~ For Judy ~

Chapter 32

~Edward~

She slipped her fingers under the strap, and my stomach rolled. My hands itched to push her away, to not take this last thing from me because I didn't think I could experience any more emotions tonight.

But part of me knew that if she didn't do it, no one ever would.

She was gentle when she placed her hand over my bandage as the leather slipped down my face, easing me into the shock of change. It lay around my neck like a noose as she kissed me, her hand never moving. Once, twice, three times.

Her eyes skipped between my seeing eye and the white gauze, but she committed to watching me as she slowly picked at the corner of tape across my eyebrow. "Does it hurt ever?"

"No." Admitting that made me feel stupid. Like a baby with a security blanket.

"How did it happen?" She moved to the other corner of tape, also peeling that off with great care.

"Punishment for what I'd done." I swallowed, remembering the moment the sharp bite of the shrapnel grazed me. "As soon as I pulled the camera from my eye, I was hit. Another reason why I should've forgotten the picture and gone to Emmett. I wouldn't have been in that spot, wouldn't have had that piece of bullet bounce off something and get me like a snake." I laughed bitterly. "But I suppose I deserved it so…."

"I'm going to rip this off quickly if you don't stop."

"You sound like my sister-in-law, Rose." I smiled. "You'd like her. She wouldn't put up with my pity party either."

"She sounds smart. Are you close?"

"Yes," I said automatically. "She helped me a lot when I got home. Even though she had just lost the love of her life, she straightened me out. I moved here to be closer, in case she ever needed me. She's not happy I still have this on." I motioned towards my eye.

"I think you needed it for a while. Gave you excuses. You don't need them anymore."

I felt the gauze start to lift and took a shaky breath. I had the gauze off before, to clean the wound initially, and when the doctor checked me out at the follow-up appointment. He told me and Rose it could come off in two weeks. The instruction I ignored.

But I'd not once opened my eye with the gauze off since then. "I'm nervous. What if I… what if I've damaged it from keeping it covered?" It's a fear I hadn't really voiced, never thinking I'd remove it to find out.

Her left hand cupped my face as the other pulled gently. "Just look at me; don't look at the porch light. Keep your eyes on me."

"There's nothing I would want to see first but you."

Like she did with the eyepatch, she covered my eye once the gauze was removed while she continued to stroke my cheek, my hair, the back of my neck. "You ready?" she whispered, as if she spoke too loudly, I'd run. Like I was a skittish deer.

"No." But I smiled anyway.

"Open your eye." I did as she said and saw blackness, her palm covering me. One finger at a time, she gently lifted her fingers as black turned to dull gray, turning to burnt orange then bright yellow. I squinted at the glow of the light reflecting off her face. Blinking a few times, I felt my eye tear from the dryness of the night air it hadn't felt in months.

"Everything is kind of blurry."

"I'm sure it'll take time."

I kept blinking, the light losing its stark brightness each time. The sensation reminded me of what my eye would do when it was pressed closed for long periods of time as I shot with my other eye. There'd be small bursts of afterglow surrounding every object for a few seconds after. The familiar feeling gave me a bit of comfort because I knew, from years of experience, that it would go away.

Bella stayed quiet, just perched on my lap with her hands on my shoulders as I began to look around the dark night. The bottle swam in focus, in and out, finally settling on being almost completely synced. The shed was a little harder to focus on, but there it was, becoming whole as my eye worked itself out.

Her finger lifted to touch my eyebrow, tracing the scar I knew was there that cut a path straight through the middle. "Sexy," she said, a hint of amusement in her voice. When I turned my attention to her and saw her fully for the first time in perfect focus, she was more beautiful through two eyes than she ever was with one.

"You are so fucking beautiful."

"So are you. But you were with the patch, too."

"I'll put it on again for you someday." I smirked.

"No, don't hide again." Her fingers continued to stroke my face while I just looked at her, trying to come to terms with everything I was feeling—the roller coaster I'd been through tonight with blood memories I'd had to re-live.

No. Chosen to re-live because I felt safe with her.

My fingers trailed up her neck into her hair, and she gasped when I tightened my hold, making her head tilt a bit with the tension. Our eyes locked, and I could see nothing but desire and heat looking back at me. She truly wasn't afraid of me, of what I'd told her. I felt raw, forced open like an oyster and displayed wet and ripe in front of her. I was desperate for her, aching to be inside her body, and feel her wrapped around me. I needed to hear her moan under me and because of me, and I needed to lose myself in everything she was.

"I don't want to be gentle. Not tonight."

She tilted her own head further, her hair pulling more within my grasp. "So, don't be." It was all I needed, and my mouth clamped onto the soft skin of her neck and sucked, drawing the skin between my teeth and lips like a savage. Her sharp intake of breath and her hands sliding around my back to keep me there was all the encouragement I needed.

So I marked her, red and purple and mine.

