Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Twilight characters or the rights to "Yet" as performed by Switchfoot or "Warm Whispers" as performed by Missy Higgins, and I will not be earning income from using these materials. I do, however, own the storyline and any original characters. Thank you.
A/N: Welcome to ... the end. :) We've come to the final (full) chapter, my friends, and, in doing so, to the reason this story is rated M. So ... I hope you enjoy the little lemon I've left you.
There will be a short epilogue to follow, just to round out everyone's lives and tie up a few loose ends, so I'm not marking this story as complete quite yet. Be expecting this in the next few weeks, as my pilgrimmage (:D) to Forks/La Push/Seattle will not allow me to sit down to any more writing before next Thursday.
To clarabella75, thank you for being an awesome beta, an amazing friend, and an even better teacher. :) You've have helped me fix even grammar that I didn't think was even possible, and have helped me to form a work I can be proud of.
To all of my amazing readers ... I can't say everything I want to say to you here and now, because it would be an entire chapter all it's own. Suffice to say ... I will be sending you my love as soon as I can.
Lemon Disclaimer - No condoms were used in the making of the (below) lemon, simply because there were none available, Edward's only sex partner was Rose, Bella was a virgin, and not EVERYONE gets pregnant the first and only time they've ever had unprotected sex.
HOWEVER, this is not a recommended action! Do not have unprotected sex with just anyone!
This has been your public service announcement.
Now grab your favorite beverage, a warm blanket, and settle in for this longest of chapters. I hope it satiates your every want. ;-)
Much love and happy reading!
Chapter Twenty:
Finding … Me
x0x0x0x0x0x
These days pass me by
I dream with open eyes
Nightmares haunt my days
Visions blur my nights
I'm so confused
What's true or false
What's fact or fiction after all
I feel like I'm an apparition's pet
But you haven't lost me yet
"How are … things?"
I stared past Emmett and his whispering, self-conscious words to the still frame in front of the leaky kitchen sink, hunched over one crutch.
He hadn't moved in hours.
"How do things look, Em." I couldn't hold back the sorrow and sarcasm etched into my tone. I needed to reach him, so I gave up my ability to hide.
"Have you gotten through yet?"
I shook my head, silent. I had wondered, once, when the questions would come … when the wounds would open, baring everything to the present. If I had known what tearing off those bandages would do, however, I would have hidden him away from the world. I could barely bring myself to blame Esme anymore.
"I should probably head home. Rose's waiting for me to pick her up." Emmett fumbled with the reason for his visit, shoving the velvet box into his pocket and tugging at the rope around his neck. The tie was a nice touch, but barely the man I knew.
So much had changed in a mere six weeks.
I socked him in the shoulder.
"She'd be crazy to say no. Just … stop chewing on your lip," I pulled the offending object from his teeth with my thumb, "you might drool." He opened his mouth to retort and, grimacing, I pointed at his mouth. "Which, by the way, is gross."
A giant, warm paw fit nicely on the crown of my head, mussing my hair into indelicate knots.
"Ha ha, Bells. Funny. I'll tell Rose you said hi?" Emmett eyes cut to the waning figure, barely visible past the kitchen entryway as we walked towards the front door. His volume sank to a whisper. "Both of you?"
"Please?" Again, I couldn't keep the insistence out of my words. "It's better that way. To not worry anyone."
My pillar of support snorted.
"Bella." My name was a sigh, his eyes riddled with compassion – for me.
Don't let yourself fall back into denial, they said.
I crossed my arms over my chest, petulant. Emmett tugged them apart, brushing hair from my forehead.
"He hasn't seen anyone in weeks, Bella … he's slipping. They might not know like you and me … but they know. Can you do this alone, little Bells?"
No.
That word resonated soundly.
"No, Em," I shook my head. "I really can't."
I remembered Alice's intervention, not so many months ago. She had done it for me. It was the least I could do for him. And it was time. I straightened and fell into Emmett's warm arms.
"But I can do it with him. I just have to find him." Again. "And I will. Promise."
"Okay." He grinned, cheeky, and squeezed me a little tighter. "See ya, Izzy."
The nickname brushed through me.
"Good luck, Em."
He winked before closing the door behind him.
I stood in the silence for a few moments, heart soaking up the leftover, rioting emotions. Twilight faded through the blinds, an early end to a wintry day, and I picked up the pieces of me before walking back towards the kitchen. Nonchalantly, I opened the fridge and pulled out a soda.
