Eeek, I hope you guys like this chapter. I’m very concerned about it. :-\

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It was hard to be alone that day and the next, but I holed myself up in my room regardless. Although I would have liked company, my mind was too far gone to do much except agonize over Edward and I didn’t want to inflict that on my friends.

Angela had dropped by shortly to hug me and tell me she was glad I had made it home safely. She didn’t even mention his name. It was refreshing to pretend even for just a few moments that I had simply been on vacation instead of in my own twisted form of exile.

I spent most of my time sleeping fitfully. My dreams were filled with all sorts of scenarios full of both Edward and the lack of Edward. Regardless of which one I had experienced prior to waking up, I always awoke absolutely exhausted. This separation was draining me, but I no longer had the power to go see him. Alice was standing guard in the living to stop me from bolting straight to his apartment and I was barely able to drag myself from bed most days to go downstairs to grab some food.

On my second night of being back, after spending the entire day alert for any small sound in the house besides the gentle hum of the TV Alice was watching, I finally fell into a restless sleep that lasted for a couple of hours.

When I awoke this time, my thoughts were hazy and thick as I stretched myself to shake off the sensation of uneasy sleep. As I tossed in my bed, I became aware of the sensation that I wasn’t alone. I sat up with a start in my bed and looked around my otherwise empty room to find Edward sitting in the chair by my desk.

“Oh!” I squealed, taken aback by his appearance.

I had to take several deep breaths to calm my suddenly pounding heart.

“I’m sorry, did I startle you?” His concerned voice acted like a sedative on my tense muscles and I sank back against my headboard for support. He waited in silence for my response which was long delayed as I blinked, trying to focus on him there in my chair after what seemed like forever of not seeing him. I fought the dual urges to both throw myself into his arms and to run as quickly as I could from the room so I wouldn’t have to do this. I settled on a weak nod and sank further back against my headboard.

“Am I dreaming?” The question tumbled out, surprising even me. It just didn’t seem plausible that he was sitting there, looking so perfect even in his obvious state of dishevelment. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a while and his hair was a complete mess, no doubt because he’d been running his fingers through it, but still…he looked like an angel sitting there in that chair. It had to be a dream.

“You’re awake,” he answered grimly.

“Sure, I am. And when I wake up from whatever this is, it’ll be that much harder because you won’t really be here,” I reasoned with myself.

“Bella,” he interrupted me gently. “I can see where you might confuse me with a nightmare, but I can assure you that you’re awake.”

He cleared his throat softly and looked down at his folded hands as the wheels in my head started turning a little faster. My eyes flickered around my room taking in all of the evidence of the past few weeks. And then it all clicked together. He had finally come.

“So all of that really happened?” I asked weakly.

“If you’re referring to me being a complete ass and you rightfully leaving me to be brooding and unwilling to talk all by myself, then, yes, it really happened,” he answered.

I sniffed and closed my eyes as I took this in. The last two and a half weeks had seemed absolutely surreal and hearing that it had all really, truly happened was hard to accept.

My voice failed me as I tried to articulate the complexity of what I was feeling in that moment.

“Maybe you should go back to sleep,” he offered, sounding worried.

I shook my head at first and then finally, words came to me. “I’m not tired anymore. What time is it?”

“About two o’clock in the morning,” he sighed.

“Alice?” I asked. My gaze drifted towards my closed door.

“She’s over at Jasper’s,” Edward replied. My forehead wrinkled with this information. Jasper’s? Obviously, I had missed a crucial development in my friend’s love life while I was away, but it would have to wait until later. “You should probably know that I’m breaking the rules right now. I was supposed to just wait in the living room until you came out, but after Alice left, I couldn’t stop myself from coming to sit in here.”

I nodded and swung my legs over the side of my bed warily. He watched my every movement carefully. Once I was sitting up, free of the support of headboard, I carefully asked, “So, what have you been doing?”

