A/N: Thanks so much for all your wonderful thoughts.
Most characters belong to S. Meyer. The rest belong to me. All mistakes are mine.
The End in Three Parts.
Part I: This Time Around, We Communicated – Continued.
Chapter 24 – Ride or Die
October 7, 2024 – St. George, Staten Island: 8:28 p.m.
BELLA
After a moment, Edward switched to holding me in one arm so that he could reach for my bags, and I squealed in equal parts delight and startlement when he sprinted us up the concrete steps.
"You're gonna drop me!"
"Never. Hold on tight."
Laughing, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. Zeus, finding it all a great game, chased after our heels, barking and tail wagging wildly.
"Zeus! I'm happy to see you, too, boy! Come here, boy!" I patted Edward's shoulder, spurring on the German Shepherd. "Come here!"
"Zeus, keep going," Edward growled. "You can wait for her attention."
This made me laugh harder. In truth, I felt lighter than air. Floating and undroppable. As Zeus obediently sprinted past us, jaunty barking ushered us over the threshold and into the house. Edward kicked the door shut behind all three and dropped my bags.
He offered me an apologetic grin. "Hope there was nothing breakable in those."
"No, nothing." I laughed yet again. "Oh, but there is something in-"
Spinning us around, Edward pinned me between the door and his bare chest. His mouth then met mine in what felt like a fervent hybrid of urgency and reverence, tongue warm and demanding, mouth soft and yielding. I slid my arms around his neck and buried my fingers in his hair, my legs and feet tangling around his hips. When his hands curved around my bottom, he squeezed, then nudged me higher, angling his head upward to maintain the kiss.
A few seconds later, Edward pulled away, his chest heaving against my stomach, lips now trailing to my neck and collarbone. I threw back my head.
"What were you going to say?" he asked, the words muffled against my skin.
"Huh?"
He chuckled and met my mouth again. When he pulled away a few seconds later, he wore a severe, grave expression that, if observed by someone who didn't know him well, might've been mistaken for anger. His breathing was labored, eyes dark and narrowed, jaw set tight, and nostrils flaring. His gravelly voice, more profound than usual, emphasized each word when he spoke.
"Listen to me. I love you. I've always loved you." His head shook from side to side. "But I'm no longer a twenty-two-year-old kid. Iz, I'm forty-two, and this…" – he pierced me with his gaze – "you are it for me. Ride or die, you're my forever, and I can't…" Again, he shook his head. "I can't hold back or take it slowly any longer."
"Good." I nodded. "Good, because you're my forever, too. That's…I came to tell you that." I drew in a deep breath. "And to tell you that I can't take it slowly anymore, either. I love you, and I missed you, and I want you so badly-"
He cut me off and crushed his mouth to mine with a fiery emotion that could've set the house ablaze. But that had always been Edward's way. His words, expressions, and how he loved…they were all passion personified.
With his hands cushioning my bottom and our mouths moving in sync, Edward spun us around again. I felt him walking us through the house, from room to room, but my eyes remained shut. Instead, I elected to entrust him with our direction while my every other sense remained consumed. He tasted of mint and longing and smelled of soap and virility, and his touch electrified every particle of my skin. I kicked off my shoes as we went, toeing off my socks, all without breaking our kiss. Like a girl in a fairy tale, I left it all behind like breadcrumbs from a past life.
Edward climbed the staircase, and when he gently set me down, I opened my eyes in his bedroom. We broke our kiss so that I could pull off my hoodie and tee shirt while Edward pushed down his sweatpants. Together, we nudged off my pants, but as he reached around for the clasp to my bra, I rested my hands on his forearms.
"It was a long flight. I need a shower."
He held my gaze, then, with a smile, carefully and wordlessly guided me backward into the ensuite bathroom. There, he pushed down his boxers, and swallowing hard, I did the same. Slowly, he reached around me again, his warm breath washing over my nape as he unclasped my bra and gingerly guided it off my shoulders. He then allowed it to fall to the tiled floors as he stepped back.
Edward's gaze roamed my body. I did the same. Finally, our eyes met.
