127A/N for 2019-07-03: Folks, this will be the last chapter for a while. I will finish the story, but as I mentioned in chapter one's author's note, not for some time. Again, my profound thanks to Eeyorefan12 for beta-ing.
In the meanwhile, I am again participating in the Babies at the Border fundraiser, which is soliciting donations to a variety of charities that support asylum seekers being detained at the US border. If you're not sure what the fundraiser is about, I encourage you to look it up the FB group, or the Twitter handle batb_2018. Now, what I write is up to you all. I have put up a poll on my FlamingMapleWrites page on Facebook (address is Facebook DOT com forward slash FlamingMapleWrites), soliciting your requests. Currently, I have the option for an outtake from A Perfect Metaphor, or a more immediate continuation of this story (to be clear, I will finish this story in any case, but if people want it for the complication, I'll give it a much higher priority with my present time). If you have another request, please message me.
Hope you enjoy this last chapter for now.
- Erin
Edward put the ice cream and flowers on his kitchen counter and then let Arco out of his kennel and into the fenced yard.
Bella stood at the island, her heart beating wildly, watching him move once more. The difference was that this time, she knew what his lips felt like on hers.
And she wanted to feel that again.
So when he came back to her and asked, "Bowl or cone?" she answered by reaching for him, as he'd reached for her.
Except she misjudged the distance and fell into his chest, eliciting a "Oof," from them both.
"Wow," she said, righting herself, feeling her face redden. "I am—"
"Beautiful," he whispered. He didn't let her reply, sealing in her words with a kiss. "But definitely a little accident-prone," he murmured into her neck. Reaching down, he swept his arm under her knees, picking her up and carrying her into the living room.
It was easy to relax into his arms, curling up in his lap as he settled them on the couch.
Their kisses were a frenzy, like the flailing of a drowning body, scrambling for life.
"I feel like I need to say that I don't normally do this when I've just met someone," Edward mumbled into her lips.
"Ditto," Bella rasped out, clinging to the seams of his shirt.
Edward's hands slipped under hers, and she moaned. His fingers made her skin shiver with pleasure.
"God, you're addictive, Bella."
"I was thinking the same of you," she breathed out, pulling up the tail of his shirt, kneading the muscles at his back.
He shifted his weight, laying her down on the couch, one hand massaging the hollow of her back, the other the curve of her hip.
This is where you stop things, her brain reminded her. Here. Right now. Before your heart gets broken.
Again.
"Bella," Edward whispered, stilling his hands.
"Yes?"
"I think I've been clear about how I feel about you."
"Yes." Why was he stopping?
"I don't want to screw this up. I think we should stop."
"Oka—wait, what—why?"
Yep, her brain exclaimed cheerfully. Here it comes.
He was leaning over her on his elbows, but their bodies were close enough for her to feel what kind of effect she'd had on him.
"I don't want to stop, but I also don't want you to think I don't respect you, because I do. A lot." His breathing was quick and heavy.
"Are you in any doubt about how I'm feeling about you?" She asked.
"No."
"Good. Because I know you respect me and I don't want to stop."
"Thank God," he muttered.
Then he picked her up and carried her to his bedroom.
These initial worries eliminated, they did likewise with their clothes. Both of their shirts left them fumbling with buttons, though her skirt and his trousers were much more easily dispensed with.
She only had a flutter of nerves when he reached around to unclasp her bra.
He whisked the feeling away with this small garment, whispering, "You're so beautiful," trailing kisses down from her clavicle to her navel. His fingers traced over her scars.
The movements were almost liturgical. Worshipful.
He pulled her to the bed, where their movements slowed and became more careful explorations of each other's curves and secrets.
He was ticklish at his ribs. She was just under her arms.
Their kisses had taken on a lazy quality, slow and appreciative. The way you'd lick ice cream from a cone on a cool summer day.
At her ear, he murmured, "I want to make you feel good."
She wasn't sure what more he could do. She was already in orbit, but didn't object has his kisses moved towards her stomach again, pausing briefly at her breasts.
When his fingers hooked into the waistline of her panties, she stiffened a little. "Trust me," he whispered.
She made her muscles relax, moving so he could slide her underwear off. Then he kissed her where she had most definitely not been kissed before.
She gasped at the sensation, digging her hands first into the bedclothes and then his hair. Head back, she arched into the touch of his tongue. Her mouth made a new language, a garbled production of consonants and vowels that flowed unbidden and unashamed, drawn from her by the sensations he was creating
The orgasm was shocking.
She was glad Edward had only his dog in the way of neighbours.
Edward's kisses returned to her chest and then her neck. "I want you," he whispered.
His underwear had vanished. He needn't have told her what he wanted with words.
