Well, some loyalty I get from you guys. Most of you agreed with Mr. Price that this Bella is a hot number (I have to say that I really liked JulieToo's suggestion that she looks like a young Linda Ronstadt, who, like Bella, is from an old, mixed Arizona family). Me, I'm not saying that she's unattractive to men, because when you're 24 and in reasonably good shape, you're pretty much guaranteed to be attractive to men, even if you don't realize it. But as Bella says in an earlier chapter, she considers hers an attraction based on fleeting youth and health.
Speaking of earlier chapters: Last time, Edward teaches Bella a few words of Chinook Jargon, but says he's not quite ready to make love with her. Bella chaperones the girls' choice dance and gets to dance surreptitiously with Edward. Edward whisks Bella off to San Francisco, where, naturally, the Cullens have a lovely house in a charming neighborhood. At dinner, Bella finally tells Edward about Renee's death from cancer and how Charlie abandoned his child and dying wife. Bella and Edward run across her old friends-with-benefits Aidan and Gabriel, in town for a concert, and Edward introduces himself as a medical student in Seattle named Alex Shapiro. At the concert, Edward lets himself go enough to give Bella a love bite, which she enjoys thoroughly.
As always, thanks to Camilla10 and Mr. Price.
Chapter 17: Che gelida manina
"Certain topics are off limits. In casual conversation …you should never discuss other teachers or students. Ensure that your colleagues don't label you a gossip." Rominger et al., "Your First Year as a High School Teacher."
Jessica Stanley clapped her hands. "Okay, who are the hottest guys in Forks right now?" she asked.
It was Wednesday night dinner at the diner, but neither Mike nor Tyler was there - Mike was dealing with a broken water pipe at Newton's Outfitters and Tyler was filling in for an ill colleague in the police department. But in their place we had Jessica, in town to help Sharon Stanley, her mother and my landlady, with buying a foreclosed-on wood-frame house on Bogachiel Way.
"What's the problem, Jess?" Angela drawled, looking up from her grilled cheese. "Have you run through the supply of real estate lawyers in the south Seattle suburbs?"
"I'm not in Auburn now," Jessica said impatiently. "Come on."
Angela and I looked at each other across the table and grinned. "Carlisle Cullen," we chorused.
"But he's married," I added, with a stab of conscience that soon disappeared. With her painted lips and nails, Jessica might be red in tooth and claw, but neither Esme nor Carlisle would pay her any mind.
Jessica huffed. "Not helpful. I don't want a married guy." She stabbed her straw into her soda. "There's enough of them in Auburn."
"What's wrong with Mike and Tyler?" I asked. "They're handsome, sweet, have good jobs -" Angela kicked my ankle, and I belatedly remembered Jessica's history with Mike, who probably wouldn't appreciate my pimping him out to his ex-girlfriend.
"Oh, I can sssssoooo tell you what's wrong with them," Jessica declared, and started on a list of their failings. I tuned her out. I had my own concerns. To my surprise, Bruce Clapp had solemnly promised, in front of lunch-table witnesses, that he would give Angela's volleyball players prime time in the weight room in the fall if I ran a cross-country club this spring. So flyers had gone up, Bruce had given orders, and now I had eight girls and six boys ready to run.
My thigh ached at the thought of running. Oh, what had been done to my thigh ...
I had created a monster … a Hickey Monster.
Since our return from San Francisco, Edward had had to be more discreet about where he marked me, but he took great delight in investigating the places where he could leave signs of his presence - hipbone or shoulder blade or the side of a breast. Or, last night, the inside of my right thigh while I squirmed in half-pleasure, half-need until he had moved up to where I was wet and waiting, and soon was arching under his mouth and tongue, both exploring me the way his fingers had so often before.
The vampire's kiss was potent indeed. And I was reminded of that every time I moved my thigh, with the dark circle marking a point on my femoral artery.
A change in Jessica's tone was reminding me to pay attention. "If you like Tyler and Mike so much, why aren't you hooking up with them, Bella?" she asked, her voice laced with sarcasm. "Oh, I forgot, you bat for the other team."
"You shouldn't listen to gossip," Angela snapped, too quickly for me to kick her in the ankle and stop her. Dammit. Angela thought only that she was dissipating the rumors, but I didn't want to discuss my sexual preferences with Jessica. And considering my circumstances, the more people in Forks who thought I, um, played softball, the safer.
"Oh," Jessica said, staring at me speculatively. I flushed, and she went on, "In that case, you can have Mike and Tyler, and Dr. Cullen, too, because you know who's really hot? His kid Edward. I saw him at the bank ATM this afternoon at the closing on the Bogachiel house. That face, that sex hair, that ass in those jeans… he looks like he'd be a fast learner in bed." She smiled at our horrified faces. "He's young, but he's beyond rich and over the age of consent. I could do that—"
Rage blocked my throat, but Angela spoke for me. "Stop it, Jessica!" she whispered furiously, hissing her S's. "He's our student, for fuck's sake! And we're in the middle of the diner! We could get in huge trouble at the school for talking about him like that."