He didn't flinch.
"So …" I popped the tab.
He didn't speak.
I meandered. I ended up on the side of him, his eyes fixated below us, through the window … lost.
I studied him.
Wane cheeks with heavy rings defined solid eyes, fading in their flourish for life. He was leaner, but not in muscle; every aspect of what made him both Edward and Trevor was smaller, weaker, dying away. He wouldn't look me in the eye, but it wasn't hard to see every bit of hollow emptiness which had haunted me, reflected outwards in a glossy stare.
He was at the precipice. And I was holding him back by fingertips.
"You were cute."
I blushed – furiously. He laughed and waved the glossy image around.
"And your cheeks are still a perfect shade of pink."
I snatched the picture from between his fingers.
"Don't make me shred that one."
Eyes widened in mock terror, and he frantically snatched for the image of seven-year-old me and our white golden retriever, Blizzard. I sat on it.
"If you want it, come get it."
"No fair."
"All's fair in love and war."
Edward rolled his eyes.
Grinning, I pulled the black box into my lap and dug in, letting the photographs glide across my fingertips like wet paint.
"Wow, Emmett looks … "
"Different?" I snorted, leaning sideways to look over his arm. A husky, pimpled, pre-teen mass of Emmett McCarty licked a long popsicle, brilliant streaks of sunlight filtering through the imperfections in the frame.
"Summer never lasted long in Forks … but we never took it for granted." He flipped to the next picture of all three of us, bathing suit clad and mud-splattered, a messy dirt hole and running garden hose slipping out of frame behind our smiling faces.
"I think I remember this …"
I sat back and glanced at him, eyebrow raised.
"Yeah." He leaned against my headboard, eyelids shut. "We were at your house … your mom … Renee, she got so mad at us. But your dad just laughed it off and threw you back into the puddle, spraying us all with the hose." He chuckled. "Your mom threatened to leave him that day, but I don't think we took it seriously –"
"I did." I cut through his memory with a whisper, eyes squeezed tight. Thin tears threatened to spill, but I held them in. "I was so worried … but you told me that grown-ups always said stupid things, things they didn't mean. Then you snuck me into the kitchen, where they were kissing." His presence hung near me. I opened my eyes. His were fixed on every word. "And you said 'See? True love can't be broken, silly.'"
"Did you care for me, Bella?"
The words came so suddenly, I was blindsided into honesty.
"Yes. Very much."
He didn't speak, instead shuffling back to the pictures sitting on his leg. Only seconds had passed when I felt him stiffen. The motion rocked the entire bed.
"Edward?"
"Are these …"
I didn't have to see the picture to answer him; the look on his face said it all. Regardless, I moved across the mattress, closer to his rigid frame. My heart clenched.
"Your parents." Water splattered against the gloss, a stray tear. "The ones who raised you, at least."
He didn't speak … at first. When he did, the words were even, measured.
"You said that my birth mother … she ran off, right?"
I nodded, biting my tongue. Mothers were a sore subject for me … I never wanted to give myself the chance to do the same to any child of mine. He continued, not noticing my grimace.
"Tell me … please … what happened to them."
Everything in me sank, but I had known, three weeks ago, as I shoved books and boxes into a room once occupied by a much smaller woman, that this day would come. I was surprised it had taken this many memories, this much digging and bleeding and healing for us to finally reach this point.
The sharpest point … of absolute honesty.
If only I had known that absolute honesty would wreak what seemed to be the beginnings of absolute destruction.
My fingertips, the ones tying him to this earth, grazed his shoulder.
"Hey. You hungry?"
He flinched at my voice.
"Not really." His voice was dry, like cracks ridden into the dirt of Death Valley "What time is it?" He wouldn't look at me. I knew why. I would see it.
I glanced at the clock.
"Eight-fifteen."
He nodded, a dip of the head.
"Actually, I think I'm going to go to bed."
"To get no sleep?"
It slipped. The words were there before I could re-inhale them, and I hesitated, choosing finally to face them, hanging there, between us.
He stopped, five paces into his retreat, and turned.
It was there, beyond the mourning, beyond the guilt and the fear … buried deep in the bits of him I could still see. It pleaded with me to find him.
To prove him wrong.
"Goodnight, Bella."
The sound of lost footsteps stiffened my resolve.