"Izzy…"
Zeus's sudden bark made me jump. I burst into laughter when he bounded into the bathroom and sat on his haunches directly between us. There was an undeniable, underlying current of self-consciousness for things that jiggled and bounced. But when Zeus looked between Edward and me, cocking his head, panting, and tongue lolling happily, as if ready to join in whatever we were playing, it sent me into uncontrollable peals.
Meanwhile, Edward appeared less amused, shaking his head and glaring at his dog. In reply, Zeus barked again.
"Zeus, out!" Edward stretched out an arm and pointed sharply toward the bathroom door.
Zeus cocked his head to the other side. I wrapped my arms around my midsection, trying and failing to control my chortles.
"You know very well what I'm saying. Out," Edward repeated. When Zeus still failed to obey, Edward directed his reproaches toward me.
"Iz, your amusement just encourages his insubordination." All the while, he choked back his own laughter.
With my arms still wrapped around myself, I crouched to Zeus's eye level, calling him to me.
"Come here, boy." I raked a hand over his head, then scratched his chin. "Listen to me, Zeus," I murmured, meeting his dark eyes, "go wait for Mama in the bedroom. Go. Good boy," I said to his retreating form. He paused and looked back, emitting a quiet whine. "Good boy," I encouraged.
As soon as his tail crossed the threshold, Edward shut the door behind him, and I stood back up.
"Poor baby."
"Poor baby?" Edward asked.
"You were confusing him, pointing in two different directions."
He looked puzzled until my gaze trailed down, and I quirked an eyebrow. When I met his eyes and found him smirking, I laughed again. But all amusement evaporated when Edward's gaze trailed past my nose, my mouth, my neck…and lower.
"Izzy…" Shaking his head, he trailed off.
The lack of verbal expression from a man who was usually a master lyricist was…heady. Hard-hitting in a way that made my breath catch. The intensity in his gaze brought to mind a phrase I'd come to dislike in the past few weeks since I turned forty. It was a phrase regularly spouted when, for various reasons, I revealed my age. The other person would almost invariably make the well-meaning but insulting observation that I looked good for my age. The qualifier was an arrow shot straight through any buoyancy the compliment may have otherwise provided. As if the physical expectation for someone of forty was that of a decrepit crone, and I'd somehow managed to avert that disaster – so far.
Edward's headshake and speechless expression brought that phrase to mind not because it was what his gaze reflected but rather because his reaction was the total opposite. It wasn't a 'Not bad for forty' or even a 'Great job for forty.' Edward shook his head the way one shakes one's head when in awe, in rapturous disbelief, when the sight before you is just too much to bear, and you feel like your heart might explode. Had Edward not been struck mute, had he been able to express himself, I had a feeling he would've said something along the lines of, 'Holy shit, I can't fucking believe such perfection exists.'
Not that I believed myself perfect, physically or otherwise. Not at all. However, as any woman who's ever stood bare before a man can confirm, awestruck worship is the expression you want to elicit, deserved or not. Especially when the man sauntering naked toward you looked the way Edward did.
Closing the space between us, I gripped his hips and sighed as his warm, large hands curved around my shoulders. A black swan's impressive wingspan curled tightly in my field of vision. Drawing in a deep breath, I raised my eyes and met Edward's smile, soft and incongruously sweet, considering what bobbed hard against my stomach. Just as poignantly, he dipped his head and brushed his lips against mine.
"Let me take care of you," he whispered against my mouth.
He pulled away and went to the shower, opening the glass door and turning on the spray. Meanwhile, I caught my breath and drank in the sight of him from behind – his shoulders rising and falling in a rhythm hinting that his heart, like mine, also beat heavily. While he gauged the water's temperature, I observed the broad landscape of his shoulders, toned arms, and muscular back tapering into a slim waist, tight buttocks, and long, muscular legs. No, Edward wasn't twenty-two anymore. He was a thousand times better than that boy, inside and out. I understood how he felt when he gazed at me in pure, adoring rapture.
When he looked over his shoulder and caught me looking, he grinned.
"It's ready."
And yes, beyond the mutual arousal of being completely naked with one another again after so many years, there was sweet tenderness in the moments that followed. Edward weaved his fingers through mine and helped me over the tub's rim like a turn-of-the-century gentleman might've assisted his lady over a puddle. Once in the confines of the tub, despite the space's acute perimeter and the visual proof of Edward's desire, rather than crushing me against him, Edward turned me so that my back rested against his chest. Then…he held me wrapped in his embrace while the shower's hot mist swirled around us and dappled our skin.
