Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight
*BPOV*
I lay there looking at Edward, I couldn't breathe. My brain just wouldn't work. But I knew I had to say something. Then I remembered the feeling of smooth granite and realized he didn't have a shirt on, knowing I would regret it as soon as I did it I scooted back against him to see if his shirt was the only thing missing. It was. I sighed. So here I was 29 years old, back in my childhood home town, lying in bed with my former best friend who I had carried around a giant crush for something like 10 or 11 years of schooling and then several after that. He was here in my bed without a shirt, while I was wearing boxer shorts and a tank top. My mind was reeling, it was two in the morning and I was in my bed with Edward and he was shirtless, and touching the skin of my back and arms. Every where he touched felt like it had been kissed by fire. The electricity that I felt was almost too much. I again was glad he couldn't see my face. I was sure it was on fire too.
"Bella?" He was growing impatient, but it was probably more from wanting to know what I was thinking than anything else. He had always hated when it took me longer than a second to answer him. I sighed again, knowing I needed to say something.
"Edward, why are you in my bed at 2 o'clock in the morning, with no shirt on?" I asked not really wanting to hear his answer, well yeah I did but more than anything I didn't want to have to retell the story I had spent hours working up the courage to tell Sue.
"Because, holding you on the dance floor, being next to you in the car, carrying you up to this room, it wasn't enough. I needed to…I needed to be near you like we used to be. I needed to smell your scent, to feel you close, to know that I could protect you from the monster at your door. I used to do that without ever thinking about it, and lately especially once I saw you at the club, I felt this strong urge to do it again. So now, you have to answer my question. What did that asshole do to you?" His voice was quiet but at the end it was forceful. It made me shake. I didn't know where to start but I knew that I would have to tell him, and he wasn't going to give up until I did.
"Bella, look at me." He said almost a whisper in my ear. I shook my head; I could feel the tears starting to form. "Bella, please, look at me." He was pleading, he voice full of need, I shook my head again because the tears had formed and began to slowly. "My beautiful Bella, oh my Bella, please don't hide your face from me. I have waited so long to see it again. He shifted his position and forced me to turn and face him. The tears were falling, my body was shaking uncontrollable, and my brain couldn't wrap it's self around the words he has spoken. His Bella? Beautiful? His green eyes were burning with something I didn't understand. The tears eased while I was studying his face, always so serious. He reached up with both hands and placed them on my face, wiping away tears with his thumbs. He stared into my eyes, and I could feel myself melting under his gaze. "I…I'm…too…I can't…why does it matter?" I asked needed to know that it mattered to him before I let it pour out of me like it was about to.
*EPOV*
"Why does it matter? Don't you get it, can't you see? I'm here Bella; I am here because you matter. You have always mattered. This weight that you are carrying, this secret that you think you can't tell, it matters to me, you have no idea how much it matters." I wanted to shake her, to yell at her, to hold her and protect her. I climbed up and into her window as soon as her father left, I held her while she began to cry on for him to stop. While she whimpered in pain, tossing and turning. I fought the urge to kiss each bruise, each scar that I could see, not to mention the ones I couldn't. I had thought he was a jerk when I saw him that day in New York, but I hated him when I saw the fist print on her back, and the imprint from some form of ring on it. "Bella, love if I could make it go away I would. I would take the hurt and the pain from you." I whispered looking into her eyes that were filling with tears.
"Edward, please don't hate me..."she said looking deep into my eyes. My heart broke again, much like it had before when it came to her. The first time was when she told me to get out of her life after a discussion with her about my then girlfriend Tanya. I was looking for a way out of that relationship and looking for a way to develop one with her. Then there was the graduation party, when I was planning how I would finally have Bella all to myself at college. And then she told me should wouldn't be there, that she would be on the other side of the country, because she had to get out from the shadow of us, to stop being my backup girl. The last time, was when I finally decided I couldn't let her leave without letting her know, I had bought her a promise ring. I wanted her to know that I loved her and would be ready whenever she was to create the future we should have. I climbed into her window that night, but what I found was her gone. The room was empty of anything that was truly her. She had left some things, pictures and books she wouldn't need. But it was clear she had left, two days early. On her desk was a piece of paper with my name on it. I picked it up and sat in the rocking chair that was in the corner near the window. I never brought myself to read it; I just folded it up and put it in my pocket. The note and the ring sat in the back of a drawer in my room.
"Anything to do with you always has and always will matter to me." I said hoping some how she would understand at last.