If it doesn't break your heart, it isn't love
If it doesn't break your heart, it's not enough
It's when you're breaking down with your insides coming out
That's when you find out what your heart is made of
And you haven't lost me yet
O~o~O~o~O
"He's not sleeping, Alice. He's barely eating, he won't come to therapy … I'm just … I'm lost."
Thin, petite eyebrows raised in amusement before crashing back down in pain. She panted a bit as I maneuvered her knee outwards.
"Gee …Bella … sound … familiar?" Each word was cut with a sharp breath, but I was used to it by now. Jasper couldn't usually take Alice to her physical therapy sessions, so I had stepped in, becoming her physical therapy partner. The doctors called her a 'walking miracle,' although she, ironically, still couldn't walk on her own.
No one, however, made light of the progress she made after the final spinal surgery had revived most of the feeling in her legs – and made her aware of the torn knee ligaments which had to be replaced immediately.
"No," I grinned. Alice attempted to roll her eyes, but was caught off guard by a sharp stab of pain.
"Well," she huffed, "I'm really … really … glad … you finally … decided … to share." I released her leg, lowering the limb slowly to the floor, and she slouched against the support bar, thin bands of sweat rolling across her forehead. "So what brought this on? He seemed like he was doing really well. You know, considering."
I frowned.
"I don't think that's a good idea. It's his issue to deal with."
I couldn't confess my part. It hurt to admit – his downfall had been me and my big mouth. There was a reason they said white lies were worth it.
Alice wouldn't relent.
"It's a fine idea. I already know all the rest of his business."
I switched tactics.
"But I don't know yours. Enough about him, how's Jasper?"
Alice snicker snorted.
"Bella, you're avoiding."
"How's work?"
"They're both fine. Stop it." Crossing her arms over her chest, she fixed me with the 'mother eye.' "You're hiding something, and you need to let it go."
Six weeks was too long since our mutual cohabitation. I had forgotten about her annoying clairvoyance. I could try to hide all I wanted, but I wouldn't be keeping any secrets from Alice.
I let it go.
"It's my fault, Alice." She was silent, watching me. "I told him the truth, and I don't know why. I just – went crazy, I guess, with my rampage for everything being out in the open." I couldn't even bring myself to cry. The words simply slipped from my lips, a noxious vapor I could barely stand to hold inside anymore. "I broke him, Alice. I decided to be a crusader, and I cut into pieces the best person I've ever known."
There. It was out, and Alice could condemn me however she liked.
To say the least, her reaction was not what I expected.
"Oh, please." Then she rolled her eyes.
I sat, stunned, uncertain if I had just been blown off or verbally slapped in the face.
"Excuse me?"
"Come on, Bella. I love you, but seriously, learn from the past and stop being such a martyr."
I wanted to leap from my seat across from her and ram her pretty head into the wooden bar, but her eyes pinned me to the worn metal.
"And don't get your panties in a wad, either." She rolled her eyes again.
Someone really should have told her they would stick that way.
"Look," with two quick jerks, she scooted her chair closer to mine, "it's okay to be upset. Cry, complain, get it out, do what you have to. You're right … he isn't doing well, and he needs help. I don't blame you for blaming yourself … I mean, when you went catatonic, I nearly went insane." She nodded once and lifted her right leg with an arm, propping it on the lower bar. "I was blaming myself, trying to figure out why, who could fix it, what to do, until I realized something very important – none of it really mattered."
Lying backwards, she plopped her upper body into my lap and took my hand. "What really mattered was you. Getting you to talk, to open up to someone. You needed to let it go, and to move beyond … whatever was eating you alive." Her bright eyes were honestly insistent. "He needs to talk to you … because I think you're the only person he'll let close enough to try."
I could barely believe it … but Alice was right. I was taking it all too literally. It wasn't, and yet it was, about me. I had to reach him … but it seemed as though I was the only one who could do it.
A wave of uncertainty rimmed with irritation struck me in the chest.
"How am I supposed to do that, Alice? I can't get him to say more than four words."
"Well … there's ambush. There's bribery. And there's just plain old knowing what to say."
I snorted. "Good luck on the third one."
"True. But sometimes, you know, getting it right … it can take a little of all three."
I was screwed.
"I don't even know where to start."
"Be honest. Show him you care. Show him you want to help. And most of all? Show him himself." She shrugged, watching her ankle move in slow circles. "We're usually the only people we can't stand up to."
I blinked twice.
