Chapter 19

Bella

The Fox was having a shower, having spent the evening playing tennis with Carlisle, and I was sitting at the dining table, continuing to make the list of things we needed for the house. It was helping to distract me from the fact that Randall hadn't wanted to see me in the lab after finding out about my relationship. Edward had tried to reassure me that Randall just needed a bit of time, but I kept worrying that I had lost a friend.

"We need so much stuff," I wailed when my handsome husband, his damp hair in utter disarray, parked himself next to me. He stole a slurp from my mug of tea before sliding his arm around my waist and picking up the list.

"How much can we order online?"

"Most of it, but we'll be living on takeaways until then."

"And you're itching to try out that kitchen, aren't you, Baby?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "You know me ..."

"Miss Keen Bean!"

"Hey! That's Mrs Keen Bean!"

He chuckled and kissed my bare shoulder. I swept my hair away and he continued to kiss and nibble my neck while I pretended to continue the list. When his hand ghosted up my waist to cup my breast, I threw down my pen and climbed into his lap.

"On the dining table, Bella?" he asked. "Or upstairs?"

Before I had a chance to answer, the doorbell rang several times.

"What the fuck?"

"I bet it's Riley," Edward muttered. "He seems like a 'once isn't enough' doorbell ringer."

The bell rang again and was accompanied by knocking. I scrambled off Edward's lap and a minute later, I was indeed showing Riley into our living room.

"Well slap me with a bitch-stick, this place is gorgeous!" he exclaimed, handing me a bottle of champagne and a large cardboard box which smelled of chocolate and peanuts. I peeked inside; it was full to bursting with chocolate, mainly Hershey's Kisses and Reece's Peanut Butter Cups.

"Thanks Riles, and thanks for these. Edward loves Reece's."

Edward merely nodded. I fished out a packet of Peanut Butter Cups and threw them to him, and he perked up a bit.

"Well, PILFy, you've got good taste in candy. Who knew?" Riley started opening cupboards. "Honey, where are your champagne flutes? In fact, where's all your shit?"

"We haven't got any yet. We were just putting together our shopping list of stuff we need for the house," The Fox replied before ripping into the chocolate.

"Tragedy!" Riley sighed, and put the champagne in the fridge. "We can't possibly drink bubbly out of coffee mugs!"

"Another time then?" I suggested. "Would you like a hot drink? We have a pot of tea going."

"Oh no thanks. That stuff puts me to sleep and I'm meeting Freddie for drinkies later, and maybe more ..." he said with a wink, adjusting the strap of the pink gym bag that ran across his torso. I rolled my eyes amusedly. "I just came by to see your place and see what you're doing Labor Day weekend."

"Labor Day?" asked Edward. "What's Labor Day?"

"The first Monday in September is a bank holiday over here," I explained. "Last year Carlisle and Esme invited me and another intern to their beach house in Cape Cod. It was fantastic."

"Well, pack your swimsuit, honey! It's gonna be epic! You guys are totally invited for a weekend of sun and fun!"

"Who's coming?" I asked.

"Mom, Dad, me, you guys, and Katie. Freddie might come Saturday if he doesn't have to cover the bar, and Katie's boyfriend may come up if he's not off somewhere being a stupid jock."

"You don't like your sister's boyfriend?" enquired Edward through a mouthful of chocolate.

"It's mutual. I think he's a bigoted, brainless dick-wad, and he thinks I'm a skinny, weedy, faggot because I have zero interest in the NFL." Riley looked between me and Edward. "Please, guys. Bella, we've hardly had any time to hang out since you arrived, and PILFy, since it looks like you're not going anywhere, I guess you and me should get to know each other."

"You could start by learning my name," replied The Fox curtly, although the corner of his mouth lifted, so he wasn't that pissed off. "Edward."

Riley shrugged, looked to the floor and smiled.

I looked over at Edward pleadingly, imagining the sand between our toes as we walked along the beach hand in hand, or the feel of the Atlantic waves crashing over us as we kissed in the sea, or sticking marshmallows in a fire-pit while singing songs with Riley and the rest of the Cullens. It would also be good to see Katie again. She had a gentle temperament like Esme; if she hadn't spent most of last summer in Stanford, I was sure we could have become better friends.

"Please, Edward?"

"Of course, Baby. It sounds wonderful." Edward stood up, strode over and kissed me and my big grin sweetly. He hardly denied me anything. He spoiled me rotten most of the time.

Riley leaned over and pecked me on the cheek.

"Wonderful. I'm gonna go meet Freddie. Call Mom, okay?"

"Sure."

The next morning, when Edward and I walked in, Randall was waiting for us in the lobby. When he saw us come in together, he tensed a little.

