Chapter 10 – The Truth

3am or so, the next morning

Living Area otherwise known as, The Den

Edward Cullen POV

“No one’s ever done something like this for me before,” Bella said, placing a hand over the heart shaped locket that lay against her chest.
“Never?”  That possibility seemed… ridiculous to me.  Regardless, her head moved slowly, from side to side, confirming that fact.
“Like, never never?”
“Realleh, realleh,” she said half jokingly, but I could see the sadness behind that smile of hers.
It wasn’t mine.
“You didn’t have to…”
“I wanted to,” I’d insisted because I had wanted to.  Granted, I didn’t know why I’d wanted to, but I wanted to.  For her.  Because no one should spend their birthday alone, with no gifts.
And after a quiet moment or two… “Thank you.”
I was blown away.  In a huge way, I mean… Bella was thanking me for this… trinket that I’d thought to be worth pennies compared to what she must have been used to but…
Never?
Really?
I think that was the moment I took to think about how, in all the years I’d worked for Marcus… alone… doing jobs… alone… that there were other “people” out there doing the same thing.
He’d purposely kept us separated like that.  No personal contact, no relationships to form, no bonds to make. 
Except for with him.
Smart, really, when you think about it, but like I’ve said before… Marcus is a smart man.
It all begged me to question though, why this job?  Why now?  Why put Bella and me together?  His two “top dogs” as he liked to put it.  When there would be the threat of a bond to be made?
Unless he was banking on us hating each other the whole way through.
I eyed her seriously.  “Can we…?”
“So how long have you two been married, anyway?”
It was Whitlock.  His curiosity was showing again and he’d caught the both of us off guard, which is why we both answered at the same time, trying not to seem like we’d indeed been caught off guard with his question.
“Seven years,” says Bella.
“Ten… years,” says the idiot who doesn’t know how to just shut the fuck up.
Oy.
This whole doing the job with someone else was complicated.
I mean, we’d touched on the basics before we moved in together, but in all honesty, a typical job for Marcus didn’t require that you held too much personal information in your head. 
I cleared my throat and let out an amused chuckle toward my fake wife. “See, Bella always counts from the day we got married… while I count from the very first day I laid eyes on her.”
May thirteenth, two-thousand-eleven.
I slipped an arm around her and kissed the top of her head, hoping to show how completely lost and in love I was with my fake wife, and then smiled as Whitlock’s face contorted into what appeared to be fascination with us.
Bella giggled as her face began to glow.  It was fake… the giggle that is.  Also not mine.  But it was still able to make my dick twitch when she admitted softly, “You like making me blush,” without actually looking at me.
The glow… now that was real.  And I put a hand to her chin, forcing her eyes to meet to mine.
“I like making you a lot of things.”
I’d like to make you do a lot of things… that is.
Make you beg for mercy.
Make you scream my name.
Make you cum.  Several times.
I was having a moment while everyone else laughed off our faux pas. For the remainder of the evening, I pretty much let Bella answer questions about us.  If I could.  All the while, cementing her answers into the back of my mind so I’d remember them if they were to come up again while simultaneously cementing her facial expressions along with them.
A glint in her eyes.
I tuck of some hair behind her ear.
The way her eyes would dip and she’d bite her lip if she was a little embarrassed by a compliment someone would give her.
Things like that.
Lying isn’t easy, ya know.  It never has been, since the beginning of time.  This is why you really shouldn’t make it a habit to lie… or at least, not speak quite so much to your surburbanite cookie cutter Stepford neighbors… that way you don’t have to keep lying and therefore, the problem of having to remember said lies doesn’t come up as often… sometimes not even at all.
Hind sight’s twenty-twenty.
Despite the awkwardness of questions being thrown around… I’d done a little digging of my own… the bright spot of the night had been that Bella’s entire attitude toward me seemed to have changed after I’d given her that locket necklace… and the kiss might I add… and on more than one occasion, as I drank my beer and held empty conversations with Whitlock and McCarty, I noticed her touching it unconsciously.
”So what types of hobbies do you have, Ed?”  McCarty had asked.  “It’s okay if I call you Ed, right?”
