Disclaimer: Not mine. Characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.
The name of this chapter comes from the song With Me by Sum 41.
As always, Thanks to Mari who is all kind of Awesome! xo.
Please read the A/N at the end.
Chapter 5: Words, Heart and Soul.
"Screaming is bad for the voice, but it's good for the heart."
Conor Oberst.~
I play with her hair over and over again. My fingers caress it a million times. It's so soft, it curls at the ends, and it smells heavenly. I trace the loose strands across her back; it's so long, so dark, it's perfect. I can't get enough of it. I'm obsessed with it.
I adore her skin. It's the softest skin I've ever touched. It's so white, like snow and it too, smells heavenly. I touch it with my hands, with my lips, with my nose. It makes me feel something inside whenever I contact it. I can't get enough of it. I'm obsessed with it.
I worship her curves, all of them. Every part that makes her a woman is perfect. I kiss, nip, caress, and smell all the places that call to me. Her face, her legs, her arms, her breasts, her backside…I admire all of her perfect body. I can't get enough of it. I'm obsessed with it.
We are still at the hotel; she's lying on top of me, sleeping. I haven't been able to sleep at all. I cannot stop thinking about the fact that she's married. Most importantly, I cannot stop thinking about the fact that I don't feel as bad as I should. After she asked me if it was a problem, and I said no, we've had sex two more times. That's three times in one night. Technically, she's cheated on her husband several times now, with me.
I don't know how many times I've been propositioned by married woman to do…stuffs…with them. Clients, client's wives, girls in bars with their wedding ring visible on their hands. There's been a lot. And I've rejected them all. It's not the right thing to do. It's unethical, unprofessional, wrong, dirty…you name it; it is. Yet here I am, tracing patterns in a married woman's back.
When I followed her out of the supermarket, I didn't know this. I didn't know she was taken, not mine; legally tied to someone else. But then I found out, and I didn't stop her from having her way with me, or me having my way with her. I don't know anymore.
This is so wrong.
"Morning handsome." Her soft voice murmurs from her place on my chest, followed by a peck on my cheek. I look down and she is already starting to get up. I didn't realize it was morning already, but it is. There's light trying to come in from behind the windows. I guess my confused thoughts kept me distracted enough to not notice the time.
"I said: Morning, handsome. Where are your manners?" She rebuffs playfully. I think she's mocking me about the saying "thank you" thing.
"Sorry. Good morning, uhm, Isabella." I say nervously.
She's collecting her clothes around the room, but she stops to look up at me, and smile. It's not a sweet smile. It's a devilish one, like she knows something I don't. It's attractive.
"I'm going to take a shower; do you want to join me?" She says on her way to the bathroom. The way she looks at me leaves no room for arguing, or protest. And with the attention my body is already giving her, I doubt I could deny her even if I wanted to. I smile timidly, and get up wordlessly to follow her.
Four times now. I've had sex four times with her. And each time's been better than the last. We're explosive together. It's addictive.
She's changing into a set of clothes I didn't know she brought along. I'm sitting on the bed, watching her. It's awkward. I try to fill the silence in the room. "Maybe we could…you know…order some room service…late breakfast, early lunch kind of thing…right? I mean, if you want…" I trailed of stupidly.
She turns around and smiles coyly at me. "You're cute. And yes…late breakfast, early lunch sounds ni…" She's interrupted by the sound of her cell phone ringing.
She finds it and answers it in hushed tones.
When she's done, she says she can't stay. A weird feeling is making itself known inside of me. I don't quite understand what it is.
I'm driving Bella to my apartment. After a lot of convincing she accepted my offer. I don't quite know what we are going to do when we get there. I just know it's better than that alley.
Emmett texted me half an hour ago to find out if I got lucky; I told him yes. I shouldn't have.
Bella is no longer crying, but she hasn't said a word in a long time. It worries me. I don't know what the hell is going on. I'm hoping she'll take a bath and eat something. Maybe then we can figure out…well, everything there is to figure out.
I park my car and open her door. She gets out tiredly and follows me inside. I toss my jacket on the nearby sofa and go straight for the kitchen. After I grab a bottle of water, I turn around to face Bella. She's standing in the middle of the living room, watching me. I don't know what we are supposed to do next.
"Are you hungry?" I ask her softly. She shakes her head no.
"Are you cold?" She responds with another slow shake.
"Do you…want to take a shower?" No.
"Do you want a change of clothes? One of my t-shirts…" I trail off when she shakes her head again.
"You should eat…or take a shower…" I say. I don't know what she needs, what she wants from me. I can't figure her out. I've never been able to. I don't know how many sides there are to her personality. I don't even know if the ones she shows me are the real deal.
