CHAPTER TWELVE
I heard his heartbeat before I could register that it was Edward's. He stayed with me the whole night and like Edward had said I felt protected and safe in his arms. I heard him groan and felt him stretching; I decided to remain silent trying to experience this ecstasy for as long as possible. Maybe if Edward thought I was asleep, he would stay right where he was.
"I know you're awake."
I froze. I think my rigid body gave me away. Edward wormed his way deeper under the sheets his face now resting in the crook of my neck as his hands roamed up and down my body, thankfully taking into account the sore area near my stomach. He began kissing me, well if this was how I was going to be treated by remaining silent. A mime I shall become. "You think I don't know your sleeping patterns well enough to know when you're faking." His breath was tickling me, I couldn't help but giggle.
"What are you talking about? My sleeping patterns, have you been perving on me while I've been napping?"
"Of course, you're beautiful when you sleep, so peaceful." He leaned up on his side so he could look at me in the face. "Let me see that eye of yours." He placed his hand gently on my face I began to pull away when where he touched, hurt.
"It's pretty bad, well we are definitely not going in to work today." He started to get up from the bed.
"Wait what do you mean? We have to go to work; we can't expect them to hold up filming for this stupid black eye."
"Bella, its fine Emmett doesn't need me today. In fact, I have a very important task for you today, I know you are in pain but this would really help me out. Do you think you can help?"
"Of course," I said instantly.
"Okay wait right here, I will be back like in twenty minutes, it's going to take me a little bit of time to prepare it, I will come to you when it's ready." Whatever international man of mystery.
"Do you want me to come with you? I can help," I asked confused by his request.
"No you are perfect; I mean that you're perfect." He came back and briefly kissed me on the lips and took off for downstairs.
I had just returned from the bathroom after performing my morning ritual when Edward arrived with a big tray in his hands.
"Ok, come on. Back into bed, you go."
Edward corralled me into the bed placing the tray next to me.
"Where's this big project?" I asked baffled looking at the scrambled egg and bacon combo.
"You already completed it, I needed you to wait here why I brought you breakfast in bed." He put a napkin on my lap and handed me silverware. "And you did beautifully." He was talking to me like I was a dog waiting for a snausage. I was not amused.
He saw the irritation on my face.
"Bella what would you have done if I asked you to wait here why I went down and made you breakfast?"
"I would have gotten dressed and come down and joined you."
Duh.
"Exactly! You never listen to directions. If I ask you to do something, I need to trust that you are going to do it. If I don't trust you then that leads me to use manipulation."
Ok, now I was really irritated.
"So what if I ask you to do something? What if I tell you to take me to work today because obviously I am having a little trouble seeing out of one eye and need your driving services for the day."
"Then I would say, no. I have one rule, when it comes to your safety and well-being then you will listen to me or there will be consequences."
Woah, back that ship up.
"What the hell are you talking about?" I said with a slightly more raised voice than was necessary. "Edward you…"
I was so mad I couldn't even form thoughts, and one had to have thoughts before there could be words.
"Isabella, what happened the last time you went against me?"
A flash of James on top of me entered my head I shuttered and my tears started to pool in my eyes. He saw how visibly upset I was at his statement, so he immediately climbed into bed to hold me.
"I'm sorry; I shouldn't have brought that up." My head was on his chest as he pets my hair.
"Bella, I told you there would be some things that you wouldn't like about me. Call it controlling, domineering, call it whatever you like, but I will not compromise your health, safety or well-being. I will always do what I think is best because I want us to live a long and happy life together." I slowly nodded my head. "You have no idea how much you mean to me."
He reached for the tray of the forgotten food placing it on our laps, he began to scoop up some eggs and bring them to my mouth. I pulled back and gave him a look.
"Contrary to what you may think, Mr. Cullen I am not a child. I can feed myself."
He smiled. "I'm not sure baby Swan, I wouldn't want you to stab yourself with this mighty sharp fork."
I grabbed the fork from him and ate the contents.
"I'm watching you, mister. Pretty soon you'll have me in Pampers and a onesie."
He lifted his hands in the air, surrendering, "Ok, I can promise you that is definitely not a fetish I can get on board with."
We spent the rest of the morning eating in bed and talking about this and that. In the afternoon I finally managed to whine enough to get Edward to allow us to go downstairs. I think he must have thought that I was either going to make a break for it and try and find a way to work or I would find a task to focus on that would be too taxing for my body. He made me promise him that I would stick to the family room mainly the couch. I mean yeah I was sore and my face still hurt a lot but I was pretty sure there were coma patients getting more exercise then I. Of course when I told Edward this, he didn't seem very amused.
Edward and I compromised on a couple of movies to watch and true to my word I hardly left the couch except to go to the bathroom. We both must have fallen asleep on the couch I woke up to Alice cooing at us, "Ah don't they look so adorable, don't they look adorable, Jasper? Let's take a picture."
