Chapter 57 – Into the night

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"Shhhh, go back to sleep, Tony," Edward begged, and stretched out his arm to make yet another attempt to rearrange the covers over the uncooperative toddler.

"No, no, noo," the boy whined, twisting and pulling himself away from his father.

Edward lifted his head to look at the clock, which read 2:21 am, and groaned.

Anthony had been relatively easy to put to bed that night, courtesy of uncle Emmett, who had spent the evening exhausting the boys with some sort of slap-tag-chasinggame. Only problem was, the little guy had woken up again after only an hour and a half of sleep and was not a happy camper.

That was four hours ago.

Note to self: letting the kid cross the line between tired and overtirednever leads to anything less than disaster!

"Come on buddy!" Not taking no for an answer, Edward grabbed Tony by his waist and dragged him back to the center of the bed again. "Head on the pillow, feet under the covers."

He tried to lay him down horizontally, but the boy immediately wriggled upright again.

"I don' wan!" he declared, his little head swinging back and forth stubbornly.

"Aren't you tired Tony?"

"Noo," the boy gave out another shriek in protest. This was outright lie, though. He was tired; he was so tired that big fat tears were sliding down his puffy toddler cheeks.

"Tony don't," Edward winced. "C'mon, don't cry," he tried to soothe the boy to no avail, as the water works turned into full on drown mood for the third time in half as many hours.

This was what he dreaded the most. Useless… that's how he felt. Useless, and like a complete utter failure as a parent. He hated seeing the kid so miserable, but he wasn't particularly good at this comforting thing, he never had been. Also, the whiskey he had consumed earlier in the evening was doing him no favors. The buzz had already worn off leaving him with an ominously throbbing headache.

Seeing as they were both fully awake, Edward sat up and flicked the light on. Pulling the small child into his lap he gave him a gentle squeeze and stroked a hand through his hair. Tony flinched, but settled into the gentle touch after a minute.

Not for the first time, Edward wondered how all those other single parents coped with this everyday… and how he was going to cope with this every day from now on. He'd have to stay away from too much alcohol, that much was clear.

His thoughts wandered briefly to his mother, his biological mother, the woman who had given him life and then given him away. The few memories he had of her were vague, but he had a better understanding now. She had been too young and alone without a support system to fall back on. He finally got what Bella had meant about his family and how caring too much was better than not caring enough.

Just then something brushed against his arm, causing him to jolt back to the present. Edward immediately felt ashamed that he had zoned out like that. Anthony was, unfortunately, still wailing, no changes there. However, the little boy had draped himself across his father's abdomen and his arms had ceased flailing. His feet still kicked blindly, but his efforts were lackluster at best. That, if anything, showed how tired he really, truly was.

Slowly, very slowly, Edward began to rock the small body in his arms. The movement seemed to soothe the boy, so he kept it up, all the while wracking his groggy brain, trying to think suitable lullabies. His repertoire in this area was kind of limited and his frustration grew as the boy kept whining and shaking himself into a more woken state every five minutes. Somewhere around the 10th round of "Hush Little Baby" he gave up all together on the kiddie appropriate stuff and switched to humming Iron Maiden tunes under his breath instead.

After what felt like hours of rocking, singing and back rubbing, the little guy's thumb miraculously found its way into his mouth and his eyes stopped fluttering. His body slackened as he finally drifted off to sleep.

Edward, on the other hand, was no closer to sleep than he had been when he first got into bed. He wanted to sleep, God, he needed to sleep, but as per usual his mind was full of thoughts that wouldn't stop bothering him. It wasn't even for fear of nightmares, he just couldn't relax. Like. At. All…

His mind kept wandering back to THAT moment. So what if he had kissed her and she had kissed him back. His head knew they'd kissed hundred of times before, but his heart acted as if it was the first time. Ridiculous…. They weren't teenagers anymore, desperate for a quick grope.

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Bella resisted the urge to cry in frustration as she kicked the covers off her overheated body. It was the middle of the night and she was twitchy and flushed and couldn't sleep.