And Jessica was going to get in huge trouble, too - with me - if she kept talking about Edward as if he were a piece of meat. He would never be interested in her deep cleavage and shallow mind, I knew that, but I was having a huge surge of possessiveness that made me clench my fists under the table. A vampire thing, a human thing? All I knew was I had never felt something like it before.
Jessica stared at us both, then threw up her hands. "Sheesh, calm down, the two of you. Bella, you look like you're about to tear out my throat."
"I would like to keep my job," I managed to get out, and, yes, I would like to tear out your throat.
"Fine, I'll shut up," she muttered, and changed the subject. "How's Ben, Ange?"
I took a breath and willed my fists to unclench. The only person who was going to teach that virgin "kid" anything in bed was me.
"Your students will watch you closely and accuse you of playing favorites."
Spring was stealthy in Forks. The sky remained gray, though the rain grew lighter, and the temperatures inched up into the 50s, with one or two spikes into the 60s on clear days, the days I had two fewer Cullens in my class.
The first cross-country practice was on an overcast but dry day, good running weather. We gathered by the bleachers on the football field, me and 14 students, almost all of them in the Hollister and Fitch logo hoodies that were so popular here.
Some of the girls were Angela's long-legged volleyball players, but Eliza Teague and Gracie Alvarez had also signed up. Most of the guys were football players – and unfortunately, one of them was Jessica's cousin Justin. Principal Banner had finally done something about Justin's grades, and figuring that he was more valuable as a quarterback in the fall than a second baseman in the spring, had kept him off the baseball team. I suspected that Bruce Clapp's main motive for pushing me to coach was to get Justin some cardio in the off season.
There were also two vampires. At my request, Edward was wearing track pants instead of running tights so I and the other XXs wouldn't get completely distracted, but the girls were in fact mesmerized by Alice, who was in shiny black capris and one of those form-fitting white technical tops that made mere mortals look lumpy. The guys were mesmerized too, though they'd never appreciate how hard that shirt was to wear.
Alice herself was radiating excitement. At a score of colleges and high schools, the Cullens had never been on a team, and she wanted to make the most of this opportunity.
I took a breath and started repeating information that these guys already knew, and had doubtless forgotten, because that's how non-vamp teenagers were. "Welcome to the unofficial, out of season cross-country club," I announced. "We'll be training three days a week, and at the end there will be a Saturday morning 5K with other schools on the Peninsula at a place to be determined by Coach Clapp and the other coaches. The winning school will get bragging rights and a pizza party paid for by the losing coaches. I should emphasize that if anyone wants to run cross-country in the fall, during the official season, you might be disqualified by participating in this club."
"Are you going to be coaching a real cross-country team in the fall?" asked one of the volleyball players.
I glanced over at Alice, who shrugged. "That's up to Coach Clapp," I said, making no promises. "So we're going to do warmup drills first, then run. I'll take up the rear, and Alice Cullen will lead the way –"
Justin Stanley interrupted me. "A girl is going to lead us? She'll be too slow," he complained.
I couldn't help smirking a bit. "If after this run you want to challenge Cullen to a race, I can arrange that. Let's go."
After warmups, Alice took off on our route, the predator leading the prey, and I watched a moment from the bleachers, noting the humans' inefficient, untrained gait, flapping arms and shuffling feet, so clumsy-looking compared to college and pro runners – and in a different universe from the Cullens' smooth stride. Justin tried to challenge Alice's lead, but when she grinned widely at him and quickened her step slightly, he fell back. Edward jogged behind the other boys, not showing even a small fraction of his speed, but damn, he looked good. Maybe I should have asked him to wear something even more shapeless, because even loose track pants couldn't hide the perfect curves of his legs and - yes, Jessica - his ass.
I fell in alongside Gracie and Eliza. Eliza was obviously struggling, and I chatted with them to distract her from how hard the first mile was. Forks High had had a banner year, with four admissions to the University of Washington - Gracie and Eliza, the likely class valedictorian and salutatorian, had been accepted to UDub along with Alice and Edward. The girls hoped to room together, but were worried about paying for it all – Eliza was waiting for her financial aid package, Gracie was relying on the Pacific Northwest Trust, both knew they were finalists for its scholarships.
"You should be hearing from the Trust officials very soon," I said.
"Yeah, but what if one of us gets the money and the other doesn't?" Eliza said, puffing. "Me, I don't know if I can go off to Seattle by myself."
I wished I could tell them that they would both get full awards – I had a good source, after all - but I said instead, "It's scary, I know, because I've done it. I went from my tiny town to Tucson. But you get used to it. You meet people."
"At least the Cullens will be there," Gracie said, though a little dubiously, and Eliza stumbled.
