Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Twilight universe but you guys already knew that.

A/N: Hi babes! Sorry this one is a little late…Edward wouldn't cooperate…hehe.

A quick word…some of you are worried that this is going to be a depressing fic. I'm asking you to trust me. Yes, Chip's condition is a part of the story and it will weave itself in and out of the plot. But…it's not the only thing or the main focus of the bulk of the story. As always with these characters…the band and the music will be the focus. And really, with JP moving in…you guys don't really think it will always be serious and sad, do you?

I figured you guys could use a little lighter content after the last 2 chapters…and really, I like any excuse to write…well, just read!

See you at the bottom.

Chapter 6-Light My Fire

BPOV

"Can I crash this party?" Edward asked as he finally stepped out from behind the tree he'd been hiding behind.

Silly man. Of course I'd known he was standing a hundred yards away. Had he not realized that he was the center of my universe and that I would always be as aware of his presence as he was of mine? He obviously either hadn't decided to make his presence known or he'd wanted to watch the two of us for a while before he joined us…either way, I'd decided after the first thirty seconds his scent mixed into the air with the burning wood to let him join us at his own pace. He'd been…off during dinner and I suspected he needed a little time to adjust to all the new minds and bodies that now swarmed the house and grounds.

"Why sure," JP answered him as he looked over his shoulder. "We're finished fucking now," he said with an evil laugh.

"Ha ha. Very funny," my husband said as he stepped fully into the fire light. God, he was truly beautiful. After all this time, he still took my breath away with his smile, which was wide as he walked toward me. In a practiced move, he slid in behind where I was perched on the couch outside on the patio with his legs on either side of me. Almost immediately, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me flush against his chest. I noticed as soon as he settled behind me that his muscles were very tense, further proof to me that something was weighing heavily on his mind. "You sounded amazing," he whispered into my neck as he kissed his favorite spot behind my ear.

"Thanks," I said as I reached around and threaded my fingers into his hair. I scratched lightly, hoping that I could help relax him. "I haven't sung that in a long time."

"Damn skippy! That 's our song," JP said with a grin.

That was actually true. The very first "cover" that we'd ever sung together was "Heart-Shaped Box." Living in Seattle, Nirvana was the standard for all successful bands, so it was unavoidable that their music played nearly constantly. The song was both of our favorite by Nirvana and once we began performing, we had used the song to warm up.

"My Bitch still has the pipes," he said with pride in his voice.

"That she does," Edward agreed with a little hug. "Her voice is my favorite sound in the world."

"Well, its probably number three on my list. Right behind my kids makin' any noise in the world and my Heidi screamin'…"

"I think we get the picture," I nearly yelled to interrupt him as Edward shook with laughter behind me. He had obviously heard the conclusion to that statement.

"So, are you guys working on a new album?" Edward said with a smirk, very blatantly changing the subject.

"Well, I've got a lot of random things floating around my brain but I can't seem to make anything come together," JP said with real frustration in his tone of voice. He scratched the back of his neck in a painfully familiar gesture that I'd seen probably a thousand times over the years with him.

"Now that I can understand," I said as I looked up into the clear night. "I have so many ideas that just won't come out right. It used to be so easy to write. I'd hear it and then it would just flow. But lately…"

"Do you know what our best selling album ever was?" JP asked with a very amused look on his face.

"No. I don't. I know what tour was the most successful but not the best album. What's your point?"

"What tour? I'm not sure I even know the answer to that," he said with a giggle.

"Back to Basics," Edward said without a moment's hesitation, a huge grin on his face as he replayed the same memory that I was. "We saw the show at Donnington Castle."

The tour and album had been simply phenomenal. The music was hard and driving with vocals that simply soared. It was, quite simply, JP and the crew at their very best. It was most assuredly what had cemented their place in the Music Hall of Fame.

"Do you know how fuckin' awesome it is that you can tell me what show you saw? That is just wicked. I wish like hell we'd known you were there."

"It was unbelievable," I chimed in. "The sheer size of that crowd blew me away. Babe?" I said as I twisted in Edward's arms to look at him. "Do you have your phone on you?"

"Yeah," he said with another wide smile, already knowing what I was looking for. He pulled the phone from his back pocket and immediately opened the application with our pictures. "Here are the pictures from the show," he said as he passed me the phone. JP moved from his cushion over to sit beside us and leaned in to look at the small screen.

"Jesus, you and Dimitri using these old as Methuselah phones," JP barked as he looked at the screen of Edward's admittedly ten year old cell phone.

