Thank you to anyone still reading this 3

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Isabella woke alone, the cottage silent but for the birds outside, and dark but for the golden dust motes floating in light streaking in from the doorway. It felt like late morning. The fire had been doused with dirt and Edward's few possessions had been gathered and neatly tied into packs for the horses. He must have done it this morning. Somehow, Isabella had slept through it all.

She was still so very tired; she had pushed her body past exhaustion and now ached all over, but the freshest memory was that of Edward's mouth pressed to her own and warmth spread through her, right down to the fingertips curled into the thick fur he'd used to cover their bed.

Isabella sat up and set her feet to the dirt floor, rubbing the sleep from her face. She smoothed her hair a little, twisting it into a loose plait. Outside, both their horses ambled in the grass of the clearing, rested and showing signs of care - Edward had been busy while she'd slept. There were several more packs roped and ready to hoist up on their saddles. Edward himself was nowhere to be seen. Seeing everything packed away and readied for travel sent a thrill up her spine; they were really going to do it. They were leaving for good, together, this very day.

There were frogs croaking and the sounds of water rushing over rocks so she followed them to where there was a creek nearby. She shucked her heavy skirt and left it on the dry bank, wading into the water in her petticoats tucked up around her hips. She washed quickly, the water frigid and wonderfully refreshing on her neck, her legs. Her teeth were chattering when she stepped back up on the loamy bank but her body was energised and she was not cold, not really. When she looked up Edward was there, watching her and making his way to her, eyes hidden in the shadows under the brim of his hat.

Isabella's belly tightened and she imagined what she must look like to him, coming out of the river dripping and indecent, but the two of them . . . they were as good as married, weren't they? He was hers, he'd declared so. And she had been his from the moment she'd laid eyes on him. They were a struck deal and there was nothing to hide.

Isabella smiled and planted her feet, letting her petticoats go. They fluttered around her legs, white cotton sticking to the wet skin of her thighs, her hips. Edward slowed as he came to stand in front of her. He bent down to her and she stood on her toes for him, relishing the way his beard became a bristly precursor to his soft, warm mouth touching hers. They were smiling, both of them, the most wonderful, awkward touching of grinning lips and teeth. Neither seemed to be able to stop but then the air around them began to thicken and spark and the smiling was done. Isabella took his mouth and really kissed him and then his arms went tight about her waist and she knocked off his hat in her rush to get her fingers in his hair. His mouth. Oh, his mouth.

When they broke apart, both were breathless and Edward was searching her face with a desperate glint in his eyes.

"What is it?" Isabella said, worry clutching at her heart at his serious face.

"Bella. I must ask. Are you especially fond of beards?"

She couldn't help it, and burst into laughter. "I can truthfully say I've never thought about it."

"I want to do that again, I want to kiss you all the day long, but without all this bracken in the way," he said, and she was nodding before he was even done speaking, suddenly burning with curiosity.

"Well, I want to see my handsome man who has been hiding beneath it," Isabella said, taking a hunk of his beard in her hand.

Edward smiled. "What if he's not quite so handsome?"

"Then I shall make him grow it back," she said, relishing the sound of his laughter, his whole body shaking with it as he hugged her to him. He smelled like horse. Like leather and steel. Isabella breathed him in, lightheaded with it, with the solid wall of him right there in her arms. She tilted her face up for kisses, tangling her fingers in his beard and tugging him down to meet her mouth.

"Go get your shears, Bella," he said against her lips, and before she could gather her wits again, he was away, slipping off his coat and kicking off his boots, flicking suspenders from his shoulders and rolling up the cuffs of his trousers to step barefoot into the creek. She watched him scrub at his face, sluice handfuls of water over his neck until his collar was dark with it and his shirt stuck in the valley between his wide shoulders.

Isabella had been around men of all kinds all of her life, but he was taller than most. Broader. She bit at her lip and shook her head, turning away. All in good time. The anticipation of it fluttered in her belly like handfuls of feathers set upon the wind. When she returned with her scissors and the straight razor, he was sitting on a log looking suddenly a little shy. Thin beams of sun fell across his feet. He'd dug his toes into the grass and it was so innocent a gesture, so simple, that her love for him turned fierce and greedy in her gut, wanting every small morsel of him, every detail she could learn and cherish and keep.