"That doesn't help," she mumbled after she righted herself. Poor Eliza, never knowing exactly why her discomfort around the Cullens was so much more acute than everyone else's. I wondered if she ever had nightmares of the red-eyed nomads who had attacked her family seven years ago.
We did our route, and Gracie, Eliza and I found Alice, unruffled and as fresh as a … well, as a vampire who doesn't sweat, at the end marking down runners' times on my clipboard. Edward was lounging on the bleachers, using his phone to read or maybe launder more Cullen money, while Justin and the other football players looked wiped out.
None of them challenged Alice to a race.
"Conflicts with colleagues … are the sorts of troubles teachers deal with daily."
"Dr. Shapiro, I presume," Raquel purred from Seattle. "Where are the hipstah glasses I heard about?"
I had suggested to Raquel that she and Edward talk by Skype since he disturbed her so much in person, and since I wanted the two most important people in my life to know and like each other, and in a way that wouldn't abrade my scruples about unknowing mind invasion. I'd also told her about Edward's nom de boyfriend from San Francisco, figuring that Aidan or Gabriel might ask her about him. So now Edward was sitting at my kitchen table, with Raquel on the screen of his laptop.
"Shaep a'i masma," he answered in Raquel's mother tongue. "The glasses prevent me from seeing through your clothes, so I've taken them off."
She ignored his joke. "Hello to you, too," she said in astonishment. "How do you know that? Did Bella teach you?"
"When Bella mentioned that you spoke Tohono O'odham I looked it up," he said. "It doesn't take me long to learn a language, so I know quite a few."
"Showoff," I muttered next to him, just as Raquel started laughing. "Oh, he is so perfect for you, Bella," she said. "Though how his giant head makes it through doors, I don't know."
"Better than giant paws," Edward said, smirking.
"I'll take nice warm paws over ice mitts any day," she said easily. "Can you show me what you know, ñnavoj?"
"Ha'u," he said for yes.
And so Edward won my friend over, at least remotely, asking her about pronunciation and grammar – Tohono O'odham had reduplicative plurals ("Ban is for coyote, ba:ban is for coyotes," as Raquel explained). After a while, they were chatting away incomprehensibly while I listened in envy. Damn vampire language center. But Raquel seemed thrilled to be have this unexpected opportunity to speak in her L1.
I was working away on my own laptop, setting up a page on the school website for the cross-country club. I had handed out a training schedule at our first meeting, but I was still constantly getting texts and calls from the runners. And while it was my duty to answer questions about homework, I could skip the ones about practice times.
"You were right," Raquel called out to me as I tried to align lists of dates on the web page. "This guy is tolerable when I'm away from his creepy aura. I mean, even I can admit that he's not bad-looking."
"Such flowery compliments," Edward said, obviously amused. He adjusted his laptop so I could look at Raquel more easily. In the background, I could see part of a canvas on an easel – it was Seth, with his face in profile, and strong tendons twisting down to his smooth, bare torso. It made me wonder if the lack of chest hair made for a mangier wolf.
"Yeah, as I said, your head's already big enough," Raquel said. "Bella, how's the coaching going?"
"The boys keep hoping Bella will show up in her skimpy University of Arizona racing outfit," Edward answered in my stead.
I groaned. "I am never going to get over having that stupid picture of me in the school newspaper," I complained.
"Let me assure you, of all the adjectives you could use to describe that photograph, 'stupid' is not one of them," he said silkily, touching my cheek. I turned my lips into his palm. "'Alluring' is much more appropriate. Or considering the predilections of my classmates, 'inspiring.'"
"Jesus," Raquel broke in from the voyeur's seat. "I don't know how you guys haven't been caught. I hope you never ever even look at each other in English."
"Mr. Cullen continues to lag on participation, so our interactions in school are limited," I told her in my parent-teacher conference voice. "He's such a smart boy and I'm sure he has much to contribute since he does so well on tests, yet he declines to share with the class –"
"I am completely disinclined to share," Edward agreed. "Again, I'll note the predilections of my classmates."
"Ugh," Raquel and I said together.
"And back to your question," I went on, "Clapp is beyond furious that he had a running phenomenon like Alice under his nose for four years and didn't know."
"And so he is going to give her and me D's for the last semester," Edward added.
"Yeah, he's a jerk that way. And of course he's already peeved at me because I'm causing problems for his quarterback with my 'overly rigid grading practices.' Anyway, nobody at Forks is going to be competing in the Olympics, unless the U.S. Anti-Doping Association stops testing athletes and the Cullens can go," I told Raquel. "But most everyone is getting a little faster." She and I reminisced about our training on the UA team for a while, and then she sighed.
"I have to mix in some business with pleasure here," she said, "because Jacob asked me to ask you some questions."
"He should ask us directly," Edward said, his face and voice hardening. "And my father should be the one to treat with him."
"Jacob, um, wants to minimize contact – you know how you guys rub off on him, so to speak. It's just a bit of logistical information he wants," Raquel said.