He absolutely howled with delight as the pictures we had snapped at the massive concert flashed by. We had intentionally gone to the show in England due to the overcast day that Alice had forecasted for us. It had lasted for nearly five hours including the opening act and we had thoroughly enjoyed every second of it.

There were several of the band onstage, a couple of me and Edward separately, including one I'd snapped with his hands raised into fists above his head and yelling at the top of his lungs, and then may favorite…a picture of my husband and I side by side that an extremely loud woman in front of us had been nice enough to snap. We were both grinning like fools, me wearing a blond wig and Edward wearing an EverClear baseball hat from an earlier tour. Both of us behind dark sunglasses. We both had our fingers held up in the traditional "rock and roll" sign and both sticking our tongues out at the camera in our impression of being bad-asses. It was completely ridiculous but pretty much summed up the entire day we'd spent with two hundred thousand other EverClear fans.

"This is classic!" JP snorted. "Oh, hell, it looks like you guys had a whole helluva lot more fun than we did. If I remember right, Felix and I both had some mondo cold that made us snot our way through the whole show."

"Oh Lord, JP! That is just nasty. Feel free to keep details like that to yourself, Asshole," Edward said with a wince.

"Okay, so back to the original question and the point to this whole conversation. Our best selling album was without a doubt Immortalis. Hell! I think we still to this day deposit royalties for you into an account from that album."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know," I said quietly. Immortalis had been a live tribute album. A tribute to me. Every single song on the album had been a recording of us playing live at different clubs over the span of four years. It had been a two disc album, one with the music and one with a video clip of the songs on the album. When it had been released, I was still deep in the adjustment to being reborn, so I hadn't realized for some time just how touching a gesture it was.

"Don't apologize, Bitch. How would you have known that? My point is that you and I both are at our best musically when we work together. I've known that since before you left the band. I couldn't be more proud of the music we've put out over the years. But I know, and so does the band, that had you been writing with us, it would have been better. Your melodies and lyric with my harmonies and riffs was always just…fucking perfection."

"JP," I said with a catch in my voice and my heart in my throat. This…this was exactly why I loved JP. Everything that came out of his mouth was unflinchingly honest and unfailingly touching. "I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything, B. I'm not flattering you or looking for a 'thank you'. That's the truth. It always has been," he finished with a wide yawn. "Okay, so maybe you can say good night. What time is it anyway?"

"It's a little after two in the morning," Edward answered with a quick glance at his watch.

"Fuck a monkey backwards, no wonder I'm tired," he said as he stood up and stretched his arms over his head. "Been a long ass day."

"Fuck a monkey backwards? What the hell does that even mean?" I asked, giggling and snorting.

"It means I'm fucking wasted tired, Bitch," he grinned. "Ya'll coming?"

"Not just yet," my husband replied. Only he was looking at me as he said it. "I want some time with the greatest gift of my life."

"Fuckin' hell, you two are still sickening. I was hoping that ya'll would be slightly less vomit inducing after being together so long."

"Oh, shut up Asshole," I said with a loud laugh.

"Seriously, though Eddie, it's good to see you guys so happy."

"I know what you mean," I said with a soft smile at my buddy. "I love to see you with your family. All I ever wanted was to see you happy and at peace."

"Fuck, Bitch," he said, a heated blush coloring his neck. And if I was honest, making my throat burn just a little. "Don't make me get sappy. I'm heading up to the house before we all start makin' out and singin' 'Kumbaya' or some shit. Night."

"Good night," Edward and I replied at the same time. We laughed as he lifted his hand high in the air and pointed his middle finger towards us in acknowledgement. We both stared at his retreating figure until he melted into the blackness of the night.

"Happy birthday?" Edward asked with his lips against the skin of my neck.

I turned in his arms until I was straddling his lap. Automatically, his hands dropped to my waist and he pulled me flush against him. I reached both hands up and cupped his cheeks, tilting his head until he was looking me in the eye.

"No, love, not happy. Mind-blowing birthday is more appropriate. Best birthday ever. I cannot even begin to tell you how much this means to me."

"You don't have to, baby. I knew how much you missed them. I wanted to give you the one thing that would make you smile that gorgeous smile for me," he said with a gentle smile of his own and his thumb lightly stroking my bottom lip.

"I love you, Edward," I whispered as I leaned forward as pressed my lips against his.

I felt his arms slide slowly around my lower back until he had me wrapped in his embrace. It was all the encouragement I needed to deepen the kiss. I slid my tongue into his mouth and whimpered as the heat wrapped around me. My hands slid into the silky tangles of his hair and I tugged just hard enough to elicit my favorite growled moan from him.

