Spiral Static

When I awoke, the clock revealed that it was midnight, four hours since we had returned to the inn after dinner. I didn’t remember falling asleep. Edward was shaking me gently, brushing my tangled hair from my face.

“Bella ... wake up, sweetheart. You need to drink some water.”

I groaned and reached up to push against his forehead with my palm so that he would stop shaking me. Needless to say, he didn’t budge. Exhausted, I gave up. The siren call of sleep lured me deeper, and my arm dropped back down to the bed with a useless thud.

“Good grief...” He nuzzled me and nipped playfully at my neck. I felt like electricity shot through my body as he did so, and I wiggled beneath him. “Do I have to bite you to wake you?”

I smiled sleepily, still feeling little jolts rocket though my core. My eyes were closed as I curled and stretched beneath the bed-sheets. “Yes, please.”

He was under the sheet as well, his body long and smooth against mine. “Look at you,” he murmured. “You’re like a cat waking up from a lazy nap in the sun. Now sit up for me, love, and drink this.”

The request was vocalized gently, but he really didn’t give me much of a choice. He pulled us both into a sitting position and brought a bottle of water to my lips. I nearly sputtered from surprise, but once I realized how wonderful it felt on my parched throat, I took the bottle from him and finished it. Then I leaned against him and groaned. I felt rotten, almost like I had a cold brewing up in my sinuses. Maybe someone had lodged a pillow in my head when I wasn’t paying attention.

“Are you nauseated?” he asked, watching the look on my face carefully.

I thought about it for a second and then shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. Just really groggy.” He let me lay back down on the bed, resting his own body next to mine once again. “Hey, Edward?” I asked, bringing the bottle to rest on my forehead. Even empty, I could still feel the coolness against my burning skin. “Don’t ever make me drink wine again.”

He laughed, his eyes clear and bright. He certainly seemed happy. Then I remembered that he had gone hunting, which explained a lot. He looked as though he was high on endorphins or whatever the vampiric equivalent was. “You’ll drink it again, and you’ll like it. I admit I found far too much pleasure in the sight of you intoxicated. Very cute.”

“Yeah, I bet you did,” I replied dryly, remembering the incident in the alley with the skirt. And speaking of clothing... “Am I naked under here?”

He grinned down at me, propped up on his elbow. His eyes were like glowing jewels in the dimness of the room, a cloudless topaz. “Obviously.”

“I don’t remember taking my clothes off.”

“Mmm, I do,” he said, biting his lower lip. “Lucky me.”

Then he slipped his head under the sheets, and I sort of forgot what I’d been about to say. It took me a few minutes, but coherent thought eventually returned to me. It was then that I remembered that he had left me hanging – or more importantly that he had promised to come back hours ago.

I drug him out from under the sheet by his hair. He stared back at me, amused and unimpressed. “Why didn’t you come back like you said you would?” I accused. “It’s so late!”

“I did. I was gone for maybe ten minutes. You had already fallen asleep. Scrunched into a ball and passed out with your little bum in the air. I know I told you not to move, but I didn’t think you’d take me so literally.”

I blanched. “You couldn’t have woken me up?”

“I tried. It was rather like watching Jasper and Alice wrestle, though not nearly as funny.”

When he beamed down at me like that, so carefree and cheerful, it was infectious. I couldn’t help but smile back at him, forgetting my annoyance. It was as if all of the previous tension on this trip had never existed. “Well, I guess you’re here now,” I hinted. “And I’m awake. Whatever can we do to pass the time?”

Edward’s eyes lit up. “Well, here’s an idea. I’d like to show you something, Bella, if you’ll let me. The moors.”

I blinked at him. Then made a face. “Is that some kind of weird euphemism for sex?”

“You know what moors are, you silly little girl.”

Then I remembered that we were in the United Kingdom. “Oh, yeah.”

“I found the most beautiful place out there while hunting. I want to show it to you while the moon is still out. Will you let me?”

I nodded, though I admit I was a bit disappointed that we wouldn’t be staying in bed. He looked so excited, though. I couldn’t have said no. “Let me get dressed.”

“Wear your tennis shoes. You’ll need them in that terrain.”

We both pulled on jeans and shirts. As I was tying the laces of my sneakers, he tugged a lap blanket from the armchair and wrapped it around me. “You’ll need this, too. It will be cold for you.”

