Chapter 20 ~ Robust Breakthrough

Edward POV

Numb.

Incapable of action or of feeling emotion.

That’s what I was, I realized, sitting by those stupid fucking bushes I’d planted without permission so many years ago.

Numb from everything.

I liked it.

I hated it.

For one reason or another…it didn’t really matter.

I’d managed to come to grips with signing those papers for Jasper.

But what I hadn’t come to grip with, was whether or not it was the right thing to do.

Too late for second guessing.

I’d made a commitment to the man, regardless of whether it had been by the written word or word of mouth, when I left Georgia, it was written, now…and anyway, I wasn’t about to go back on that word.

So, when I say it didn’t really matter…I’m referring to whether or not Bella went back to Chicago with that…

Fucking…

Whatever he was.

It bothered the shit out of me, the hold he seemed to have on Bella, when he left the way he had, earlier that day…Like he knew she’d follow him.

And the way it had made me feel, watching her leave.

I hated it.

It’d pass, though.

It had to.

This…burning inside my lungs…it fucking hurt and I just…I needed it to…just, stop.

And like it belonged there, my hand went to my chest, as though that would stop the pain.

Rustling in the vines from behind me caught my attention, then.

I ignored it.

I figured it was Alice, coming out to tell me it was time to get over myself or something, to come inside…like the mother hen she was becoming.

But as the familiar legs walked around, in front of me, and I let my eyes follow them upward, I saw…it wasn’t Alice.

By all means, I should have sent her away.

Should have told her it was stupid for us to continue, like there were no consequences to our actions, the way we had been.

But I was weak.

And as she stood there, looking down at me…with that expression on her face, like she needed something.

Something from me.

The numbness faded.

And I was just glad she hadn’t left to go back to Chicago.

She didn’t speak, as her fingers touched the raspberry bush, twisting a few of its leaves, gently…but she didn’t have to.

I could see it in her eyes.

In the way her chest heaved and her lips parted.

The same burning was eating her alive, from the inside out.

The moon made her skin look like silk as she lifted her shirt up and over her head then she simply  dropped the piece of clothing to the ground as she held my stare.

Her hands disappeared behind her as she rid herself of the lacy bra and when that was gone, she just continued on…kicking the sandals off, then the jeans, and finally…the lingerie twin to the lacy bra.

Sexy as they were, I was glad to see those undies go.

She seemed almost angelic, standing there, completely nude for me, even though I knew by then, she was no angel.

But it was more than just her beauty that allured me.

She had just the right amount of curves…the perfect amount of Bella to hold on to…she had knowledge in her stare…wisdom.

And she was absolute.

She also could have ended me, if she’d wanted to.

Stepping closer, she stood there, waiting for something.

A signal from me, perhaps.

I wasn’t sure, but I certainly wasn’t going to chance giving her the impression that I didn’t want her there, so I let my hands slide up her legs, nearly grabbing at them as I kissed her thighs, just below my recent visit in the caves…on the barrels.

Her hands were in my hair and all I could think was how very inappropriately I wanted her.

Needed her.

Over and over again.

And how she’d just managed to make the burning stop.

I started to get up…to take her somewhere else…more private but she stopped me, lowering herself so she was now sitting on my legs and she pulled at my shirt, tugging it upward.

And I was in a fantasy coma, suddenly, realizing she wanted this right there…right then.

In the midst of the vines.

I raised my hands for her and she pulled the old t-shirt off of me and I breathed her in completely as she leaned down to kiss me…softly…firmly…decidedly, while her fingers found the button of my jeans, then the zipper.

She clearly had a plan, Pie Girl.

And I didn’t make it a habit of deviating from the plans of people who clearly, knew what they were doing.

And were very good at it, too.

So…off went the jeans, along with any other obtrusive piece of clothing I was wearing at the time.

I wrapped my hands around her body, feeling every square inch of her against me while our tongues meshed and our teeth gnawed, slightly against each other’s skin as we fell back onto the ground and suddenly, we were picking up from right where we’d left off before being so rudely interrupted early that day.