She tried rolling onto her other side and force her eyes shut. That did not work.

The bed was comfortable, the covers and pillows were heavenly soft without being too plush; but it was no use, she still couldn't sleep.

Physiologicallyshe felt fine. No nausea, no bloating, no headache. Her shoulder wasn't too sore. In fact it hardly bothered her at as long as she avoided lifting and pulling motions.

She couldn't really blame her discomfort on the temperature in the room either. No, it was all the twisting and turning that had caused beads of perspiration to form on her face, neck and between her ginormous beach ball sized boobs.

Okay, they weren't beach ball sized, but they had almost tripled in volume and were more sensitive than they had ever been before. And now they were sticky with grime... loose fitting, button up flannel shirt she woreas a nightgown,clungto her torso like a suffocating, damp washcloth.

She unbuttoned a few buttons to let the girls breathe a little. When that wasn't enough, she went back and unfasten the rest of them save for one at the top. Every inch of her skin seemed to be crawling with a prickly heat that was driving her crazy. She found it impossible to lie still, and even harder to sleep. Maybe she was coming down with some strange disease. That would definitely top it all.

Don't kid yourself, you know exactly why you're this hot and bothered, she berated herself.

Thanks to Edward's peculiar mood and that one surprising kiss he had laid on her, she was now more frustrated than ever.

"Bloody hormones!" she muttered to herself, punching her pillow, and turning over, again, in frustration.

Closing her eyes she tried every meditation technique she knew of to get her mind to quiet enough for slumber. None of them worked. She was still frustrated. The darkness wasn't as dark as she would have liked and the silence…. Every single noise was too loud. Rain, intermixed with snow, pelted mercilessly against the windows, distracting 't rain supposed to be soothing?

She wasn't sure how much time had passed, but suddenlya series of muffled thumps came from the vicinity of the door.

For a moment, she felt her body tense up, adrenaline rushing into her veins. The logical part of her brain knew better, though. If someone was at her door, it was most likely Edward, seeing as lurking in the shadows at night was apparently his 'thing' as of late. Before she could get up, the door handle moved andthe door opened to reveal a full head of unruly, but familiar hair.

Bella was quick to turn the bedside lamp on to confirm her suspicions.

Sure enough, the figure standing in the doorway was indeed Edward. He blinked, surprised by the sudden light. Bella got the impression he had not expected to find her awake.

"Sorry," Edward mumbled. "Didn't mean to disturb you. The lights were off, I thought…"

"You thought I was asleep," she finished for him. "Tell me, do you get some sick pleasure out of watching people sleep? You're such a creep, Edward." Bella snapped at hadnot meant for her words to be angry, nevertheless they came out that way.

"Harsh, Swan, harsh. If that's how you feel, then I'll leave you alone," he turned his back to her.

"Wait!"

She couldn't just let him slip away. It was as if her restless thoughts had conjured him up. It had to mean something.

"Wait for what? Another insult?" He retorted, clearly annoyed. "You're the one that said you wished I would turn to you rather than drink myself into oblivion. I was humoring you, but clearly it's not really worth the effort if all I get in return is you calling me a creep."

"I'm sorry for being such a bitch. You're right. That was… uncalled for." Scooting over, she patted the mattress beside herand beckoned himto join her. "I'm having a rough night, but yours are probably ten times worse."

After a moment of hesitation, Edward obliged and sank down on the bed. "It's not a contest, but if it was, then yes I'd be winning by a landslide. My night has been pretty shitty so far."

"You wanna talk about it?"

He shook his head 'no' and she felt him adjust his position on the bed, rolling onto his side, so that he was all up in her personal space, his breath hot on her skin. "Honestly, I didn't come here to talk." His gaze dropped to her braless, barely covered breasts.

"Why are you here, then?"she asked, snatching a breath, the air suddenly feeling much too thin.

He frowned. "Do I have to spell it out for you? I'm here because I don't have the strength to stay away from you anymore."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you win. I don't have the strength to stay away any longer."