“Aren’t we going to drive?”

He shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong. Porsches are fun and all. But in my honest opinion, they are much, much too slow.”

“So ... I guess the obvious conclusion is that we’re going to be running instead?”

Edward held out his hand to help me up. “Not we, dearest. Me. ”

***

We flew through the moors like a pair of specters. I have no idea how long Edward ran. Much longer than it took to get to our meadow back at home. It was dizzying, particularly since I wasn’t one-hundred percent over the effects of the alcohol. The air was cold, and my eyes watered from the speed of the wind in my face.

I wasn’t particularly happy about the whole situation. That is ... I wasn’t until we came to a stop in a moonlit field of heather moorland. Edward set me on my feet, keeping his arms around me, and watched my face as I took it all in. It was definitely worth the frigid journey. It was breathtaking, like I’d opened my eyes and found myself in a fictional land where no one had ever set foot. At that moment, it wouldn’t have been difficult for me to imagine that the only two people on the earth were Edward and me.

The sky was inexplicably bright for the hour, like the white nights they get in the northern parts of the globe. I could still see a few stars, despite the brightness, though they were in a different place in the sky than they should have been. The moon was the brightest of all, blazing down at us, so close I could have reached up and plucked it from the heavens. All around us the land was rough and rugged, covered with coarse grasses, heather, and bracken. But though it was a harsh environment, it was still unspeakably beautiful. Our own little playground.

We explored that new world together, laughing and chasing each other in the moonlight like children. I only fell down twice – quite an accomplishment for me. I didn’t even feel it, I was so indescribably joyful. Light and free. Bursting with laughter. Happy in a way I’d never been.

“It’s so nice to see you smile like that,” he told me. “You have no idea how much it pleases me.”

“What about you, Edward? Are you happy, too?”

He grinned, and instead of replying, he simply picked me up and swung me around until I was dizzy. We fell to the ground, laughing.

He held my head up until he could guide his arm under my neck. His hands moved to the blanket that was still around my shoulders, and he checked to make sure it was still secure. “Are you cold?” he asked, the scent of his breath mixing with the heather.

I shook my head, a bit dazed. “The running and spinning warmed me up.” He pressed his lips to my neck, tasting my racing pulse, and I instantly felt like there was a furnace burning inside me. “Of course, that’s helping, too.”

“Bella,” he said in a tone I thought I recognized. He used it when he had something to ask or tell me that he wasn’t sure if I’d like. “I’d like to try something if it’s all right with you.”

My curiosity was piqued. I think I would have let him try anything at that moment, as long as it had to do with me. “What’s that?”

“Now that I’ve hunted and fed ... Well, I’ve been thinking about what Alice said to you on the phone. That maybe I can learn to control this like you said. On the airplane, I did manage to control it, you know. I don’t know if you noticed amidst the oxygen masks flailing in our faces.”

I tried not to smirk. I’m afraid didn’t do a very good job of it. “Cracking the hull of a plane was controlling it?”

“I was concentrating on not biting you,” he replied, scowling at me. “Or bruising you like the first time. It was my mistake that I chose to put that strength in something that couldn’t handle it. That force I used to damage the hull could have easily been applied to your skull, Bella. You would have shattered.”

He was trying to frighten me again, but it wasn’t going to work. “Ah. So you do admit that it was all your fault that the plane went down,” I teased. We hadn’t stopped arguing about who was to blame ever since it had happened.

His eyes narrowed at me, playfully flirting, but there was something dangerous behind his gaze. He was so terrifyingly beautiful at that moment. Inhuman. Pale as the moon that blazed overhead, bleaching his bronze hair into shades of silver and gold. His lips were parted mischievously, corners twisting into my favorite crooked smile. I thrilled at the sight and prayed my heart wouldn’t beat right out of my chest.

“You’ve gotten in the habit of teasing me lately, Isabella,” he said, shaking his head with a tisk. If he was in possession of a pair of fangs, I’m sure they would have been flashing at me. “If you keep it up, I’m afraid I’m going to have to teach you a lesson.”

I stared back at him, utterly dazzled, but somehow I managed to sound defiant when I said, “You don’t frighten me, Edward Cullen.”

I was shaking as I said it.

He raised an elegant eyebrow in my direction. And then he was gone.