I was hard and she was slick and I just about couldn’t take anymore of the foreplay when I got the distinct impression, that neither could she.

Bella sat herself up, using her hands to balance herself against my chest as she arched herself backward a little and then slowly…she gave me painful pleasure as I entered her and my hands.

My hands communicated the words I couldn’t seem to say, at her hips and I worked hard not to move her faster, as she rolled against me, taking her time, getting herself to that place.

That place she wanted me to be.

Where I wanted to be, with her.

I watched her.

Because I couldn’t take my eyes off of her as she let her head fall back and her eyes closed and it was as though we weren’t…there.

We weren’t worried about ass hole ex-fiance’s, or…dick head rivalries or…father’s in the hospital.

Or going back to Fort Benning.

We were just…there…and it was us…and she was…

Everything.

“Come here,” I said and it was the first words either of us had spoken since she’d arrived.

It sounded like it didn’t belong there.

Those words…In our world.

But I’d said it, and she opened her eyes, leaned forward and I couldn’t help it anymore.

I pulled her into me and pushed hard.

Over and over while slinked a hand behind her neck to pull her lips to mine.

I felt like I could have engulfed her, entirely.

Like I could have eaten her alive if she’d let me and she would have, I thought.

She definitely would have.

She pushed when I needed her too and grinded for deeper penetration and when she came…Jesus Christ…when she came, I felt her nails in my skin as she fisted my shoulders and pushed against me, with sounds that made me want to capture them and keep them.

For when she wasn’t there anymore.

And then it was my turn.

Her lips searched for mine and found them as I was cumming hard into her, and that kiss...

It was intense.

And I was desperate.

For…something.

To extend the experience.

To extend my time with her.

I wanted to make a deal with the devil to make it happen.

And then I let her collapse onto me and we both needed to catch our breath.

I place lips against her shoulders, her neck…her face…eyes…

Everything I could touch to make her feel what she was giving me.

What I wished I’d never had.

Because in the end, I didn’t want to think about anyone else ever having her like this.

Knowing her the way I did.

Feeling for her the way I knew now, I always would.

She started to shiver and I reached for my shirt to let her put it on and when she was done, she curled up into to me there, on the ground, in those vines and I thought, finally…an excellent memory.

Stolen pecks of adoration and firm holds on what I’d finally found, after not even realizing I’d been looking for it and I needed to break the silence.

“So,” I said.  “The uh…ex is gone, I take it?”

And I felt her stiffen a little.  But not much. “Yeah,” she whispered and I thought I heard a hint of regret, or sadness there.

“You okay?” I asked, hugging her into me a little more as I watched the moon.

“I am now,” she said.

And relief.

It had arrived.

“I’m so sorry I had to leave like that Edward, I feel like what started out as such a great day, ended on such bad terms.”

And this was Pie Girl.

Extraordinaire.

So I told her, “I don’t know…seems like it ended pretty great, to me.”

Silent giggles into my chest and then I needed to add, “Thanks for coming over,” just before placing a kiss onto the top of her head, letting my lips stay there for a moment.

Or two.

“Thanks for not telling to me fuck off as I stood naked in your vineyard.”

I let out a chuckle at that one.

First of all, when Bella said the word fuck…time stopped for me.  There was nothing sexier.

Secondly, “Yeah…that would have been awkward.”

More laughter.

On both our parts.

And this was easily, going onto my list of top ten best nights ever.

“Stay the night?” I asked, taking one of her arms, playing with her fingers, some.

“Only if you wake me up early enough to get back to the Hales first thing, I have a lot to get done and I want their website up and running by evening.”

And then I saw something.

“What’s this?”

It was a bruise, or…something… “You didn’t get this during grape fest two thousand ten, did you?”

She pulled her arm back from me and grabbed at the bruise with her other hand.

And then I sat the both of us up.

“Bella?”

“It’s…” she looked away, like she was debating something and my eyebrows pulled together.