"Edward?" shebreathed, not daring to say anything else, in case she was reading this all wrong.

"Isn't this what you wanted?" He brushed a wayward strand of hair from her face and lifted her chin with a finger.

Bellafelt herself shudder from the intensity of his she had felt flushed before, it was nothing compared to now. "What I want is for us to find a way to get along without fighting and bickering about everything."

"We are not fighting right now, are we?"

Before she had a chance to reply, his lips crashed into hers, hard and almost aggressive. She forgot everything she had wanted to say and just responded to the kiss. Her hands found their way to his shoulders, fisting the fabric of his t-shirt. In response, he drew her closer, almost crushing her to his broad, warm masculine chest.

A tremble rolled through her as she felt the palm of his hands run down to cup her ass and pull her tight against the unmistakable hardness if his arousal.

"You feel that, Swan? Now, ask me again why I'm here," he grunted.

"Why are you here?" She breathed the question up against the square line of his jaw.

"I'm here because the desires of the flesh is stronger than the mind and the will," he told her hoarsely, sliding his hands up her ribcage, brushing his thumbs against the sides of her breasts. " I want to fuck you. I want to watch you come while I'm inside you. I want to fuck youslowly, deeply until you quiver and shake and scream my name." He spread his large warm hands over the expanse of her wee rounded little belly and then gently worked his way back up to her enlarged breasts again. "I want to fuck you, now, today, tomorrow, next week, next year. I want to keep fucking you while your body fill out with my child."

Biting her lip, Bella gripped his biceps to keep from embarrassing herself by jumping him. When she found her composure again, she whispered "What's stopping you?" and slipped one of her legs around his and tugging him closer, grinding her hips against his.

"For one thing, Swan," he groaned, and then went ahead and full on palmed her breasts through the fabric of the shirt she wore, before he continued. "We both still have an awful lot of clothes on."

"Is that your biggest issue? Because that can be rectified." Without further ado, she reached down and tugged his T-shirt free from the waistband of his sweats and then slid her hands under it, flattening her palms against the firm muscles of his stomach. " I can have you naked in ninety seconds flat…. Anything else?"

"I said 'for one thing' so obviously there is more…" He stopped her roaming hands and locked his eyes with hers. "It gotta be on my terms this time. If we do this, it would mean very little in terms of where we stand with each other."

She pulled away slightly, his gaze too intense for her. "I think we've covered this already. Sex won't solve anything."

"I may not have the strength to stay away, but that doesn't mean I will surrender my common sense and my free will again to someone who has already walked all over me with spiked shoes."

"Nothing is forgiven, nothing is forgotten, unless you want it to be, got ya! What else do you want from me, Edward? What else can I say?"

The pain in his eyes called out to her and she felt disheartened. But she also felt also felt more determined than ever to work towards a change.

"Come on… I promise to wear more sensible shoes from now on."

Edward let out a sound that was halfway between a sigh and a growl, but the way his mouth twitched just a little she could tell he was fighting a smirk..

"You're laughing?" she smacked his chest with a look of mock indignation on her face. "I'm being sincere and you're laughing."

"You have a way to make me laugh even when I'm really fucking sad, that's your one redeeming quality. That and your spectacular boobs."

"And my legs, don't forget my long, shapely legs," she slid a knee between his thighs in an effort to draw him closer to her again. "But I suppose you're right, these two puppies are my greatest assets as of lately." With a daring arch of her back, she gave him a generous eyeful of her cleavage, nearly busting the button that held the shirt together in the process.

She felt a surge of wicked satisfaction at his dazed expression. She had an inkling that the desires of the flesh were once again going to prevail over logical, rational reasoning.

"Fuck," he breathed as she ground her hips against him again, wanting more, seeking more. "All right, you've convinced me. Brace yourself, Swan, you're about to get that itch scratched good and proper."

"I'm gonna hold you to that, Cullen!" she sassed back at him and then to hide against his neck. It was all she could do to stop herself from jumping up and down, cheering 'HALLELUJAH!

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