I nodded, sarcastically, ‘cause blech.  Ed.  “Of course, Emmett,” I told him, before drinking down my beer.  That gave me some time to drum up some of the information I’d found on Whitlock so that my answer could work for me.
Bella stole glances with me...  Smiled a few smiles while talking with the other ladies that I could have sworn were actually meant for me, and yet, she managed to avoid a whole lot of close proximity with me.
Something that I was struggling with because all I wanted to do was re-live that kiss we’d shared on the dance floor… and maybe take things a little further.
If she’d let me, that is.
You know, for the sake of seeming married.
Nothing to do with the deep, dark tainted feelings I may or may not have been having toward her over the previous couple of weeks.
At all.
Seriously.
I focused, making sure I didn’t give my actual passion away to him.  Which had been just about on the brink of sailing, had Marcus not oh so very rudely interrupted my life altering experience of purchasing the Beneteau I’d had my eyes on.
I mean, you don’t just go throwing ammo around so people could use it against you in this line of business.
No.  Things you held dear were held close to the chest.  Locked in a box that no one else could steal from.  Because once that happened, you were pretty much toast.
“My Masters is in computer networking… but really my interests are more in the people side of things,” I told McCarty, noting the way Whitlock had straightened up at my words.   “You know, how they understand the computers?  How computers fit into their lives?”
Yes.
Learning about people.
Taking advantage of people.
Scamming people.
Ruining people’s lives and ultimately… making money off of people.
“Really…” Whitlock mused.  “Ya know, I’m kind of a psych major myself.” 
Awesome.
I hoped the swallow of saliva I took hadn’t been too obvious.  “Oh yeah?  I thought you ran some security companies?”
He nodded as he drank, and then answered me.  “But my background is intelligence… once upon a time it was my job to know… things.”
Government things you mean.
And there it was again.  Whitlock’s uncanny ability to seem like he was trying to tell me something without actually… telling me something. 
I blew him off.  “Seems like you sure know how to make money, that’s one thing I wouldn’t mind knowin’.”
Get the in, Cullen… get the in… you can do this.
“You and Bella seem to be doing pretty good yourselves.”
“One can always do better though, right?” I joked, hoping whatever it was he was into was some sort of money making scheme that he’d let me in on eventually.  One that would perhaps get him into Marcus’s back pocket… One that would be the key to my freedom.
“Are we still… talking computers here, guys?” Emmett asked, breaking the ice a little that was forming between good old Jasper and I. 
We laughed it all off and Whitlock ended the conversation with, “Well, perhaps we can share secrets one day.”
“Deal,” I told him and we both finished our drinks without another word about it.
It was a constant battle of wits, the con-mans game.  It’s like Kenny Rogers always said… Ya gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.  Know when to walk away… know when to… well, you know the rest, right?
Anyway… the remainder of the night proved not so bad after all… there was a little more dancing… not with me.  A little more laughing… nervous laughing I might add. A lot more drinking.  A little touching in the limo on the way home.  Purposefully on my part.
And a little idea that grew from all of the conversations Bella and I’d had throughout the evening.
Once we were inside and the front door closed and she knew there was no way anyone would hear what she had to say, she waited a moment or two with her back to me… then turned to face me.  “I think I’m…”
“Gonna go to bed?” I finished for her and then we laughed.
I pointed to the locket. “It looks nice on you.”
Her eyes dipped a little.  “I think it would look nice on anyone.”
“Doubtful,” I told her and she made to turn.  “Well…”
“Ya know, you don’t have hide away whenever we’re here together… we could make this, I don’t know… fun…”
“Fun,” she answered, trying not to smile.
“Well not… food fight fun, but yeah… you know… as opposed to avoiding each other and…  fueling the hate…”  I said that last part like Vincent Price. 
I love that guy.
No one could do creepy like Vincent.
Why I was trying to be creepy was beyond me.  I was reaching.
Hey, I was just glad Bella had found it funny and not insulting.  She giggled through her nose, covering mouth like she’d done back at the bar and then asked, “Well, Mr. Masen, what is it you’d like to do at three AM as opposed to getting sleep?”
Other than have a friendly fuck fest?
Was she drunk or what?