Edward frowned. Carlisle and Esme had cancelled their vacations while Edward remained unsure about his control around me, but now they were away, visiting a big art fair in Hong Kong and traveling around Asia for several weeks. He would be reluctant to bother them over something minor, but I imagined he'd also be uneasy about answering questions when he couldn't read his interviewer's mind.
"Go ahead," Edward said warily.
"So, what are your family's plans once you graduate in June?"
"We are going to put our house on the market," Edward said in his formal way, "and we'll be leaving the Olympic Peninsula in deference to Black's genetic quirks, even though the area is a near ideal setting for us."
"Jacob will like that," Raquel said, brightening. "Are you moving to Seattle? Aren't the other va –" she stopped, not wanting to say the word over the computer "-um, I mean, your 'brothers and sisters' all in school here already?"
"They are," Edward said.
"So you guys can commute between Forks and Seattle like Seth and me. Oh, Bella, I bet I'll see a lot more of you now," Raquel said cheerfully.
"No," I said apologetically. "I'm moving to San Francisco."
"San Francisco?" Raquel repeated, puzzled.
"Where Bella and I will live," Edward said. "I was accepted at Berkeley, and if Bella wants to take classes there while she's applying to grad school, I'll enroll." We'd decided this on our last night in Pacific Heights, Edward convincing me that I didn't need to write out Common Core lesson plans for next year's ninth graders, that no humans would get suspicious if I and the Cullens left Forks at the same time, and that his family would be delighted to cede the house to us. If someone in Forks heard about it, it would be a scandal, but it wouldn't be illegal. Since then I had fantasized about running every day in the Presidio or the Marin headlands, about having warm croissants and a cold vampire in bed every morning. It wasn't as if I'd have a lot of opportunities to live in such a great city.
Edward considered Raquel's image a moment. "Jacob won't like that," he said quietly. "You'll want to have Seth tell him this when you're not in striking distance. Jacob's still young at being …" Edward also left the word unsaid.
"At what he is, yeah," Raquel agreed, somber. "I think Jacob thought he'd have more time to keep an eye on you, Bella, maybe make you see the errors of your ways -"
I bristled. "It's not his business."
"He thinks it is," Edward said, words that had different meanings for me than for Raquel.
We were silent a moment, considering the implications of Jacob's reaction, until Raquel said, "Oh! I nearly forgot, Aidan called me. He asked about 'Dr. Shapiro,' of course. I told Aidan I thought he was at Hutchinson -"
"The cancer hospital?" I broke in.
"Uh, yeah," Raquel said, then opened and closed her mouth as if reconsidering what she was going to say.
"That's fine, but if Aidan asks again, say you think I'm at Swedish," Edward told her. "Alex Shapiro's a little young for a Hutchinson fellowship."
Raquel inhaled. "Okay. Anyway! You were right, Bella – he was asking me all about Seth, whether I was happy, was it long-term, all that, and then that he was sorry that we hadn't been together-together in Tucson, but I'd never seemed interested."
"Which you weren't," I pointed out.
"Yeah, that's true, but I did sleep with him. How could I have been so oblivious to how he felt?"
I winced a little. "Well, I was too," I said, remembering Edward's reaction to meeting my old friends with benefits. "I guess we both have tough shells when it comes to guys."
I glanced at Edward, who, contrary to male stereotype, seemed enthralled by this girl-talk about relationships. "And-" I looked back at Raquel "-we both have abandonment issues, as they say in Psych 101." Unlike my dad, Raquel's stayed close by, but he would disappear into a drunken haze for weeks at a time.
Raquel stuck her fingers in her ears and shook her head. "Nyah, nyah, nyah. Don't blame me, and don't blame yourself. My dad was an asshole, and yours is a coward. We were smart to stay on our own – you know, until now. Guys!" She threw her hands up in mock exasperation, then sighed. "I guess at least some of them want to stick around."
"Yes, they do," Edward said, looking at me. "And they want you to stick around too."
"Reduce the chance that you make unintentional physical contact. … It is against the law for you to touch your student."
It finally happened on a Sunday, the day I was an upstanding citizen, passing the collection plate at church, then working with Mrs. Gerandy at the food pantry, setting out dented cans and heads of cabbage and kohlrabi, the winter remains from the Port Angeles farmers market, where spring produce like asparagus was snapped up early and the morels were too valuable to give away. Mrs. Gerandy had set up the pantry here so that the patrons could choose what they wanted to take home, but there wasn't much choice this week.
As I helped pack a small bag for Rob Sawyer (father of two, clerk at the Walmart in Port Angeles, and the grandson of the woman who owned my house before Sharon Stanley did), who would know exactly how non-upstanding I was? Who would know that I was remembering kneeling on a pillow next to my bed, my tongue licking up, my eyes looking up at my AP English student? That I was recalling how the taste of him in my mouth made me dizzy, how the mix of agony and bliss on his face made me moan, how the crunch of the wooden slats under my futon mattress being pulverized made me shiver? Who could possibly know?