"You know, Alice? I think you've been living with Jasper too long."
O~o~O~o~O
Your warm whispers
Out of the dark they carry my heart
Into the dawn they carry me through
And I'm weeping warm honey and milk
That you stay surrounding me, surrounding me
Your warm whispers,
Letting me drown in a pool of you
Sleep was an elusive mistress.
I counted the dents in the popcorn ceiling while I listened to the small, rasping shudders of crutch against laminate. I couldn't bring myself to go down, to let him know that I had heard him.
But I would have to.
He was torturing himself, and, whether or not it was my fault, in the end, I held myself responsible.
"Tell me … please … what happened to them."
"It wasn't pretty, Edward."
"I don't care." He brushed the hair from my shoulder, lingering at my chin. "They aren't here. They're my history, and now they're dead … and I want to know why."
"Okay." I leaned into his palm, cradling his touch, and trusting myself to let the words flow in the right way.
Not thinking about what I said.
"I was fourteen … so I didn't understand. I wasn't even around all that long after – well, after everything. It was barely two years before Renee decided I would be better off living with the McCartys than her, but I watched everything from the outside."
I paused, memories a rampant chaos I couldn't bring to words. Her drawn, haunted expression at his funeral. Ellen McCarty's face, she and her husband sitting at a rough hewn table, explaining ... whyI wasn't allowed to visit anymore. Her mangled, bruised limbs and red puddles … so dark and deep.
"Their lives … dissolved, Edward. Your father, after a few months, quit his job… Elizabeth sold things, sometimes … they loved each other, and I think, at first, they tried. But it just … tore them apart. I'm still not convinced … but I wasn't there, in the house, Edward. I just saw what was there, for the world to see." I swallowed and chanced a glance at his eyes. They were hard. I pushed forward, a slow fear building, driving. I couldn't stop.
"I went to visit, sometimes, to be closer to you. Or, at least, what I thought was you. Elizabeth never let me inside. We always sat on the porch. I asked her once, when I saw the bruise on her arm, but she said she ran into the counter.
"A few months later, maybe a year after your funeral, your father … well, he drank himself to death. He was hit by a passing car after being kicked out of a bar in Port Angeles. I don't know, I guess … everything in him just ruptured. His body couldn't take the abuse anymore. And I guess … she couldn't either."
Red, thick, and sticky … just beyond the door. Young, sharp screams … my screams. The images, so long buried, surfaced, floating for a few moments before I drowned them again. I had found her in my final goodbye, after the McCarty's ultimatum … Elizabeth Masen, suspended in a pool of crimson tears, leaking from her wrists …
Some things were never meant to be remembered.
"She died, a few days later." I leapt forward, hiding the truth. The self-inflicted cuts and bruises the coroner had found on her lank arms and legs. "She couldn't live … without the two of you, I guess." The bed shifted around me. I looked up from where my gaze had fallen, sorting through memories I worked to forget.
I inhaled sharply.
He was glassy, shattered, and faded.
"I know." He stepped towards the door. "I'm sorry … I broke you, Bella."
My heart ceased to beat, but I couldn't find him as he walked, soulless, from the room.
I could have lied … I could have said things so much more simply, said they just passed away from grief, in their sleep, peacefully … something, anything better than that truth. The ravaged, fucked up place which some people make their lives, simply because they can't understand or accept things mean more.
And now he was falling, right behind them.
I lifted myself from bed, slipping my robe on loosely over my pajamas. I was silent on the staircase, padding gently to the living room and peaking around into the kitchen. He was in front of the window, again.
Well … he would make his way into the living room eventually. Ambush, check.
Sliding back a few steps, I sank into the leather and watched, waiting, until he paced past me without a word.
"No wonder you've been so tired."
His head slid up, eyes meeting mine. Anger flared before smoothing to embers.
"I just had to use the bathroom."
"For the past two hours?" My eyebrow crooked. I stood and stretched. No escape for him this time.
His expression was flat.
"How long have you been up?"
"As long as you have." I stepped closer, brushed my hand over his shoulder. "Talk to me, please." Insistence slipped through, pressing forward, bargaining and threatening with words. "Don't drown yourself, Edward – Trevor, whoever you want to be, tell me. Let me help you –"
"You can't." He nearly hissed the words. "I don't want you to."
Hollow bitterness was all I tasted, seeping through his voice and into my heart. I had been wrong again, when I assumed he wanted me to find him, when I assumed that he was unable to speak.