With a deep breath, as if breaking himself out of a trance, he eventually asked, "Are we washing your naturally grown, organic crown?"
He gathered my curls in a loose fist. I, too, felt as if I'd been lulled into a dream. But now I
claimed the gathered length of curls from him and wound them into a bun, all the while aware of the hard protrusion pressed against my lower spine.
"I don't mind if my hair gets a bit wet, but I don't want to go through the whole washing and drying process. It's an ordeal."
Edward chuckled. "I'll keep the crown from getting too wet." When he released me, I made to turn, but his lips brushed my nape, and my back instinctively arched.
"Edward…"
His soapy hands soon caressed my shoulders in a circular pattern, then dipped to my breasts. He massaged each mound, lathering them before moving on to my stomach, then trailing sudsy palms to my backside, foaming each cheek.
"Jay-sus, Edward…" I breathed.
He kissed my shoulder. "You had a long day, Izzy, flying here from the west coast to give your man the best surprise of his damn life. Let me show you that I appreciate your surprise more than mere words could ever express."
"What you call a display of appreciation, I call torture."
A throaty chuckle escaped him, but I understood what he was doing. Knowing I was the recipient of so much care and nurturing tightened my throat. So I stood there and allowed him to show me his appreciation with hands encircling my hips and meeting between my thighs. My breath erupted like broken sighs as he washed me front to back, then crouched behind me to soap my inner thighs, followed by each leg.
"Brace yourself on me and carefully pick up each foot," he instructed, tapping my right foot. My legs were halfway to giving out, so I anchored myself on his shoulders as he washed my right foot and left. As he stood up, his soapy hands ran a trail up the inside of my thighs, and I felt his warm breath like a breeze. When he was at his full height, I rested my back against his chest.
Edward wrapped me tightly against his frame, his lips brushing back and forth from shoulder to shoulder. We remained that way for a few moments, the water's mist and the familiar, clean scent of his soap cocooning us, the juxtaposition of his tender nurturing and erotic fondling making me breathless.
"Your heart is racing," he murmured.
"If I pass out, you'll have no one but yourself to blame. I can't decide whether you're being a really caring boyfriend or a supremely teasing lover," I managed to say.
"Why can't I be both?" he whispered huskily in my ear. "I've already confessed to love-lusting you."
"Yeah," I nodded, "I love-lust you, too."
Nudging me under the water's spray, Edward washed off the soap while minding not to wet my hair more than was unavoidable, as he promised. Humming in pleasure, I shut my eyes and lifted my face to the hot water.
"Edward, do you happen to have an extra toothbrush handy? Mine's in my luggage."
"Yeah." He stepped out of the shower and returned with a brand new toothbrush, squeezing toothpaste on its bristles before handing it to me.
"Thank you," I smiled, then turned around to brush my teeth. I heard him moving around and looked over my shoulder to find him prepping to step out of the tub again.
"Where are you going?" I asked quickly, toothpaste still in my mouth.
"To grab us towels. I already showered before you got here, Iz."
"Oh no, you don't," I garbled, then quickly spit out the toothpaste, turning back to Edward. It's my turn to show you appreciation."
While he chuckled and climbed back in, I rinsed my mouth, then lathered up my hands. He grinned lasciviously as I tugged his arms and pulled him under the spray. Like the autumn leaves that scampered outside his front door, his wet locks darkened - copper into mahogany, then into auburn, growing silkier rather than brittle. Water droplets glistened like diamonds on his chest before cascading to his stomach and further down. Before I grew too distracted, I plucked him out from the spray and, facing him, I washed him shoulders to pecks to abs, creating a gauzy foam. His stomach contracted at my touch, then even more sharply when my breasts rubbed against his chest as I circled to his muscular back, then ran my hands down to his buttocks before returning to the front. Catching his eye, I soaped him from base to tip and back.
Edward drew in a sharp hiss, then grunted, his fury-resembling expression again appearing—a deeply furrowed brow over dark, hooded eyes, his gaze searing. Yet he said nothing, following me with his eyes as I continued, then crouched down to wash his legs and feet. As I straightened, I remained close to his body, lifting my eyes and blinking innocently as my nose grazed his tip.