Rob's quiet, half-embarrassed "thank you" yanked me from my daydream. Please, God, let it be nobody.
I returned home to the sound of noise coming from upstairs.
"Hey, what's going on?" I called out after I closed the front door.
Edward's feet suddenly appeared on the landing, and then in front of me. Then his lips were on mine, because, you know, it had been a whole three hours since we'd since we'd touched each other – mindful of Raquel's comments, we'd even avoided shaking hands in church.
"I'm replacing the slats I damaged," he said. "I can bring over the new ones tomorrow, when the odor of the finish has faded." From his eyes, I could tell that while I was at the food pantry he'd had time both to do woodworking and to hunt.
"Thanks. If you help me move the mattress into the other bedroom I can sleep there –"
"Perhaps you'd like to run to my house and spend the night there?" he interrupted, his expression almost shy.
I looked at him in surprise. I'd been over to his house since the first meet-the-parents, but not often. I was too aware of Rosalie's animosity and the discomfort of my scent lingering in their human-free sanctuary. Nor had I'd ever run over there, because it was too many miles for a round trip, even for my Sunday long run - at least by the conventional route. Edward, of course, ignored the trail, but that wasn't so practical for me.
"Really?" I asked.
"Yes – all my siblings are hunting and they'll be gone for the night, and of course Esme and Carlisle are away. So it'd be just you and me."
Hmm. I packed a change of clothes and a few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into a knapsack (the Cullens' refrigerator was empty now – even cosseted heirloom apples go mealy eventually, and they were rotting in my compost pile), and off we went.
The air was cool and humid, and the forest was in bud and leaf, the hardwoods starting to join the firs in filling the green canopy above us, the apple trees in the Cullen orchard turning pink. I watched the knapsack bobbing on Edward's back, and the metronome of his legs, always attuned to my own pace as I gained speed mid-run and then slowed in fatigue as we neared his empty house.
We kicked off our muddy sneakers and socks in the entry and I flopped down on a large kilim near the living room's back windows, the ones that overlooked the river. "You don't mind if I do my stretches here, do you?" I asked.
Edward smiled. "I never mind seeing you do your stretches," he said. "Really, it's one of my favorite sights."
"Thanks," I said, my mind working. "Doesn't stretching do anything for you? It doesn't feel good?"
He sank down fluidly next to me. "We can stay immobile indefinitely without discomfort, but moving can be a pleasure, and a useful distraction. Stretching can be a pleasant too, but it's never a necessity, as it is for humans. When I watch you, I can almost see your synapses firing."
I sat up, reached my arms above my head and bent side to side as he watched. "Why don't you help me stretch, then?" I suggested, and he nodded instantly. "Coach wasn't a huge fan of stretching, but we used to do partner stretches when I was training in Tucson. I'll tell you what to do."
We started off sedately, with him kneeling behind me and adding weight to my arm and upper back stretches, 10 seconds of pushing, 10 seconds off. I hummed appreciatively at his touch, never too much pressure, never too little. I looked up and caught him staring at my breasts straining at the fabric of my technical top as he stretched my chest by pulling back on my elbows.
"Perv," I said, grinning, and slid down onto my stomach and wiggled my hips at him. "Let's move on. Straddle me."
His eyes widened, but I instructed him to push my ankle toward my butt to stretch my quads, which he did admirably, and then I turned over, crossed my legs, and had him press them toward my chest as he hovered above me. I moaned a little.
"I have to say, this feels better than when Coach did this to me," I mumbled.
"I would hope so," Edward said, his hands tightening on my thighs.
"Um, yeah. Hamstrings next." I sat up again and straightened my legs. "Okay, behind me, chest pushing against my back, that's good, then arms around me, hands just above my knees."
He did as I told him, but asked into my ear, "I like this, but is it a real stretch?"
"Yes," I said, shuddering and breathing in so deeply that my head was filled with the smell of Edward and the forest. I moaned again as my muscles lengthened in response to his pressure. "That's good. One more."
He released me, dragging his hands up my thighs and my torso, stopping over my breasts. "Do these need stretching?" he asked, lips on my ear again.
"Yes," I said, pushing against his fingers and then jolting as they closed around my nipples. A few moments later, though, I forced myself to twist away and lie on my back. "Really, one more stretch." I put my soles together and let my knees drop to the sides.
He inhaled sharply. "I know what to do on this one," he said, his voice low. He started pushing down on my lower thighs, opening me up, my groin feeling the pull, then traveled up, massaging the long muscle, until his hands met at the top, his thumbs pressing down and around through my tights. I groaned and arched underneath him until he shifted to hover above me, his erection now where his thumbs had been.
"You can do this," I murmured as we moved together. "We can do this. You know exactly how to touch me. You just manipulated my entire body without a problem."
He stilled suddenly. "Yes, I did," he agreed quietly. He ran his thumb over my lips. "Do you want to try?"