He didn't want to talk to me. He had been pushing me away.
"But … you said –"
"I was sick and desperate. I didn't mean everything I said." Harsh, bitten words, but his eyes softened when they flickered over me. I felt frozen, unable to move, breathe – react.
"I know you loved me. But let me go, Bella." The desperate sadness in his eyes nearly made me sick. "I'm no good for you."
He stepped away, out of my grasp and nearly out of my hearing, and I thought I was shattering, swirled up in a mass of pain and thick, steady disbelief, until his whispered words that I'm sure, to this day, he never knew I heard, floated through the haze of anguish and hit me with cold, hard reality.
"I'm no good for anyone."
He was gone.
I was left with the truth … and yet another decision.
Each time we're left with a decision, it seems as though we have come to a fork in the river of our lives. Every action, every reaction, is a turning point, a choice we make to set us in a new direction, either stronger, or that much more broken.
I could have walked away. I could have let him be, respected his words and hoped he would come around. I could have lain down and rolled over, given in and whimpered away, the ultimate cop out while I went back to faking dead.
I could have done any number of things, but every single one of those decisions would never have landed me in the same place, in the same future I saw now.
It was there, in that moment, I made a different choice … a harder choice. All because of one simple truth which yanked at me, tugging me like a rubber band ready to snap in the opposite direction.
I loved him too much to walk away.
I snagged a knife from a kitchen drawer and made my way resolutely down the hall.
I wish I had my camera with me, just so I could have captured the look on his face when I picked the lock on his bedroom door.
"You're wrong," I stepped in, brushing hair from my face and shutting the door, casting the room in semi-darkness. Moonlight streamed through the window, and I almost swore that the copper streaks highlighting his ragtag mess glittered in the translucent beams.
He stuttered.
I held up the kitchen knife before laying it on the dresser near the entryway.
"Emmett taught me a lot of things. You've never really liked any of them."
I stepped forward until I was mere feet from where he sat by the open window, bathed in natural light, it's soft blue and creamy white hues falling lusciously over everything it touched, blanketing the world in a surreal haze. Quietly, I sat on my knees and laid my head in his lap, my stomach winding and unwinding in intricate knots. My nerves were aflame, my fingers twitching at his nearness like they hadn't in weeks. I forcibly ignored my body's inevitable reaction to everything that was him.
I simply prostrated myself and let my words be heard.
"We are good for each other, Edward." His legs tensed beneath my arm. "And you're not going to push me away, no matter what you try to do; even if you move out, or avoid me for the rest of our natural lives … I'll still love you. And I will never stop chasing you." His breathing shallowed, leaving me cringing inside at the raspy, hollow sound.
"Why?" The word was a sigh, a bath of warm, tinted air washed over my head while his hands tendered my scalp, digging into the lengths of hair hanging by his knees.
My heart thudded, chest trembling.
"Because … you're the other piece of me. With you I laugh … I breathe … I feel whole and fulfilled and at peace. I know where I belong." Tears welled as I thought of losing him, breaking at even the chance of another day not knowing he was alive. "Without you, I know who I am, but … I don't know how to be that person. And I don't ever want to forget who that person is again."
The heat of his breath hovered over my hair; strong, lean arms encircled the top of me, encasing me and filtering warmth. His limbs tightened around me, and he lifted me up, drawing me into his lap in one smooth motion.
My hands moved of their own accord, finding the back of his head and tightening against the warm, smooth skin as he stretched into the crevice of my neck, lips meeting to plant a light kiss before somehow both cradling me and turning his face away from mine.
"I love you, Bella – Isabella, whoever you are to me –"
– Izzy, my heart cried –
"– and I never want you to forget that person, because she is the most beautiful person I have ever known, in either lifetime and every memory I can conjure up. But me … this ... person, that I am … I'm no good for her. I break her, every time." His voice faded, nearly a whisper. "Just like I broke them."
Understanding dawned within me, soft and gentle, delicate and expectant. My fingers toyed with the growth lining his neck.
"I was broken, Edward … it's true." Soft smiles hinted in my words. "But you've put me back together, so many times –"
"What happens when I can't? What happens when I shatter you, because I can't remember, because I can't come back from the dead and be who you need me to?"
"Edward, look at me." He didn't respond, so I gently tugged at his chin with my fingertips. "My love, the light of my soul, why can't you understand? I will always break, but the one to show me how to put me back together? It's you. You're the only one who can."