Our physical relationship was the one and only thing that had changed dramatically since my change. I had very clear memories of what our sex life had been like when I was human. I remembered every touch, every orgasm, even every noise of our time together and I adored those memories. But it became perfectly clear once I was no longer fragile just how much Edward has held back. I understood, now, that it was out of necessity. It would never have been possible for him to accurately describe just how different our vampirism bodies and strength was from my human form, so I couldn't hold his restraint against him. But once our bodies were on equal footing, I quickly understood that there were huge chunks of himself that he had kept locked away.

And it was those parts of my Edward that I had thoroughly enjoyed getting to know over the last two decades.

My very first act after I'd awoken from the not quite three days of burning that I would happily forget if given the chance had been to literally attack Edward. And not in a blood crazed newborn kind of way. No, before I spoke a single word or took a step out of the bed in Edward's room in Oregon that I had spent the bulk of those three God forsaken days in; I had grabbed him and pulled him onto the bed. And then proceeded to nearly devour him. For a little more than fifteen hours. When I had finally come to my senses slightly, not only was the bed in the room completely destroyed but so was every other piece of furniture as well as two walls.

He had hypothesized that his scent surrounding me…I found out later that he has laid beside me in that bed for each and every second that my body was undergoing its transformation and talked to me non-stop…had triggered my reaction.

I disagreed. I thought that my basest instinct, which everyone said would be the most dominant trait upon waking, was to love my husband. So it hadn't shocked me at all that the first thing I did was to show him that love.

But from that very first time where we were physically equals, what had been the most amazing thing for me was the warmth of his body. It was wonderfully true that I could now move his skin…bite, pinch and any other amusing touch I could think of, and that I could now move him when and where I wanted him…like restrain his hands above his head. But the heat of his touch against my skin or the warmth of his mouth against mine still shocked me nearly every time we touched.

In a word…it was pure fucking bliss.

And speaking of bliss…

"Mrs. Cullen, are you trying to seduce me?" he whispered in a deep voice against my temple as I kissed his jaw line, making my way toward his ear.

"No, Mr. Cullen. I'm not trying to seduce you. I'm succeeding in seducing you," I replied as I bit his earlobe gently.

"Indeed you are."

I slid my hands from around his neck and down his arms slowly. I was intent on not rushing anything about our time together. I ran my fingertips over the defined muscles of his forearms as his hands flexed against my waist in his attempt to restrain himself and let me take the lead.

I explored every millimeter of the soft skin of his neck, chin and jaw with my lips and tongue as I stroked his arms and stomach. Every so often, he would let out a contented sigh or a moan. Even a couple of growls when I nipped at the skin. When I felt him shudder underneath me, I knew that he was relaxed enough to let me take the next step.

As my lips met his again, my hands slid to the small buckle of his belt. As I worked the pungent leather free from the metal, I felt the muscles of his abdomen tighten deliciously. The button of his jeans and then the zipper followed shortly thereafter, leaving me the space to slide my hands into the fabric and around his already impressively hard cock.

"Baby…God, that feels so good," he said as he gripped the hair at the base of my neck tightly and tugged my head back until I was looking straight up at the pitch black, star filled sky. "Fucking addictive hands. But you do know that if anyone is outside the house, they'll hear us."

"Couldn't care less," I said as I turned my head, trying to encourage him to find that spot behind my ear that made both of us growl in want. "Nosy fuckers shouldn't be back here if they don't want to hear."

He chuckled darkly as he did indeed fill my request and began to suck and bite at the skin just behind my ear. The hard he worked my skin, the harder my hands stroked his erection.

"That's my dirty little girl," he said as he bit down hard, making me moan extremely loudly into the night air. "Quit teasing me," he finished with a growl as I gripped him forcefully.

I pulled away from him just enough to make room between our bodies to start to work on the button to my own jeans. The flames from the fire pit behind us glowed against the amber color of his eyes, making them look like they were literally on fire. The effect was instant and obvious as his nostrils flared at the wave of arousal my body let go of.

"Get them off or I'll get them off for you," he demanded just before his mouth crashed against mine again, all traces of teasing and testing gone. He had given in to the raw lust that always made its way into our touches. With a new desperation, he kissed me harder and harder; until he finally decided that I wasn't moving fast enough for him.

With lightening speed, he flipped us so that I was on my back and a ripping noise tore through the air as the denim of my pants was torn away with a single yank of his hand.

"I warned you, baby, to quit teasing me," he growled as he grabbed both wrists and pushed them down into the cushion of the couch above my head. His body covered mine and his now throbbing cock was pressed against my soaking core. I lifted my hips and shamelessly ground myself against him seeking the friction that we both were nearly desperate for.

