Chapter 10

EPOV

On the train back from Queens, Bella seemed very quiet. She just leaned against my side, looking out the window at the passing scenery.

“Are you alright?” I asked, snapping her out of her thoughts. She turned to look at me, her eyes looking tired and, above all, sad. It was heartbreaking to see my beautiful girl look like that.

Yes, I just said “my beautiful girl”. So what if she wasn’t technically mine yet? Right now, she was the only girl for me.

She tried to give me a watery smile, and I saw a tear come to her eye. “Hey, hey. None of that. We’re supposed to be having fun, remember?”

“I’m sorry, I’m just being stupid.” She scrunched up her face in an attempt to stop the tears from falling, but they still seemed to escape her lids. No Bella, please don’t cry. Every time I saw her cry was like a knife in the heart. I knew she was in pain and I could do nothing about it. I hated that.

“Shh, Bella,” I whispered as I took her face in my hands, wiping her tears away with my thumbs.

“Edward, I-” Bella started before biting her lip and more tears fell down her face.

“Please don’t cry anymore. You’re too beautiful to cry.” I didn’t realize the last part I had said out loud until Bella stopped breathing all together. Her eyes wide like a deer trapped in the headlights.

Oh shit, what did I just do?   

“Bella?” She was still just staring at me while my hands were holding her face. I brushed my thumb across her cheek, and Bella took a huge breath in, her face coming back to life.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” I asked worriedly. Bella ignored my question, and just gaped at me.

“Y-you just can’t say shit like that.” What?!

“What are you talking about?” To say I was confused was an understatement.

“That I’m too beautiful to cry. I know it’s not true, but you sweep women off their feet with lines like that, Cullen.” Jesus Christ this woman was hard to read! Her thought process was ridiculous. How could she not believe it was true?

“Bella,” I said reverently as I gazed into her eyes. Her eyes seemed to melt into liquid chocolate as her gaze met mine. “It’s true. You are too beautiful to cry.” I needed her, I wanted her. Right now. “Too beautiful.” I whispered before capturing her lips with mine, my grip on her face not allowing her to turn her head this time. I was taking control. I kissed her hard, putting all that pent up tension into one kiss. Bella’s lips moved with my mine easily, and I moved my tongue along her lip, hoping to gain entry to her mouth. Bella shivered and wrapped her hands up into my hair, meeting her tongue with mine. I forgot I was on a crowded subway car, I forgot everyone else existed. It was just us, right here, right now. I moaned into her mouth.

Everything was frenzied, messy, and fucking amazing. I seemed to be devouring her mouth as our tongues danced at a steady rhythm. A million images moved through my head, all them involving me and Bella with no crowded subway and no clothes. 

“Get a room!” someone yelled out, and Bella pulled away from me, both of us gasping for air.

“That was…” Bella said breathlessly. I must say, I was a little bit smug.

“I know,” I said with a goofy grin on my face.

“Wow,” Bella whispered to herself.

“That good, huh?” I winked.

“Smug bastard.”

“Is that my new nickname?” I wiggled my eyebrows. Bella rolled her eyes, but snuggled her head against my shoulder.

“That depends. Do you have any other nicknames?”

“No.” That was a lie. There was a period in my life where both my mother called me ‘Eddikins’ and my sister called me ‘Claudia’, but I wasn’t about to let Bella know that.

“What about Eddie? Or Ed?” Bella horse laughed.

“Hell no! I am not taking a nickname after a talking horse,” I frowned and Bella laughed at my expression.

“Then ‘smug bastard’ it is.” She smiled, and I just rolled my eyes. I was just glad she wasn’t crying anymore, and I hoped that her allowing me to kiss her like that was a step in the right direction.

****
We got off the train not long after were mostly quiet on the walk to my apartment, Bella’s eyes glancing around as she lightly grasped my hand.

“You live in The Village?” Bella asked, looking up at the buildings around her. I nodded.

“Cool.” Bella looked amazed and I laughed.

“When you see my place, you won’t think it’s very cool at all.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” she disagreed, walking up the steps to my building. It was small, only about five floors with no elevator, and it looked decent enough from the outside, but once you got in…yeah not so much.