I released the grasp I had on my robe. The fabric slid a few inches down my shoulders.
Light shivers danced across my skin as his eyes swept my form, the slope of my shoulders, cut by the thin tank top … and no underwear.
"Your parents … they weren't strong enough to survive on their own, because they lost sight of who they were long before."
I pulled my shoulders and arched my back, allowing the fabric to slide further down my body, this time past my breasts, where the thin locket hung, dangling gently between them.
"But I – we aren't like them. We've survived without them, apart from each other. And we lived."
Shimmying lightly, I shivered as the garment fell completely from my limbs, hanging over my lover's lap. He swallowed thickly before bringing his eyes to my chest. His brows furrowed gently before smoothing out, and his hand immediately spread between my breasts – directly over the locket, pressing the cold metal into my overheated skin. Nerves sprouted from the roots to the tips of me, flaring in rapid succession.
I didn't steady my breathing. Instead, I allowed the rasping hunger to penetrate my words.
"The difference is, I don't want to live without you." Eyes met, centering on each other. "Ever again. I want to wake up next to you, eat breakfast with you, change clothes with you, play video games with you. I want to hold your hand and watch TV with you. I want to buy you gifts, cook for you, walk in the rain with you. I want to wear your favorite hoodie when I'm cold. I want to snuggle in bed with you, mess up your hair, kiss you goodnight, and fall asleep by your side, every night for the rest of our lives. I love you, Edward Anthony Mason Trevor Cullen. I love you. All of you."
Two pieces, made four, were shifting into one.
Like one, his lips met mine, pressing hungrily against me, nearly devouring me alive. I pushed him away and stood, knowing full well what he would see.
My figure, outlined in pink, duck printed underwear and a thin white tank, bathed in moonlight. A few steps backwards and I sat, bouncing lightly on his bed. He followed and was on me in an instant, his hands ghosting along my arms, nose pressed to my neck, lips trailing kisses around my ear.
"Bella," my name was low, a husky breath, "if you don't want this –"
"No," I murmured. "I want this. More than you know." My throat was suddenly dry. "But you have to know where I stand."
He met my gaze, eyebrow raised, but his eyes widened suddenly at what I can only imagine was the paralyzed fear swimming in the expectancy I had tried to hide in my own. His hands moved to entwine with my own.
"Bella –"
"I'm a virgin." I spit out the words, the poison I knew would one day cross my lips. I had just hoped it would happen when I was drunk … not sitting, half-naked, in front of the man I loved more than my own life.
"What – I – " he stuttered a bit before fixing me with a look I couldn't understand. "Bella … are you sure this is what you want? If you've been saving it – "
"For you," I nearly sighed into his hands, leaning forward to rest on his chest, which rose and fell evenly. "I've been waiting for you. I could never give myself to anyone else. I love you." My hand slid beneath his t-shirt. "I want you." His eyes closed and he groaned lightly under his breath as instinct drove my fingers to trace the waistband of his sleep pants. "Show me. Love me." My nails found the beginnings of curly, thick hair. I scratched gently. He nearly choked, his eyes falling languidly to meet mine. "Please. Teach me."
"Oh, Bella," he groaned, falling on top of me and pressing my body to the mattress. "You don't seem like you need any teaching to me."
His lips fit perfectly against mine, sparking warmly with cinnamon and soap. I breathed, capturing the very essence of the man hovering over me, whose very presence scrambled my brains into well done eggs.
Pleasure radiated through me. His hands delicately traced my ribs, brushing the sides of each breast simultaneously.
"I happen – to remember – this particular – tank top – got me into a lot – of trouble," he muttered around the delicate touch of his lips trailing down my neck, past my collarbone, and finally to where fabric met skin. "And I don't think it deserves to stay here much longer."
One eyebrow rose.
Grinning, I lifted my arms above my head and allowed him to pull the offending fabric from my body. My breasts fell out, unrestrained, and bounced lightly before coming to rest against the open air. I shivered at the hunger in his eyes.
He left the locket on, hanging between the objects his fingers literally twitched to touch, but I pressed one arm over them and pointed with the other at his own garb.
"You," my finger flitted in his general direction, "are wearing far too much clothing."
Without another word, his shirt and sleep pants were off, leaving him in a pair of light blue, checkered boxers – his erection straining lightly against the thin fabric.