A sound that was half chuckle, half groan escaped him, and he shot me a crooked smile.
"You are definitely a teasing lover."
"Who, me?"
Smirking, he stepped back into the spray and washed off, a heart-stopping sight as he lifted his face to the water, his large hands pushing back his wet hair, muscular arms flexing. He turned off the shower and yanked open the door, stepping out and grabbing a pair of towels from a cabinet. Setting one on the sink's rim, he helped me out of the shower and wrapped me up first.
"Thank you."
"No problem, my love." He wrapped the other towel around his hips, gazing at me with a serene tenderness before brushing warm lips against mine. When he scooped me up this time, he did so languidly, slowly walking us back to his bedroom, our mouths melded together the whole way. I felt him sit, and I opened my eyes as he situated me sideways on his lap, seated at the edge of his bed. Zeus slept peacefully on an oversized pillow under a large window overlooking the Manhattan skyline, sparkling like stars. The German Shepard either heard or sensed us, but when he batted an eye open, he appeared unimpressed and quickly closed it.
I chuckled. "He's lost interest in us."
"Good," Edward said, peeling off my towel. It fell on the wooden floors. Then, lifting his hips, Edward yanked off his towel.
"What was the point of wrapping ourselves up in them?"
"So I could unwrap us," he grinned. "I've got condoms in my duffel."
I shook my head. "I'm on the pill. We don't need them – unless you prefer-"
He kissed me. "Izzy, since the day you walked into TLC, I've dreamed of making love to you on this bed." He dropped his eyes, then lifted them and took me in through a sheepish gaze. "Honestly, I've dreamed of it much longer."
I cupped his cheek. "You've confessed that to me…and I've confessed to you that, even when I probably shouldn't have been dreaming of you, I did."
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug and swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "I never thought we'd make love again. I thought my dreams and memories of us were all I'd ever have."
Gently, I pressed my lips to his. "Show me what you dreamed," I breathed, "and I'll show you what I dreamed."
Edward nodded. Then, gripping my waist, he eased us back over the mattress and stopped. I wedged his hips between my thighs and flattened my palms on his chest.
"Like this?" I asked.
He smiled, his fingertips cleaving my hips with undeniable pressure while his thumbs traced soothing circles.
"For starters."
"For starters, huh?" The words erupted in a quiver.
"Mhm," he replied in the same shaky manner. And with no further delay, I lifted my hips and sank over him.
Edward's hips bucked, and for a moment, we both stilled, frozen in that raised position. My mouth fell open around a wordless cry, eyes falling shut. Slowly, he lowered his hips to the bed…and we began our age-old dance.
"Izzz," he hissed, "I've missed you so damned much."
"Edward, I…I…"
The lilting roll of his hips made it almost impossible to think, much less speak. His searing gaze stole my breath so that I struggled for the acuity to tell him along with show him. But I managed.
"I love you."
It erupted like a sigh. Then Edward sat up under me and devoured my mouth, his hips jutting, hands wandering and anchoring around my hips, my waist, my arms in a fearlessly tight grip. With another groan, he lay down again and fastened me to his hips in a rhythm that alternated between agitated frenzy and controlled grind. For an endless moment, he watched me sway, our gazes locking then hungrily wandering. We were like kids in a candy shop with too much to see and taste. Like shipwrecked passengers returning from a desert island. We were eager and wide-eyed, overtaken by a heady mix of the novel and the familiar. Our mouths met and broke apart, locked around shoulders, pecs, and breasts. Where each enjoyed being touched and stroked, the angles that drew loud gasps and hissed grunts, all these rushed back to us. Yet the significant changes gave our well-established tempo an updated staccato.
Again, Edward sat, carefully flipping us around while taking care not to interrupt our connection. With my back on the mattress now, he gained control over his thrusts, pulling back and watching himself move in and out, then tightening the angle to drive in deeper. That expression, the one resembling fury but which was passion, marked every grunt and every hard line. His strokes gained momentum, and when the friction triggered that fiery flash of heat and sent it rushing, spreading from my scalp to my core and beyond, Edward slid an arm under my spine and pinned us together hipbone to hipbone. As one, we cried out.
