Blister in the Sun Part 8

For PTB's Smut University 2014
Prompt: The Sweeter Side of Lemonade

Note: If this sexiness seems familiar it's because it was from the Pre-Assignment. Our homework was to take an already written scene and soften it up a bit.

I remember a time. Before all the fucking and hurting. Before all the secret smiles and hooded eyes. Before all the thrusting and sweating and tissues cleaning up messes splattered against my skin and the floor and the wall. When he smiled at me and whispered in my ear about how Rose had "fallen" for another guy. When he hugged me with just one arm, pulling me close enough to feel his heat but not his heart. When he grabbed at my ankles, opening his eyes under the water just because he I knows I hate to do it because—despite having grown up in the ocean—the salt burns my irises like no other.

Those were simpler times. When I secretly pined after his heart while acting like the best friend. No. Not acting. We were best friends…we are. At this point, I'm not even really sure if we're still fuck buddies. It hurts to think about what we used to be, my Eddie and me, and it's funny how this desire I've held inside for so long is now out and about and satiated every night that I'm not as happy as I thought I would be.

And even though I hate to admit it, I'm not happy because I may have his dick but I don't have his heart, and it sucks that he has mine whether or not he wants it.

I haven't gone back to the tree house. Not since I ran away after he practically begged for sex. I don't know how long ago it was. It seems like forever. It seems like yesterday. Hell…it could've been just hours and the twilight is actually the sun rising. The only thing I do know is that though the heat still persists, the waves are never ending, and the sand is always everywhere, summer is coming to an end.

School supplies are being bought. Clothes are being packed. And Mom can't look at me without tearing up. "I can't believe my baby will be moving away so soon."

College. It seemed so far away in June. Like there were too many parties, too many beers, to many illicit acts in secret hideaways on the beach to care that come August, we'd all really be leaving. Well, maybe not all of us. Like Tyler. He's staying. "I can't imagine moving away. The beach is my home."

Even so, we all know. It'll never be the same. Not after we all say goodbye. Some of us will come back. Some of us won't. And even if we all get back together again in the future, drinking beer on the beach for old times sake, it won't be like this. Carefree and youthful and anticipation for something that we don't quite understand yet.

Eddie and me. We're like all of this. Just on a much smaller scale. Well, according to my heart, it's so big it doesn't even compare to anything else. But I feel almost selfish whining over something so simple when our lives are just about to change forever. Yet I can't help myself. I can't help mourning how my best friend, my neighbor, that handsome boy next door and me is as changed as the water in the ocean.

To his credit, he's tried to catch me no matter how blatantly obvious I was at trying to avoid him. Every time I saw that sparkle of bronze from the sun in his hair, it would remind me of that sparkle that wasn't for me in his eyes and it would break my heart all over again. I ran that night and I've kept running. Even when he threw rocks at my window and called my cell phone a million times and yelled my name when I got too far, "Bella! Please!"

I ran.

So I don't know what is so different about this night. Maybe it's the tears in my friend's eyes. How the beer and the sun and now the bonfire and musty night air is making everyone remember that in just a few weeks we all would no longer have this.

"I can't believe you're going to be thousands of miles away from me!" Angela says, throwing her arms around my shoulders. "I'm going to miss you so much! But you have to promise to visit on the holidays."

Angela is another one that's staying. Not because of the beach or her parents or a home that she grew up in. No, she's staying because of Tyler. Because he doesn't want to leave and she doesn't want to leave him. It wasn't a surprise to anyone.

So yeah, maybe it was all these emotions that has me staying put when I see him advance. He meets my eyes, and for a moment, there's panic in all that green as he tries to push his way through the throngs of people. They stumble, grumbling at his back as he passes, but it's like he doesn't care. Like he has one mission in life and that is to make it to my side. So I stay and he almost falls to the sand at my feet in relief.

"Bell."

"Edward."

His eyes almost pain me with the sadness that buries itself so deep in them. "Can we talk?"

I nod my head and he grabs my hand like he's afraid I'll change my mind. The night is darker without the bonfire to light our way, but he doesn't stop, trekking his way across the sand with me trailing behind him, our connected hands the only reason why I'm still following. It's when I see the familiar alcove of rocks that I start digging my feet in. He wouldn't dare bring me there, would he?

"What's the matter?" he asks.

What's the matter? What's the fucking matter?! Him and Alice and discarded swimsuits with his tongue and fingers and finally his dick so slick in a place I'd rather not think about. Maybe it was hot at the time as I touched myself to him pleasuring another girl. But not anymore. Because now that I have him, even if only partially, I don't want to share our memories with those that have already passed.

"Not there."

"What?" He looks at the rocks like they hold this great mystery. Like he can't understand why I don't want to talk in a place where him and his ex-girlfriend fucked even if he doesn't know I know they did.

"Somewhere else, Edward."