I snorted in disbelief. "You think there's a question about it? Of course."
He nodded, then smiled. "I wouldn't say that I touched you without a problem," he said, pushing against me in emphasis.
"That's a problem I can handle," I purred, pleased to hear the amusement, and assurance, in his voice. "Hey!" I complained as he stopped after one more thrust and sprang to his feet.
"Come upstairs with me?" he asked, holding out his hand. "I have something to show you."
"I hope it's etchings," I muttered, letting him pull me up.
He laughed. "I would have thought you were too young to have heard that old line."
"I'm not too young to read, you geezer."
Two flights later, I was standing in the doorway to his room. "You got a bed!" I observed. "I thought I'd be sleeping on the sofa."
"Check it out, see if it suits you," he said, tilting his head toward his new furniture.
The bed was dark wood, with a headboard that Edward could mangle, and the mattress was, of course, a futon. "This is great," I said, sitting on the edge and bouncing. Very firm, no squeaks from the frame - perfect. And it was already warm under my butt. "You got it just for me?"
He raised an eyebrow at me. "No, I got it for Principal Banner, and all the other humans who drop by to spend the night. It's like a hotel here."
"Of course," I mumbled, a little stung. I pulled up the duvet, which had an ecru linen cover embroidered with vines and leaves - all organic, I'd bet; Edward knew me very well – to find the electric blanket and the crisp unbleached linens underneath. I suddenly felt very grubby and redolent of sweat among these expensive fabrics. "Um, I'm going to go wash up."
Edward's knees abruptly bracketed mine, and he trailed his fingers along my jaw. "Don't shower," he said, then leaned down to run his nose along my neck. "I can't imagine you smelling any better than you do right now."
A flush traveled up and down from my neck from his touch, and from this reminder of his nature, that in this way he was more animal than human. He freed my knees, and I stood up in a daze and stumbled off to the bathroom.
The cold water I splashed on my face cooled my cheeks and cleared my mind. I stared into the mirror above the sink, the responsibility for what might be ahead materializing as a weight in my stomach.
I had slept with a virgin before, but I had been a virgin, too. The encounter had been giggly and a little drunken, not mind-blowing, and no big deal. Time had softened the rough, clumsy edges, I could look back at it fondly, and Gabriel and I had gone on to better things, some of them with each other.
Now, if all went well, I would be making love to a man who'd had nearly a century to wonder what this experience would be like – and who would remember it forever in sharp detail, long after I was gone. For him it would definitely be a big deal. How could anyone not be daunted by that? I hung my damp running clothes on a towel rod, wrapped a bath sheet around myself, took a deep breath and walked out.
Edward was standing by the window. It was sunset behind the clouds, so the room was still illuminated by a weak gray light, enough for me to see his face and that he had too had changed, into a white T-shirt and dark pajama pants. I stopped a few steps from him.
"I like your outfit," he said, then cocked his head. "What's wrong?"
I stalled. "You're still hiding my portrait," I said, noting the brown-paper rectangle propped up in the corner.
"No, I wrapped it up today because I hoped you'd come over, and it seems to make you uneasy. That's where Raquel's painting normally lives," he said, pointing to an empty section of wall opposite the bed. "But that's not what is bothering you." Yes, he did know me well.
"I'm nervous," I blurted out, cursing myself as I saw his face drop.
"I'm sorry, we don't –"
"No, no, we'll be good together," I interrupted, eager to make it clear that I wasn't worried about him. "It's just - well, you'll remember everything about this –"
"I will," he said, his voice absolutely serious.
"-Even the awkward parts, and I'm getting a little performance anxiety."
"That's supposed to be my worry, I thought," he said, then looked out the window and back at me again. "I was flippant with you before, about the bed. I'm sorry. I'm nervous too, and you need to guide me. Just remember this: I am yours, completely."
He held his hand out to me, and automatically my own hand reached over to take it. His face relaxed at the touch, and I supposed mine did as well. Yes, we would be good together, I thought, as we ended up pressed against each other, his fingers spanning my back, mine curved around his waist, little kisses and long ones.
"Let's try out the bed," I whispered into his neck. Edward yanked off the bedclothes, and we tumbled down into the heat, arms and legs and lips tangling. My towel loosened and disappeared; his shirt and pants were cast aside. We were cool skin slipping against warm skin, wet soft flesh against animate stone, hands and mouths touching everything they could. My teeth on his earlobe made him shudder, his breath on my neck made me dizzy; my grip on his ass made him groan, his tongue on my nipples made cry out.
I writhed away and pushed him down on the bed, climbing on top and straddling his hips as he watched intently, his head propped on a bolster. Leaning forward, hands on his shoulders, I slid against his length easily, coating us in me and him, my breath growing choppy until I realized that I was enjoying this too much and too soon. I needed to pace myself, and I had to concentrate on Edward right now.