He cleared his throat again and his hand darted to his hair, dragging its way through his already impossible locks. I smiled at the familiar gesture and for a moment, I forgot what exactly I was supposed to be upset about. His voice, sounding pained and uncertain, brought that reality crashing back down on me.

“Nothing terribly exciting,” he mumbled at last.

“Of course not,” I responded, a bitter taste rising in my mouth. He finally looked up from his hands.

“Why are you making that face?”

“It’s just –” I started, then stopped myself, pressing my lips together. “Forget it.”

He shifted towards me in his chair before speaking earnestly, “No, really, tell me.”

Our eyes met and I felt a shock ride through me at the intensity burning in his. I had no more control over my words after that.

“It’s just that I really want to know, Edward. I don’t want to hear ‘nothing terribly exiting’ because I didn’t ask if you did anything exciting, I asked what you did,” I blurted out in haste. As I was speaking, a burning blush rose to my cheeks and lifted my hands to my face to cool myself.

My words hung in the air and all I could hear was our breathing as I waited for his response.

“If I tell you…will you promise to answer a few of my questions?” he asked and I was surprised at the vulnerability in his voice. I nodded wordlessly in reply to his question and he sighed before answering mine. “For most of the time, I was busy taking out my anger and self-loathing on inanimate objects.” His mouth twisted into a grimace. “When I wasn’t hitting walls, I was barely able to drag myself from bed because I was so…weak,” he spoke about himself with disgust and my heart wrenched as I heard his tone. He was staring down at his clenched hands again, so he didn’t even register as my feet made contact with the floor and I began to silently creep over to him. “I also realized something while you were away and I know that I’m too late and you probably don’t want me to complicate things like this, but I have to tell you something, Bella.”

“What?” I asked breathlessly. I had made it over to him without him noticing but when I spoke aloud, he looked up to find me standing in font of him. As his gaze found my eyes, I fell to my knees and took his hands in mine. “What?” I repeated softly, my heart pounding in my ears and reverberating until I could hardly stand the strange sensation.

“Bella,” he whispered sadly. His eyes traveled across my face, as if he was committing it to memory and mine did the same. “I know I’ve ruined whatever we had between us, but I want you to know that…that I love you. I have always loved you – even when I was pushing you away because I was scared of what I would do to you. Now I see that I should never have allowed myself to even speak to you, but there’s something about you that just makes me forget all the things I shouldn’t do.”

One of his hands freed itself from my slackened grip so his thumb could lightly trace my jaw line. I leaned into the feeling, completely speechless as his words repeated themselves over and over in my mind.

After an immeasurably time of just experiencing his closeness, Edward murmured lowly, “I should leave you be.” He made a move as if to get up from the chair, but right at that moment, my muscles decided to unfreeze themselves and I launched up from my kneeling position to throw myself into his surprised arms. They closed around me tentatively as I began to kiss every available surface of his skin my lips could reach.

“Edward,” I spoke his name reverently, cherishing the way it felt on my lips. “Oh, Edward, Edward, Edward.” I punctuated his name every time by kissing a new part of his neck, his jaw, his face. Finally, I confessed the secret I too had been harboring, “I love you, too.”

He pulled me back for a moment to look deeply into my eyes, studying them, “You do?”

I nodded emphatically and the smile that spread across his face at that moment eclipsed everything beautiful I had ever seen in my life. He hugged me fiercely to his chest before pulling me back for a true, deep kiss.

Our lips melded together like they’d never been apart, but there was something new in the way we kissed this time. An underlying passion we’d never acknowledged before had suddenly roared to the surface and could no longer be ignored. His tongue pushed into my mouth, impatient to be re-united with mine, and I gladly opened my mouth for him to let our tongues tangle together.

Edward’s arms tightened around me. In response, I tried to press myself closer, but the chair was making it difficult. I groaned in frustration and pulled away from his eager lips.