"Fine." He leads us further down the beach where the shore slims down to just feet and the green stretches out toward the water. The bonfire is only a flicker in the night but even that is blocked by the leaves swallowing us into our own private hideaway.

He doesn't say anything at first, choosing to pace nervously in the sand instead. It makes me dizzy. His feet, I can barely see, dig a trench with his back and forth. So I yell, "Just spit it out!"

He stops, letting out one long breath. "I miss you, Bella."

I want to be spiteful and say I didn't miss him, but I can't lie to him. Not when I did. So. Fucking. Much. So I don't say anything at all.

"I'm sorry. For everything. I'm so sorry."

I don't know what he's supposed to be sorry about, and it makes me hate myself even more because he didn't do anything. He may have broken my heart, but that wasn't really his fault. I was the one who took of advantage of his failed relationship with Alice. He asked for the sex, but I could have said no. Like a good best friend would have. But I wanted this so much that I said yes instead.

"Stop."

"No! I miss you. I want you in my life. I need you in my life. You can avoid me all you want Isabella Marie Swan, but you're stuck with me…forever." I hate how my heart skips a beat because I just know that his forever is completely different from my forever.

"Did you love Alice?" He looks taken back, and I guess so am I because the words just came out of nowhere.

"Yes…" he says quietly.

"Do you still love her?"

"…I don't know," he says even quieter.

And because this seems like a moment to say whatever the fuck is on my mind, a moment for last chances before everything changes, I open my mouth again and say, "I love you."

He doesn't say anything this time. I didn't think he would. This isn't the first time I've said those three little words to him, but we both know that this time I meant something completely different.

And because the summer is almost over, because I'm about to lose the boy I love, because I've drunk too much and had more than my fair share of sun, I step forward, ignoring his wide, surprised eyes, and kiss him. Just a small peck. Laying my hand on his chest for balance as I raise up onto my tiptoes and kiss him quick enough where I'm not even sure I felt his lips on mine.

But then he's stepping forward, wrapping his arms around my waist, pulling me so close and kissing me for real. Soft lips and soft tongues and soft breathes that I can't help winding my fingers through his hair and dragging him closer, wishing that he'll never stop. It's when he's tugged us to our knees in the sand, his fingers dancing along the elastic of my swimsuit bottom that he pulls away.

"Bella," he says, but I hear what he really means. What he's really saying. "Are you sure?"

So I kiss him again, using those quick brushes across his flesh as the words stuck in my throat.. On his lips. "I want you."

Across his cheek. "Please don't stop."

Down his neck. "I love you."

He sweeps me into his arms, those muscles cradling me so close as he brings his lips to mine again, laying me slowly onto the sand. He's gentle as he slips the only barrier between me and him from my body even as I'm quick in removing his shorts lying low on his hips. And when he brushes those lips of his down my skin I can't help but think that maybe he has words of his own that he can't say but I hate to delude myself like that.

So I ask him for more. "Please, Eddie, please. I need it. I need you."

He plants his hips between my legs, pulling my ankles up to cross behind his back and then he's pushing forward. Slowly as if he's missed this. As if he can't believe he's back where he belongs after so long. Right here. With me.

And when he's as deep as he can go, he stops, laying his body against mine, so that we're skin to skin everywhere we can be. He's breathing hard, trembling in my arms, as I stroke his back, his arms, his sunburned neck. When I can't take anymore of the stillness, I whisper so quietly into his ear, "Let go, Eddie. Just let go."

He does on a sigh. Pulling out and pushing in again. Slow at first. Like he can't do anything else, but when the pressure becomes too much, when the bomb inside the both of us starts its ticking, he goes faster. Racing toward that end. Wanting to finish. Wanting to it to last…forever.

I arch my neck, loving how his breath feels across my skin. "Eddie."

He groans, his body tightening as his thrusts grows infinitesimally faster. "Bella. Bella. Bella."

It's like all of my dreams have come true so that when he hooks my knees over his elbows I fall, explode, detonate after the countdown of each of his thrusts. Buried into the sand. Muffled by all the grit in my mouth. My only reminder that I'm still whole and on this earth are the waves lapping at my feet. But uncaring to anything going around as he presses deeper and harder and faster. The air is hot. The sand is still warm. Our skin is slick with sweat that it's hard to hold onto him when he arches his back, his face thrown toward the stars as he spills himself into me.

And though I'm not worried because I've been protected since I was thirteen, I'm not even miffed that he didn't ask because our days are limited and I think I'd take anything he has to offer.

It's that same reason that I say again, "I love you."

When I really mean, "Do you love me too?"

He understands because he shakes his head. And it's less of a "no" and more of a "I don't know. I just don't know anything."

I hate the hope that blooms in my heart because in just a few weeks when the summer ends I'll be saying goodbye to this boy that I love without ever really knowing if he loves me back.