"Edward…please," I begged as I felt him pulse against me, a tiny hint of his scent overwhelming me momentarily. My husband was so turned on, that he was now leaking against me.

"Please what, Bella. Say the words," he said in a low dangerous voice as he transferred my hands into his very large left hand. With his now freed right hand, he lifted my leg up and hooked it over his hip, pushing against my clit with every move. "You can't have it until you say it."

"Please, baby…please fuck me."

"Again."

"Edward, please. Baby, please fuck me. I need your cock," I nearly whined I was so aroused.

It worked.

In one move, he slammed himself into me until our hips were flush and his pubic bone rubbed against my clit. His pace was relentless. Every stroke of his glorious cock was long and hard. And his mouth…God, his mouth was everywhere. Licking and sucking and biting every inch of me he could reach without releasing my hands.

"Yes! Oh, Edward…more," I yelled as he continued to pound into me. Every stroke pushed my higher and closer to coming.

Harder.

Faster.

Deeper.

More powerfully.

Every second took us both higher and higher. The calm night was filled with growls and moans and grunts. Whispered words from both of us, each one dirtier and dirtier. We each took everything the other had to give and gave everything we had of ourselves. Until just as the blackness of the night gave way to the creeping pink of dawn and we allowed ourselves to fall over the edge together.

As the light grew brighter and brighter, we lay together on the soft cotton cushions, arms and legs tangled together, kissing and softly stoking everything we could reach. Lips, shoulders…anything to show each other that as raw as our passion was, underneath was pure and infinite love.

As I caressed his scalp, he began to softly hum in contentment as he snuggled against my chest, his eyes closed.

"Better now?" I asked quietly.

"What do you mean?" he said, raising his head and looking at me with questioning eyes.

"Whatever has been bothering you tonight. Better now?"

"I love you," he said with a tight chuckle but a real smile on his face. "Somewhat better, yes."

"You want to tell me what it is?"

"Not just yet, baby. But I will, I promise," he said as he lay his head back against my chest, his face turned toward the now glowing embers of what had been the fire.

"When you're ready, I'm here."

"I know and I love you for it."

As the sun made its first appearance on the horizon, the soft laughter of a toddler echoed across the wind. With a kiss just above my heart, Edward lifted his head and looked at me with genuine happiness on face.

"Sounds like its going to breakfast time soon. Shall we?"

I laughed at the excited tone to his voice.

"Yeah, I suppose it's that time, isn't it? But I really hope we have clothes down here. I'm guessing Heidi wouldn't be thrilled to have us join them in the buff," I teased as I looked around at the shredded remnants of our clothing. Everything was in tatters with the exception of Edward's shirt, which had somehow landed in the fire when I had pulled it away from his chest.

"No, but Paul and JP would be more than happy," he teased back as he pushed his way up and sat back on his feet. He held his hand out to me and then pulled me against his chest, his hand gently cupping my cheek.

"Thank you," he said, his eyes sincere. "For not pushing."

"When you're ready, you'll tell me. I know that, Edward. I just wanted to make it better for you."

"You always do, my love, you always do."

"Mommy! I wants chicken and waffles for bweakfast," Jared's voice rang out loudly from their cottage, making Edward and me both howl with laughter.

"Chicken and waffles?" Edward questioned with an adorable wrinkle of his nose. "What the hell kind of breakfast is that?"

I just shook my head and giggled. In truth, I remembered seeing JP eat the same thing, grossing me out even as a human.

As the first sparkles of the sunlight appeared on his forearm, we made our way into the studio, hand in hand. I hoped that whatever was on his mind would work itself out and allow him to enjoy our time with our human family. But until it did, we had more than enough to distract ourselves with…in the form of seven humans that would make all the difference in the world.

Chapter Notes: A couple of things…1) Immortalis, although not an actual EverClear album, is a CD that I own. One of my readers (the same groupie that bought me at the auction and is responsible for the Jacob one shot) made me an amazing birthday present in the form of the exact album I described. It's all the songs I used in the first 2 installments of EC in live versions. And even more amazing, when I play it on the computer, it actually shows the artists as "EverClear" or "EverClear featuring Edward Cullen". It is unbelievable and I wanted to say a giant "Thank You!" to Shannon…mwah.

Also, Donnington Castle is a real venue for extremely large concerts. It is my dream concert to see Evanescence there…doubt it will happen but anyway…

Next up…the rest of the band arrives and things will really take off. Charge those Ipods…we're gonna have a playlist for the next chapter.

See ya very soon!