know."
"Yes you do Edward. You always have. You love her. You're in love with Bella."
"I love Bella. I'm in love with Bella," he repeated, testing out how it sounded.
"I know," Emmett said like it was the most obvious thing in the world and again Edward repeated the words into the phone.
"I love Bella. I'm in love with Bella."
"It's about damn time you realized it. I gotta go, Edward. I'll talk to you when you get back," Emmett bid goodbye, but Edward was in a daze, and didn't even noticed when Emmett hung up the phone.
"I'm in love with Bella," he spoke to the empty hotel room. "I'm in love with Bella," he repeated, starting to chant it out like a song.
Pulling himself out of his stupor, Edward quickly texted Bella, writing,
Good morning, beautiful.
11 Down, Only 15 More to Go.
Even as he wrote it, he felt a pain in his chest. There were only fifteen more letters to go and then what?
As he waited for her to reply back, a message that wouldn't come up for another two hours, Edward wondered.
When in the hell did he fall in love with Isabella Swan?
When did he fall in love with his best friend?
And why hadn't he realized it sooner?