"Hi Edward, Bella," he said, shifting his weight from foot to foot awkwardly.

"Randall, it's been a long time." I stepped forward and hugged him. "I'm so glad you're here."

"Yeah ... You look well, Bella, happy."

"Happiest I've ever been," I murmured in reply. "Let's show you around."

Randall was quiet as we showed him the first of the labs, and every now and then, he glanced between me and Edward. I could tell he wanted to ask me a whole heap of questions but wouldn't while The Fox was with us. Thankfully, Edward seemed to realise without me having to try to subtly point it out, and after a few minutes, he excused himself and asked us to come to his new office when we were done.

"So, Randall Smith, go ahead and ask," I said once I'd showed him the coffee room.

"What?"

"You know what. I can tell you're just itching to ask about me and Edward."

He slumped into a chair.

"He's, what, twenty years older than you, Bella? I just ... I just ... why?"

"Edward is my home," I replied simply. "His age has never mattered to me because I love the man he is. We have so much in common, it's unreal, and our chemistry ... it's magic."

"How do you know that the novelty won't wear off?"

"Novelty? I'm not just playing house with my teacher, Randall," I retorted sharply. "I know my own heart and it belongs to Edward Masen. If you're going to have issues with that, then ..."

"I just don't want you to get hurt, Bell," he interrupted. "Or lose out on life experiences because you tied yourself to someone whose life was in a completely different place to yours."

"I might be younger but my life isn't in that different a place to his. The things that are important to me are my career, marriage, children and a warm, loving, steady home, and those things are what Edward wants too."

"So you're sure of him?"

"Absolutely, yes."

"Did you leave Oxford because he was leaving?"

"In a nutshell, yes, although I would never have stayed in a lab where I had to work with Aro Volturi on a daily basis, regardless of Edward." I explained about Aro and his spectacular creepiness.

"Yeah, he did look rather shifty," Randall agreed. "And I hate the idea of a pharmaceutical company having such influence over a university research lab which has as powerful a standing as Oxford." His features softened and he leaned forward. "Look, I'm sorry for asking so many questions. I just wanted to make sure you were as happy as you said, and as Edward said."

"Are you okay with it? I'm not asking for permission or anything, but I want to know if I'm about to lose a friend."

"You're not going to lose me as a friend, Bella," he sighed. "I need some time to get my head around it, but I promise, you won't lose my friendship."

I felt myself finally relax.

After showing Randall the rest of the labs, the locker room and the library, we started to head to Edward's office, when we were accosted by a pipette-wielding Riley, wearing a lab coat which he'd dyed purple.

"OMG, Honey, I just made these worms jump!" he cried before looking over Randall. "And who's this?"

"Randall, this is Riley Cullen, Carlisle's son. He's doing a summer internship here to keep him out of trouble. Riles, this is Randall Smith, Edward's PhD student who's transferred over from Oxford."

"Well, hi ..."

"He's straight, Riley."

"Damn it."

"I'm flattered though," Randall replied. "If ever I change orientation, I'll be sure to look you up."

Riley guffawed loudly.

"I like you, even if you are totally hetero." He looked Randall up and down once more. "Say, if you're new in town, you're probably free this weekend, right?"

"Yep, why?"

"Fancy a trip to the beach? My folks, my sister Katie, me, Bella and the PILF are heading down to Cape Cod."

"'PILF?'"

"He means Edward."

"Oh, right, I get it! 'PILF.' Professor I'd like to ..."

"Uh-huh. You gotta admit, that man is fine, even if he does have a stick up his ass."

"He does not, Riles! He just saves his less conservative side for me."

"Oh yeah? Good, is he?" I felt heat flood my face. "I knew it!"

"I'm not answering that."

"Wow, you've gone all red, Swan! Professor Masen a stud, who knew?" added Randall, grinning widely at my embarrassment.

"Oh, please, Pony, with a body that hot, he was bound to trip the lay fantastic."

"'Pony?'"

I tugged Randall's short ponytail.

"Riley's the queen of nicknames."

"Yeah, Pony, so unless you got a super-hot middle name, don't expect me to call you 'Randall.'"

"Err ... my middle name's Garrett."

"Randall Garrett Smith? Jeez, did your folks want a son or a law firm? I'm sticking with 'Pony.'"

"Might as well embrace it, Randall. He's hardly going to call you by your given name again."

Riley nodded enthusiastically.

"So, whaddya say, Pony? Beach frolics with two sets of Neuro Nerds and a Fun Fairy?"

"Sure, why not?" agreed Randall. "Is that okay with you, Bella?"

"Definitely!"

"Where is PILFy, by the way?"

"Edward is in his office. In fact, we should head up there. He wants to crack on with the research as soon as possible, so will want to get your new experiment protocols set up."