Her hands slipped beneath my t-shirt, and she scratched at my back, her fingernails digging in and marking me much the same. It felt hungry and aching, and I knew her desire to release the demons that had invaded our private bubble, our utopian fields filled with wildflowers, photos, and deer, matched mine in its urgency.

I pulled her hair tighter, my mouth moving up her chin until my lips caught hers, messy and insistent. I was rewarded with a moan deep in her throat and a grind of her hips against my stiffening cock.

My eyes opened, and she swam into focus as I pulled away. Her lips were swollen, her breath coming in short pants, and I nearly came when her tongue came out of her mouth and traced her lips where mine had just assaulted them.

My hand moved from her hair and trailed its way down her neck, pressing slightly at the bruise I'd left before travelling into the open neck of her loose dress. My fingers played across her collarbone and the silky skin of her chest, drifting slowly, until they reached her very naked breast. Her nipple was hard and ready to be pinched, pulled, tormented.

My palm engulfed her, squeezing gently as she pressed herself against my hand and tightened her grip on my back. Her eyes opened then, lustful and needy, egging me on and urging me to take her. My other hand slipped inside the neckline to cover her as well, both of them working together to match the rhythm her hips had taken. I teased her with my thumbs, circling and pulling as she let her head fall back a bit, moaning as her tongue flashed out to lick her lips again.

She had no idea what she did to me, how her little gestures and movements affected me. I was an animal, hard as a rock, and she took advantage as she snaked her arms around my neck and forcefully rubbed herself against me. Her hand found its way down between us, and I clenched my jaw as she started to unbutton me. "I want you to use me; make me yours," she said as her thumb ran over the tip of my cock. "Release it all; take it out on me. I'm not delicate. I won't break." With that, she opened the fly of my jeans and plunged her hand inside, wrapping herself around me fully.

Her dress was hitching up on both sides of her thighs as she handled me while continuing to grind her hips, and I longed to grab her and shove myself inside. With one small slide off of her breasts, I grasped the material of her neckline and pulled, the satisfying rip of the flimsy fabric exactly what I had been counting on.

She stopped moving, and her eyes widened, but she couldn't hide the heat within them, staring at me before deliberately letting her shoulders shrug off the scraps that remained.

She was a siren, naked in the glow of the yellow porch light, her neck red and raw, her lips open and waiting, her breasts perfect and heaving as she breathed and continued to rub me.

There was no way I was going to be able to wait to slip inside her until I got us upstairs.

Pulling and ripping her underwear with one hand, I grabbed myself with the other, feeling her hand still tight around me as we stroked together. With one quick motion, she lifted and rubbed herself against me, guiding me in, while I gripped her shoulders and pulled her down onto me, her warm pussy squeezing down my cock until we were flush together, skin to skin, sweat to sweat.

Neither of us moved. Her breath was hot on my cheek as I buried my face in her neck. This wasn't the time to say, "I love you," but fuck if I didn't feel it straight down to my toes and want to scream it while my cock was buried deep inside her.

She was the one to take over, her knees lifting her up and down and slow in circles. I pulled myself away from her sweet neck, licking where I bruised her, and took her hips in my hands. "More," she whispered, cat-like. "More. All of it."

My eyes felt heavy, loaded with need, and ready to shut I was so close to exploding inside her, but I kept them on her. Two eyes matched mine, and I gave her everything she asked for.

I didn't dare look away as I guided her forcefully on top of me like she was weightless. Her moans escalated, her breathing stuttered, but she kept up with me. Neither of us looked away as I fucked her right there on the porch steps that creaked under us as she met me push for push, pull for pull.

I moved my thumb to where we were joined and pressed against her, the added friction making us both groan in pleasure. "Fuck," Bella said, dipping her forehead to mine. Hearing that mouth on her nearly did me in, but I wasn't ready to let her go yet. I wanted to look down so badly, to see where we connected, to watch myself slipping in and out of her, but I couldn't pull myself away and waste watching her come with my newly restored vision.

I rubbed her as she took it upon herself to lift higher, slam down harder. I worried about her knees, but she didn't seem to care as she fucked me right back. She was beautiful, sexy as hell, her chest getting damp despite the chill in the air. I broke away and swept down to lick her clavicle quickly, wanting to taste the salt and musk and savor what she was when I was deep inside her. I looked back up just in time to see her eyes begin to close. Her thighs tightened around me, so I rubbed harder, fighting back my own orgasm with a clenched jaw, my other hand turning to a fist on her hip.

Her fingers locked behind my neck, and she moaned my name, the sweetest sound I'd ever heard.

She looked so fucking beautiful as she came on me, rocking erratically, hair damp on her head as she held her breath, and my name fell off her lips with one last flex of her hips. It was only a few seconds until I lost it myself and exploded inside her, my eyes finally closing at the magnitude of my orgasm, the culmination of the exhausting, exhilarating night.

There was no doubt in my mind that she was mine.

Mad love to LayAtHomeMom, Hadley Hemingway, and CarrieZM for making us pretty.

Enjoy, and leave us your thoughts!

HB&PB