"I'm going to trim your hair a little first," she said, and pushed her fingers through it, damp and thick as it was, and heavy with the grime of travel and forest life.

She worked quietly, trimming his shaggy hair away until it no longer curtained his eyes and the shape of his face became clearer. Edward had closed his eyes, trusting her as she snipped around his ears and back of his neck. His lashes curled dark against his cheeks, long as any girl's. He had beautiful eyes, even when they were closed. When she came round to face him, his legs moved apart so she could stand between them, her knees bracketed by his thighs.

Edward's eyes drifted slowly open, lids heavy as though he'd been dozing. He passed his hand over his head, smiling up at her while he scratched at his scalp and pushed his fingers through his hair.

"Feels better already," he said quietly, and she nodded, liking how it looked brushed back from his brow. He had a good face. A strong, young face, and she couldn't wait to see the rest of it.

"Ready for your shave now?" she said, and stroked his hairy cheek, coming to stand in close. He tilted his face into her palm and nodded.

"I am taking it all," she murmured, not sure if he was under her spell or if it was the other way around. "I will leave nothing behind."

"I expect nothing less," Edward said, and closed his eyes, giving himself up to her mercy.

She used her scissors to cut as near to his face as she dared, then brought the water basin close, moved to stand behind him and lowered the straight razor to the soaped, damp skin of his throat. It was easy once she began; she knew this, the rhythm of each stroke familiar and dear. She had done this for her father and it was no hardship now to do it for Edward, who tilted his face at the slightest press of her fingertips, following her lead as easily as breathing.

Isabella watched in fascination as clean, pink skin began to appear, bared pale with each stroke of her razor, until she was cupping his smooth chin in the palm of her hand, looking at his face upside down, the crown of his head pressed against her stomach. She bent for a washcloth and cleaned him up, wiped his exposed throat and swallowed down awe at the trust he'd placed in her.

Slowly, she came around to look at him, to see this new face he'd decided to show her, and it was then, rubbing circles over the apple of his cheek with her thumb, following the contour of his sharp jaw that she thought, oh, oh of course, she should have known, she should have realised that the goodness of Edward's heart could not help but shine like diamonds, glinting right out of him, right out of his very skin. He was beautiful.

"Edward," she said, and when he still did not move, "Edward, please look at me."

He opened his eyes and the anxiety over her opinion was pouring off him in waves, as if she might decide she no longer wanted him, as if he truly did not know he was lovely, beard or no. Isabella's eyes darted between his, skimmed over his long nose and finally settled on his mouth, dark and perfect in his sharp, pale face.

"You may kiss me now," she said, and bent her head, gasping against his lips when he pulled her close, big hands spanning across her back.

It was nothing like before. He had been holding back; they both had, and without the scrape of his beard, Edward's kisses were desperate, he clung to her and kissed her as though each angle had to be tested, every inch of her lips explored. Her whole body tingled and hummed with wanting him. He released her mouth only to pepper and drag kisses down her throat to her collarbones, pushing her shift out of the way to press his lips to the swell of her breast.

"Bella," he whispered, and "oh, God, God," and she threw her head back and smiled, and threaded her fingers through his hair, pulling him to her, helping him slip the damp shift from her shoulders and guiding her nipple into his searching mouth.

He sucked it to a hard peak and released it only to rub his smooth face against her breast, looking delightedly lost in the slide of skin on smooth, warm skin, clawing his fingers into the fabric bunched around her waist, pulling her close, both of them panting. He nosed at her breast and found her nipple again and she wanted him everywhere all at once, all over her body which had come alight and alive again after so many years.

Edward looked up at her as he slid from the log to kneel at her feet, and Isabella gasped and held on to his shoulders when he pressed his face to the petticoats gathered at her hip. He slipped his hand under the lace edging, looking up at her all the while, slowly cupping the arch of her bare foot, her calf, her knee, caressing her thigh with his fingertips until she was trembling for his touch and pushing her body into his hands, until she threaded her fingers into his hair again and pulled him closer, guiding him under her lifted skirts.

His touch was devastating, the press of his mouth so hungry and eager, and he moaned when he tasted her as though there was no finer thing he had ever put to his lips. Isabella clutched desperately at his hair. Edward kissed her between the legs the way he had kissed her mouth, deep and wet and moaning low in his throat and she could hardly catch her breath, hardly stay inside her own skin at all.

