Chapter 41

Bella propped herself up on one elbow in Edward’s bed so she could study his face in the dim morning light.

No bruising - that was good. He insisted that his grandmother hadn’t hit him hard enough to leave a mark, but he winced when he tried to chew the Chinese take-out they’d ordered last night. He agreed to put ice on it after dinner at her and Alice’s insistence. It looked like it had helped.

Bella reached out to run the tips of her fingers gingerly over the contour of his square jaw, relaxed now in sleep. He made a small noise and stirred slightly, pressing the other side of his face into the pillow. She turned her hand so the backs of her fingers glided lightly along the stubble that covered the lower half of his face and crept down his neck. His beard was a thick, dark blond that served to somehow heighten his sculpted appearance. He was already a work of art, in Bella’s eyes. Any attempt to duplicate him in pencil could only be a pale imitation.

He murmured again, turning his face into her touch this time. The sound was low and throaty, rumbling up from his chest - an instant aphrodisiac to her. Bella wondered if he would be in the mood this morning. He certainly wasn’t last night, and she didn’t blame him. He and Alice were obviously still a bit shell-shocked from their grandmother’s behavior earlier. What was meant to be a fun night in the Cullen house turned out to be a subdued evening watching old movies from the living room couch. Jasper Whitlock had joined them after supper, and Bella could see that Alice derived the same kind of peace from being with him that she did from Edward. She only hoped it worked in reverse - that he found peace in her.

She’d loved their low-key night together. She had never spent that kind of time with him, just cuddling on the couch, watching TV and making small talk with him, his cousin and her boyfriend. The ordinariness of it was comforting. It made her think this could work - that her relationship with Edward could hold up in the real world. She still felt disconcertingly like Cinderella racing away in her pumpkin carriage every time she climbed in her rusty red truck to leave Edward.

He sighed a little, the corners of his delectable lips turning upward. She could see his eyes stirring under their lids, making his long lashes flutter ever so slightly. He was about to awaken. The anticipation bubbled through her veins and stretched her mouth into a sheepish smile. She knew she ought to feel guilty for waking him, but the sight of him stirring to life was too wondrous to regret.

“Hey,” she whispered at the first sight of his eyes peering through their fringe of lashes. She let her fingers trail over his beard one last time before falling to the mattress below his pillow.

“Hey,” he mumbled back, his voice thick and low with sleep. His grin quickly matched hers.

“Do you feel okay this morning?”

He nodded and stretched a little. “I felt better when you were touching me, though.”

They both let out a small laugh and Bella obediently reached for his face once more. “Are you sore?”

“No.” His lips twitched slightly when her fingertips neared his chin.

“Liar.” She stopped and gently probed the bruised part of his jaw. “You’re still tender, right here.”

“Yeah, well . . .” He trailed off and shrugged his shoulder. “Who knew my grandmother had such a mean right hook?”

He played it off like a joke, but she didn’t laugh. She cupped her hand around the uninjured side of his face and leaned in closer. “I’m sorry she hurt you.”

Her eyes told him she knew where the pain really was, deep in his chest. But she touched her lips softly to his bruised jaw, and the pleasure it gave him eased the ache inside.

“She didn’t mean to,” he said. “She was scared. I shouldn’t have leaned over her like that to grab those photos - she saw it as a threat, an attack. I should have known better. I wasn’t thinking.”

Bella frowned and turned his face toward hers. “Don’t you dare blame yourself. She was irrational. The disease made her lash out, but it wasn’t at you. She loves you. All you were trying to do was remind her of that.”

The ache inside Edward intensified, but it was a wholly different one from the pain of losing his grandmother. It was the ache of being filled with love for this girl and her efforts to comfort him. He was brimming over, bursting at the seams with it.