"Better?"
I couldn't speak, stunned speechless and simply longing to devour his nude form, but he never gave me the chance. With a low chuckle, he straddled my waist, pinning me to the bed and snaring my wrists with one hand.
"I'd say we're about even now, wouldn't you?" His voice was low, for my ears alone.
My insides came apart. My hips twitched lightly with anticipation. The skin around my wrists burned, and yet the excitement at the slight restraint both surprised and invigorated me with pleasure. That same slow knot was forming near the pit of my stomach.
It tightened when the pad of his thumb brushed across my soft nipple, causing it to pebble with sensation. I sucked in a tight breath and moaned lightly.
"You like that," he mumbled, absently.
I couldn't have opened my eyes if I wanted to; I was so lost in simply feeling. Edward's voice, however, lit fires all over me, as with each new sensation, he seemed to be testing me.
I gasped lightly when his tongue swirled around my breast, coming to rest on my nipple and flicking lightly, sending pleasure radiating down my spine to the heat spreading through my toes. His fingers dipped against the back of my knee, eliciting squirms of delight. His graceful lips glided down my stomach, lower than my naval, to the edge of my cotton undies, where they stopped.
I frowned, sniffing in protest.
He laughed.
"So impatient, little one." Heat, sweet and tender, brushed my ear. "But I'm not done toying with the rest of you yet." In one smooth, slow motion, he slid the panties down my waiting legs.
Oxygen, sucked from the room, left my lungs empty and heaving for air.
But nothing could compare to his fingers.
Instruments of torture, which, placed with his lips and tongue, tasted all of me, teasing and taunting with words seared into my memory for all time. The knot winding thick and tight in my stomach swelled, growing with each passing pain and pleasure, a throbbing heat to pulse over me, sweeping through and searing me.
I was branded with him – I would never be this for another.
What I never expected, however, was the absolute intensity of my own hunger when I felt his erection, hard as satin covered steel, pressed against the inside of my thigh.
Curiosity was instantaneous; of course it was – I had never really seen or handled one before.
My hands were at his waist, fingers wrapped gently around the long shaft before I could think. The sounds escaping him in a rush of breath brought my surprised eyes to his face.
Me? I – I did that?
Power, borne on waves of adrenaline, filled me, my own arousal temporarily forgotten and yet altogether heightened by the discovery of my effect on him.
"Bella," he panted, and I dragged my fingertips upwards. He nearly collapsed, falling to the side as I came to straddle him. Gazes locked.
"May I – please?"
His eyes fluttered closed and he swallowed thickly before nodding. I think his dick may have actually twitched in my hand.
I didn't know it could do that.
I stroked the length of him a few times, studying this part of him, the piece of man I had never known. I twisted my wrist to feel him shudder, painted my fingertips with the sweet, slick wetness clinging to the top and slide my palm down the shaft. His hand immediately gripped my wrist.
"Gentle, Bella," he sighed, eyes closed. "It's been a long, long while. Be careful of the top." His lids suddenly snapped upwards. "And don't think … you have to."
"Have to …" I trailed off, confused. He grinned.
"Have to do any more than you want. I don't expect you to be perfect."
Oh. Giving head.
I ran my hand around again, loving the slick, thick feel of it pulsing against my palm. Now that I thought about it, I almost felt … driven.
My tongue flicked against the head. Salt, with an edge of sweet, settled on my tongue. I wrapped my lips around it, sliding down, barely reaching the middle before his tip found the back of my throat. I pulled back, unintentionally pursing my lips, and creating just enough suction for my lips to pop from the end.
A throaty moan was my reward. Fire licked in my veins, and I felt the pulsing heat below, the twisting in the pit of my stomach back in full force at the extent of his desire. I continued to taste, my tongue wrapping around the shaft, enjoying my treat like an ice cream cone of the most flavorful chocolate.
His hands found my hair, alternately tugging at the roots and spreading across my scalp, shots of electricity winding down my neck, until he finally tugged a little harder, pulling my lips from around him.
"Oh Bella, please …" harsh, stuttered breathing cut through his words, his eyes a dark, forest green, hovering over me, and he licked his lips before they crashed to mine.
Hot, heavy warmth, tender caresses, and twisted cinnamon were all I could feel, bathing me in an incense heavy ocean of only him. His lips found my skin and mine found his – soap and sheets and warmth and man. His fingers found my center, the tip pressing inwards, and my petals unfurled.