Then she looked at me. “Promise you won’t go ape shit.”

I straightened up, some, then, too. “I’m not promising a goddamn thing, tell me what happened?”

She didn’t answer me.

But she did start to get up and gather her things.

“Did the fucking ex do this?”

Because I didn’t give a flying fuck where he was, he’d pay for that shit.

She shook her head.

“Bella. Did. The. Ex…”

“No…” she insisted. “Jake would never…”

“Then what the fuck happened?” I asked as I too, getting up and pulling my jeans back on, too…because I was getting rather antsy, not knowing what the fuck happened.

Then she pursed her lips, and told me, finally.

“I ran into Felix Vol…”

“Fucking…” I had to take a breath.  I had to step the hell back from that rage and take a breath before I lost my temper with the wrong person.  “Tell me he didn’t do that,” I told her, with not a single sign of hesitation in my voice and she didn’t have to answer me, for me to know.

“He was just….he….” she couldn’t seem to find the words to explain it, but I knew.

Unfortunately.

Exactly what had happened.

“Did he hurt you?” I asked her, while she started to pull her hair back into a pony tail.  “I mean, did he…”

“No…someone…interrupted, and I…I left.”

I’d had a bad feeling about it.

Knew, in the back of my mind, somehow…this shit would surface.

As soon as he’d seen her that day in my kitchen…I just knew it.

“Edward?  What’s wrong?” she asked me and I wasn’t gonna be able to pussy foot around the subject.  I wasn’t gonna be able to not tell her, this time.

“Maybe you should go,” I told her, starting to lead her back up to the house.

“I thought you wanted me to stay the night?”

And she looked…hurt…misunderstanding what I’d meant.

“No, I mean…go, as in, leave Napa.”

She actually laughed when I said it.  “Edward, he’s a bully, but he’s not going to be THAT stupid again…” And she was hurrying now, to try and keep up with me.

“Bella, you don’t know this guy.  He’s gets his mind set on something, and he doesn’t stop…he doesn’t stop until it’s…”

And then she stopped and looked into my eyes, seeing it.

“He’s done this before,” she interrupted me, not even needing me to finish.

And I almost sighed in relief, that she knew.

“Yeah.”

She seemed as though she was deciding something.  Like perhaps whether or not she really wanted to know the answer to what she was about to ask me.

I didn’t know which way I wanted her to go with her decision making skills.

Then she asked it.

“Did have something to do with that vineyard you burned down?”

And there it was.

We were inside, then…in the kitched and I sat down, keeping my eyes on the table.

And it was high time I told someone what really happened, I thought.

I wasn’t eighteen year old kid, anymore…wasn’t scared of retalitation…exactly….I’d been through shit these people couldn’t dream of going through…and I certainly wasn’t worried that she might not believe me.

She seemed to be about the only person who did believe me, anymore.

Or rather…believed in me.

Yes.

It was completely appropriate that it would be Pie Girl who would hear this story.

I nodded, and she sat down, across from me, waiting until I’d looked up to her to began the story.

Every last word about what had happened roughly four years and six months prior.

And she obliged me her hands in mine.

Reassurances, I supposed.  Maybe encouragement.

Either way, I was grateful.

“I met Jane at the end of my Junior year,” I started and then had to stop, at least for a second or two.  I hadn’t said Jane’s name out loud in…forever, it felt like.

“I thought we were talking about the…”

And I stopped her with a hand.

“We are…”

Then I took another moment to encourage myself.

“She was popular…” I said…then added with a slight smile, “Cheerleader,” I laughed. “And little did I know at the time…slutty, for lack of a better word.”

Bella was quiet. 

She never let go of my hand, so I had to assume, she wasn’t going anywhere for this.

Lucky me.

“Anyway, she uh…got around…a lot…behind my back and come senior year, word had gotten around to Felix about her rep…so…”

She got it. I didn’t need to explain that he’d started showing an interest for Jane in a very, out in the open kind of way.

