This chapter was very kindly beta'd by the lovely Wednesday in LA after it was posted. No majoy changes to plot, just better grammar.
Chapter Thirty-Three
"I followed my longing to feel something new. My longing followed me right back to you." Love Lies - Josh Pyke
EPOV
I should be sleeping. I haven't slept properly in God knows how long, and I'm so fucking tired my eyes are burning. They feel like cement, but every time I close them, they just open again a minute later, finding her in the dark. They know, just as I do, that this moment is fleeting. They know to remember every breath, every smile, every quiet moan of my name, just so I can get through the next month without her.
I thought I knew how much I'd missed Bella. I thought the constant ache in my chest was bad enough when I was half a world away. That was nothing compared to what I felt the second she came flying out of her front door, dressed in those bloody pajamas. The restlessness, the frustration, the emptiness that had taken up residence in the pit of my stomach - it all exploded, burning through my veins, until all I could do to stop the pain was to touch her.
And now, knowing that I'll have to do it all again in a matter of hours is what's keeping me awake.
She's tucked up against my side, her face pressed against my neck, her arm and leg draped over me. Even with her body heat and her blankets, it's colder than a witch's tit in her bedroom. I didn't realise how used to summer I'd become till I stepped off the plane in the dead of an Aussie winter in shorts and a hoodie. The cold is bracing, though; helps me think, helps me stay awake.
As the sun rises, the blinds in Bella's room cast beams of light across her legs, strips of sunlight highlighting the curve of her thigh and knobbly knee. The flight home to her was fucking torture. Thirty hours of planes and airports and ignoring phone calls from my manager — all to spend time with my girl.
Shit, who am I kidding. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
My phone vibrates in the pocket of my jeans for the third time in ten minutes. I can hear it even though it's across the room, buried under my clothes and out of sight.
Bella sighs quietly beside me, her fingers and leg tightening for a moment before softening again, her breath washing over my skin. There's no way I'd tell her that I skipped out on a decent side comp to come back to her — a decent competition that would have scored me some points and some coin. She'd flip her shit. What good is the money if I don't have someone to enjoy it with? And I'll gain the points back somewhere. It's no big deal. Well, no big deal to me. My manager, Marcus, on the other hand, is probably in Rio somewhere having a minor stroke at my disappearing act.
In the blink of an eye, the morning sun is up, and the light streams in. I'd spent so much time thinking that I'd get home and things would be weird between us, that maybe she'd change her mind once I left, realise that waiting around for me to come home isn't the life most chicks dream of. I'd worried that she'd look different, that she'd change somehow and I'd miss it. To be honest, I was scared she'd change her mind about me.
But she's wound around me so tight there's no room for me to worry. And all of the perfect lines and curves of her body are just as I left them. As she sleeps, my hands and fingers take their time mapping them out again, re-memorizing the familiar dip at the bottom of her spine, the ridge of her collarbone and the taste of the skin that covers it, even the little bumps and lumps of her knees.
The weight of guilt settles in my stomach as I think about my parents, completely unaware of my arrival. Rose was the one person I told, and only because I kind of wanted her out of the house for the night. She wasn't happy, especially when she realised Emmett wasn't making the trip home with me. I don't know how he made it up to her. Scratch that, I do know how he made it up to her, I'm just doing my best not to think about it. He's still my brother after all.
Yawning, Bella turns onto her back, and then onto her side. I follow, of course, and tuck myself up behind her until her ass is pressed right up against me. She pulls the hand that I have cupped around her breast up to her face, kissing the palm before she tucks it under her cheek. I know she's tired, but if she wasn't dead to the world, I'd wake her up. I can feel the heat between her legs, the soft skin there pressed against my thigh so close — so close I could just move her leg a little and be home again. The thought makes me hard, and like I said, if she wasn't asleep I'd go for round three. Well, round two-point-five, because the first time doesn't count since I came after about two minutes, like the love-sick chump I am.