I lay there for a moment on the ground, stunned. Then somehow I managed to stumble to my feet amidst the heather and bracken, searching around for any sign of him ... though I knew I wouldn’t find him if he didn’t want me to. All around me was desolate moorland. The wind howled, carving its way through the gentle hills, sounding like a ghost lamenting a lost lover. I gripped the blanket tightly around my shoulders. Visions of fingernails scratching on the windows of Wuthering Heights flickered through my mind. I gulped, wishing I hadn’t read that damn book so many times. It was downright spooky out there.

Something swept my hair off of my shoulder, and I felt the whisper of his breath on my neck. But when I turned to find him, there was no one there.

“Edward? This is so not funny.”

A whisper. A voice carried on the wind. “You’re not frightened, are you?” I had no idea where it came from.

“No.” My knees knocked together.

I was picked up so quickly that the air went out of my lungs in a sudden rush. We were flying again, running so fast that I was momentarily blinded by the wind. Up, up the hill we charged, through a copse of rugged scrub. There at the top of the hill, in the very center where a soft patch of grass and flowers grew, Edward set me on my feet and vanished.

I sank to my knees, shaking, trying to figure out what had just happened.

“Take off your clothes for me, Bella,” he whispered in my ear behind me. Right before he disappeared again. “Slowly.”

Oh, God he was going to kill me. I could see him now, circling me on that hilltop like a Ringwraith, but less with the evil and more with the beautiful. He was terrifying, his hair standing up on end, eyes electric, dancing at me.

“Bella...” he said in a sing-song voice. “You know how I hate to wait.”

“Is this my punishment for the incident on the plane?”

“Mmmm,” he agreed, teeth flashing. “Figured that out, did you?”

I felt like his prey. No, I was his prey. It was thrilling and petrifying, all in one heart pounding moment. I stumbled to my feet as he circled me, turning so that I could watch his slow dance around me. My insides had turned to liquid.

“I’m still waiting, Bella. I know you can hear me.” His voice was a purr, and he was every bit the cat as he stalked me. My breath came out raggedly as my fingers found the zipper on my jeans. “That’s it,” he breathed, tilting his head at me seductively. “Slowly now. Lovely.”

“Can I at least keep my shoes on?” I asked, somehow managing to be wry about it.

“What do you think?”

I was down to nothing but my button-down shirt before he took me. Nothing but a blur before my vision, he claimed me there amongst the cotton grass and moss, laying me down with surprising gentleness on the blanket that had been around my shoulders. He bent to kiss me once as if testing himself, then dipped for another kiss and another.

“We do this my way, Bella,” he murmured against my lips, “if we do it at all.”

I nodded eagerly. Anything to make him get on with it.

He began kissing my neck again – oh, how I loved that – and his fingers found the front of my shirt. He unbuttoned it deftly but didn’t remove it, I suppose to keep me as warm as possible. He parted the fabric and hummed low in his chest in pleasure. The sound of it vibrated me down to my toes.

“Have I mentioned how lovely your breasts are?” he whispered, his breath fanning against my chest as he lowered his head. “I haven’t, have I? How very negligent of me. So white and smooth and perfect ... hard, little jewels for me to taste...” He took one of my nipples into his mouth, curling his tongue around the tip with painful slowness. I just about came unglued. Unghhh, too much, too much! my poor brain screamed, and I tore at his hair, at the collar of his shirt, trying to get him to relent. He knew better – knew somehow despite my protests that I loved it – and persisted in the subtle torture, slipping his hand into my panties to dip into my wetness. I buried a scream into his shoulder.

It was all so very different from the first time. Rougher, hotter. I don’t think I had realized how much he was holding back from his blushing virgin bride. This would be our second union, and it seemed the gloves were off, so to speak.

The foreplay was short-lived. It didn’t take much to get us both past the boiling point. Then again, I think we had been engaged in one long session of foreplay since we’d first laid eyes on each other.

Without warning, he pulled me up into a sitting position. “What are you doing?” I gasped as he maneuvered me onto his lap so that I was straddling him. I wasn’t drunk anymore, after all, and Sober-Bella didn’t bestride vampires in the middle of nowhere. It was one thing when we were just kissing. I had no problem being all over him then because I wasn’t expected to actually do anything.

“But ... I don’t want to be on top!” I cried, nose-to-nose with him. I couldn’t help it. His pants were unzipped, and I was a little freaked out.