“So we, being vineyard enemies, as it was…were even more so, as he continued to make advances to her…and she…reacted to those advances…”

I laughed, nervously and Bella squeezed my hand a little.

Eyebrows grew closer together, next…on my end…

“Eventually, we broke up but she hadn’t actually ended up with Felix, so to speak.  Something about him just…turned her off or something and then one night…Emmett and I were at our favorite, school’s out and it’s the weekend finally, hang out….Where we weren’t old enough to drink, but the owner served us anyway because he knew we’d take care of him and the crack downs on under aged serving was pretty much nill back then…”

I chuckled a little to myself.

It was nervous chuckling and Bella’s facial expression was still the same as when I’d started.

So I went back to the story.

“Anyway…Jane was there…with her friends…the cheer squad.  I’d been paying attention to her off and on all night…you know…boyfriend scorned and all that…”

I winked but it was stupid.

It seemed petty now.

“And when Felix came in, I noticed her whole presence had changed as he passed her with his buddies and said something to her….I should’ve done something right then, but…”

I shook my head, needing to focus…I didn’t need to go down any rabbit holes.

“I remember thinking, I should probably stop drinking but all the situation did was fuel my fire, so to speak, and I ended up drinking more…and a little while later, Jane said something, on somewhat of a  serious note, to her friends, and left…”

What’s up with Jane, dude? 

I dunno…I thought, as I watched her go.

“Felix followed her out, and I didn’t get a good feeling off of the situation, so…I followed Felix.”

I cleared my throat a little and Bella stood up, got me a glass of water.

I took it, feeling like I was in an interrogation room at the police station but it wasn’t because of Bella…it was because of me.

“I was drunk off my ass, and by the time I’d gotten out to the parking lot, all I saw was him yelling something at her, and I hadn’t formed a clear picture in my head of what might have been happening, when all of a sudden, he was grabbing her by the hair…I thought…and shoving her into his truck…”

And Bella’s face…it was like she knew…exactly…like she’d been there.

“I didn’t think about what might be happening…it was just…odd, so when he left with her…I jumped into my dad’s car and took off following them again…until they pulled up to the Volturi’s Winery.”

The next part of the story took me away from my room, suddenly.

Away from Bella…the vineyard…the Army…and everything else.

I wasn’t anywhere but there, then…back in my dad’s old beat up Bug, following Felix.

I couldn’t even hear my own voice, anymore.

“He stopped at the edge of their vines, and it was cold that night, there was a freeze warning, so the Volturi’s had their gas lamps going to keep the vines warm…”

I vaguely felt Bella move and felt her hand pull out of mine but I couldn’t quite gage what any of it meant as I stared at nothing, re-telling the next part.

“I could hear her screaming as he got out of the car and then he went around to the passengers’ side and pulled her out, like…she was a rag doll…then he started talking to her and he was dragging her, or…”

A hand fell over top of mine again…but I ignored it.

“I yelled out but he either didn’t hear me, or ignored me…and Jane…I mean I thought she was pulling away from him…and he seemed to think it was just…funny.”

Cullen!  Go home asshole, this is none of your business.

“It was freezing…and my buzz felt…gone…or…down graded at least…by the shock of the situation, maybe…so I ran over to them and pulled Jane out of his grasp…and she was…screaming.”

What’d I tell you, Cullen?

“….we fought and scrambled and he was telling me if was none of my fucking business and I was just…I don’t know, crazed…or…something….

I paused, almost unable to even say what had come next.

“Neither one of us even realized we’d knocked one of the lamps over until we heard Jane screaming more…but it was like a…”

I shivered, pulling my hands away, then.

“Are you okay?” Bella was asking me.

I think.

“She’d been burned and I fell on top of her, rolling her until the flames were out…and Felix…”

“Edward?”

“He was more interested in the vines burning down the the human being that was in pain…”

“You don’t have to…”

“I called nine one one on the cell and then tried to help put the fire out but by that time…it was way too out of control for us and Jane was just…screaming and all I could do was just…hold her until the ambulance came…and then…Felix was gone…”

And then I stopped.

