Chapter 9

EPOV

My entire body seemed to be on fire as soon as I felt Bella’s soft lips press into mine, heat radiating from her mouth and spreading from my head to my toes. Of all the people I had ever been with, I had never felt as much in the one kiss as I did at this moment.

Her kiss was light, slow, and very innocent, but I longed to taste her. I had gotten a brief taste when I licked her palm a couple of weeks ago, and I was eager to do it again. I wanted to be closer to her, so my brain completely walked out, letting my body do what it wanted. I raised my hand to the nape of her neck, pulling my fingers through her wavy locks, and pulled her face closer to mine, bringing the other hand to her waist. Our bodies were now flushed against each other, and I brought her upper lip between both of mine.

Bella brought both her hands to my hair and tugged gently, her touch eliciting a groan of pleasure from me. Our kiss became more urgent, and I just wanted to be closer, bringing my tongue out and darting it across her lip. I felt Bella shiver and gasp before she pulled away slowly. Why was she pulling away? She liked it, didn’t she? I sure as fuck did.

Bella took her hands slowly down from my hair, and brought them to the tops of my arms, leaning her forehead against mine.

“Thank you,” she said, slightly out of breath.

“For what?” My voice was unsteady, and I couldn’t remember for the life of me what happened prior to Bella kissing me.

“For saving my life,“ Bella laughed lightly, and I looked at her just in time to see her lick her lips, looking like she was savouring the taste that was left over. Shit, that was hot.

“Oh, that,” I fumbled out, and I heard her laugh again. “It wasn’t a problem. I really didn’t want to see you become a pancake.” Bella slowly extracted herself from my hold on her, and I frowned, though Bella didn‘t see it. Now that I had felt what it was like to be that close to her, I wanted to do it again, preferably multiple times.

She shifted back away from me, pulling her sweater over her hands, and shifted uncomfortably.

“I guess I should get going,” she said, biting her lip. What the fuck? She is not just going to kiss me like that and leave!

I was so stupefied by the kiss and the fact that she was actually leaving me hanging like this, that I missed my chance to speak.  Bella turning to walk the opposite way. She got a few steps away from me before I was able to shake out of my stupor, and grab the back of her sweater, this time pulling her toward me without falling to the ground.

“Ah! Edward! What are you doing?”

“Not letting you run away,” I said as I twisted myself in front her, looking her in the eye.

“I was not running away,” Bella huffed, averting her gaze. I cocked my eyebrow at her.

“Bella, you’re not a very good liar.” She opened her mouth to respond, but closed it before saying a word. I got an idea then and grabbed her hand, pulling her along with me as I walked toward the subway. Bella resisted and stumbled behind me, but she never let go of my hand. In fact she was grasping it tightly. 

“A little grabby today, huh Cullen?” she said, stumbling behind me. I smirked.

“I’m not the only one,” I said, referring to her hair grabbing from earlier, and she got it as she stopped dead in her tracks.

“Where are you taking me, Edward?”  She looked at me warily.

“To my crypt.”

Bella rolled her eyes at me. “I’m serious.” I sighed, running my free hand through my hair.

“We’re going to do something fun. A surprise.”

“A surprise,” Bella crinkled her brow.

“Yes.”

“I don’t like surprises, Edward.” 

“You’ll like this one, I promise.” I squeezed her hand lightly, and she looked down to our entwined fingers, blushing lightly before she looked up at me.

“Why are you doing this?” I don’t know if she meant the hand holding or the surprise, but I answered the latter.

“For one, it’s pay back for not answering me back all week.”  Bella went to answer me, but I stopped her. “Don’t worry.  I don’t want to talk about that now,” I smiled lightly. “And second, you really look like you need some fun.”

Bella furrowed her brow and the bit her lip. It reminded me of when I had my lips capturing hers. It nearly undid me right there.

“What are you up to, Cullen?”

I grinned at her, and her eyes brightened a bit. “You’ll see.”

****

“You took me all the way to Queens, for this?” Bella looked at the neon flashing lights with her eyebrows raised.

“I told you we were going to do something fun,” I shrugged, walking through the automatic doors with Bella trailing behind me.

“And bowling was the first thing that came to mind?”

“What, not a bowler, Swan?” I teased.

“No, but I’m still probably better than you.”

I turned around, frowning.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Bella smiled at me. “You’re not the most co-ordinated person in the world. You probably would drop the ball on your foot.” She laughed. A little too hard.