His words crushed my senses, cutting through the haze.
"Let me have you, love." Twisting, teasing knots, white hot heat from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes, wild and heavy abandon, running rampant. Slick, swirling grace, and he had found me, found my core, my roots, my soul.
Sharp breath, trailing across me in waves.
His impertinent growl.
"I want you for mine."
I nearly came undone.
I want to be yours!
I could only nod.
His fingers left their blessed niche. Seconds passed, my heart thrumming in my chest, hummingbird wings.
Pressure, slight and taut. One hand found my face, cupping it to his own, foreheads joined. The other found my hand and pulled it to him, and his eyes … deep, dark, heavy with love, lust, and uncertainty.
"Are you sure?"
Forever rested in his eyes. I knew.
"Yes. I love you, Edward. I wouldn't share the pain with anyone else."
One long, sharp thrust, and I gasped. He stopped, settling, eyes closed, stroking my brow. Pain radiated through me, and I knew … I knew it hurt, worse than any pain before, but I would live.
We would live … and love … and the pain would lessen, each day, until it disappeared forever.
A few halted breaths later, I pulled back with my hips, arching my back, and he followed. Each stroke was pain, lessened by the stroke before, dropping away piece by piece. And for each piece that fell, another dropped, stoking the flame, pleasure building through the heat. Twisting, turning love, sparked senses returning with the white hot heat.
His hand found my breast, palming the soft flesh.
The pain slid away.
We moved, nearly as one, easy and extraordinary, a creature of effortless beauty. I felt him, needed him, hungered for him as I never had.
If I had been branded before? Now, I was a piece of him, beating as steadily as his heart.
His hands worked as he grew thicker, larger, longer, filling me to the hilt and beyond. I felt it, spiraling from my control, thick waves of an ocean I would willingly drown in. It consumed me, flames finding my body, and I gave in. I wanted to be lost, to forget anything but the pleasure, pulsing around me.
It swelled, around and above and under and into me, and I could do nothing but feel, a warm, rapturous litany of burning love, need, and hunger, sated in one unending breath.
In an instant, he stilled, allowing me to ride the waves of pleasure which lapped at my core and spread a satisfying warmth through my limbs, but I wouldn't let him go unfulfilled.
I moved again, my hands wrapping around his neck, pulling my body towards him, deeper and faster, further and stronger. His sighed into my neck and I watched as his eyes flickered, his face tensed, his back arched.
My fascination was unbound as I felt it rattle through me; his orgasm, every bit as pleasurable as my own.
I pulled him to me, sweat soaked skin clinging to that of its counterpart.
"I love you, Isabella." His warm whispers brushed my ear. "I'm not leaving you ever again. I will fight with everything I have to stay with you this time." His arms stretched around me, melding us together, still connected and yet closer than I had ever imagined possible.
Words, so familiar, echoed lazily in my memory.
"I'm not leaving you Izzy, I promise. I will fight with everything I have to stay right by your side."
"Do you promise?"
"Isabella Marie Swan, I vow to stay with you for as long as you live, so long as you want and need me."
He pressed his cheek to mine before he slid sideways, one arm draped across my stomach. I turned and sidled into his shoulder, my head on his chest, and he cradled me.
"Do you promise?"
Fingertips, hovering over my arm and sweeping goose flesh across my skin, stilled suddenly. His body stiffened lightly beside me, but he didn't pull away. I waited, barely breathing, and on the edge of cracking some heinous joke to break the tension when he rolled over, wrapping me in himself and nuzzling my hair.
"Isabella Marie Swan …" his breathing hitched, the words stilted. "I promise … I vow … to stay with you for as long as you live … so long as you want … so long as you need … me."
"Forever, then." A lilting whisper, followed by a soft sob which broke past my pursed lips.
I couldn't fight it. It was there, somewhere, so deep and so buried. My Edward … and my Trevor. I loved them both.
"Forever."
I felt his soft smile against the crown of my head, and he moved to soak up the liquid peace and joy which ran from me in streams of silent healing.
And because he held me, I cried.
For all the years I longed to run away … for all the days I spent wishing that this was not my life.
Sometimes, you think you want to disappear.
But if you ask me?
I think all anyone ever really wants is just to be found.
And being found?
It makes every throbbing wound, every hollow passion, and every broken heart worth every pain … of living … of trying … and of loving, with every breath that we have.
Forever.