Because there really wasn’t anything else to say.

So I thought.

“So you didn’t set the fire,” she said, and it was like…she’d known it all along…but still was surprised to hear it or something and shook my head.  “Of course I did.”

“Sounds like it was someone else’s fault, to me,” she said. “Sounds like it...”

“Bella,” I cut her off. “I don’t even know what I was doing there…for all I knew they were just arguing but me…I had to go all…” I looked dead into her eyes. “Ape shit.”

“No,” she  told me. “You probably stopped something horrible from happening, is what you did.”

I just shook my head.

Because it was just like her to say something like that.

“Why didn’t you tell your dad…it wasn’t even your fault, Edward…”

And those words again…

I laughed, hell, I couldn’t help it.

“I actually started to try and explain things, believe it or not…but the police…they were in the Volturi’s back pocket for years..and they’d had their fill of me and I was drunk and stupid and had a rep…so…”

I could have gone on and on with that one.

 “You’re dad even?”  She was in disbelief, as I would have been, had I not known the man my whole life.

“Carlisle didn’t have a strong history of believing anything I had to say once I’d skipped school the first few times in Middle School….and by High School, well…he’d basically given up on me, those vines were just…”

“The last straw, in his eyes,” she said quietly.

Thoughtfully.

“Yeah.”

She wiped a few unseen tears away from her face and I finished the whole song and dance with, “Jane was in the hospital for a while...her parents wouldn’t let me see her and they moved her away before her burns were even…”

I couldn’t finish…it was still like that book I’d never finished…or a movie I hadn’t gotten to see the end of.

Frustrated me, even thinking of it now.

“Anyway,” I said flippantly. “The Volturi’s were fed some bullshit story by Felix about me trying to have a last hurrah or somethin’ with Jane on their property…and everyone just assumed that we’d gotten a little crazy, and that was how the fire had started…and I was pretty much shunned after that…”

I shrugged when she had no words for me.  “Graduation came and I’d had about enough of life as the leper, so…I left.”

I stopped talking, looking at her without really, looking at her and she was silent.

And waiting.

Waiting for that first reaction from someone, when you just spilled your guts to them and you’re not really quite sure how they’re gonna react to that gut spilling…

It torturous, I decided.

“Emmett…?”

That was an easy one.

“Emmett was in pretty tight with Rose by then…who hadn’t exactly had…happy thoughts when it came to mine and his relationship…and he was just about at the end of his rope with me anyway…I knew the Hale’s weren’t about to let him keep dating Rose if he’d kept ties with me…it was just…better all the way around if he cut me off.”

“So you let him think, all this time…that…”

“I didn’t exactly expect to be coming back here, Bella…”

I felt…lighter.

Oddly.

Saying it was like…letting it go.

Maybe.

Like everything I’d been holding onto out of guilt or…spite…whichever…it didn’t matter anymore…it was just…

Gone.

“You have to tell your dad, Edward.”

I let out a quiet laugh at Pie Girl.

She really was full of ideals and high opinions of people she…

“He already knows,” souded a voice from the doorway.

It was Alice.

Of course.

“What do you mean, he already knows?” I asked her, completely dumbfounded at that point at her words.

I mean she hadn’t said shit to me about anything that had happened before I’d left and now…

This.

She scraped her bottom lip with her teeth, thinking and then…as though she’d decided something along the lines of “Fuck it,” she disappeared over into the office and came back with an envelope that she held out to me.

As I took it from her, I was nearly afraid of it.

I turned it a little, reading the front…It was addressed to Carlisle and when I looked back up to Alice she just nodded a little and said, “read it.”

I pulled out the piece of paper, noticing it had been printed out off of a computer…It was dated about six months after I left Napa.

And as I scanned down to the bottom, I realized what my father’s apparent confidant had been talking about.

On several occasions.

It was from Jane.

A/N: Robust wines are big, assertive and are full-flavored.