I stopped, and he protested, but I moved down so I was resting on his thigh. He might hear every one of my heartbeats and remember every one of my quirks, and I couldn't compete with that, but I had fooled around with him enough to know that his recovery time was, well, supernatural, even for a 17-year-old. So I kissed down his belly to his tip, and then lower, licking off my taste, rubbing myself against his leg as he pulsed into my mouth and muttered something I couldn't understand. By the time I had climbed back up to straddle him once more, he had exhibited his remarkable powers.
"What were you saying? Were you complaining again about my moving away?" I teased him, and he shook his head.
"Nothing important. You're in charge," he said, his eyes soft.
"Good. So don't worry about me."
He looked at his hands on my hips and loosened his fingers, then looked back at me. "I have to worry about you."
I nodded, and walked my own fingers up his torso to his shoulders. "Well, yes. I understand. What I mean is, don't worry about me coming."
"But I'm deeply interested in your coming. I find it kind of fascinating."
"I'm glad you do, but not tonight, not yet. Remember, I'm in charge, and I want you to think about your own timing right now." I glided over his length, letting his tip catch at my entrance, and he inhaled sharply. "You know once you do this you can't go back," I told him in pretend solemnity, and he burst into laughter. His sense of humor was still there, excellent.
"I certainly hope not," he said, and flexed his hips so that he pushed into me and I sank down onto him. We both groaned at my slow descent, and his hands tightened on my hips again as he urged me to be still. When they relaxed, I started rocking over him, relishing the movement, the sight of his eyes squeezed shut, his jaw tense, and our first connection like this, this connection he'd never had with anyone else – this connection that I had really never had with anyone else. It wasn't long before his thighs trembled beneath me, his hands squeezed, and I could feel him swell inside me. His breath caught, and for an instant his face was transcendent, pure pleasure.
When he opened his eyes, I was grinning at him. He looked at me in question. "I'm good – just ease up on my hips," I told him, and he snatched his hands away as if my flesh were burning him.
"Dammit. Sorry. Are you hurt?"
"Of course not. You know me. And you know what else?" I leaned down to his ear. "That was the sexiest thing I've ever seen, watching you let go like that. Let's do that again."
And we did. I rode him a second time, awed by the vision of him arching under me, then he rolled me onto my back and moved in me again, this time grabbing onto the headboard. It complained and snapped under his fingers, and he absently knocked the pieces onto the floor.
The sheets twisted and tangled under us as the hours passed, the blanket was tossed aside as sweat pooled between my breasts, and we paused only to lower the shades and switch on a lamp so I could see. Yet it was more than mechanics. I knew the mechanics well enough. It was an intimacy that was not just physical, but emotional. It wasn't just him letting go, it was also me. There was the wonder of discovery on his face, but also on mine.
And each climax, each moment I was undamaged, made Edward more confident and bolder, and he started begging me to let him make me come. At last, when I was on top again, my limbs heavy and tired, my body swollen and aching for release, I put my hand on his chest and said, "Watch, and don't move."
His eyes widened as I took my hand and moved it to where we were joined. "Just feel how it feels when I come around you," I murmured, and he groaned at the words.
After these hours of constant contact, I wasn't any slower than he was; the instant my fingers touched my wet flesh, I shuddered, and a few circles later, I was convulsing on top of him, my climax powerful and overwhelming for being so long denied, for simply being with him. And I couldn't object when Edward ignored my order and started moving in me again, prolonging the waves of sensation with every thrust, with the feel of his own orgasm in me.
I was still panting when he smiled at me lazily. "That was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and I've been around a lot longer than you," he said.
"And I love you, too," I said between breaths. "Help me off?"
I collapsed on the bed next to him, and he handed me a washcloth, then stood up. "Don't fall asleep yet," he said, pausing to kiss my shoulder and pull a sheet over me. "I'll be back before you know it."
I yawned but nodded. For true to his word, he returned in a few moments, a silver tray bisecting his perfect proportions. I sat up and gawked, and he stopped short as the sheet slid down my torso. "Edward?" I said, adjusting the fabric around me.
He glanced down his body and then at me. "I'm going to put on some clothes," he muttered, and deposited the tray at the foot of the bed.
It held a corked bottle marked 1989 and two crystal flutes, and a plate on which rested my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I had to smile at the juxtaposition.
"That's an interesting food and wine pairing," I said as he returned to my side, pajama pants safely on.
"Champagne goes with everything," he said, then shrugged. "Or so I've read." He popped the cork quietly, and filled the flutes.
"To successful ventures," I said, touching my glass to his.
"To safe ones," he said. He put the flute, untouched, onto the bedside table as I took a sip from mine.
We were silent a moment before he asked, "Is that the way it usually is?"
I cocked my head at him, not sure what he was asking. "For me?" I said. "Unlike you, I can talk only about my experience... but no, not for me." His face fell, and I rushed on, "Because it was amazing. I've never told a partner I loved him. I never have had a partner I loved, until now." Indeed, it was a dimension that I hadn't entirely expected. A sob rose into my throat and I had to swallow it back.