“You’ll see,” I sighed as I let her in.

As we walked up the stairs to my apartment, I could feel a nervous energy flow off Bella on to me, and I felt anxiety build up in my system, getting stronger with each step. Neither of us knew what exactly was going to happen once we got through the door. Today had been such a turning point in our relationship, and I didn’t know what would happen next. I feared that Bella would run, she seemed to always bolt when things got heavy, but here she was. The only thing I knew was that Bella had to answer at least some of my questions before we moved ahead any further. And I would stick to that plan no matter what.  Wouldn’t I?

When we finally made it up the five flights of stairs to my apartment, I opened the door nervously, allowing Bella to go first. She glanced at me with her eyebrows raised and swiftly made her way through the door, I followed closely behind her.

“It’s a shit hole, but the rent is decent and it’s not a studio so that’s goo-” Suddenly her lips were crushing against mine. I barely time to comprehend anything before Bella had me pinned against the door, her body flushed against mine, and her tongue searching my mouth. I groaned at all the sensations I was feeling, and without telling my arms to do so, I picked her up, grabbing her ass, and flipped us around so that she was pressed hard against the door. She looked surprised at first, but she soon brought her mouth back to mine, and wrapped her legs around my waist. Bella was tugging at my hair and grinding her pelvis into mine, making me incredibly hard, and I knew she could feel it  when she moaned into my mouth, biting my lip.

“Shit, Bella,” Kiss. “that was so,” Kiss. “fucking,” Kiss. “hot.” I began to trail soft kisses down her neck, nipping and sucking at her collarbone. I had never paid much attention to  this part of a woman’s anatomy before, but Jesus, everything about Bella was hot as fuck. Bella moaned, pressing her face into my hair and inhaling deeply. Fuck!  I brought my lips back to hers, carrying her over to the couch, falling back into it, so that Bella was on top of me. We didn’t break the kiss as we fell, and Bella’s hands were wandering over my chest, aptly finding the buttons and began to undo my shirt. In turn, I tried unzipping her hoodie, Bella quickly realized what I was trying to do, and leaned up off me, dragging her zipper down quickly and throwing it on the floor. She looked back at me with a sly grin, and I then I noticed what she was wearing.

I gulped.

Bella had a tight white t-shirt on that hugged every one of her curves, but that wasn’t even the best part. She was braless, and I could see her perfectly formed, perky breasts straining against the fabric of her t-shirt. They were so perfect, I wanted to cup them with my hands. Holy crap there is a God.

“See something you like, Cullen?” Bella raised her eyebrow wickedly, and all I could do was nod my head like an idiot, my mouth hanging open. She smirked and I pulled myself up so I could kiss her and bring those amazing tits against my body. I brought Bella’s lip between my teeth as her hands fumbled with my buttons, not as steady as she was before. When she had them undone, she raked her nails down my chest to my abdomen, trailing her fingers down the hair that started below my bellybutton. “Fuuuuuck,” I moaned into Bella’s mouth and brought my hands to her waist sneaking my hands up the hem of her shirt, slowly making my way up her ribs. I knew I should be stopping this that we were moving way too fast, not knowing if this might end up hurting her, or me.  I find it in me to care. All I knew is I wanted this gorgeous brunette on top of me, and I wanted her now.

She began to kiss down my jaw to my neck, licking and sucking at the same time until coming to my chest, where she began to kiss downwards, and my body shivered as she got closer to my waiting cock. I should be stopping her, This is going too fast and you need to stop it before you do something you both regret.  But oh God, I wanted this, and I’m pretty sure she did too. Plus, she was heading to an area that hadn’t had any attention from someone other than myself in god knows how long, and fuck, little Eddie was dying for some attention. Bella’s lips tickled my happy trail, and I wanted it, it felt so good…

She grabbed the waistband of my jeans, grasping her fingers around the top button, popping it open, and trailing her fingers down the line of my cock. I hissed through my teeth, looking down at Bella as she looked down at my crotch, her eyes wide. Looking at her eyes made me pay attention again to the deep dark circles she had under them, and the fragile look to her skin. I knew I had to stop. She was too delicate right now, and we needed to talk some shit out before we let this go any further.

