Y'all know who I thank (ahem, KatieTv and Sugartits because they are awesome). I also want to thank BelleDean of Twimpage for the awesome review today and kstewfangirl for rec'ing me as a Fic that's Pwning You on The Fictionators. Hello new readers (waves hand emphatically) so cool to see you here!
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Clouds of sulfur in the air
Bombs are falling everywhere
It's heartbreak warfare
Once you want it to begin
No one ever really wins
It's heartbreak warfare
~~Heartbreak Warfare, John Mayer
Bombs are falling everywhere
It's heartbreak warfare
Once you want it to begin
No one ever really wins
It's heartbreak warfare
~~Heartbreak Warfare, John Mayer
~~~~~~~
~~BPOV~~
I tip-toed up to the cabin just after daybreak to find a meditating Zafrina on the porch. She said nothing as I slipped by her but I knew she heard me even though she didn't open her eyes. I paced in the living room for a moment before peeking my head back out the open door.
"I guess you're wondering where I've been," I said to her tranquil face.
"Nope," she answered.
"Nothing happened."
She exhaled and kept her eyes closed. "I don't need or expect an explanation. Last I checked, my name wasn't Jiminy Cricket."
I didn't have anything to say to that and since I was probably bugging her anyways, I retreated to my room. I caught sight of my face in the mirror above the dresser and was glad my confession was shrouded by her eyelids. There was no way she'd have believed me with this shit eating grin on my face and I was totally full of shit. Nothing happened? Who was I kidding?
After I discovered my willpower was stronger than I ever imagined I thought maybe we shouldn't continue down the path we started. When Edward finally released my forehead from his lips I turned to reach for the door mumbling an explanation he ignored.
"Please stay Bella."
I heard his words again and shivered at the mirror. I couldn't tell him no. I let him wrap his arm around my waist and slide me across the seat. He folded me into him and I laid my head against him letting my legs stretch across the bench seat. I didn't know what to do with my hands but he didn't seem to have that problem. His right arm circled around me and landed on my hip. He slid his hand just beneath the waist band of my pants to touch my skin and I bucked as his cold fingers pressed into the heat of my flesh.
"God you are so soft."
He breathed his words to me and I clamped down on my lip afraid of what would come out of my mouth. I pressed my eyes tightly now remembering how he whispered the way I'd feel against satin sheets. I couldn't answer him anymore. I couldn't beg him to stop. I'd pleaded my case and he knew this would go nowhere. He was determined, however, to make sure I knew how much he wished to fuck me and I was more than happy to listen.
I dropped my jeans to the floor and added my shirt and bra to the pile. I slid into the cool sheets and recalled his icy fingers as my nipples peaked. I didn't have the energy to follow through on their interest. I'd spent the last eight hours in such a heightened sense of arousal that I was afraid what might happen if I gave into it. I sighed and turned over running my hand across my hip. I heard him again.
"Do you feel like this everywhere?"
His words were laced with desire and I couldn't help but moan a response. I had felt him against my back. He slowly skimmed his fingertips across me, tracing the lines of my hip bone always stopping before he dipped too low. I had felt all the blood rush to his touch and was hot beneath the wool blanket despite the chilly outside air. He repeated this motion for hours stopping now and again to run his fingers against the edge of my waistband, and I spent those hours barely breathing.
"I told you I knew how to touch you, Bluebell."
The whimper that escaped my lips now, at just the memory, was the same as it was in that car. Eventually we both drifted in and out of sleep. A few times I felt his lips in my hair or on the back of my neck but I could have been dreaming. My dreams were so filled with him and this night that separating truth from fiction was a challenge. I probably called his name while I slept imagining him doing all the things I'd told him not to.
He had pushed his nose against my cheek to wake me as the sky began to lighten and pulled the blanket tighter around us. I knew I didn't imagine the kiss I felt near my ear nor the one on my fingertips that had, at some point, become entangled with his. I frowned when he whispered, "time to get you home kiddo," but didn't argue. I let one tear slip from my eye and just nodded pretending it was the light and the salty air that caused it. It was one thing to be drunk and inappropriate in the dark of night but daylight couldn't hide what this really was.
So while nothing happened in the sense that I didn't physically let him inside me, he was in me in every other way imaginable. His touched hummed in my blood, my skin still buzzed where his fingers had been. Every word he said played through my mind like my favorite song on repeat. When I closed my eyes he was still there. Even a blind man could have seen it all on my face. I couldn't have hid it from Zafrina and I couldn't hide it from myself anymore.
But today was the day I had to leave him here and go back to my life. I had no idea how I would do it but I knew that I had to. For the sake of my family, my life, I had to.
There were only a few hours until the lunchtime keynote address, the culmination of the week, the reason I'd come in the first place. I begged my mind for respite and sleep. At least I could dream of Edward, then he'd never really be gone.
~~~~~~~
"Thank you for asking me here to share what little wisdom I have on this craft we call writing. I've never seen myself as an expert on the subject and for you all to view me that way is humbling. I'll leave you now with the words of the great Anais Nin, 'the role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.' Thank you."
A shattering applause spread across the room as the author that inspired me to write beamed from the podium. Zafrina and I had arrived early and found seat at a table right in front. The podium was flanked by long banquet tables where the authors who taught and presented all week were seated. Although Edward sat right in front of me, he politely kept his eyes to himself and let me listen to the words that made me determined to pen a novel. I think I may have even teared up when she described writing chapter notes on the back of a cereal box because her children would demand her attention if she dared to pull out her laptop.