“Very funny, Bella.” I rolled my eyes and made my way to the counter to get us a lane.

“Seriously, Edward. How do you not injure yourself in everyday life?”

“I do have some athletic ability, I’ll have you know. I was even on a bowling team when I was a kid….” I trailed off because I saw Bella’s eyes widen and her lips twitch. Oh shit, did I just tell her I was on a BOWLING TEAM?! She must think I’m a total dork.

“Did you just say you were on a bowling team?”

“Uh…” I said, looking everywhere but at Bella. She doubled over in laughter, and it was a couple minutes before she could even form a coherent sentence, even when she did there were still bursts of giggles between her words.

“You” , giggle, “are such a nerd,” she said, laughing and smiling at me. I was embarrassed. I had just let slip an incredibly embarrassing thing about me, though the fact that Bella was laughing, smiling, and looking ten times better than when I saw her earlier almost made up for it. Almost.

“Okay, if you’re done poking fun at my expense, let’s do this.”  I had paid for our lane, the attendant looking quite amused at our conversation, and handed us those butt ugly bowling shoes.

“I’m sorry,” she laughed, poking my side. “It’s just too easy. You‘re really lucky you‘re hot, otherwise you’d never be able to bounce back from being on a bowling team.”  I rolled my eyes, but grabbed her hand again as we walked towards our lane, forgiving her, evidently.

“At least I have that,“ I joked, and I pulled her along as we made our way to the other end of the alley, where our lane was. We made small talk as we put on our shoes, and I helped Bella find a ball small and light enough for her. She was so tiny, and in the past week she had seemed to get even smaller and fragile.  She actually had to use a child sized ball.

I desperately wanted to talk to her about what happened last week at Books and Things, but I didn’t know how to bring it up without her freaking out. It wasn’t just my selfish curiosity either, I wanted to know how to help her if it ever happened again.  I was already thinking of what I could do, even thinking of calling my father for help. He wasn’t a psychiatrist, but surely he knew something that could help me.

I was brought out of my reverie when I felt Bella’s hand on my shoulder. I looked up, and saw Bella standing in front of me, her bright pink bowling ball at her side. Since I was sitting, I was practically eye level with her crotch, and I felt a tingle of arousal. I swiftly looked away, partly because I didn’t want her to catch me staring at her crotch, and partly because I really didn’t want to get a hard on right now.

“Whatcha’ thinking about?” She raised her eyebrow at me. It was a completely innocent movement, but it was such a turn on. I shifted in my seat, and tried to smile innocently at her.

“Nothing important.” Her eyebrows creased, like she didn’t believe me, but she didn’t say anything and sat down beside me.

“How do you even know about this place? Didn’t you grow up on the Upper East Side? Queens is a bit far.”

“I did, but my dad grew up here so he liked to take me and my siblings to see his old neighbourhood, and as a treat he would take us bowling. Alice and I enjoyed playing, and Emmett really liked the arcade games and the horrible pizza they serve.” I laughed, thinking back to the days my brother would stuff his face with that poor excuse for pizza, and how my mom would chastise my father later when Emmett was groaning sick from the food.

“So that’s how you ended up on a bowling team?” she laughed again.

“Pretty much. Carlisle noticed that it was the only sport I was remotely good at, so he signed me up when I was ten. I stopped playing a couple years later when I realized bowling wasn’t cool, but I did win a few trophies.” Like that made it sound cooler.

“Please tell me you have pictures of this.”  Bella’s eyes lit up.

“Not ones that you will ever see.”

“Please?” She looked all doe eyed at me, and I had to look away, there was no way I could say no to Bambi incarnate.

“Never.” I wonder if I could pay Alice to destroy them for me…

“Hmph,“ Bella grunted and I laughed, she was too cute when she was pouty.

“You want to go first?” I asked, changing the subject. She looked at me and then to the lane warily.

“I don’t know how to play.” Her voice sounded small, innocent and childlike. I noticed that when Bella was unsure about something, or when she was scared, she would revert to that voice and manner. It was like she was worried she would be punished if she did something wrong. She had did it when she had the break down at work.

“It’s easy. You just throw the ball down the lane, and aim for the pins down there at the end.” Bella still looked unsure, and her brow crinkled further.

“How about you try a couple times, and if you need me to help you, I will, alright?”

“Okay…” She got up from her seat and walked slowly until she was in front of the lane, throwing one last unsure look back at me before she took a deep breath, and threw the ball. She had thrown it too light and it moved slowly down the lane, angling to the left until it fell into the gutter. Bella frowned.