“Edward,” I moaned as his lips dragged down my throat. He stopped his drugging kisses to look up at me through hooded eyes. “I need you,” I confessed quietly.

The words were simple and he could have brushed them off easily, but instead he took them how I had meant them, capturing my lips fiercely as if staking a claim on my body. He strong arms lifted me out of the chair, cradling me to his chest as he walked me over to my bed where he lay me down in front of him. I had a strange sense of déjà vu as I looked up at him from my bed, but I knew this time there would be no interruption of what was coming.

His lips met mine feverishly as he climbed into bed next to me. I pulled him on top of me, my fingers dragging desperately at his t-shirt as I tried to find the hem. He easily ducked out the shirt as I ripped it upward and over his head. Edward’s hands slipped under my shirt and his fingers traced the wiring of my bra before doing anything else. I shivered in his arms and broke away from his lips, gasping for air as his hand moved upward to cup my breast through the thin cotton.

I couldn’t bite back my moan as he pinched and rolled one of my nipples between his fingers. He smiled down at me as he captured my lips again. His hands strayed from my breasts to pull my t-shirt up and over my head as well.

He paused as my dark green bra and pale stomach were revealed to him. I took in a shaky breath as I lay under his appraising gaze. He swallowed visibly before his eyes traveled back up to mine.

“You are exquisite, Bella Swan,” he said quietly. His eyes were burning with the same intensity they had held when he had confessed he loved me not ten minutes ago. I melted under them and sighed in absolute bliss as his lips found their way to mine again. The fervor of exploration we had felt before had suddenly and tangibly shifted to a softer, adulate feeling as we melded together again.

His fingers drifted behind me where they swiftly unhooked my bra, letting it fall free of my breasts. As I slipped out of it, I felt Edward’s hungry eyes drinking in the sight, but it didn’t make me feel self-conscious as I normally would have. It made me feel beautiful. His eyes met mine again before he dipped his head to take one of the already sensitive nipples into his wet mouth. He brushed his rough tongue against the taut skin, forcing a strangled gasp from my lips. My hips jerked upwards to find his and I moaned at the friction as our hips grinded slowly against each other.

When he had finished teasing and nipping at my breasts, his mouth slowly trailed down my stomach, leaving open-mouthed kisses the whole way. I shivered underneath him as his lips brushed along the waistband of my pajama pants. One of his hands had found its way to my hip, while the other slid up my leg to finally cup my butt in his palm. He uttered a guttural groan as he squeezed it and I lifted my hips up in response. Edward looked up through his eyelashes from where he lingered at my waistband. I nodded to him with a small smile and took a deep breath as his long, elegant fingers hooked around them and pulled them, along with my underwear, down my legs. The feeling itself of my clothes being slowly dragged from my body was enough to send white hot flashes of pleasure straight to my core, but Edward went even further by lovingly kissing each new inch of my bare legs as they came into view for him. I was almost undone completely by the time he threw my pants to the side of my bed and kicked them away.

As soon as they fell to the floor, he grabbed my ankle and kissed it worshipfully. I nearly gasped at the strangely erotic feeling that coursed through my blood as I watched him do this. Edward worked his way back up my legs in the same fashion he had traveled down them, kissing as much of the skin on the inside of my calves and thighs as he finally reached that part of me that yearned the most for his touch. He looked up at me once again, seeking approval before continuing. In response, I licked my lips and nodded.

His hand slipped in between my thighs and stroked the skin there with the tips of his fingers, causing the burning wetness I already felt to intensify ten fold. Satisfied by my squirming reaction, he gently plunged his fingers inside of me.

“Edward,” I moaned at the sensation and pushed my hips into his fingers, willing them to move inside of me. I threw my head back in pleasure as he began thrusting them in compliance to my silent request.

“God, Bella,” he said roughly, sounding almost pained. I opened eyes, licking my lips as I realized how close his face was to mine. As I looked up at him, his lips crashed down on mine. I whimpered as his skilled fingers pushed me closer and closer to release. It didn’t take much longer for my world to be filled with the electric pleasure of my orgasm.