“Bella, stop,” I said gently before grabbing her wrists to stop her from undoing any more buttons. She looked up at me surprised, her face falling, and she leaned up off me, averting her gaze from mine.

“Oh you don’t…that’s fine,” she said, shaking her head. She sounded…sad? I leaned up on my arms and looked her closely, noticing a tear fall from her eye. Oh God, she thought I was rejecting her?

“No, no Bella! It’s not…that,” I tilted her head so I could see her face better. “I mean, you do feel that right?” I looked pointedly down at my lap, and Bella blushed and nodded lightly. I smirked. “See? You beautiful, over sensitive girl,“ I said before kissing her forehead.

“But why…” Bella trailed off, and I could still see the faint blush to her cheeks.

“Because I don’t want us to do something we’ll both regret later.” She looked at me perplexed. “Plus, I know you’re hungry and I did promise to make you dinner.” I smiled, but Bella still looked confused.

“Okay…,” she frowned.  I held her gently, stroking her sides, trying to make her comfortable. She sighed, and got off me, grabbing her sweater off the floor. She still looked unhappy, and I hated that.

“Hey,” I grabbed her hand, pulling her toward me. She looked at me sullenly, and it crushed me.

“Believe me, I want to!“ I said in a way that left no doubt.  “I just don’t want to do this too fast.” I gazed up at her, willing her to believe to me. She bit her lip, then bent down to button my shirt for me. It was beautifully innocent as I watched her button me up, biting her lip the entire time.

“I believe you,” she sighed, and put her hands on my shoulders. “So what are you going to make me?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Well, that depends. What do you like?” I asked, getting up to move to the fridge. Bella followed  and sat down at my kitchen island.

“Hmm, how about you surprise me?”

“You really shouldn’t have said that,” I smirked. “”God only knows what you’ll be eating!“

“I’m not too worried. Your cooking skills can‘t be that great.”

“Ouch, you’re wounding my ego Bella. I assure you I am an excellent chef.”

“Is that so Cullen?” She raised her eyebrow at me but smiled, and I couldn’t help smiling back. I still felt like I was floating on cloud nine. I knew now for sure that Bella felt some degree of the sexual attraction for me as I did for her.

“Yes,” I said as I began to get out some pots and pans to make my now top secret dish for Bella. She was looking around nervously.  “Make yourself at home,“  I said.  “I told you it was a shit hole,”

“It’s not a shit hole,” Bella interrupted.

“Sure it is.”

“It’s not, it’s…cozy.” I barked a laugh.

“Yeah, otherwise known as a shit hole.” Bella rolled her eyes at me but got up and walked over to the overflowing bookcase. I began to get out ingredients to make a fresh pasta sauce, throwing cherry tomatoes, olive oil, and red wine into a pan to simmer.

“You have so many books. Have you read all of them?” Bella called over.

“Most of them, though there are a few I haven’t gotten to yet.”

“I just can’t believe you actually have more books than I do. It’s ridiculous.”

“Ha! I told you I was a nerd.”

“I think I underestimated your nerdiness Cullen, even after the whole bowling team reveal,” she laughed loudly, and honestly it was the greatest sound in the world to me. Bella continued to move around the room, looking around at my ridiculously small space.

“Edward Anthony Cullen!” Bella yelled, and I whirled around to look at her, but I couldn’t see her. Where the fuck did she go, and what the hell did she find? I really hope it wasn’t my porn stash…

“Where are you?” I called, and Bella came walking out of my bedroom, holding my guitar.

“You didn’t tell me you played the guitar!” She was holding it gingerly, and I’m not going to lie, I was a little scared that she might drop it.

I shrugged. “It never came up.” I took the guitar away from her and placed gently against the back of the couch.

“Wait, how did you know my middle name?” I was pretty sure I had never told her.

Bella blushed and looked down at her feet. “Would you believe me if I said it was a lucky guess?”

I cocked my eyebrow. “Yeah, not so much.”

