He tilts his head and kisses me deeper. My lips feel his need and take the pressure of his mouth. I drain his air and give him mine. His tongue wets my lips, slides against my teeth, and I give in to him. I kiss him back hoping he feels half of what I'm giving.

He wraps his arms around me again, pulling my hips into him. I feel him hard and thick against my lower stomach. I melt a little more.

There is no denying that he wants this too.

We stumble and walk backward, finally reaching the green couch that's probably older than mine and Edward's years combined. The back of his knees hit and as he falls to sit, he pulls me down to straddle him. Our lips never parting.

I land on him with little resistance.

It's never been like this for me, to want another so much, for my physical body to actually ache with longing.

His hands find the hem of my shirt and soon after, the bare skin of my back. The hum he makes as his hands glide over my skin shimmies down my spine in a wonderful cascade of tingles.

I have forgotten how good it feels to be touched hot and needy, to be wanted in return.

He lifts my shirt and quickly it's over my head and tossed onto the floor.

He pauses when he notices that I'm not wearing a bra. His smile turns devilish and his eyes narrow. He shakes his head.

I raise my eyebrows and return the favor of stripping his shirt.

I watch as his Adam's Apple dips and rises in his throat as he looks me over.

He lifts his hand to skim over my naked collarbone, his touch so slow and soft, I'd think I was imagining it if I didn't see it as it was happening. My skin breaks out in goosebumps. My breathing is ragged and heavy, and my whole body responds as he teases me.

He cups both my breasts and leans forward to place a small open-mouthed kissed in that tiny hollow of the center of my chest. His thumbs graze my nipples as they react to his touch.

His hands and his mouth cause a spark in me, one that radiates down to my toes and back up, not missing one nerve ending along the way. He is the flame and I am the fuse.

Then he looks up at me, his hair in disarray from my fingers and his discarded shirt. His eyes so dark and lustful. His lips swollen and red from our kisses.

All I can think of is how much in this very second I want him.

I reach for the button of his jeans. With a hard tug I have them unbuttoned and open. I slide backward and stand up and crook my finger for him to follow.

In the mean time I push down my shorts with ease. I let them fall and then kick them off with a flick of my foot.

He tosses his jeans to the side and they land on mine, covering them. The irony isn't lost on me. It's like this room is our oasis, we are hidden and alone. Nothing else matters but us. Just Edward and Bella.

Edward grabs a couple of covers and a pillow from the prop shelf. He quickly opens up a blanket and makes us a makeshift bed in the floor.

He grabs my hand and pulls me to join him as he sits in the floor on the blanket with his back up against the couch.

His chest, his arms, his legs, his stomach all nude and warm against my chest and my arms and my legs and my stomach. Skin on skin, craving the other.

He leans forward, his lips open and the slick tip of his tongue finds the sensitive skin under my ear. Slow and steady his mouth starts to unravel me.

My lower body starts to move in small circles searching for friction. My arms are clinging to his neck, holding him to me but needing more. My body needs him closer, so tight that not even air can come in between us.

"What was it you said about getting off on just a kiss?" His voice is gravely and hoarse and low as he speaks directly into my ear.

His teeth graze my lobe and it almost seems like too much. I take over and grab his face, meshing his mouth with mine and kissing him with all the life I have.

We kiss fast and messy, as if time is fighting us and we are losing. His hands grip my hips, so tight I may have fingertip bruises on my skin. He pulls me in harder to him, his strong against my weak, his hot against my wet, together we search and grind and pine and need.

He knots his fingers in my hair and pulls my face away from his, "Stop! I'm too close."

He rises up on his knees and I scoot backward and lie down on the floor. He pauses there, above me, looking down. His eyes hooded and lazy. His lips red and wet from my mouth. The epitome of teenage lust staring back at me, wanting me.

Without looking away from my face, he hooks his fingers in the sides of my panties and pulls them down my legs.

I fight the urge to reach out and grab him and pull him down on me. Sometimes the anticipation of his touch is worth the wait, but it's not easy.

I sit up and run my fingernail along the waist band of his boxers. His skin responds and his muscles flex. He grunts when I give them a firm tug and pull them down over his hardness. My hand opens to touch him and he pushes himself hard into my palm.

I twist my wrist around him once and suddenly he's pushing me backward and kicking off his boxers and hovering over me before I can blink.

He holds himself above me and looks down at me again. I drown in the emotions lurking in his eyes.

Gently, he lowers and rests his weight on his elbows. I feel teased. Not enough of him is touching me.

I want to wiggle and squirm, he's right there, it seems with just a small slip, he would fill me and I would be complete. But Edward is too strong, too heavy, and I can't make it happen.

"Bella, are you sure about this?" He twists a strand of my hair away from my face.

Then it kind of washes over me what I'm about to do. Cheating, sex, Edward. But the want is too much, the need is too great, and I don't care about the rest.

I nod and reach out for his face. I pull him down to finally cover me more. His tongue trails along my bottom lip and his hand slides down my hip and then my thigh. His fingers curl around the back of my knee and bend it as he settles in between my open legs.

"I don't have a rubber," he says against my open mouth all the while I'm still trying to burrow into him.

With a half mind I answer, "I'm on the pill. Please, Edward!"

He resumes his kisses. I breathe only him and he breathes only me. It feels like the air around us is charged, every hair on my body seems to be standing on end. I wonder if he was to say my name, would a spark ignite from his lips. If with too much of a friction against me, we might explode.