Edward held her close so he could kiss and lick between her legs, sucking and nibbling at her, then slicking her with the flat of his tongue, his brows drawn together in concentration, and he was so beautiful in how much he wanted her, Isabella's heart pounded like a thousand hammers in her chest, her voice breaking on "Ah, ah, ah," when he sucked at her and rolled her gently over his tongue.

Their eyes met when he looked up to see her flushed and panting for him, her breast bared and hard-tipped in the open air and he groaned, spread his hands wide across her ass and pulled her in until he could haul one of her legs up over his shoulder and guide her back to his mouth, his nose sinking in the dark bed of her hair. It was upon her in an instant then, overwhelming heat and pleasure building low in her belly and Isabella could only let Edward hold her up, anchor her to him as she let it take her, her damp petticoats crushed between them and her whole body singing for him, tingling and bright all the way down to her fingertips.

"Oh my god," she said, and Edward pressed his temple to her belly and tightened his hold on her, rubbed his mouth over her again, as if to say, a little more, just a little more, until she shuddered and pushed him away from her tender flesh.

Edward's eyes were hooded, drunk, his lips glistening when she pushed him down to lie on the ground and began to unfasten the plackets of his trousers, pulling them roughly down his thighs. His eyes never left her face, even as she looked at his lean, winter pale body. He was lovely, well built if a little thin with tough, simple living, and she put her hands on him, following the trail of soft hair from sternum, to flat belly, to the dark thatch at his groin. He was hard, breath coming quickly as she touched him, gasping when she finally took him in her hand, her knees digging into the grass around his hips.

"Bella, please," he said, and she had not meant to torment him, but could not help but stroke him just to feel that hot, thick weight in her hand, before rising up and guiding him beneath her. She took his trembling hand, threaded their fingers together and pressed him down into the grass as she steadied herself on his chest and sank down slowly, so very slowly onto his cock.

Edward's mouth fell open and he tightened his grip on her as they began to move together and find a common rhythm, a heartbeat. Isabella bent low to touch his face - his soft, new face - and kiss him. Edward cupped her head, tangling his fingers in the mess of her plait and groaning into her mouth and she was swimming in sensation, drowning in it, Edward's words from the night before echoing in her head, about all the things he could not give her.

"I choose you," she whispered and caught his eye to make sure he could hear her and understand. Edward's eyes darted between hers, wrecked and dark with need. "I choose you, I want you, and they can't have you, Edward, they'll never take you from me, never, I am for you and you are for me, and I choose you—" she said over and over, riding him into the dirt and watching the echo of her own thick emotions play upon his face as her pledge broke over him, broke through to him.

"Bella, oh," he said, awed, groaning and pressing her down to still her, holding her so tight, his hips pushing up in short, pulsing thrusts as he buried his face in her neck.

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They lay on the bank until their bodies were chilled, finally pulling each other up from the ground to dress, to smooth down hair and clothes and pull on their boots, everything interspersed with grins, with laughter, unable to stop touching, tracking each other's movements all around the clearing.

Edward smiled and it was like sunshine; Isabella touched his mouth and followed the sweep of his lips with her fingers, just because, and somehow long minutes later they were pulling away from each other, mouths swollen from kissing, rushing away with, "Forgive me, we must go, hurry, we must—" only to gravitate to each other and do it again.

It was early afternoon before they set off, Edward casting a final glance at the deserted clearing, at where he had lived a solitary life, at the cabin he had built and thought to die in, forgotten as though he had never existed.

There was a distant rustle among the trees and Edward had his hand on his rifle, but it was only Jim, loping out from the woods with his tail happily flicking around, a small hare clutched in his jaws. Edward huffed a laugh, delighted, and Isabella was struck again by the strange convergence which had brought them together, two odd people who'd been left behind somehow finding each other. Edward's face was all sharp, handsome contours beneath the brim of his hat, still so new to her but already so very dear, and Isabella did not feel as though she was riding away from everything she had ever known. Instead, her heart thrilled as they rode single file into the forest, only be happy echoing in her mind as she looked at Edward's smile and thought of the days that lay ahead of them, and a new chance at life, together.

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A/N: Thank you for reading. An epi still to come.