For a fleeting second amid our euphoria, a long-ago memory surfaced…then sank back in favor of the sight and sounds Edward made reaching his release.
The first time Edward and I slept together, we were twenty-one and nineteen, respectively. Neither of us was a virgin, but neither were we that experienced. We were frenetic in our haste and our actions. I recall us rolling around in his twin-sized bed, trying not to fall off as we went at it like Olympic competitors trying to beat one another out of the gold. That breakneck speed continued once Edward was inside me – a few quick thrusts, and it was over. Though his mouth made sure I ended satisfied, it wasn't the sex that made our first time memorable. It was the afterward, the tender kisses, the way we held one another as the post-coital aftershocks shook us. It was how we fell asleep and then awoke, limbs tangled on that tiny bed. It was so much more than the act itself.
This time, our lovemaking itself was mind-blowing. Yet it was still the afterward that made it everything and more.
Afterward, we lay blissfully knotted, arms around frames, hearts lined up and racing together. We kissed off and on, offering one another those initial, breathless, post-coital thoughts that I'm sure many couples who, for a plethora of reasons, haven't slept together in a long time do.
"That was…can't even…"
"Better than I could've…"
"Yeah...yeah."
Our heartbeats regulated amid sighs and sated silence. Edward's toes skimmed my calves, and my fingertips outlined the shape of his tattoo.
"Did you ever consider removing this?"
"Not for a second."
Abruptly, I thought of how close we'd come to never again having this. That day, just a few weeks ago, I could've walked past TLC's nondescript door and never known what lay past the rickety staircase. I could've taken a different directional turn when I escaped my birthday party and never known the life-changing difference between a right versus a left turn. I could've remained at my birthday party and never known the second chance that awaited me a few twists and turns away.
Smiling, I banished those could'ves. Edward was correct; they were pointless.
"Do you recall those aliens you used to be obsessed with?"
Edward brushed warm lips against my temple and ran gentle fingers through my tangled curls. He replied with a hoarse chuckle, one of a man contentedly worn out.
"Not that I'd phrase it that way, but yeah, go on."
"Once, a couple of years after we broke up, I happened to catch one of those movies you were always talking about, the one with Tom Cruise and the Octopi aliens?"
"Ahh. I know which one. That was a good one."
"Anyway, I had a strange thought while I watched it, that if an alien race would've come down to Earth-"
"Those specific aliens from that movie were already burrowed beneath the Earth's surface, so they wouldn't have come down to Earth, per-" he cut himself off when I lifted my head and quirked a brow at him. "Never mind. Continue."
"I thought to myself that if an alien race would've come down to Earth, hell-bent on destruction, and would've seen us…would've seen you and me, making love, they would've had no clue where one human ended, and the other began. Then they would've been so mesmerized by how passionately two humans could join that they would've changed their minds about destroying Earth – only to change their minds again once we broke up. At which point, the Octopi aliens would've pulverized the entire planet."
Edward was quiet. When I lifted my head and met his eyes, amusement danced behind them. Rolling my eyes, I set my head back on his chest and bit his pec.
"Ow!" Chuckling, he drew me up. "You don't know how much I love that plotline. It would make a great movie. Just one problem, love. Well, two."
"What are they?"
"For one, in that particular movie, the aliens were more intent on grinding humans into milkshakes than on world destruction. More importantly," he grinned in answer to my smirk, "any world destruction based on our breakup would've turned out to be premature. If those aliens would've just waited nineteen years – a mere drop in the bucket of time for them, if not for us – things would've ended very differently, and the whole of Earth wouldn't have deserved pulverization after all."
I nodded. "That's exactly what I was thinking while we made love just now."
"That's what you were thinking while we made love?" Edward wrapped me in his arms and nestled me against his frame. "Well, then, I'm going to have to step up my sex game if that's what you-" When I smacked his bare chest, he cut himself off with a blissful chuckle.
"I'm going to ignore that deep dive for more compliments to your sex game. But I did think to myself that I'll be eternally grateful for Part Twos, where you can somehow undo everything that went wrong in Part One but keep the good bits. The great bits."
"Part Twos," Edward echoed. He kissed me tenderly, then set me on top of his chest again, situating me just right. I drifted off.
Before I fell asleep, I heard him sigh and breathe,
"Thank God in heaven for Part Twos."
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