I'll never understand how something as simple as watching her sleep can make me want her so badly. Between her sheets, and between her legs, wrapped up in her arms, I'm more at home than I am anywhere else in the world. It's worrying and calming at the same time.
"Sleep," she sighs quietly, her fingers brushing over the hair on my forearm.
"Can't sleep."
"You're not even trying."
I figure since she's awake…
"Sleeping is boring."
I can't help but smile against the back of her neck when she shifts a little closer. My head spins as I inhale a lungful of her: her shampoo, her body wash, even the scent of us that's painted on her skin. My hand slides over the dip of her hipbone and between her legs where she's already warm. She winces, her thighs tightening around my hand, stilling its movement.
"You okay?"
She nods. "Just a little sore, but it's fine. Go slow?"
Her honey-brown eyes find mine as I roll her onto her back. Her mouth tastes like sleep, and something that's just her. Her skin is salty and soft, her tits perfect in my hands. The sounds she makes are enough to make me want to hear her scream my name, but I know she's love-sore, and to be honest, I want to taste her everywhere, just so I don't leave with an unfulfilled desire for it.
She's pliant under my lips, hot and wet and needy under my tongue. Her hands are kind of rough in my hair, but I don't care. It reminds me that this isn't some dream, that I'm not going to wake up in an empty hotel room with my dick in my hand. Fuck that. This is better than anything my salt-riddled brain could come up with.
"Edward," she whispers, her voice scratchy and sweet as she tugs at my shoulders.
I relinquish her with a kiss that makes her legs snap shut around my head for a moment. She doesn't care that I taste like her. She doesn't care that she's sore, and that I don't know if I can be gentle with her. My hips jerk as she reaches between us and slides me once through her wetness before lifting her hips to take me inside, and for a moment, the worry inside of me disappears. Stifled groans drift through her room as I still, our hips flush, my head buried in her neck.
"Give me a moment," she urges, opening her legs a little wider.
"Yeah."
Jesus. Little does she know that I could stay like this for the rest of my fucking life. This is all I've thought about since I left.
She takes her time, like she always does. And as usual, I wait for her.
I don't know whether I prefer her quiet or loud, maybe it's both. While I love hearing her talk, I love watching her trying her best to keep quiet, too: that lip between her teeth, the silent 'o' of her mouth, her eyes as they scrunch shut in an effort to keep it all in. I love the way she looks beneath me, greedy hips and hungry eyes, the two of us watching where I disappear into her, over and over.
When I flip us over and she settles on top of me, I can see she's doing what she can to get her release. I know what she needs. I just like watching her find it when I slip my hand between us so she's pressed right up against the pad of my thumb and I'm inside of her and outside and fucking everywhere until she comes. This morning she's silent – her mouth open and her eyes shut tightly, her hand in mine as she rides it out, pulling every last shudder from inside.
"Fuck, Edward," she whispers, leaning forward, spent and shuddering.
But I'm so fucking there, right there, and she knows it. She rolls her hips and lifts and pushes back down the way she knows I like it, and when I hold her close so I can fuck her like I want, she holds me just as tight, and whispers things into my ear until I come so hard it feels like it starts at my toes.
She kisses my neck and chest, both slick with sweat, our skin cold and damp in the room's frigid air.
"Can you turn the heater on or something?" I ask, probably ruining a perfect post-coital moment or something.
"Yep."
Burying myself beneath her doona, I watch her long legs as she saunters out of the room wearing nothing but my t-shirt. I hear the click and whir of the heating vent, and she returns a moment later with a glass of water, slipping into bed beside me, her skin already cold from the time spent out of bed. She tucks her feet up against my legs, chuckling when I protest.
"What time does your flight leave?" she asks. I guess we've been dancing around it for as long as we can, trying to pretend it isn't looming over our heads.
"Midnight." I can feel her whole body tense beneath my touch. "We've got heaps of time."
The silence in her room is heavy, laden with a million things I want to say to her, but can't.
"Remember when we first met?" she asks suddenly.
I pinch her ass lightly. "Yeah. You told me your name was Becca."
