Written for bookjunkie1975. I hope she knows how much she means to me.

The History of Now

Chapter Seven – All I Need

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Eight months later:

I wake up to too bright sunlight punching through the blinds. I stretch against the sheets, looking for her warm, but all I find is cool linen under my hands.

I prop myself up on my elbows, my morning wood trapped between me and the mattress in a way that isn't entirely unpleasant. I roll out of bed and stumble through the house, looking for the girl and hoping she'll scratch my itch.

Instead, I find a note and a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. I drink it, tart and sweet and cold, and when the sugar hits my blood I find the will to put on clothes.

Ambling through the house, I look around and see the pieces of our life together. Her art, in various stages of composition, litters every available surface. There's nothing she touches that she puts away, and the maid is forbidden from touching any of it.

I grimace at the clutter, but it warms me, too. The times I've had to be without her, either for my job or hers, were hard and hurtful because, now that I have her in the flesh, her voice on the line is a poor substitute.

It's not perfect, and we've both sacrificed, but it's worth it. It's worth anything to have her in my hands, to feel the calm of her fingers on my skin, and when she looks me in the eye and says everything will be alright, well, I have to believe. In her. In us.

She's left me a note scrawled on the blackboard in the kitchen.

Come find me, it says. So I do.

I stand up on the patio and look out over the beach. I can see her there, hair whipping around in the wind as she crouches over a tide pool. She's been collecting sea glass all week, working on some kind of ocean-themed piece that she's calling "Little Treasures."

I take the steps fast and then she's there in my arms. She's wearing cut-off shorts and her legs seem so long as she wraps herself around me.

"Morning, baby," she says. Her voice is soft and husky, and without a word, I turn around and take her back up to the house.

She holds on and kisses my neck, her mouth warm and sucking on my skin as she squirms in my arms. In the last eight months, I've had her so many times, and it's never enough. My fingers dig into the backs of her thighs, but I won't set her down until we hit the bed.

"Jasper." She moans against my skin, and pushes her breasts against me. The tank top she's wearing hides nothing, and when I look down I can see the creamy swells of her skin.

"Fuck, Bella." I lay her down on the bed and pull away, but she won't untangle her legs. I reach between them and press my palm to her, as she whines and moves against me.

My fingers climb up her body and peel away her shirt. I can never not stare at how beautiful she is. I can never not burn for her - just the smell of her sets me off, just the sound of her voice. Our first month back together she had to take antibiotics because we couldn't keep our hands off each other.

It's different from before, too. It's urgent and mad, but it's also soft in a way. There's love in every touch, and we both know what it's like to be apart. Now, even when we're apart for days, it makes us anxious and tense. Got so bad, Carm started getting Bella's schedule before she started booking shows, just so no one would have to put up with my surly ass if we were apart for too long.

I press into her and she makes a soft, gasping sound. It's the same every time I get inside her, and I feel her whole body tighten in response. And just like that, it flips, and I'm no longer pushing into her to get off, I'm pushing into to make her feel good, to watch her underneath me, soft and yielding, giving herself to me, and I am such a lucky fucking man.

I can feel from the way she's reacting that she'll come fast, and if she comes on my cock, I'll lose it. I draw back and put my mouth on her and her fingers scratch into my hair. She twists and pulls at it, the sounds she makes driving me crazy. I drive my tongue into her, not going slow, not taking my time, but drowning in the taste of her. When she melts against me, I groan into her flesh, because nothing – nothing – nothing feels as good as feeling her spin apart, knowing I made it happen.

Then I'm back inside of her and she's lucid enough to move against me, eyes closed and mouth open, and I feel like I can drown there in her, in the pink of her mouth and the heat of her surrounding me.

We lay against the pillows, the sheets a thin cover in the warm morning.

"You ready for tomorrow?" she asks.

"I think so, yeah."

"Nervous?" She asks the question against my skin, giving me space to hide if I want it.

I nod. "Yeah, but…this is what I want."

A few months back Char got pregnant. She and Peter talked it over, and decided that staying home with the kid was what they both wanted. After that, Rye and Em started working on a side-project, and with my notebooks full of words and Bella by my side, I realized the time was right for a solo album.

I have a show tomorrow night – a small place not far from the house, but it's sold out. I don't know what they're going to want from me. It's just me and my guitar, me and my words. I hope that they'll love it, that they'll still love me, but even if they don't, it doesn't matter. She loves me, and that's all I need.

AN: FDM and Kris are my alphas and betas. I would be lost without them. Amery Marie gave it a final looking over, and wrangled more commas than I thought possible. At this point, any errors are mine.

Special thanks to farkle, who gave me some great information about art and art schools. A lot of that didn't make it into the story, but it informed the story, regardless. Thank you so much, sweet.

I wrote most of this to the songs of Abby Road. Make of that what you will.

Thank you so much for reading.