"You do and you're dead," I mumbled.
Alice narrowed her eyes, looking kind of evil. "Yeah... you were a lot more adorable when you were sleeping."
"I have to agree, Bella is more adorable when she sleeps." Edward welcomed himself to our conversation. I promptly elbowed him.
"You know it was my sparkling personality that caught your eye in the first place, don't lie."
Edward rolled his eyes.
Alice and Jasper had brought home take out that evening. Say what you want about Alice, the girl may not know how to cook, but damn could she order food. There was enough for leftovers all weekend, of course, I wasn't allowed to go anywhere the whole weekend so at least I had plenty to eat. Edward said that if I wanted to go back to work on Monday, I needed to take it easy and rest this weekend or else he may not allow me to accompany them to set Monday morning.
Sometimes that man really frustrated the hell out of me, but I can't complain too much Edward had turned out to be amazing that weekend. He made it his mission to take care of me every single day. He doted on me, cooked for me; everything was on track to being perfect.
There must be something in the universe that states that one person cannot be too happy. It might throw off the balance of happiness everywhere. If you're happy in your personal life then somewhere it had to be mandated for your professional life to take a turn for the crapshoot. So far I have had almost nothing but positive days from work. People were getting to know me; I was making friends left and right. For the first time, I really felt like I belonged somewhere. Every person treated me with respect, except one.
Lauren Mallory. It was like she went out of her way to make my life a living hell. I tried to avoid her like the pestilent plague she was, but she always managed to come out of nowhere. She'd snap her little fingers at me and call me to her like I was some kind of dog. She had given me the moniker "fat girl" even though I always tried to correct her with my name. I knew that there was a possibility that in the near future one of us would be taken out.
"Hey, fat girl go get me some cigs." She would snap while throwing a wadded up bill in my face.
"Miss Mallory, I am not your assistant," I tried to say calmly. Dear lord how I felt sorry for her two assistants, both of them were so high-strung I felt that at any moment one of them would combust.
"Do I look like I care?" Now she was mad, "You are a personal assistant; your job is to assist me. You better get your lazy fat ass in gear or I will fire you."
She didn't yell which was one thing I guess you could say was positive. But she spoke with such venom in her voice she didn't have to yell to get her point across.
I know you are probably wondering why I just didn't tell Edward of the abuse I had to endure. This wasn't Edwards fight, it was mine and unfortunately, if you ever decided to get into entertainment, Lauren was a good example of the type of person you may have to work for. I'd say eighty-five percent of the people in Hollywood were Lauren's.
I complied with Miss Mallory's demands. Whether it was cig runs, tampon runs or any other thing her little heart desired I was her girl. Sometimes I find that she'd call me over just to harass me. I tried my best to keep it together but flashbacks to my early childhood would begin to creep in and I couldn't help the tears that fell. Of course, this would always make Lauren feel triumphant; she would be quick to point them out to anyone standing nearby.
Word spread to the other crew members of my torture and most of them would give me nods or words of motivation. Even Carl the cranky D.P. came over to me one afternoon and told me that he would be more than happy to talk with the lighting people to help accentuate Laurens physical negatives. I was touched but told him I didn't want to compromise Emmett's film. He told me to hang in there, that Lauren would get her comeuppance someday.
It had been three weeks into our new relationship, and everything was still wonderful with Edward. However, when we would say goodnight and go to our respective rooms, that's when the battle started for me. I hadn't had a decent night's sleep since the night Edward slept in my bed with me. Nightmares of James plagues my dreams every night and I would usually wake up sweaty or in tears. For once I was actually looking forward to naps, trying to take them when I knew Edward was around. Just Edward's presence in the room was enough to keep the nightmares away.
My sleep deprivation did little to improve my attitude and there were a couple of times when Edward warned me if I continued I wouldn't like the result.
"You know what, Edward. I could give two shits about my attitude; you don't know the first thing that's going on in my life. I have to deal with bitchy drama queens, I haven't slept in weeks and all I want to do is pay someone to knock me out." I dropped to the ground crying. Oh yeah, I had officially lost it.
"What do you mean you haven't slept for weeks?" he gently asked looking down at me.
"I'm such a mess, I have nightmares every night. I even have become scared to go to bed. I took up crocheting to keep my mind busy so I could keep myself awake longer. I can only sleep when I take naps and you're around."
"Why didn't you tell me? Bella, you have to tell me these things." He crouched down beside me.
"What are you going to do?" I dismissed him.
He stood back up and bent over to help lift me back to my feet. He took me by the hand and brought me upstairs. I had never been in his room before, but it was twice the size of my room. I still do not understand why the man needed a king size bed, you know how many people could fit in a bed that size. I just hoped he never tested that notion out.