“I may have, er, stalked you a tiny little bit,“ Bella blushed further.

“You stalked me?” I was a little amazed at the moment. No wonder she was always able to pop out of nowhere at work!

“Not physically, I just may have looked you up in the white pages…” she admitted, and I started laughing uncontrollably.

 “I’m glad you’re taking this so well,“ Bella said with surprise, and  grinned at her.

“You’re adorable, you know that?” I was still giggling like an idiot.

“You’re ridiculous…and your pot is boiling over,” Bella said as she looked over to the stove. I followed her gaze, seeing that in fact my pasta pot was overflowing all over my stove and onto the floor.

“Fuck!” I threw my guitar on the couch and ran over to the stove, taking the lid off the pot and chucking it into the sink, frowning down at the mess I had made.

Bella only laughed as she grabbed a few dish rags from a cupboard and started helping me clean up.

“Thanks,” I sighed. Making dinner for Bella was supposed to be all smooth and romantic, and mopping up water off my floor was definitely not either of those things. Shit!

“You know, pasta really isn’t a surprise,” she said, smiling at me while getting the excess water from the floor.

“I know, I just thought I could wow you with my pasta making skills. Clearly, that isn’t going to happen now,” I grumbled.

“Hey,” Bella put her hand on my cheek, and I looked up. She had the sweetest smile and her eyes were glowing. “You already wow me Edward. All the time.” And with that, she kissed me softly before getting up. I followed suit, a little dazed. Jesus, would I ever get used to kissing this woman?

After the whole pasta overflow problem, the rest of dinner went well. I made a salad to go with our meal, refusing to let Bella help when she asked, telling her it was a treat and I didn’t want her doing any work. Bella asked me if she had missed anything at work, and I told her that it was an even more boring job when she wasn’t there. She laughed at that. She also told me that she was planning on coming back in the next few days, and I was relieved to hear it.

We finally sat down to eat at my coffee table since I don’t have an actual dinner table.  Bella seemed ravenous and gobbled up what was on her plate. I, on the other hand, was picking and swirling my food around my plate, barely taking a bite of anything. I was trying to work up the courage to ask Bella about what happened in the store last week, because I was afraid that she was going to freak out.

Okay, I knew she was going to freak out, but I had to ask her. We seemed to being moving forward in our relationship, and I didn’t think we would last with her pussyfooting around everything all the time.

I also wanted to ask Bella what she thought we were now. Fuck, I didn’t know what we were now, but we can’t say that we’re just friends now, can we? Just because I had stopped Bella from going there, that didn’t mean that I didn’t want her. I mean, since I have known her I have imagined every which way I could have her.  My dick in her mouth was a definite favorite.  But I  didn’t want to rush into things.  .

Suddenly, I was struck with something in the middle of my forehead. I blinked rapidly, stunned, and looked to down to see a piece of bread lying in front of me. Bella was giggling.

“Did you just hit me with a piece of garlic bread?” I asked before taking a bite of the piece she threw at me. She smiled.

“Well I had asked you to pass the salt twice, and you still didn’t answer me, so I had to use other means to get your attention.”

“You could have just shown me your boobs,” I blurted out, and Bella smacked me on the arm. Hard. “Ow!” I yelped, rubbing the spot where she hit me.

“I’m a little more classy than that, Cullen. And maybe you’ll think before you speak from now on,” she said with her eyebrows raised and a smirk on her face.

“Consider my lesson learned,” I sighed, and Bella frowned.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” I lied, not totally ready to ask her anything yet.

“I know you’re lying Edward. Spit it out.” She gave me the bitch brow, which honestly scared me a little bit. Fuck, I was going have to jump right into this, wasn’t I?

“Bella, I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me. Can you do that?” I looked deep into her eyes, pleading with her. Please, please let me in. Her face became ashen, and she looked down to her now empty plate, biting her lip furiously.

“What happened last week at work?” I asked softly, but Bella was still biting her lip incredibly hard. I was worried that she was going to cut it open biting it like that. I put my hand on her cheek, cupping her face, and she looked up at me with tears in her eyes. It was heartbreaking. I wanted to give up, but I had to get her to tell me something. She can’t suffer alone like this anymore. I would take any small detail at this point.