“My way, remember?” he said, holding me tightly against him so that I couldn’t move. “You’re a natural at this, Bella. Just trust me. I want you to be the one in control of this. It will help me maintain my own control. Besides, it’s too easy to bruise you when I’m on top.”

Then he was pressed taut against my entrance, and I lost my train of thought.

“Are you all right?” he whispered before slipping fully inside me.

I nodded, but I really wasn’t. It hurt a bit because I was still sore, and he was larger than I remembered. God, would I ever get used to this? My body trembled against his, my thighs weak in his grasp. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Shhh, I’ll guide you.”

He gripped me by the hips and helped me move slowly up and down the length of him. I didn’t have to do anything but hold on, but I found myself moving anyway, feeling as though we needed to catch up to the urgency of the moment. He wouldn’t let me go faster despite my gasps of frustration. “Hush, baby girl. Just relax, and take it slow. I want this to last.”

I didn’t. It was maddening, chasing that illusive wave of pleasure that loomed somewhere deep inside of me. It felt different from this position. Sharper somehow. More acute and heightened. But once I got used to it, I almost found I preferred it. He was hitting me somewhere that felt good. That’s the only way I know how to describe it.

Edward started talking to me.

Oh, the way he talked. Some of the things he said were so achingly sweet – about my hair and breasts and the way I smelled to him – but he also said a lot of bad, bad, wicked things that made me gape at him in surprise. Those statements – the bad, bad, wicked ones – were the ones that ultimately proved to be my undoing. I clung to him helplessly as the climax bore down on me, so caught up in my own release that I didn’t notice when Edward stopped moving.

We melted down onto the blanket as one body, moonlight shining down on us brighter than ever. Drowsy and sated, I felt him slip out of me, still hard. I was no expert at this sort of thing, but that didn’t feel right. I reached for him, but he caught hold of my wrist and brought it to his lips. “Shhh, love. Don’t worry about me.” His words were calmly spoken, but I noticed he was tense, panting, trying to calm down. Like he had been before he’d nearly bitten me that first night.

“But you didn’t...”

“My way,” he reminded me through clenched teeth.

I narrowed my eyes at him. Just what was he playing at? “That’s not fair to you.”

He took him a moment to center his focus. But when he opened his eyes to look at me, they were clear. Almost triumphant. “This is the way I need to control this, Bella,” he told me. “At least for now. Oh, don’t look at me like that. You’re still alive, aren’t you? No fresh bite mark on your neck to match the other one. And just because I don’t get the metaphorical last chapter doesn’t make the book any less enjoyable. You’re incredible, the way you move, the little sounds you make...” His fingers found me again, slipping inside of me. “I could watch you forever. That’s all I need.”

“Stop doing that,” I gasped, writhing. There were those bad, wicked words of his again. “You can’t just change the subject like that!”

And that was how Edward taught me about multiple orgasms.

Afterwards, he dressed me, laying soft kisses on every point of my body as he went – even on the old bruises from our first encounter. I stared back at him sullenly, almost guiltily. Edward was trying so hard to please me, to give me the intimacy I craved to share with him. True, it was the first time we’d made love without violence somehow playing a part in it, but I didn’t like this new plan of his one bit. “You’re just going to lose control worse than ever if you bottle it up, Edward.”

His eyes fluttered to my face. “I’ve been bottling it up since I first met you, Bella. Trust me. This will only get easier. At least I have some sort of outlet now.”

I opened my mouth to aim a retort back at him but suddenly found I couldn’t speak. Edward had pressed a finger to my mouth. He became very still beside me, alert like a wild animal, listening carefully.

“What is it?” I asked when his finger slipped away from my lips. “Do you hear something?”

“Quiet,” he whispered, not unkindly.

I strained my ears against the silence, but since my hearing was a nonentity compared to his, I heard nothing but the haunting whistle of the wind. I pressed my face into his shoulder, trying to comfort myself. “Edward? Can we go? This place is pretty and all, but it’s freaking me out.”

After a minute – a very long, tense minute – Edward allowed himself to relax a bit. He tried to smile at me to give me a little reassurance, but I could tell something had unnerved him. “I think the ambience of this place must be getting to me, too. I swore I could have heard ... well, never mind. I would know if anyone was out there, right? Let’s get you back before you freeze out here.”

I didn’t argue. I tried to tell myself that he was probably right. But as we left the moors behind, I swear I could feel eyes on me.