“It’s okay. You just have to throw it a little harder next time,” I told her as she waited for her small pink ball to come up through the ball return. Once she had it again, she threw it with more speed, but it too went straight into the gutter.

“I suck,“ Bella said, chewing on her lip.

“You don’t suck. It’s your first time, and you’re doing pretty good so far.”

“I doubt it,” she frowned, and I got up and met her at the ball return, grabbing the ball as soon as it shot up, and went in front of the lane.

“Isn’t that ball a little dainty for you, Cullen?”

“I’m not going to throw it, you are. I’m going to show you how throw properly and help you with your form.”

“But it’s your turn, I don’t want to screw up your game.” She frowned toward the lane.

“You won‘t,” I smiled, “Now get ready to take a shot and I’ll watch so I can make adjustments.” I gave her back her ball, and watched her as she got ready to take her shot. I came up behind her, and she jumped a little when she felt my hand on her arm, but I felt her relax into me seconds later.

“You’re all crooked, the motion needs to be more fluid.” I put my hand around her arm, and glided it into a fluid motion, demonstrating. “Aiming is also important.  If you look at the little dots on the floor, and focus on the middle one, the ball should move in a straight line, instead of veering into the gutter.”

“Okay,” Bella said, her voice shaky. I was pressed right up against her, and I could feel the line of her back and the curve her ass right against my dick. I wanted to rub myself against her, but I didn’t think was too appropriate for a family venue, and plus, getting a hard on in public was not one of my goals for the day. That still didn’t mean I didn’t want to feel Bella, but I just couldn’t take it too far.

“And you want to pick up enough speed that the ball will knock down all the pins, but not so fast that it just launches down the lane and knocks only one out.” My hand was still lingering on her arm, the other lightly floating down her side. I breathed her in, the strawberry smell from her hair making me intoxicated.  Her smell,  and the way her body was pressed up against mine, sent me over the edge, and I was now completely hard. Bella’s breath hitched and I felt her body stiffen. I realized that I was flushed against her back, thus making my very hard cock poke her in the ass, and judging by her last response, she definitely felt it.

Shit.

Bella breathed in a shaky breath, and looked over her shoulder at me, her eyes downcast. “I think I’m ready to try it on my own now,” she told me before taking her lip in between her teeth.

“Okay, go ahead.” I let go of her, trying to hide my massive erection from both Bella and the rest of the bowling alley, and sat down to watch her take her shot.

Think of something non-sexy, I told myself. I need to get this situation under control, and relieving myself in the bathroom was definitely not an option. I could just imagine myself getting arrested for something like that. I began to pull out the roster of unsexy images that I used in situations like this. Not that something like this happened a lot.

Puppies, no, dead puppies. Emmett’s hairy back. Grandma Cullen in a bikini. I shivered and felt myself deflate slightly, thank god Grandma Cullen did it, though now I was stuck with that unfortunate image in my head. I looked back over at Bella, glancing at her just as she took her shot, her robust bottom staring me down. I groaned and looked away, fearing I would get hard again from the mere sight of her ass.

“What’s wrong? I did what you told me to, right? I think it worked. I mean, I managed to hit some pins this time, though I didn’t hit all of them…” Bella was rambling, and I looked up at her. She was standing in front of me with a worried expression on her face. She took my groan wrong, thinking I was mad at her. She did just felt the rager that I pressed into her ass. 

“No, no. You did great Bella.” I smiled a reassuring smile at her.

“I did?”

“You did awesome. Especially for your first time.”

Bella crinkled her nose. It was incredibly cute. “I didn’t knock all the pins down though.”

“That’s okay, even the best players don’t knock all the pins down every time.”

 I got up to grab my own ball as Bella took my place on the seat. I set up my shot, bringing the ball to eyelevel, and I heard Bella giggle from behind me. I ignored her, determined to make a good shot. I moved quickly forward, swinging my arm and releasing the ball from my fingertips, allowing the ball to shoot down the lane, watching as it created the perfect spin and hitting the pins a and knocking them over, getting a strike on the first try.

I couldn’t help myself, it was just like when I would play when I was younger, my competitive side was coming out. I turned to Bella with a triumphant smile, and she was frowning at me.

“I thought not even the best players got all the pins down every time,” Bella said with a huff.

“Lucky shot I guess,” I said with a grin as I sat down beside her.  She mussed my hair with her hand.