He pushes into me and I want to melt and shatter simultaneously. Instead, I wrap my other leg around the back of his, his weight now resting perfectly in the cradle of my passion.

He's still holding me open with my other leg and I don't know whether to push against him or pull him in deeper.

Then we start to rock together. At first it's slow and gentle and quiet. All grunts and moans and uneven breathing.

The sound of skin against skin fills the room. That sound fuels the need.

We speed up and lose rhythm, but now it's frenzied and wild.

He buries his face into my neck.

With one hand I tangle my fingers into the hair of nape of his neck, with my other I reach down to that dip right above the swell of his butt and I push down. I need more. The ripple of ecstasy has begun to crest in the core of me; it pushes and gains energy as it waves through my body. Back and forth, it sizzles at the tips of my toes at the same time it peaks at the tip of the crown of my head.

I lose myself in Edward and his motions, and the feeling of heaven he gives me. In this blip in time, I am no longer myself, I am his.

He stiffens and I feel his mouth open and wet on my shoulder. I pull and pull and pull at him to fill me, complete me, give me all of him. However brief.

He makes one last thrust before he shudders and his body goes limp. His relaxes on me and his weight gets heavier. He starts to roll off me, but I shake my head no. "Don't move, not yet."

"Just a little, I don't want to suffocate you." He shifts anyway.

We trade places, him on bottom, and me lying on him as much as I can. My head is over his heart, I close my eyes and listen to the sound of life it sings.

Neither of us say anything else for several minutes as we recapture our oxygen and our thoughts.

One arm is wrapped around me holding me to him, the other folded up under his head. Our bodies are damp with a sheen of sweat and I'm sure the evidence of our sex is thick and wet between my legs.

But I never want to move, never leave this bubble we've created.

"I tried to call Peter and break it off with him, but he didn't answer. But I want you to know I'm going to. I don't love him anymore." I rub along the plains of his chest as I talk. My guilt is settling in.

"You don't owe me any explanations, Bella, nothing would make me think less of you." He runs his fingers through my hair as he talks.

I lift my head and peek up at him. He's staring up at the ceiling and seems a million miles away. I miss our bliss already.

"What's going through that head of yours?" I ask.

He exhales through his nose and looks over at me. He tries to smile, but it isn't real; it doesn't light up the room. "There are so many things I want to tell you, but I don't know how." His voice is barely above a whisper, but his words seems so loud.

I understand. I feel that same. It's all our walls and our pasts and our futures that guard us and make us think twice and hold back.

"It's all right. You don't owe me anything either Edward, but thank you for this, for tonight, for everything."

He chuckles this deep laugh that makes his chest rise and fall quickly.

"And we get to do it again tomorrow!" I giggle as I settle back down on his chest.

"I want you to know that you make me wish I was a better person. You make me want to change and ... maybe even to stay. And I when I'm with you I don't know if I'm coming or going. If I'm falling or flying. You make my head spin."

I smile against the bare skin of his chest. I turn my head and place a small kiss right above his heart. "Edward Cullen, the feeling is mutual. You make me crazy."

He continues to brush through my hair with fingers and I find myself sinking deeper into him.

"Go ahead, get some rest."

I nod and give up the fight. Being here, in his arms, naked and wrapped in a sheet, is my kind of paradise.

Too bad it has to end.

/ / /

Sometime in night, I'm awoken by rain pelting the tin roof and a deep thunder sneaking though the darkness. Edward and I are tangled like the roots of an ancient tree. You can't tell where he starts and where I begin. We are one. We are sturdy and strong.

I can't go back to sleep after that. There is too much thinking and worrying to do.

I pass the hours by studying him as he sleeps and how innocent and young he appears as he dreams.

I think about how much I would like to change my past and turn back time.

How I would like to always have known Edward the way I know him now.

I try my best to not think about tomorrow or next week or what will happen in a month when we graduate.

But it's impossible.

/ / /

Very early the next morning, I wake him. We need to leave before people from school start to arrive.

We're both hesitant and quiet. I dread leaving him, leaving this.

My brain continues to remind me of all the things I wish it wouldn't; about Peter, about the scholarship, about Edward leaving, and that whatever this is between us isn't going to last.

He kisses me one last time in the doorway before we try to run out into the pouring rain.

"I'll see you in just a little while." Then his lips briefly peck my forehead before jogs out to his car.

I don't even say goodbye. I just let him leave.

I scramble out to my car and jump in the driver's seat before I get soaked anymore.

I'm not sure how long I sit there, but I'm startled when there's a knock on my window.

It's Edward and he is sopping wet.

He opens my door and pulls me to my feet and into his arms.

We're standing in the downpour, his hands on my neck, and the longing between us frayed and deep. I look up into his eyes and it's like my whole world has flipped and everything is put into a new perspective. I can do things I never thought I could do. I can want things I shouldn't want.

It's like I just know I want to be with him forever, hold him in my arms, kiss him, and tell him how he's changed me and my life and my everything.

Then I remember that it's not going to happen and for some reason, I just can't comprehend that.

We might as well be on the edge of a cliff, contemplating the consequences of the fall, yet my heart feels like it has already jumped.

He leans down, his nose brushes against mine and our lips mold together again. So sweet, so loving, so wrong, and so right.

If only I could manipulate time.

We stand there, wet to the bone, and for just a minute, not a care in the world but us. And as he kisses me, I wonder how in the middle of a rainstorm, I feel like I am burning alive.

"True love is like teardrop in a rainstorm; you're lucky enough to find it once, but you'll never find it again." ~William Louie