I know a lot of that is my fault. I never ask her anything of importance. I never persist hard enough. When she asks me to drop a subject, I just do and it stays buried deep inside her skeleton closet. I don't think after the night we've had, there's any reason for that.
"What do you need?" I ask her straight up, hoping she would just tell me how I can help her. She stays silent for a while. Only after a big sigh she replies softly. "I'm…tired."
Okay. She's tired. I can offer her my bed. She can sleep in my room, while I…do whatever the hell I'm going to do while she sleeps.
"So…you do need to change into something more comfortable. I'll find a t-shirt for you and you can sleep in my bed."
Isabella is in a vulnerable state. She doesn't like being told what to do. I think one of the reasons she worked so hard to get a high position at her job was to stop taking orders from everyone around her. She likes being the boss. That's why I'm immensely surprised when she allowed me to take off her dress without protest and settle her into bed with an oversized shirt of mine.
I tuck her in and fix the air conditioner to her liking. I remember I'm still wearing jeans and an expensive shirt, so I start searching some pajama bottoms to wear. I'm almost ready to leave the room when she speaks.
"Don't…leave."
I joined her at the bed and she immediately crawls to my chest. I breathe in her scent and kiss her head. It's not even intentional. It's an instinct. It's what I do when she's near. I offer comfort, adoration, passion.
Only tonight is not about lust. Even though she looks as sexy as ever wearing one of my shirts, my mind won't let my body react that way. Right now everything is so confusing and troubled that I can't concentrate on anything. I just wish things were easier.
I wake up the next day feeling like a truck has run over me. I'm alone in my bed with Bella's scent all around me. I sit and try to rub some of the tiredness out of my eyes. After I found the strength to do so, I get out of bed and wander into the kitchen. She's still in my clothes with her back to me, making some coffee. For a minute I forget everything that happened the night before. She looks so at ease, like she belongs here. It's so easy to let my thoughts and fantasies take over me.
"Don't be a creep Edward. I know you're there watching me. Stop…it's weird."
There she is. That's her. She's not even looking my way, yet she knows I'm behind her, observing her. She calls me on it.
I guess she's feeling better now.
"Good morning, Bella. I take it you slept well." I say with no emotion in my voice.
She turns to glare at me. I'm not so sure why. When she's about to reply, with a snarky remark, I'm sure, her cell phone rings. She looks momentarily startled, like she forgot she had it with her. After a second, she reacts hastily and leaves the kitchen to answer it.
I grab my hair in frustration at everything and decide to drink some water. I can't help it; I listen in on her conversation. I can only hear pieces of it; she's talking in a hushed irritated tone.
"…I had to take care of something…No…Yes, I am aware of that…someone was supposed to be doing that…yes…I…no…that is not part of my duties….but…yes…I'll take care of it."
Before I can pretend I wasn't listening, she strides past me in angry quick steps back to my room. I decide not to follow her. Instead I search for my phone and drop down on the biggest sofa of my living room. There are two text messages, both from Emmett.
You have to tell me about her! Call me, ASAP.
So I take it you finally got laid, huh bro? Call me once you're done ;)
That's what they both said. I'm not quite sure why I told him I met a girl last night. At the moment it just seemed better than "Hey brother, I had to leave the club because this hot and complicated married woman I'm sleeping with decided to show up and have a meltdown." Yeah, not likely.
But now, I'm starting to regret telling him that. I'm sure he'll want details: name, occupation, was she good? What bra size does she wear?
I type a quick and vague reply and hit send. I'm hoping he would be still sleeping and answer me after a couple of hours.
Just as I'm starting to get up from the couch, I hear the unmistakable sound of heels against the tile floors. A couple of more steps and she emerges from the hallway wearing some really short shorts with one of my button down shirts. She looks so put together. She could fool anyone. No one would notice that she spent the most part of last night crying uncontrollably. No one would notice she spent last night molded against my body, sleeping soundly.
As usual, I'm so inside my head I don't realize she's going straight to the door. I snap into action and I'm able to close the door from behind her before she manages to go out. I trap her there with my body, her back to my chest, our hands touching on the knob. She lets out a big tired sigh.
"Where do you think you're going?" I ask her quietly.
She turns around to face me. I can see the fire in her eyes that I love and dread so much.
"I am going to fix the mess that happened last night." She spats with fury, like I know what the hell she's talking about. In my book, the only mess that needs to be fixed is our mess.
"What mess? What are you talking about? We're supposed to talk…You can't leave yet." I say evenly.
"I can and I will. I have to go pick up the pieces of the disaster of last night. We can talk later."
Pick up the pieces of the disaster of last night? I am the pieces. We are the disaster. She's got it all wrong.
"No, Bella. We can't talk later. We are going to talk now." I say with as much conviction in my voice as I can muster. She tries to open the door again, but I stop her.