“Please,” I whispered, my breath fanning over her face. Bella’s eyes widened and she sucked in a ragged breath, and then breathed it out heavily. Leaning back from my hand, she closed her eyes and started fidgeting with her hands.

“I, uh, have something called post traumatic stress disorder from…shit that happened a long time ago, and I sort of now have these triggers that cause me to like, lose my shit,“ she explained.  “I’m really sorry you had to see that.” Bella looked at me then, looking like she was trying to gage my reaction. I didn’t know much about PTSD, but some things started to click into place.

“Bella, don’t be sorry. You don’t know how incredibly worried I was about you. You just went completely blank, and then you didn’t even know it was me at one point…” I shuddered at the memory “It hurt so much to see you like that, and I couldn’t do anything about it.”

“You did help, believe me,” she spoke softly, looking down at the ground to avert my gaze.

“What happened to you Bella?” I asked, and her eyes snapped back up to mine, a look of sheer fear in them.  I almost wanted to tell her to forget about it, that she didn’t need to tell me. But I desperately wanted her to let me in, let me in on what the fuck was torturing her, so that maybe, just maybe, I could help her.

She shook her head and moved away from me, getting up off the couch and pacing the room. “No,” she said.

“Please, you can’t live with all this shit bottled up all the time, because that is clearly not working for you.”

She stopped pacing abruptly, clenching her fists and squeezing her eyes shut. She took a deep breath and turned to face me, and I nearly gasped, her eyes were so full of angry fire. It was getting hard to keep up with her ever changing moods, she had gone from complete fear to a dark rage in only seconds.

“Fine. You want me to ‘unbottle’ things, Cullen?” she snapped, shaking with rage. “Then I fucking will! Just don’t say I didn’t warn you!” She unzipped her hoodie swiftly, before turning around so that her back was facing me, and pulled her t-shirt over her head. Was she actually trying to distract me be taking her top off? I was staring at her naked back, just admiring her and not saying anything. She was so beautiful.

“What do these look like Edward?” she said over her shoulder, and it took me a  minute to understand what she was talking about. I looked more closely at her back, and saw the thin raised tissue of her skin that crisscrossed her back in a faint pattern. They were very similar to the ones I had seen on her exposed shoulder the day at the coffee shop, but the ones on her back were longer, and some of them looked thicker, almost like they used to be welts.

“Scars. They look like scars from a rope or something,” I stuttered, still not comprehending fully.

“They are what they look like,” she said, her voice void of any emotion. “And it was a belt.”

It took me more than a few seconds to figure it all out, but when I did, it felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. The pieces began to fall together, and it was horrifying.

Someone, some bastard had hit Bella so hard that she had fucking scars all over her back and god knows where else. It explained so much about some of the nuances in her personality too, how she was afraid of getting in trouble, and how sometimes she sounded like a lost little girl. No wonder she did, whoever did this to her destroyed her childhood.

How could someone dare to do that to such a perfect creature? I felt such enormous rage at knowing that someone had hit Bella like that on purpose, I wanted to find the bastard and make fucking sure he could never hurt a soul again. “Oh my God, Bella.” I breathed out, trying to control my voice.

“Please don’t tell me you’re sorry, or that you feel bad for me. Just don’t. I don’t need any pity,” she said.  Although she spoke over her shoulder, I could see tears glistening down her face. I got up slowly, and walked over until I was standing right in front of her back, picking up her shirt on the way.

“Bella,” I whispered in reverence, and brought my lips down to the top of her back, softly kissing one of the deeper scars she had there. Her breath hitched in her throat, but she didn’t move away. I began to place more kisses on each scar that cut across her body, pouring into my kisses how much I cared for her, and how much I didn’t want her to hurt anymore. I kissed each of her shoulder blades, down her spine, to the light scars that came across her lower back, then making the circuit back up again, wanting Bella to feel cherished and as loved as she should feel. Wait. I stared at her shoulder, surprised at my own thoughts. Loved? My heart was beating rapidly and my brain was going a mile a minute.

I loved her.