She was doing exactly what I thought I couldn't do. She was a wife, a mother and a writer. She scurried away moments of her day to find time to write. Those moments and words added up until she had a chapter and then a book. She juggled swim meets and soccer tournaments with deadlines and press tours. She refused to feel guilt at doing anything that took her away from her family because she knew that in the end she was more to them as a whole person. And right now she was the wind beneath my self-doubting wings.
"Thank you, Elizabeth. We are honored to have you as our guest," said Maria, one of the main organizers of the conference, "and I am sorry to you all that she will not be able to stay for a meet and greet following the luncheon but she does have to leave straight for the airport. But, in an extremely generous gesture, she has left copies of her new novel for all of you!"
The room exploded in applause again and I watched as Elizabeth waved to the crowd and squeezed Edward's shoulder before sitting down. Maria went on to thank each author at the head table and all the attendees. She encouraged us all to return next year and announced the luncheon and thus the conference was over. I brought my hands together in front of a heavy heart and added to the clapping around me. The room became a bustle of activity as everyone said their goodbyes and prepared to go.
I watched as Edward stood and Elizabeth came back over to embrace him. Her hair was cut in a chic bob and she wore a dove grey pantsuit and heels. She looked sophisticated and down-to-earth at the same time. He whispered in her ear and she pulled him by the hand out onto the patio. They ducked their heads into one another and spoke quietly. She reached out to take his chin and gave him a sad smile just as his eyes focused on mine and he reached out to motion me over. I shook my head to indicate I didn't want to interrupt but he ignored me and called my name. I made my way out the door and Edward introduced me to my idol.
"Elizabeth, I would like you to meet Bella, a very promising young writer from the class I led this week."
"Bella, it's a pleasure to meet you," she said grasping my hand and radiating a warm smile. "If you captured Edward's interest you must be quite the writer. Tell me, what are you working on?"
I returned the handshake and fought to find the the words to speak through the awestruck. "Um, nothing specific yet. But today you motivated me to start the novel I've always wanted to write."
"Oh, sweetheart! You're too kind. Well like I said, if he's says you're wonderful, than it must be so. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before I see your name in print. I hate to dash off on you guys but I have to. I have a flight to New York this afternoon. Edward, I meant what I said, it's been far too long. We'll lunch soon, right?"
"Yes ma'am. Please give the family my best. Hope to see you all again soon," he replied as they embraced again and she waved to me before being shuttled away by her people.
"Edward," I whispered struggling for breath, "I can not believe that just happened. How do you...? Why did you...? What just happened?"
He laughed and bent in to me. "I noticed during her lecture that you hung on every word. I thought you might like to meet her."
"Like is the understatement of the year. That was incredible. She's the reason I came here."
"Is she? That shouldn't surprise me. I already owe her for some of the best things in my life."
"How do you know her?" I said, choosing to ignore his last comment. Okay, not ignore it but file it away for later when I needed something to make me melt.
"It's a funny story really. She was my creative writing professor my first year in college. She was the first person to really encourage me to write and I thought she was crazy even though she was a phenomenal teacher and writer. We became really close and I even lived for awhile in the apartment above the garage at their house. She's like a second mother. My author mother, she's taught me everything I know about this world."
"That is incredible. I am so jealous. We had nothing like that a little old Peninsula College."
"Is that where you went to school? I haven't heard of it."
"Yeah, you wouldn't have. It's a little community college in the thriving metropolis of Port Angeles. I got my associates there and then completed my bachelor's online through the University of Washington."
"That's a good school. What's your degree in?"
"Bachelor's of Arts in English, duh. What else would I want to study?"
He laughed and pushed my hair back behind my ear. "I had no idea you went to college."
"You thought I was naturally this brilliant?"
"You are," he said with his lopsided grin.
My heart rolled over and I chewed my lip thinking of how he confessed he wanted to kiss me when I did it. I noticed that the room behind us had mostly cleared and we were, once again, wrapped up in each other and oblivious.
"Nope, sorry. I paid good money for these smarts."
"Beauty and brains, you are the whole package Bella Swan," he said, glancing down at my white cotton sundress and the waves I didn't straighten from my hair. "When do you leave?"
I frowned. There was no more pretending this could go on forever. "Now. My bags are packed and ready to go. I'm on the next shuttle to the airport. What about you?"
"I have to go soon too. Made a deal with the old lady. I'm going to burn rubber back to L.A. and make it just in time for the premier. Might not even have time to change." He ran his hands down his chest smoothing the vintage cowboy shirt, the ring on his right hand catching on the pearl snaps. I looked at his standard dark cuffed jeans and boots and grinned.
"I think you look just fine as you are," I said and turned my smile into a frown. "I really have to go."
"Let me drive you?" he pleaded reaching out to take my hands in his. A light breeze came off the ocean and blew his scent straight into me. I swallowed him down and ignored the sting in my eyes.
"You can't. It's the opposite direction. I'd make you late."
"I want to."
"No, I'm sorry," I said shaking my head. "I have to leave you here Edward, exactly as I found you. I can't take you with me, even for part of the way."
Edward was silent for a moment rubbing his thumbs in my palms. "Alright. I understand. But know something first. You are not leaving me at all how you found me."
"Edward," I said, my voice cracking, "I know you know this can't be real life. You and me, there's no place for it in the real world."
He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed before dropping my hands and wrapping his arms around me. He held me against his chest and spoke into my hair. "Maybe not. But this is the place for us in this world. Please come back, Bella. I'll be here, waiting."
I bit into my cheek to feel something other than the ache in my heart. "Same time, next year?" I finally managed to whisper out.
"Same time, next year," he promised.
~~~~~~~
~~I'd love reviews more than you'd love Edward's fingertips under your waistband~~
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