“Cocky much?”

Oh, two can play at that game. 

I pulled my hand up and ruffled her hair as well, turning it into a full out war. Bella had both her hands in my hair now, almost putting me in a head lock. I had messed Bella’s hair so much that I couldn’t even see her face, and it looked like I had just pulled her out of a tornado. We were both laughing hysterically, drawing attention from the couple beside us, and I moved my hands to her ribs so I could tickle her.

“Okay! Okay! I surrender!” Bella said breathlessly, holding up her hands. I stopped tickling her and pushed her hair out of her eyes, so I could see her face. Her cheeks were flushed and she still had a giggly grin on her face. Right then, I wished I had a camera. I wanted to capture this Bella forever. I had my phone, and it didn’t have the best camera, but it would work. I whipped my phone out and brought it  so I could frame her face perfectly. Bella realized what I was doing and put her hand over her face.

“Don’t take a picture of me! I look awful,” she whined. I pulled her hand down.

“Nonsense, you‘re perfect.” Bella looked incredulously at me, but didn’t put her hand back up.

“Yeah, right. Just don’t let anyone see this, okay?” she asked.  I nodded, knowing that her request was ridiculous. I turned the flash off as she waited for me to the take the photo. She tried to pose, but I didn’t like it. I wanted a natural Bella.

“Are you taking my picture or what?”

“Yeah, I just need one thing to be right.” I smiled before jolting my hands to her ribs again, tickling her. Her face lit up with laughter again, and I snapped the picture, capturing Bella with her head thrown back and a huge smile on her face.

It was happy. It was beautiful. It was perfect.

“Are you done with the photo shoot?” Bella said with a slight left over giggle.

“I think so. We should continue bowling, yes?” I said as I saved the photo so I could see it whenever Bella called me. Bella shook her head at me and ruffled my hair once more before getting up to grab her ball again.

Throughout the game I watched her, taking stock of every movement she made, entranced by all of it. I would even hurry through my sets, not even doing all that well, so I could go back to watching her. She was graceful, and took careful consideration of every step she took, her brow furrowing in concentration. Bella actually had a pretty decent natural talent for this, and I watched as she got better and better with each shot.

When the game ended, I had beat Bella by good margin, of course gloating over my superior bowling skills, but she still did pretty well for her first time. She went to the washroom to go ‘fix herself up’ since I had thoroughly mussed up her hair, and I went over to the arcade and played around with the pinball machine while I waited for Bella.

That little silver ball had just gotten past my guard when Bella came up beside me.

“You do realize that you are the oldest person here by a wide margin, right?” I looked around me, and it was true. The next oldest person in here was probably twelve.

“You can never be too old for this stuff,” I replied before losing the ball again. Apparently pinball wasn’t my forte.

“You suck, Cullen,” she laughed before pushing me out of the way to play the game herself. Bella banged the little buttons quickly and skillfully, and holy crap, she was good.

“Ha! High score! Suck on that Cullen!” Bella danced in celebration, wiggling her ass in front of my face. I tried my hardest not to reach out my hand and grab it. Bella was still giggling and dancing until she abruptly stopped, staring at the corner of the room that held one of those photo booths, like the ones they usually had in shopping centres. I remembered Alice having about a billion of them with her friends when she was in high school, and on more than one occasion Tanya tried to get me to do one with her, but I would always vehemently refuse.

“Hey Edward, can we do that?” Bella spoke softly, pointing to the photo booth.

I quirked my eyebrow at her. “I thought you didn’t like having your photo taken?”

“I don’t when you make me look like small animals have burrowed in my hair. But, I’ve never done one of those before.” Bella’s voice sounded small, like she was embarrassed.

“Really? My sister got one done practically every weekend when were in school. I thought it was some teenage girl right of passage or something.” Bella rolled her eyes, but grabbed my hand to drag me over to the photo booth. I was a bit shocked at the action, since it was the first time Bella had taken the initiative to hold my hand, not that I was complaining. I still didn’t know what the status of our relationship was after that incredible kiss, and I so badly wanted to do it again.

We should probably talk about it, and I would have, if I weren’t such a damn chicken.  Later, I promised myself. I wanted a few more carefree hours with Bella before we got into the heavy stuff.

“Forks is small, and I really didn’t have a whole lot of friends back there,” she shrugged, pulling me along until we were both piled into the closet-like photo booth. It was too short for me, obviously being made for children and not 6’2”, full grown men.  I had to bend my neck at a weird angle to fit in.