His fingers slipped out of me as the feeling dimmed, leaving me hungry for more. I pushed his shoulders lightly and rolled us so I could straddle on top of him. He kissed me fiercely as I laced my fingers through his still wet ones. I took the hand he had used to pleasure me and lifted it to my mouth, sucking my taste from his skin. He groaned in delighted torture as I flicked my tongue out to lick my lips.

I glowed at the revelation that I could have that kind of effect on him and my hands swept down his bare chest to the button on his jeans. I quickly undid them and pulled them from his hips, leaving his boxers to rest lowly there. He kicked his jeans impatiently from his legs and then pulled me back up to his lips. I kissed him eagerly and pressed the full length of my body against his as closely as I could. The growing pressure between my legs was only further spurred on by the very obvious erection his rubbed against me. He didn’t wait for me to take the last remaining barrier between us off; instead he slid them off himself and rolled us back over so he was on top of me again.

“Bella,” he whispered against my skin as he trailed his lips along my collarbone.

His green eyes were bright with passion as I tugged my fingers through his hair, urging his mouth to abandon my neck and ravage my lips again. He gladly complied, shifting even closer to me and causing his member to brush teasingly against my entrance. I sighed at the contact and my hand slid from his hair and down his back to finally grab his erection and hold it in my hand. The soft skin there was silky to the touch as it jerked under my light squeezes. Edward dropped his head to rest against the hollow of my neck as I touched him and the sound of his heavy breathing was fast becoming too much to handle.

“Edward,” I finally groaned as my hand slid up and down his member. Finding no other words to fully express what I wanted from him, I repeated my earlier plea. “I need you.”

He uttered a soft guttural sound as I removed my hand from his length and raised his head to look me in the eyes seriously.

“Are you sure you want this? Because if we go much further, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop,” he asked, sounding as if his control was already slipping. His hands wandered all over my body as he waited for my answer and I reveled in the feeling of his fingertips dancing across my skin.

“Edward, I’ve never been more sure,” I assured him with a gasp as his fingers rubbed against my clit, sending shockwaves emanating through my body.

He kissed me as a final seal of the act before positioning himself to enter me. He made sure our eyes were on each other as he pushed himself slowly inside of me. I moaned at the sensation of him filling me and he waited for me to adjust to the feeling of him fully inside me before he began to move his hips again. Our pace at first was languid as we explored the motions of the other, but soon the sweet torture became too much for the both of us and he began to thrust faster without any prompting. I bucked my hips up to meet his and he groaned at the slapping noise our skin made at each movement.

It wasn’t long before we both came, crying out in release together. He collapsed into my arms, kissing everywhere his lips could reach as he pulled out of me. My name fell from his lips as if it were a prayer and I could do nothing but whisper his name throatily back for some time.

We fell asleep in each others arms, letting the temporary peace we had created settle between us. Dimly, I knew that we still had many hurdles yet to jump before things could even resemble a true peace, but as I was laying there in Edward’s arms, those hurdles suddenly looked infinitely smaller than they had even this morning. Making love to Edward had not changed any of the issues we had yet to resolve, but it did bring into focus how much I needed him for everything. I only hoped it had done the same for him and he could trust me with his heart and his secrets from now on.

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So, as you can guess, there will be come conflict resolution going on in the next chapter. Lots of talking and such. Edward and Bella are far from finished with their problems even after this little interlude. I hoped no one was disappointed with this as I don’t really write sex scenes very often, so I’m always very nervous when I do.

Review and let me know

(Oh yes, next week, I’ll be back to posting sneak peeks of chapters at both gloriousbite and Twilighted. So sorry about not having them for the past couple of chapters, but I’ve been absolutely swamped with some real life drama. It’s clearing up now, so I should be back to normalcy very, very soon.)