"I oughta get back to the worms, see if I can make 'em jump again. It's freaky but cool when they bounce under the microscope." Riley kissed me on the cheek and then to Randall's surprise, did the same to him. "See ya, Pony. Make sure Bella gives you my digits so we can hang out."

"Okay."

Riley bounded back into the lab.

"Well, he seems like fun."

"He's a sweetheart. He looked after me like I was his sister when I was here last summer."

"How is he getting on with Edward? I can't imagine him dealing with Riley's exuberance that well."

"Hmm ... jury's out. I'm hoping the trip to Cape Cod will help."

"Will it be okay to just tag along on this beach trip?"

"Definitely. You haven't met Carlisle and Esme Cullen, but you'll see, they're lovely people, great company, and the most amazing neuroscientists. It'll be fab."

We went up to the top floor, where the offices were located. The Fox had been allocated an office three times the size of his old one, and he was even being given his own secretary, who was supposed to be starting the day after Labor Day, when the new semester began. At Oxford, the whole Neuroscience department shared just three administrators.

"Well, this is posh," commented Randall as we walked along the corridor.

"You haven't seen his massive office, yet. He's even got leather armchairs and a teak coffee table."

We strode into Edward's office, but halted in our tracks at the sight of an older lady, rather dumpy, with bright red hair, sitting at the secretary's desk.

"May I help you?"

"Oh, yes, we're just here to see Edward, Professor Masen ..."

"Professor Masen hasn't officially started work yet, dearie. You can email him your details to organise your seminars and tutorials." She passed me a slip of paper from a pile on the desk before looking back at her computer screen.

"He's expecting us," I told her curtly.

"He never mentioned it."

I looked at her pointedly, making it clear that I was going nowhere. After a long moment, she huffed and pressed a button on an intercom.

"Professor Masen?"

"Yes?"

"There are two students to see you. I told them you weren't officially at work yet but ..."

A moment later, The Fox opened his door, and beamed when he saw us, holding out his hand to me. I flitted to his side and he kissed me on the forehead.

"Shelly, this is my wife, Bella. She's going to be starting in Carlisle's lab next week."

"Your wife ... oh, right." Shelly's eyes darted between us and disappointment flickered in her eyes as she zeroed in on Edward's hand on my waist. "Welcome to Harvard, Mrs Masen."

I had a feeling that Edward's new secretary would be sharing her discovery with the entire department as soon as she was able.

"Thank you, Shelly. It's lovely to meet you," I replied with exaggerated politeness. "Please call me Bella."

"And this is Randall Smith, my PhD student who's come over from Oxford."

"Hi Shelly. Guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other," Randall added.

"Hi."

"Come on through." Edward took my hand and led me into the office, with Randall following.

Edward

I walked into my offices to find that my new secretary, Shelly, had started a week earlier than planned. When she saw me, she greeted me enthusiastically and offered to make me coffee. Having never had my own secretary, I found her attention rather overwhelming, declined her offer and politely excused myself to my office.

When Bella and Randall came by, about an hour later, Shelly tried to turn them away, and was rather surprised when I told her who Bella was. Still, she bore it politely, whatever her private opinions may have been.

For the rest of the morning, Randall, Bella and I put together new research protocols for the next phase of the glutamate-mediated cell death project. Although Bella wasn't going to be on my team officially, she had invested so much hard work and time in the project at Oxford that I considered her input invaluable.

"What about doing a line of trials focussing on the duration of ischaemic insult?" she suggested. "It would be good to map out how long glutamate's effects last, and the level of damage over the time course."

"Edward, didn't you do something similar in the preliminary stages, a few years ago?" asked Randall.

"Yes, although it was on a very small scale. Afterwards we decided to just focus on how glutamate was being released at the synapse. I still have the notes though. They're in my lab. We could grab them on the way back from lunch."

"Cool, I can read them this afternoon and start putting something together."

I looked over at Bella, who nodded her agreement with Randall, but I could tell that she was finding it hard to let go of our project. She had thrown herself into the work wholeheartedly and it had brought us together. She was moving onto Carlisle's new project, and it was a fantastic opportunity, but I suspected that the glutamate- mediated ischaemic cell death project would always be special to her.

After grabbing sandwiches from a campus deli, we headed to my lab, and I went to find my research notebooks. Having worked for so long on the project, I couldn't bear to have them put in storage, so Bella and I put them in one of our suitcases, and brought them with us. I then put them in the place they belonged, my new lab.

Therefore, when I opened the bookshelves where the notebooks were kept, to find two of them missing, the two I needed, I felt genuine panic grip me.

"They were here! Bella, you saw me put them here!"