He reached under the covers to find the warmth of her slight body and pull her closer. His hand skimmed over his own t-shirt and boxer shorts that she’d borrowed to sleep in. He exhaled heavily at the memory of her begging to put on the shirt he’d been wearing all day. He smiled now, remembering the way she’d carelessly tossed her bra over the nearest chair, wriggled her naked torso into his t-shirt, then let it fall over those spectacular little tits so they could taunt him from beneath their thin cotton veil. Best of all, she’d sighed and wrapped her arms around herself, claiming that the heat and smell of him still clinging to the fabric was heaven.

This was his heaven, here and now. Waking up to this girl who’d held him all night, even when he jerked awake with a shout after he dreamed that his grandmother had fallen down the stairs and he was unable to catch her. This girl who’d kissed his jaw so many times last night and this morning that he began to believe there were healing powers in her lips.

“Thank you,” he said, pulling her close to him under the covers.

“For what?” she asked. She snuggled into him, limbs entwining with his.

“Being you,” he said. He slid his hand up her back, into her hair. “Being here. With me.”

“Where else would I be?” she asked, in that tone that added, silly boy.

He didn’t want to think about the answer to that. Bella never seemed to see all her options, or at least consider them.

“I love you,” she reminded him softly. “You would be there for me, if the situations were reversed.”

And just like that, she put things in perspective for him, as always. He wouldn’t think twice if she were the one in need. For that matter, he required no such incentive to be with her. It was increasingly difficult for him to be anywhere else.

He hoped his eyes spoke for him as he pulled her into a good-morning kiss. “I love you” was hopelessly inadequate, but he said it anyway, between sticky morning-breath smooches. Every time he remembered her reluctance to kiss him that first morning-after, he would grin and then kiss her more deeply, with more urgency.

She was over such niceties, anyway. They were false and feeble protests from the start. She had been nothing but raw and open with him since that first night, stripping him to his bare essence and willing him to do the same to her.

They had always been this way with one another, and now was no different. They pulled impatiently at each other’s clothes until their naked skin made contact. The heat danced between them, urging their bodies to move in time with the flames. They grasped at one another, desperate to be closer, and before Edward’s brain could kick into gear, his erection was sinking into that warm, wet home between Bella’s legs.

He cursed softly to himself as he slid in deeper. It wasn’t safe to do this. Not yet. Still, he asked her anyway, though he already knew the answer.

“How long have you been on the pill?”

“A week.” Her face registered her own disappointment.

He nodded and reluctantly withdrew from her, rolling away long enough to open the nightstand drawer and grab a foil packet. He removed the condom from within, sheathed himself as quickly as possible and scooted right back to Bella. She hadn’t moved - she was still lying on her side, facing him. He pulled the bed covers all the way down, exposing her pale and lovely form to his appreciative gaze. Like an alabaster statue in a museum, her beauty was surreal, almost too exquisite to touch.

Almost.

He knelt next to her and reached one hand out to the delicate bones of her ankle, encircling it easily with his fingers. He lifted gently, pulling her leg upward. He pressed his lips to the arch of her foot, right at the sensitive instep. His mouth followed the ivory path over her ankle and up the back of her calf to the crook of her knee; then down the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh to the swollen proof of her arousal. He tickled the bright pink skin of her folds with the tip of his tongue before pushing it into her creamy opening. He moaned at the taste - he would never tire of it.

And she would never tire of being tasted. She squirmed at the almost unbearable pleasure of his wet mouth teasing her, and the intoxicating heat of his hand gripping the back of her knee, rendering her immobile. She couldn’t close her legs if she wanted to.

She didn’t want to, but she whimpered at the relentless explorations of his mouth, and then his other hand. They worked in tandem, gently stroking, probing, pushing deep inside her. She moaned again, unable to contain it. How did he still do this to her? Take her to that place where nothing existed but spiraling ecstasy.

She gasped in both disappointment and relief when he pulled away for a moment. But he was only repositioning himself, straddling her lower leg and effectively pinning her to the mattress. He lifted her raised leg higher, so her ankle rested on his shoulder, opening her wide to receive his rigid cock hovering nearby. With his free hand he grasped himself, rubbing the head up and down her clitoris before teasing her opening. And then he pushed in slowly with gentle strokes, deeper and deeper, until she didn’t think she could take any more.