"Edward, let go of the damn door. I have to get out of here."
Why did I think this could be easy? Nothing is easy when it comes to her. If last night was any clue of how things were going to happen, I'm in for a hell of a ride.
I don't break my hold on the knob. Instead, I inch closer to her. I try really hard not to breathe in her scent. It takes all of me not to do it.
"Isabella…just turn around, sit, and let's talk…please."
"What are we supposed to talk about exactly? You ruining last night for me? You marching into that party to taunt me and make me look like a fool? If you hadn't been there, I wouldn't have left the party in the hands of stupid incompetent people, who now need me to fix their mistakes."
I'm not sure I follow her line of thoughts. The only thing that stood out to me was the bit about me ruining last night for her. Is she kidding? She ruined last night for me in all the possible ways.
"I ruined last night for you? Do you want to rethink that? Rephrase it, maybe? Because that's not how I remember it, I— "
"And how do you remember it Edward? Me interfering with your pathetic intent of making me jealous? Is that how you see it? As if that stupid plain girl could ever compare to me…As if you failing to get her to go home with you last night is in any way, as important as me losing my job."
For a moment, I'm distracted about the part of her losing her job. It makes me feel like maybe there's something going on bigger that I really know. It worries me. Bella lives for that job. I don't want in any way to be responsible for her not having it anymore. I start to feel bad for a minute. But then I remember the rest of her words.
"My pathetic intent of making me jealous…That's how you see it…"
It worked, didn't it? I want to say. I don't.
"Do you want to know why I was really there? Do you want me to make you feel better about yourself? Have at it, Isabella. Hear this. I was there because I didn't have anything better to do. Oh wait, I did. I was supposed to be with you. I was supposed to have you all to myself this weekend. And what happened? Work happened. As usual. Your all time favorite excuse for when you don't care enough to see me."
She lowers her eyes as I talk. Her entire body tenses. She's fidgeting, trying to find a way out of the little cage I've formed with my body and the door. While I'm speaking, she manages to get past me, back into the living room. She's trying to put as much distance between us as she can. She walks around the apartment a couple times, just trying to get away. I follow her and keep talking.
"No, Bella…don't run away…listen to me…you wanted to know right? Or didn't you? Do you think I'm stupid? Do you think I don't know when you lie to me? I know! I can tell when you cancel on me because of him. You chose him over me, over and over again.
And that's why I went to that stupid party. Because I was miserable! Because every time you decide I'm not good enough to be with you, I die a little more."
She's still walking away from me. We're walking in circles. Whenever one of my words hurt too badly, she turned around to glare at me or try to shut me up. I wouldn't stop. I just kept on talking above her voice.
It's this whole past year worth of pain. It's all the moments I've shared with her, which have been so perfect except for the ending. It's the fact that she leaves me broken-hearted each and every time she goes back to him. From the moment she left me on that hotel room, to last night. My whole heart is pouring out of me right now. I'm not holding back anything. Not the anger, not the pain, not the obsessive love I feel for her.
"Stop running around Bella…Just stop and listen to me."
Like a car wreck, she halts to a stop in the middle of the hallway we've walked through a thousand times today. She keeps her back to me. She looks defeated.
"Are you going to bring the "I said it wasn't a problem" card? Because between that and work, that's what you just love to say, don't you? But it is a problem. I hate it that you're with him. I hate it that you prefer being with him and sneaking around with me. I hate to just have a part of you, the part that no one knows. But it doesn't matter to you, does it? You just have to have us both. You just want to keep playing with both of us."
"Shut up, Edward." She says for the hundredth time. I ignore her again.
"I can't believe how selfish you are. What are you gaining from this? Is it money? Is it power? What is he giving you that I can't? What is he giving you that you can't leave him?"
"You don't know what you're talking about, Edward. Shut up." Her voice is getting stronger. She hasn't scream that much. I predict she's on the verge of losing it.
"What is there to know? You come to have fun with me and then go back to have some more fun with him."
"Damn it, Edward, shut up! Just shut the hell up!" She screams at the top of her lungs, just like I knew she would; just like I wanted her to.
"Why?" I scream back. "Why do I have to shut up? Why do I have to stop now? Why-"
She surprises me by turning around to face me for the first time, since the war started. There are unshed tears in her eyes.
"Because I left him."
Time stops.
*waves timidly* So, is this another cliff?
I am so sorry for not updating sooner, the people who know me that are reading this, know that college sucks.
Anyway, I'll try to finish the next couple of chapters as soon as possible.
Thank you so much to everyone that has put me on story/author alert and on their favorites.
It makes me so happy, you have no idea. Thank You!
Let me know what you think of this one with a little review...do you still hate Bella?
PS: If you want to read my random semi bipolar rambles, follow me on twitter LisbethTejada.
Till next time, xo.