He smoothly maneuvered me onto his lap, a calming cocoon of stone. I recovered my voice enough to ask, "Was it what you expected?"
His laugh was short. "Like you, I have to say no. I've seen so much in people's minds: imagining sex, recalling sex –" his voice became rueful "— having sex. Yet I couldn't have predicted how it would be for me. How I felt in control, yet not in control at the same time. How much more it was than I expected." He paused, and kissed my forehead. "Perhaps that's old-fashioned of me, to attach so much importance to one act, when we have done so much together. But that's how I feel."
In response, I kissed his neck, feeling the flesh quiver under my lips, and he said, repeating his words from before, "I am yours, completely."
"And I am yours," I replied.
And, I thought, I am lost in this man, so, so lost.
"Under no condition is it acceptable to be alone in a room with a student when the door is closed."
Things I didn't do in the days that followed: run except at cross-country practice, cook, write up lesson plans, correct homework. The minute I arrived home, I fell into Edward's arms, waiting to catch me just inside the door and whisk me upstairs - or when it was warm enough and the Stanleys across the street were thinking, out into the woods.
I did, however, sleep, and that's when Edward did all the stuff I didn't have time to. Quizzes were marked and entered into the gradebook; units were outlined for my classes; simple lunches were made and packed.
At school I spent my prep time reading the lesson plans Edward had written for the afternoon. He would be an excellent teacher, if it weren't that the students in his classroom would either be terrified by him or gazing at him hopelessly as he lectured, his words going straight over their heads.
I sighed at my desk, looking up from a unit on "The Stranger" and through the windows to the muddy fields outside. I also had to go to the department supply closet to get a copy of Camus's novel. Justin claimed to have lost his to explain the Fs on his recent quizzes, F's that threatened his fall football career. I rose and headed down the deserted hall, past the quiet of Jeff Mason's classroom (test time, apparently).
I was searching the shelves for the slender volume I needed when the door clicked shut behind me. I whirled around, and Edward's hand was on my lips to mute my squeal. "Do you have a minute?" he asked, his voice a mixture of impishness and self-deprecation. I giggled into his palm and nodded, because, well, I was an idiot in love, blithely ignoring the small internal voice telling me that fucking a student at school was a stupid idea, that anyone could walk by the thin, cheap door separating us from exposure. Besides, we had Alice's super vision and Edward's super hearing.
And Edward's super mouth and hands. My shirt was unbuttoned before I could inhale, his lips on my neck before I could exhale, his fingers tugging gently in my hair, turning me away from him to face the shelves. I put one hand next to a stack of Everbinds of "Madame Bovary," the other under a row of copies of "The Scarlet Letter."
We stayed like that a moment, Edward's kisses on my shoulders and ears, his thumb swirling under my bra - he had learned how to reduce me to a puddle of hormones in no time at all. He snaked his other hand under my skirt and into my tights, his venom-wet touch on my clit instantly making me convulse and whimper, a sudden rush of cold air biting me on my newly exposed thighs and ass.
"Shh," he reminded me, and pushed in. I couldn't help my gasp.
He wasn't quiet either, telling me with every thrust, every stroke of his fingers, that he hadn't been able to wait any longer, that this was all he had thought about since we parted that morning, that there was never enough time, that he wanted to consume me –
Oh God. I gripped the low shelves and moaned and pushed back against him hard and tight, gripping him too, and he grunted in relief and triumph before stilling, not in the usual way, but to a dead stop. What was wrong?
I looked over my shoulder at him and he cursed. "Banner is calling you to his office," Edward said.
"If you make every effort to maintain professional distance, it will reduce your chances of being falsely accused of inappropriate comments or behavior… "
I adjusted and pulled up and buttoned, and slipped out of the closet, leaving behind an Edward who looked perplexed and very, very frustrated. He couldn't discern from Bob Banner's thoughts what he wanted, but I had shrugged and said, "It's usually about Justin Stanley's grades, but I guess we don't want the principal to come looking for me in here."
"No," Edward had said glumly. "This didn't work out quite the way I wanted."
"At least it worked out for me."
He had grimaced, not in the mood for jokes. "Go, Ms. Swan, so I can head back to class."
Now I was sitting across a desk from a distinctly uncomfortable-looking Banner. Wow, Justin must have really screwed up this time. Which F was the one that broke the camel's back?
Banner cleared his throat, shuffled some papers, then looked at me. "I've called you in because of a serious allegation of misconduct against you," he said, voice strained. "You're accused of having an, um, inappropriate relationship with a student."
I stared back at him, my mind blank for an instant. And then, and then, instead of thinking about the disaster that lay ahead, the disciplinary hearings, the news reports, the photos of me on slutty-teacher websites, the Volturi coming to eviscerate me, all I could think was, "Fucking Jacob Black."
"… but those accusations can still happen."
Chapter title: "What frozen hands" from "La Bohème."
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