"Hey, hey ..." She took my hand and pressed herself into my side. She was the only thing that stopped me from having a full-on meltdown. "We'll find them. There's probably a reasonable explanation, and if someone has stolen them, there's CCTV all over this place. We'll get to the bottom of it."

"Do you have any back-ups, Edward?" asked Randall, looking through the rest of the notebooks.

"In Oxford. John Gerandy and I scanned all our work onto hard disk drives a couple of months before he retired, and we've been documenting electronically ever since. They're in storage along with the rest of our stuff. Jasper's sending it over but it's going to take a while."

"At least it's not lost forever," observed Bella.

"I guess so. I just can't figure out who would want to steal notebooks that are years old. Any useful findings from the work have already been published. I only keep them because of sentiment."

"We'll get to the bottom of it," Bella re-iterated.

That evening, I was restless. It was hot and sticky and our AC unit was playing up. I picked at the barbecue chicken salad and baked potato Bella put together for us using our limited kitchen equipment, and I remained preoccupied about my missing notebooks while I did the washing up.

"If that plate weren't plain, you'd have washed the design off by now," Bella murmured, sliding her arms around me from behind and kissing me between my shoulder blades. I felt her rest her head against me.

"Sorry, I've not been the best company tonight."

"It's okay, Foxy, I understand."

I turned around and cupped her face with my soggy paws. She squealed a little at being made wet.

"It's not. I have an amazing house and the most beautiful wife, and I'm worried about some stupid books."

"Which represent two years' worth of work. It must feel like losing your child."

"The fact that you get that is one of the million reasons I married you, Baby."

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me, snaking her sweet tongue into my mouth as she rubbed her groin against mine.

"What can I do to make you feel better?"

"You're doing it, my little vixen," I told her, nudging her backwards and then lifting her onto the kitchen counter.

She encircled me with her legs and attached her lips to my throat before slowly dragging her fingers down my chest. She scratched me lightly with her nails over my shirt, up and down as she nipped my neck. I held her by the waist, just enjoying her touch. Bella and I, we had our frantic moments of wild and crazy fucking, and I loved them, but I was equally enthralled when we made love slowly, every touch serving to reaffirm our intense bond, every little sound a declaration from our entwined hearts.

Eventually, her nimble digits worked open my shirt and the fly of my jeans, and I ran my hands down her body to help her out of the denim shorts she was wearing. She slipped off her grey t-shirt and bra, and then she laid down, her perfect curves on display, and all for me. I couldn't help but take a moment to savour the sight.

"Foxy?" Bella's eyes fluttered open. "Are you okay?" I answered by kissing her softly on the side of her knee and she hummed enticingly.

"Yes."

I kissed along her inner thigh and stroked my hand up her hip and over her fox tattoo before continuing my journey up to her round, high, breast. When my lips found her sweet, succulent pussy lips, I pulled her nipple, and her resulting gasp made my insides leap with arousal. Her fingers tangled into my hair and her small hands encouraged me deeper inside her kitty.

There was no taste better than my Bella. As her juices coated my tongue and she bucked under me, mumbling and mewling, my dick started aching and leaking. I couldn't think of anything other than my incredible wife and our mutual pleasure.

"Edward ... aah ..." Her words descended into incoherent screams as she came all over my face. "Fucking amazing!"

"Uh-huh."

She propped herself up on her elbows, grinning, before beckoning me with a crooked finger.

"Your turn," she whispered.

I didn't waste any time in pushing into her. The feeling of her deep, snug walls enclosing me sent me to nirvana, and it was a struggle not to pound her good and hard. I reined myself in and focussed on the tiny, gold flecks in the deep brown of her eyes, the pink of her creamy cheeks, the roundness of her nose and her shapely, red lips.

"I love you so much, you know?"

"And I love you, Foxy," she replied before capturing my bottom lip and sucking it. I turned it into a full kiss.

We continued kissing as we made love for several minutes until I could bear it no longer, and she seemed to know as she wrapped herself around me even tighter just as my orgasm ripped through us both.

"Wow," I gasped when I recovered my breath. "Thank you, Baby."

She nudged me to get off her and then sat up and I picked her up off the counter.

"One of these days, when I offer to make you feel better through sex, you're going to be the one who gets oral."

"But my dick is in no way as sexy as your pussy."

"I beg to disagree, Foxy." She wrapped her fingers around my spent member. "He's very sexy. There's very little I wouldn't do to have him."

"Now you've got my mind whirring with possibilities, Mrs Masen." She genuinely did.

"Maybe you could tell me about them in the bath?"

"With pleasure."

-cc-

Thank you for reading.

I'm hoping to post again in a week's time, but it may be two weeks thanks to my unpredictable summer work schedule.

CC xxx