*BPOV*
"Edward, please don't hate me…" I knew I would never be strong enough to not tell him. He wouldn't have to put much effort into getting me to open up. He always made me feel safe in telling him what was on my mind. And here I was, about to let it all out for the second time in less than 16 hours. The tears came again, and he shifted us both so that he could look at me and keep his arms around me. I felt the words just flow out. I watched his face as I told him everything; he never changed emotions, always calm. I cried getting every last bit out, he wiped the tears. And when I was done, having told him things I had never intended him to find out. He held my face in his hands. "Isabella Marie Swan, I could never hate you. I have loved you almost my entire life. You are so strong, so beautiful. He never deserved you. And I will never let him hurt you again." The last part he said with venom in his voice.
I wiped the last few tears away, and laid my head against Edward, he stroked my hair and I felt him kiss the top of my head. "You need to rest now Bella." He said into my hair. "I don't want to sleep, what if this is a dream and I wake up to find you are gone. That you were never here." I was suddenly afraid of what he would think, that I sounded like a child. He kissed my hair again, and then tilted his head toward me and kissed me gently. "I learned my lesson Bella. I am here until you tell me to go." With that he began to hum what sounded like a lullaby and I was asleep in no time, asleep in the arms of Edward.
*EPOV*
I watched her sleep, and it was just like my dreams. Bella in my arms, her sweet smell was different than the strawberries I remembered but it was still intoxicating. I tried to sleep, laying there next to her. But the thought of what she had endured, that she had taken that treatment because for a time she was afraid of what would happen if she tried to leave. My blood boiled at the thought of how another man's hands had hurt her. It had been hard thinking of her being in another's arms for all these years, but to know that instead of holding her they had hurt her sent me into a rage. For her I kept myself calm, but on the inside I wanted to track the man down, and do things that would have me jailed. I didn't know how Charlie had managed to not call in favors and have the man destroyed. Bella had told me that her friend Jake has gotten her things moved out, and that his girlfriend Leah who was a lawyer was rushing the papers for a divorce. I made a mental note to mention to Charlie, or rather he will be Chief Swan at the time I talk to him, to have a restraining order put out on him. Just on the off chance that this psycho decided to try and find her. With that thought Charlie's words to me outside when he thought I was leaving came to me again "…you looked out for her, protected her. She needs that, and I can do it to an extent but she needs more than what I can do. You understand?"
I looked at Bella; I think the Chief was giving me permission to date his daughter. I smiled, now I would just have to get her to realize that we should be together as well. I closed my eyes, and inhaled again. A violet that is what she reminded me of now, not strawberries, violets. I think they were my favorite flower now. I sighed and drifted off dreaming of being if her and the family that I had wanted to have with her. It was while enjoying the idea of her round with my child that I heard the cry, it was faint at first and then something changed, she had shifted out of my arms and gotten out of bed. I rolled and listened to the sounds around me. And I heard her talking to someone. I sat up and listened to her whisper sweetly. The crying had stopped and there was just a soft hum as she sang to one of the children she had told me about. I followed the sound of her voice to a room down the hall and stood outside the doorway listening. She sang a song from when we were kids, I could remember when she used to sleep over with Alice, sometimes she would have trouble sleeping and she'd sneak not very quietly down stairs into the den and sit looking at a painting of a water lily Esme had and hum to herself. She would end up falling asleep there after a few minutes. When I was younger I would carry my blanket down and put it over her, but as I got older I would be able to carry her back upstairs to the guest room so she could be more comfortable. I learned the song, and would hum it to her so that she wouldn't wake up as I carried her. It made me smile to know that something from her childhood stuck with her and went with her when she left Forks.
I heard her stand and assumed she was putting the child back into bed; I was torn between heading back to her room so she wouldn't know I had listened in on her private moment with her child. But before I could push off the wall in the hallway she came out of the room and walked right into me.
My arms encircled her before she fell backward. "Oh! I'm sorry did Emily wake you? Wait what are you doing in the hall way?" She asked sounding overly apologetic. I began to release her hoping she could stand on her own, and then I got an eyeful of what she was sleeping in. I cleared my throat, and said "its okay, I wasn't really asleep anyways." My right arm was still around her waist and it felt like I couldn't pull it away. She blushed and looked down, hiding behind her hair. "Look at me Bella." I said and felt my voice grow hoarse. She hesitated; it made me more determined to her face, to see the tint of blush on her cheeks. To look into the molten chocolate of her eyes. "Look at me Bella. I told you earlier it has been too long that I have gone without seeing you face. Please don't deny me the pleasure now." She looked up at me through her lashes. I couldn't help it I scooped her up in my arms and carried her to her room. I never took my eyes off of her as I set her down on her bed. She was blushing from head to toe and said "Edward, I'm still married. I can't, we can't…"
Sorry I haven't updated sooner. I have a couple more chapters planned out. Let me know how it is going.