Chapter 15

Sex on the Radio

La dee dah...usual gaff inserted here re Stephenie Meyer owning characters. Insert self depredating comment re me not owning them.

Ok so where were we...

BPOV

She moves her hands into his hair and savors their reunion kiss. His lips are full and sweet tasting and somehow meld beautifully into her own. She notices their height difference as he leans down to put his forehead upon hers. A pained look is upon his face.

"We need to talk." He leads her to the couch. He sits first, and she follows, seating herself next to him. She likes that he reaches over to hold her hand, and he begins to converse with her, not meeting her eyes, but gently stroking her finger tips in his own.

"I know we wanted to play it cool, but I am so sorry I hurt you, you genuinely seemed pissed at me when I came up with the idea for tomorrow's show. It isn't even original: I pinched the idea from a movie."

She was glad he wasn't looking at her face. She turned her head away from him and decided to just blurt out to him why his comments hurt her feelings.

"I'm a virgin. It's not something I really planned on. There were two near miss incidents with guys who really just weren't in good places and one of them decided he was gay which I guess was fortunate for me. Its not that I'm a prude or have romantic and unrealistic idealizations in regards to the whole thing but it just's happened that I'm too caught up in life and work and men aren't easy to find, well good men anyway. Alice sets me up with weird guys, Rosalie frightens them all away and somehow I am 24 and haven't actually managed to, um, get rid of my um, v-card..." Did that come out sounding like she was rambling? Way to go, scare the guy off in the first week. He is only a DJ who likes airing people's dirty laundry on national radio. Only a few million or so people would hear about it. Maybe she could move to Canada. They had cheap pharmaceuticals there; maybe she could overdose on some.

"Well, we have something in common then." She looked up at him. He wasn't screaming or revolted or anything else she expected. He was just sitting there, looking calm. Well, calm and kind of hot. He was obviously trying to be sweet.

"What could we possibly have in common?"

"My last partner decided she was gay too. My last partner was kind of my first partner and I have no idea how I didn't notice that she was stepping out on me and yeah, doing stuff with another woman."

She took this in. His voice was quiet at the end and his face was pained.

"Is this what sparked the on-air tirade?"

"Yep," he said, popping the "p" at the end. His face was stricken.

"That's awful! How did you, you know, find out? I had no idea with Eric. I just don't have any gaydar at all."

He hesitated. She thought about how foolish he must have felt.

"I walked in on ...her... and she was with her girlfriend. She never liked me going down on her or anything, but here she was with her friend, laying across the pool table, and well, you can guess what she was doing."

Bella tried to control her facial expressions. It was worse than she had thought. He had actually BUSTED them going at it. On his pool table. She hoped he had that table burned. Or at least bleached.

He was now sitting forward, having let go of her hands and was staring into his large palms. She knelt on the floor in front of him, taking his substantial hands in hers.

"I can't at all imagine what that was like."

"Yeah, well, it wasn't one of my finer moments and now I find that well, there is a lot of pressure given your, um, status and look to be honest I can't really get my heart trounced on again".

EPOV

There he said it. Let the woman know that you aren't much of a man. Your first true love ran off with another woman, and you probably won't even get a chance with the second one.

"Well, this is all new, which is, you know, scary for anyone to put their heart out there to be potentially trounced on, but I would love to give it a shot if you will have me."

"Bella, honestly you make my man bits come to attention, and that is scary given that your friend Rosalie apparently is some castration expert. But I would really love to give this a shot as well."

She smiled at him. Her face was radiant.

A firm knock sounded at the door, spoiling the moment.

"Motherfucking cockblocking..."

"Shhh don't answer; don't say anything. Emmett said he was worried about Aro hearing that anything was up in the room. My girls are on my side. They are going to keep the boys busy for a bit."

The knocking occurred again. Bella remained kneeling at his feet.

His iPhone vibrated on the glass table top, making a strange sound as it did.

He checked the phone. One message from Emmett.

He read it out to Bella and smiled.

"The castrator says we are to give you guys an hour. Heading to the bar together. Don't go missing. Open door in one hour or we will let Aro know you are bonking like bunnies."

"Wow, your wingmen are eloquent."

"Your wingmen are freaky."

"Wing women. Speaking about wings, can I ask what you were dreaming about midflight?"

He looked up to the ceiling and inhaled loudly. 'Here goes nothing', he thought to himself.

"Let's say Rosalie had my balls and was saying some pretty sick shit, and you were just sitting in the corner picking at your fingernails and not really looking on, but not really helping me out in the situation. At least that's, what I remember."

"Sorry about her. I love her, I really do, but she is one scary woman. We try to limit her use of the V and T."

"V and T? Vodka and Tonic?"

"No V and T, Voice and Tone. I can't begin to tell you how much she intimidates men."

"I have experienced it first-hand. Is she a lesbian?"

"What a weird question, but ok given your circumstances. She isn't, she just had something happen to her and she is wary of men now. She has a heart of gold. If she's your friend then you are extremely lucky."

"Yeah well I know what it's like to be her enemy."

"Oh, Rose is on our team now."

He sat forward. Now this was interesting.

"Yeah, she is a sucker for a good romance, plus she feels so guilty about giving you bad dreams that she is now willing to let some stuff slide. Well, while we are in Vegas anyway."

"What happens in Vegas..."

"...Stays in Vegas. My new favorite saying."

"So how lenient is she planning on being."

"Probably not THAT lenient. But she won't stop us being together in private. I mean, not being together like being… being together...oh,shit, I don't know what the hell this is. I mean, you are going home tomorrow and we are staying another two nights..."

"Actually, we aren't going tomorrow. The boys understand I can't get straight back on a plane after the incident today, so we were flying out Sunday. My plan was to be drugged up and head off on an early morning flight."

"That's good news. Is that just you or the guys as well?"

"I, um, I can't fly without them." Oh shit, did he have to explain his fear of flying?

"Wow, they really are wingmen. "

"Yeah. The guys are great about it, but I am virtually a cripple on a plane. They drug me up and keep me that way until we've landed. Emmett had to sit on me one flight when the drugs wore off, and another time I got strip searched because I was so drugged up at the airport in Manilla. It's pretty limiting. We had a shit flight once and I thought it was the end, so, well planes are a big task for me." He was grateful that she didn't seem too perturbed by his revelation.

"You are very brave just to get on a plane. That's just, well it's amazing. Do you want to tell me about the flight or save it for another day?" He was grateful for the out. He just couldn't talk about it, and he was wary that they only had an hour.

"If it's okay by you, and given that we have time allocated by the great castrator, I would really like not to talk for a while." Bella came towards him from her prostrate position on the floor.

"I think I would like that too."

He put his hands around her tiny waist and lifted her towards him. It was a failed maneuver. She thinking he wanted them to stand, but he was really trying to pull her onto the couch. In a tangle of arms and legs they somehow landed on the floor in the space between the couch and the coffee table.

"I should have warned you, I'm accident prone. Sometimes I take down people near me." She was smiling up at him, his body partially covering hers, his hand trapped awkwardly behind her back.

"Bella, I think you can take me down anytime."

Thanks to my Beta FicObsessed and my pre reader Elaine67. You keep my ego up and my blood pressure low. Reviewers get Teasers sent to them prior to the next chapter. Aiming for a Friday morning AEST to put up chapters...maybe earlier...