But his pelvis was insistent, grinding into hers, making sure every inch of him was swallowed inside her. This position was yet another first for her, taking his cock sideways, so that his penetration was utter and complete. He groaned with each stroke now, his thrusts pushing her hip upward, his skin smacking against hers at the impact. She grasped at the pillow she’d slept on and groaned along with him. He was so deep inside her, she wasn’t sure if it was pleasure or pain she was feeling. She wondered if he was bruising her cervix. Could that happen?

He recognized that tense look on her face. He saw it the night he took her virginity. He slowed his movements and gently kissed her ankle, trailing his lips down her calf once more. Then he ran his hand down her leg, over hip and down her back, while the other reached out to caress her arm, her breasts, her stomach. He stroked her body up and down until she sighed and relaxed. He ended by swirling his fingers between her legs, massaging her sex rhythmically while he slowly picked up the pace again, sliding his cock a little deeper each time. Her moans were definitely filled with more pleasure than pain now. He loved reading her this way; gauging her responses and then adjusting his lovemaking accordingly.

He realized he’d never used that term in his life, even in his head. Making love. It always sounded silly to him; old-fashioned and trite. He smiled a little now, but he was ready to cut the phrase some slack. Maybe he’d never used it because he’d never loved anyone before.

He looked down at Bella, her hair spread out over the pillow in a wild tangle, fingers gripping the pillow case, forehead furrowed in a mixture of pleasure and pain. Her breathing was heavy, her breasts heaving in time with his thrusts. God, she was beautiful. And the way she felt was beyond compare, like her body was created specifically for his, her snug vagina gripping him like a glove, the way the stupid condom that separated them did.

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted cry. He wanted to come.

“Fuck,” he mumbled in frustration. He withdrew long enough to turn Bella until she lay flat on her back, looking up at him in surprise. He drew her other leg up so that both were raised. He grasped the backs of her knees, pushing her legs open until her glistening pussy was gaping wide before him. The sound of his own ragged breaths rang in his ears as he stared down at her.

“You are the most beautiful thing in the world to me,” he whispered.

She had no chance to reply. She was still staring up at him, slightly stunned, when he let go of her legs and fell into her, lowering himself so abruptly that the breath left her lungs in a rush. She gasped for air; it came out as a cry when he slid his cock back inside her. He quickly smothered her mouth in a kiss, his tongue moving in time with his thrusts, his hands cradling her face to hold her steady. His urgency surprised her for only a moment before it kicked her own needs into overdrive. She writhed compliantly beneath him, her eager hips raising to meet his. Her fingers tangled in his hair, hands gripping his neck to hang on as his hips rolled relentlessly into hers. The weight of his body pressed her into the mattress and made her feel each deep thrust with an intensity that literally shook her to the core.

And yet, as she clung to him, bathed in his sweat and panting breath, she felt something even more palpable than his desire, more poignant than his need.

Love.

He loved her.

Of course, he had told her so on her birthday, and a dozen times since then. He had written it in text messages. Said it on the phone. Murmured it during sex like it was a mantra that would lead him to nirvana.

But his eyes were speaking now, even louder than his body as it strained to become one with hers. She knew he needed her now more than ever, after watching his grandmother’s condition deteriorate a step further yesterday. He was desperate and hurting. He might need something from her that she wasn’t sure she could provide. She could never take away the hurt of losing the person he’d loved as a mother for years.

But she could give him something else. She could love him like he’d never been loved before. Love him with every ounce of her being - her heart, her mind, her body, her soul. They all converged into one as she wrapped her arms and legs around him, pulling him into her, pressing every inch of herself that she could manage against him.