“Uh, this may be a problem,” I glanced down at Bella, and she looked confusingly at me before jumping off the tiny stool and forcing me down on it.

“Here, that should be better,” she smiled, and it was true.  I now had plenty of room without craning my neck. It was also infinitely better because that meant Bella had to sit in my lap. I just prayed I didn’t get hard again.

“So do we have a plan?” Bella asked, wiggling on my lap to look at me. I tried to stifle the groan that her movement caused.

“Plan?”

“You know, what kinda poses or faces we want to do. It says here we get four pictures taken.”

I raked my fingers through my hair. I didn’t really know, girls did this kind of stuff, not me. “I don’t know, you decide.”

“Hmm,” Bella pondered for moment, tapping one of her small fingers on her chin. It was completely adorable. “How about a silly one, a serious one, a sexy face one…”

“Sexy face?”

“Yes. Can you do it?  she asked, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

“I thought I was already doing it.” I smirked, getting another eye roll from her.  

“Smart ass,” 

“You love it.”  She stiffened for a moment, but then brushed it off with a nervous laugh. Huh.

“Pfft.”

“So what’s the fourth one going to be?”

“Whatever you want,” Bella shrugged, seemingly to be lost in thought. I wanted to ask what her change in mood was, but she slipped the money into the slot too fast, and told me to get ready.  The first one we posed for I tried to look surprised, while Bella winked at the camera. The second, was the ‘sexy face’, at least I did it anyways. The third was warm and natural, and the last, I pulled out a surprise and went to kiss Bella’s cheek, the photo capturing us just before my lips met her cheek, the kiss meeting her after the picture was taken. Bella gasped and looked wide eyed. Our faces were now inches apart again, and I could hear her breath becoming quicker and quicker. It was the perfect moment to kiss her again, and I had angled my head to go in for the kill, but Bella moved her face, kissing my cheek instead.

I was shocked and disappointed. She probably saw that in my face, and she patted my hand reassuringly. “Thank you Edward, for the pictures, saving me… everything.” She nuzzled into my side, burying her face in the crook of my neck. “Can’t we just have some more fun for a little while longer? I want to forget the hard stuff, at least for a little while.”

“Uh, sure,” I said, patting her hair. I didn’t know what that meant, but I didn’t have a good feeling about it.

“Good.” She smiled into my shoulder, giving my hand one last squeeze before exiting the booth. I was confused, what was Bella doing? Was she pulling away from me again? She couldn’t, not now. I wouldn’t let her. I followed her out and leaned against the wall, waiting for the photos to print.

We stood in silence as we waited and all the questions that I should have been asking were bombarding me. Why did Bella break down last week, and why did she avoid me? She seemed into the kiss, but why was she always trying to run away? Yeah, she told me that she thought she was too fucked up and she was trying to protect me, but why? What could be so bad that she needs to protect me from herself? There were so many questions and so few answers.  I knew I had to corner Bella and ask her once and for all, without distractions or avoiding the issue, what was happening with us?

The pictures printed after a few minutes, and Bella snatched them up before I could look at them. She studied the pictures for a while, and I saw a slight smile come to her face as she gazed down at the row of photos.

“Did they turn out okay?” I asked, trying to glance over her shoulder. She nodded her head, not taking her eyes off the pictures. We were silly and ridiculous in them, but we actually looked like a couple in them, it wasn’t awkward and cheesy, it was just…us. Normal, and easy. Bella ripped the set in half, giving us both two pictures, keeping the one half with my almost cheek kiss, and tucked it into her purse.

“You get to keep the sexy face, since you did so well.” Bella laughed, but I couldn’t help and be a little bit glad that she kept the photos that she did.

“Are you hungry? Because if you want, I can make you something back at my place.” I had spontaneously came up with that, because I was trying to figure out how I could spend more time with Bella to ask her the questions I needed answered. I just hoped my apartment was clean.

Bella bit her lip and looked around nervously. “I’m not really that hungry.” Her stomach growled in that second, giving her lie away immediately. Bella blushed.

“You know, you’re a horrible liar.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“So, food?” I asked as we made our way to the exit.

“Can you cook?”

I shrugged. “I’m pretty decent at it.”

“Okay, your place. Sounds good.” She smiled at me, but I could tell her mind was elsewhere. Where it was, I couldn’t tell you, I just hoped that she wasn’t thinking of disappearing again. I couldn’t handle it if she did.