She giggles, pinching me back. "I thought you were a pest!"
I tell her I thought she was the cutest blow-in I'd ever seen, all pale skin and dark hair. I got a nose full of saltwater when I saw her on the beach that day — almost knocked myself out on my own board. She laughs at that, like it's the funniest thing she's ever heard.
That's the thing about Bella – and I know every guy says it about his girl – but she's not like the other chicks around. Maybe it's the country girl in her, but there's something incredibly normal about her. She's not into drama or any of that bullshit other girls pull. I've never had time for those girls, the jealous ones, the insecure ones. I feel like I've found the perfect girl with Bella Swan, just at a really shitty time.
We spend the morning talking, wrapped around each other, napping on and off, dozing. In the blink of an eye, the afternoon is almost gone. But then, that's how time always seems to go with her. It's the time in-between, when I'm not with her, that time seems to slow.
"Talk to me," she says, as her fingers drift up and down the back of my neck. "Keep me awake."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything."
My brain is mush. The combination of post-coital guy brain and lack of sleep brings the most random things to mind.
"Sometimes when I'm having a bad run, or when I can't get my shit together in the water, I pretend you're sitting on the end of my board."
"Yeah?"
"Yep. It helps me calm down. Sometimes I get really wound up. Marcus gets into my head, and there's all the weight of everyone's expectation, and the pressure of the competitions and stuff. It does my head in a bit, and it's like I forget what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, you know?"
She's slipping away, falling back to sleep. But I know this is it. This is where I have to grow some balls and say what I need to say. I sit up on my elbow, leaning over her.
"Hey." I nudge her gently. "Remember before I left, you said I would always love the water more than you?"
She nods.
"Hey, wake up."
"I'm awake," she replies, smiling drowsily as her eyes stay shut.
"You're not. Wake up."
She peels her eyes open and looks up at me. "Awake."
I can't help but kiss her once, just because she's right here and because I can. "You know I love what I do, right?"
"Of course."
"If you'd asked me a year ago if there was anything I loved more than surfing, more than being able to surf and get paid for it – I would have said no way, because there wasn't. I mean, I came back for Embry when he was sick, but I knew I'd always go back."
Her dark eyes, suddenly full of curiosity, search mine. "But?"
"But... if this tour has shown me anything, it's that there is something I love more than touring, and that's you."
Bella turns towards me a little more, her brows pulled together.
I take a breath, trying to straighten out the jumble of words in my head, trying to pick the ones that will make her understand.
"I went on tour again because I wanted to prove that I could still do it. That I could come back after having time off and still be the best."
She smiles, her fingers touching my cheek. "You are the best. You're in the top ten and the tour is only half finished, and— "
I nod, interrupting her. "I know. And I'm stoked, I am. I get to spend time with Em, and travel, and man, you should see some of these beaches — fucking clear water and white sand and these waves that just bang all fucking day." Her smile reminds me that I'm going off track. I shake my head a little, ignoring the sudden itch to find a board and make for the water.
"But it's like... I fly all the way around the world searching for that thing that makes me happy, when what makes me happiest is right here."
Her eyes soften and she smiles. "Aw. That's sweet."
"It's not sweet. It's fucking torture, Bella. The winning isn't enough. The touring, the beaches, the money — it's all good, but it's like I'm waiting for something more to come along, and... fuck, I don't even know!"
Frustrated, I scrub a hand over my face. Beside me, Bella sits quietly, waiting for me to get my shit together, like the patient person she is.
"If I could fit you inside my board bag I would, and it would make everything fucking perfect. But I can't."
My skin feels the immediate prickle of cool air as Bella takes her hand from my chest, tucking it away from me as she shifts in the bed, her body and mine apart for the first time in twelve hours. I can see the gears clicking in her head, see them turning in ways I hadn't meant them to. Like I knew I would, I've fucked it up.
"What are you saying?" she says, looking everywhere but at me.
"I'm saying I want you to come with me, Bella."
Next chapter is on its way!
x Wink