“I love you, Edward,” she whispered, her lips grazing his earlobe, then his cheek. “I love you.” She said it again and again, the way he did a few nights ago, on her birthday. Once he’d said the words out loud, he couldn’t seem to stop, and the bliss she felt was a high from which she never wanted to come down. She was determined to take him there now, to make him feel nothing but happiness in this moment.

But his grunts only became more anguished as he drove into her. The desperation in his eyes was palpable as he came closer and closer to release. She met his wild gaze with a fierce calm, gripping his face firmly, fingers clutching his hair to hold him steady as he drilled her.

“Baby, please,” he gasped, not knowing what he was begging for.

“Give it to me,” she demanded, clamping her vaginal muscles tightly around him, squeezing until the burn began to seep through her belly. “Give it all to me. Everything you have.”

Your love. Your desire. Your virility.

Your pain. Your frustration. Your impotence.

I will take it all, and I will give you everything in return.

Her offer was unspoken, as was his acceptance. He answered only with animalistic groans, plunging his cock between her rigid walls until the delicious friction had its way with him. One last thrust and then he stilled with a panting cry, letting the ecstasy rocket through him and into her, over and over.

He collapsed into her in profound relief. His chaotic thoughts had vanished; his emotions distilled into one easily identified truth. He focused on her face, letting his eyes speak to hers.

You are everything to me.

“Everything,” he whispered, before sealing it with a kiss.

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Edward peeled off the used condom, wrapped it in a tissue and threw it in the trash can under the bathroom sink. He would be glad when he could dispense with these things altogether. Glad when he could just be with Bella, no condoms - or exes, or phony dates - coming between them.

But the light at the end of the tunnel was becoming brighter. His practice time at Charlotte’s had begun yielding results. He could play his recital piece backwards and forwards without error. Now he was tackling the nuances, trying to infuse each passage with the perfect phrasing and volume, legato to staccato, pianissimo to forte. He had studied the sheet music thoroughly and strove to play it exactly as written, while still pouring his own emotion into it, to somehow leave a personal mark.

Charlotte had even talked about hiring a music coach, which he knew would be of great benefit; but he couldn’t bear the thought of her spending any more money on him. The guilt of his debt to her already weighed heavily on him.

He sighed, grabbed a wash cloth and cleaned himself up before heading back to the bedroom. He was already missing the warmth of Bella’s arms, and wanted to spend as much time there as he could before she had to leave for her late-morning class.

He threw the bathroom door open, then came to an abrupt halt. He had almost run smack into someone in the hallway, and that someone was Jasper Whitlock.

The two men stared at each other in mutual consternation for a moment. The realization that Jasper had spent the night with his baby cousin overshadowed Edward’s embarrassment that he’d just been caught stark naked. Fully-clothed Jasper’s own embarrassment was only exacerbated by Edward’s state of undress. He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead as he stammered a red-faced excuse.

“Edward - hey. This is not what it looks like. I didn’t - I wouldn’t take advantage of Alice,” he insisted, shaking his head. “Nothing happened. She just didn’t want to be alone last night. So I stayed with her.”

He seemed to steel himself for Edward’s wrath, but he didn’t back down. Edward found that he rather respected the guy for it. Not that Jasper needed his respect. Who was he to judge anyone else, after the choices he’d made? Especially when he was standing here in the hallway with his Johnson hanging out.

“It’s good that you stayed. She did need someone.” He paused, then clarified, “She needed you. I’m glad you were here for her.”

Jasper returned the half-smile. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

Edward nodded his approval, then moved past Jasper to his own bedroom door. “Alice is a big girl now. She makes her own decisions,” he said over his shoulder. “She doesn’t need my approval.”

“But I know she’d rather have it than not.” Jasper gave him a cautiously hopeful look.

Edward smiled again. “She has it.”

Jasper’s shoulders relaxed in relief as Edward disappeared and closed the bedroom door.

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The kitchen was comfortably quiet, save the sounds of masticating teeth and cutlery on plates. Bella, Edward, Alice and Jasper sat in row at the bar, inhaling their breakfasts like prisoners who’d been given their rations after a long day on the chain gang. Jasper was the one to finally break the silence.