The room was dark enough to hide what she knew was a florid blush on her face. "I haven't done this before," she rushed out.
Oh God. There. She'd said it.
She steeled herself for whatever was coming, not able to prevent the near cringe in her face.
Edward paused. "Okay," he breathed, touching her face gently.
"Okay." She exhaled. Nervously.
He caught the sound of it. "Are you sure?" He punctuated this with a kiss to her collar bone, nuzzling there.
She melted into the touch. "Yes."
The next sound she heard was him fishing for something in the drawer by his bed. There was enough light to see the condom wrapper in his hand and then catch a glimpse of him putting it on. Her medical mind made very unprofessional assessments of the specimen before her. She wondered what he'd thought of her.
"You're perfect," he whispered, coming back to her.
"How'd you—?"
"Isn't it what we do? Compare ourselves to what we see in front of us at work?"
She'd tried not to, as much as she could, but nodded. Yes, she had. Thinking this, she added, "You're amazing." She ran her fingers over his cheek and down his neck.
He nipped at them playfully and she giggled.
Their kisses started in earnest again. He hooked his hand around her knee, leaning over her, and she angled her hips upwards.
"Wait," he said, kissing away her groan.
Their bodies slid against each other, the pleasant friction sparking responses in each other's flesh.
When he pushed against her, she tensed, anticipating pain.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Yes." She brought her hands to his face and then her lips. "Yellow tulips amazing."
He pressed her head down into the pillow with his kiss and then himself into her. It was a sting, small and inconsequential, and all the other feelings slipped into the empty place the worry had left.
And such feelings they were.
He was beautiful, and the way he moved was beautiful. She ran her hands over his face, his chest, his back, and then rested at his hips, knowing the pull of the muscles there.
Her body, already quivering from what he'd wrought in it, quavered in deeper notes, startling her with the wave of sensation that spread down her legs, making her toes squish into the duvet. As she slid down from this peak, she felt Edward's body tense, his moan and his arms curling around her, rolling them onto their sides.
Their kisses continued, sweet and breathless. After a little while, the space between these small touches became longer.
"Ice cream?" he asked, twirling a finger in her hair.
"Ice cream," she agreed.
He offered her his robe, pulling his underwear and shirt back on. They sat on his couch, leaning together, feet up on the coffee table.
Arco looked on hopefully, lifting his head and thumping his tail intermittently.
"Are you really going to let him have some?" Bella asked.
"Absolutely. Bottom of the bowl is always his." Finishing the last of his own, Edward set it down on the floor, and Arco stuffed his nose into it, slurping into the bowl like it was the first food he'd seen in days.
"I do feed him. I swear."
"I can tell." Bella lifted an eyebrow, watching this display, and then put her own, slightly fuller bowl beside Edward's.
Arco gave Bella the most profound of dog looks, farted, and then stuck his face into her bowl.
Edward snorted out a chuckle.
His hand found hers. "It's late." His voice was husky. "Stay the night?" His thumb brushed over hers.
Stay the night.
And then what? She thought. Or rather, now what?
She squeezed his hand back. "I think our date is officially over, wouldn't you say?"
"Not at all." He shifted so he was facing her, elbow in the back of the sofa, head resting on his hand.
"I mean, I was just thinking, this is a lot more than a date."
He squeezed her hand. "I hope so."
From the tension in his jaw, Bella knew it was a lot more than hope at work for him.
"I'm trying to figure out how this is going to work," she said. Could it even?
He took a long breath in, releasing it slowly. "Yeah. I've been trying not to think about that. Because I don't have any easy answers."
She squeezed back on his hand. No. There were no easy answers.
"But it's late, and I know that things almost always look better in the morning." He pulled his hand away, sliding it around her waist, nudging her closer. "Not to set up any unrealistic expectations about what I look like in the morning."
Laughing, she snuggled into him.
"Okay, I'll stay."
Sharing his bed again, Bella's mind drifted, tangling with very real worries, only to be grounded by some nudge of Edward's equally real form beside her. Not able to fully commit to sleep yet, she rested on her elbow, fingers twirling in the copper of Edward's hair, remembering how easy it was to be with him and how pleasurable too.
More than that, was the near ache that threatened at the thought of not being with him.
God help me, she thought and then snorted quietly. She'd given up on God ages ago.
God hadn't sent back her lost cat, or restored her body, or mended her broken heart, and he certainly hadn't answered when she'd asked to be released from the world.
No. There was no God to help her here.
"But there's me, and there's you," she murmured softly, still fingering his hair. "And yellow tulips."
And so she fell, finally, into sleep, daring to dream that being hopelessly in love meant they weren't doomed to fail, but instead, to survive . . . and even endure.