Edward and I have had a few intense make out sessions up to this point with some mild groping so I was a little nervous when we had arrived at his bed. However, Edward was the perfect gentleman; he would hold me; rub my back and gently kiss me nothing more. After that incident, he would invite me to sleep with him every night and I finally got the sleep that was much needed.
One night we stayed up just talking, we eventually started playing twenty questions. The questions were mild and I can't honestly tell you what any of them were except that was the night I had stupidly let Edward know that my biggest fear was needles. A decision I had come to regret many years after. I do remember that the line of questioning eventually turned mighty steamy.
Edward started off softly kissing me, I felt him lean over me applying some of his weight. He rubbed his hands up and down the sides of my body as his kisses started attacking my neck. I started shivering oh my god did this feel good; I didn't even have time to think when he slowly undid my top and began to pay homage to my breasts. I started to feel the effect he was making all over my body. His mouth was gently sucking on one while his hand massaged the other, but at that moment I wanted his hands someplace else. I could feel myself starting to come undone. "Oh please. Please," I quietly begged.
He complied and brought his hand down resting his palm right below my stomach, he didn't try to remove my underwear, he just placed two fingers over my clit and began making small circles, applying pressure, no pressure, applying pressure. He knew exactly what to do to make me go crazy. His mouth had been switching between my breasts and would vary between sucking and gently biting my nipples.
The world's problems had been solved, cures had been made and in that awesome moment of clarity, it felt like I could literally do anything. I had completely lost all control of my body so much so I felt so much moisture between my legs, Oh god please tell me I didn't pee on him. Who cares.
"That was the most amazing feeling ever."
I was still breathing slightly heavier than normal. "Oh my god, Oh my god my heart won't stop fluttering." Edward leaned over and laughed kissing me on the temple. He was smiling down at me.
He started to get up, "Geez baby you act as if you've never had an orgasm before."
Oh god. Was that what I experienced? If I had only known sooner that my body could feel this good, I might have chosen a completely different career path. It all the sudden occurred to me, that there had been something big I had failed to tell Edward. Oh shit, what was he going to think? It had been obvious from gossip rags that Edward had his share of women before me and if that didn't tell me, his little performance would have definitely clued me in. But how was Edward going to feel when he found out that I was a virgin. Virgins in Hollywood were not exactly commonplace. The entertainment industry was famous for swallowing them up and spitting them out within seconds.
Would Edward think I was a freak or a loser because I was a 21-year-old virgin? Wait, a 22-year-old virgin damn that sounded way more pathetic. Stupid birthday! I had worked myself into quite a frenzy; I couldn't face Edward so before he had come back I escaped back to my bedroom. This time I had remembered to lock the door. I got under the covers, pulling them up over my head.
In true Edward fashion, he had shown up within seconds. He didn't even knock; he tried the handle and realizing that something was wrong he instantly banged on the door. "Bella, open the door." I didn't say anything maybe if I didn't answer he would think I was somewhere else and go away. This was a sure pickle I had gotten myself into.
"Bella I know you're in there."
Crap. "If you don't open this door I will get the key."
Double crap.
"Edward I don't feel well, I'm going to bed." My little voice squeaked out.
I heard his retreating steps. I let out a sigh of relief. I will face him tomorrow and that will give me plenty of time to come up with an explanation. I heard the lock turn; I threw myself back under the covers. I felt the weight being added to my bed. "
What happened?" I heard him sigh. "It was too much too fast, wasn't it? Honey, will you at least look at me."
I couldn't look at him I was much too embarrassed.
"I'm so stupid, Edward," I sniffled.
"Bella you're not stupid, I will not hear you talk about yourself like this. Please just look at me."
I wasn't compiling so Edward started to try to wrestle me out from under the covers. He was strong there was no contest. He held my arms down over the covers, his face within inches of mine.
"Talk to me," He encouraged.
"I didn't tell you something, something big. I'm afraid of how you'll take it. I don't know if you'll be mad or think I'm pathetic."
"I would never think you were pathetic." He cut me off from the long list of descriptive words I was prepared to give him. "Just tell me what it is and we will come up with a way to deal with it."
"I'm a virgin," I breathed out.
He paused there looking at me, his facial features never changing from the way it was before I gave him the diagnosis.
"Oh," He finally said. "Okay, well um there's nothing wrong with that, sweetheart. I just wished you would have told me sooner, I would have taken things way slower."
"Well, I liked what you did tonight. I had never felt that way before, like ever."
He gave a small laugh, "Well honey, uh we probably won't be doing that again for a little while. I think we need to work on building trust with one another, I don't want you ever feeling like you can't tell me something or feel like we are moving too fast."
He stood back up and put out his hand, "Let's go to bed, baby." I would follow him anywhere because you always follow the ones you love.
AN: Thank you for reading and reviewing.
STORY IS MINE. CHARACTERS BELONG TO STEPHENIE MEYER.