“These pancakes are awesome, man,” he enthused to Edward, reaching around Alice for the syrup bottle. “Seriously good. You could open your own diner.”

“Stop sucking up,” she told him with a giggle. “You already won him over. What about my eggs? I think this is the first time I haven’t overcooked them in the history of . . . ever.”

“That’s because this is only the third time you’ve attempted it,” Edward reminded her with a snort.

“All the more impressive! I’m practically a natural in the kitchen.”

“That you are,” Jasper readily agreed, leaning over and giving her a quick peck on the cheek. “Your eggs are perfect. Delicious. You can make me breakfast any time.”

Bella could practically see Edward bristle, and she almost laughed out loud. Though he knew his little cousin wasn’t that much younger than she was, knowing it and accepting it were two different things. Bella pressed her thigh against his underneath the countertop, making him look over. Her eyes reminded him what he’d told Jasper about Alice being all grown up now. His replied, I know, but I don’t have to like it.

Bella muffled a giggle in her orange juice glass, taking a long draught. Her eyes caught the clock on the wall as she set the glass down, and her mood abruptly shifted. She let out a dejected sigh.

“What is it?” Edward asked softly.

“Just realizing I have to leave soon to get to my art history lecture,” she said.

“Me, too - global politics,” Alice interjected with a groan. “I feel like playing hooky.”

“You just did that yesterday,” Edward reminded her. He left out, with disastrous results.

“I know,” she answered with a frown.

“I have to work right after class is over, so there’s no point in me skipping,” Bella said glumly.

“And I have to work tonight,” Alice added. “But we should try to find a time to get together again, the four of us. Maybe go out and have some fun for a change.”

They all agreed on that plan of action. Moments later, all were checking their cell phones to figure out when they were free. A quick comparison of work and school schedules proved disappointing. The four of them would not be able to get together again for at least a week, though Alice and Bella made plans to meet for lunch on campus a couple of days. Bella was even more dismayed to discover that the only time she and Edward could easily see one another over the next couple of weeks was on Sunday evenings.

Her chest constricted at the prospect of all those days and nights away from him. She knew work and school would keep her busy most of the time, but that didn’t erase the ache she felt inside. Waking up next to him in that massive four-poster bed was a privilege she was loath to give up. She felt connected to him in a way she’d never experienced with any human being before. How was she supposed to live without that now?

Edward seemed to read her mind with little effort. As soon as he’d made sure she was safely buckled into the cab of her truck, he leaned in and pulled her close.

“We’re going to make this work, Bella,” he said softly, his thumb stroking her cheek. “I’ll call you and text you every day. We’ll find time to be together. Even if I have to sneak into your dorm in the middle of the night,” he added with a short laugh.

“You can sneak in every night if you want to,” she answered hopefully.

“Don’t tempt me. I’d do it if I thought your grades wouldn’t suffer from lack of sleep.”

“Fuck my grades,” she said, only half-kidding. And then, wistfully, “Fuck me.”

He flashed a quick grin, but his words were serious. “We’re way past fucking. I want more from you than that.”

“You have it,” she told him.

He nodded. “I know. I’m so grateful for you.” He leaned in and pressed reverent lips to hers. “I don’t know how to repay what you give me. But I’ll find a way.”

He never seemed to tire of saying that, but she was tired of arguing about what he already gave her. So she just smiled weakly and nodded.

“Sunday night,” he reminded her, his voice perking up. “Call me as soon as you get off work. I’ll come pick you up and take you to dinner somewhere. Be thinking about what kind of food you want, and I’ll take you someplace new. Okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed. They shared several prolonged, yearning kisses before she reluctantly left Edward’s home and headed for the UW campus.

Her head was filled with wondering on the drive back, but not about what kind of cuisine she wanted to try Sunday night. She was much more concerned about how she was going to fill the weekend hours until then.

And keep herself from wondering how Edward was filling his.