Fucking adorable.

I shrugged, pretending I was just now coming up with something.  “Let’s play a game.”

“What?”

“You know... to get to know each other better?”

And Bella’s scowls, I decided, were even cuter than her eyebrow arches.

“So we’re not caught quite so off guard next time.”

“I don’t know if this is a good idea Edward,” she told me as she swayed slightly.  “I mean shouldn’t we just… make more things up?”

I shook my head at her. “Nah, it’s too hard to remember every single detail of all the made up shit. This’ll be easier, and it won’t be stuff they can’t know about us… come on.”  I tempted her.  I could tell.  It was only gonna take another gesture to get her to agree.

“I’ll buy you a new pint of double chocolate, chocolate fudge brownie ice cream tomorrow.”

She only hesitated for a split second before telling me, “I’m in.”

Told ya.

“I’ll get the playing board, meet me in the den in five.”  And oh… I use the term “playing board” loosely here.  Just so you know. 

After I’d gathered everything I needed, I set off for the den, but stopped for a few seconds before actually going in. 

Bella sat there, on the huge leather sectional sofa with her dress still on, but her shoes kicked off and in the corner somewhere.  She pulled her hair up into a big old pony tail on top of her head as I watched, and that neck…

Goddamn.

In all honesty?  It wouldn’t be all that hard to imagine myself coming home after a long, hard day’s job… a real job that is… to a woman sitting on the sofa waiting for me like that.

Provided she didn’t have a secret desire to, you know… cut my balls off.

I let out some air and brought in the items I’d retrieved, setting one of them down onto the coffee table before taking a seat a little further away from Bella than I would have liked to, but didn’t wanna crowd her too much.

We were still on shaky, I’m not so sure I trust you right now, ground. 

Hopefully that was about to change.

When Bella saw the bottle of Patron I’d set down, she arched an eyebrow at it then turned to me and I couldn’t help but smile. 

“Truth or dare?” she asked me, but I shook my head, frowning at the notion.   “Nah… I got a better game.” 

That’s when I pulled out the two shot glasses I’d slipped into my pocket at the bar and informed her of my idea.  “It’s called, truth or drink.”

“What?” she asked, only her face didn’t reflect annoyance… it reflected… fun.

And I swallowed down the urge to scrap the game and kiss the living shit out of her again.  “Yeah… I ask you a question, you either answer the question truthfully, or…” I poured the first one. “You take a shot.”

She narrowed her eyes playfully and I couldn’t help but notice how increasingly sexy she was becoming to me.  “How will you know if I’m lying?”

I poured the second shot.  “I think I’ve got your Tell down.”

“My… Tell?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t have a…”

I pointed at her – as she grabbed a piece of hair and twisted it in between her fingers. “Right there.”

She let it go immediately and put her hands into her lap… a little embarrassed even. “I never realized I had a Tell.”

I shrugged.  “Most people don’t”

“So, what’s your Tell?”

“I don’t have one.”

“What? Come on.”

I held a hand up, silently swearing to tell the truth, nothing but the truth so help me… God.  “No lie. It’s what makes me the best at what I do.”  I waggled my eyebrows at her drunkenly.

“Ha!”

“Was that supposed to be a laugh?”

She rolled her eyes. “It was supposed to be a mock… but it didn’t quite come out right, I guess.”

It came out perfectly.

“Do we really have to do this with Tequila?”

“You scared?”

That was so low of me.  It was so old… and immature… and totally a predictable, con-man’s way of getting someone to do something.  Luckily, it was also a sure fire way to… get someone to do something.

“Can you make me a… schlippery nipple?”

Did she really just do that?

I chuckled at her.  “I don’t think so,” I told her, then, thinking of a better reply, I added, “I mean, not alcoholically speaking that is.”  Then I waggled my eyebrows for her a little bit and she blushed again.  I could get used to that blush. 

“Who goes first?”

“You wanna…”

“Flip for it?” She shook her head.  “I don’t fucking think so, Edward.”  She fiddled with her hair again and my dick twitched.  Hopefully in a highly incognito way.  “Just go.”

“Right… okay… um… First kiss.”

She picked up the shot glass and I stopped her, laughing. “Already?”  

“I’m not telling you about my first kiss.”

“Okay, an easier one then. Who’d you lose your virginity to?”

She picked the glass up again and shook her head at me, shutting her mouth up like Fort Knox.  Dammit.

“Why not?”

“Because it…”

“Fell short of your expectations? Didn’t feel right?  Gave you a bad case of crabs?”

“It’s… just not something I want to share… that’s all.”

I twisted my mouth.  Cocked an eyebrow.  Pursed my lips and decided… I’d let it slide… for now.

“Fine, but you only get to drink once every… three questions.”

“What? You didn’t say that…”

“Bella, if we’re gonna get to know each other… ya gotta actually answer something.”

She drank the shot down like a pro and I filled it for the next one she didn’t want to share… then she took her turn.  “What’s your… favorite color?”  Lame.

“Cerulean.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t you mean, excuse me?”  Luckily, she laughed.

“Cerulean…” Her eyebrows curled up and I laughed again.  “Blue?”

She snorted and made one of those lovely noises she liked to make when she was annoyed with me.  “Why can’t you just say blue?”

“It’s not blue… it’s close to blue… but it’s not blue.”

“Well what is it then?”

“It’s a sea color…. In the right places of the sea, anyway.”

“You are so weird.”

“Ditto… what’s your favorite band?”

We went on like that for a while.  Asking simple… easy questions like… favorite time of year, favorite concert ever played.  Dyed hair or not?  Real or Fake?  Manicure or Pedicure?  Movies?  Bella was drinking… a lot at first but then she loosened up a little.  Laughed a lot even.

They’re real by the way… Bella’s boobs… Not that I needed her to tell me that.

It was about an hour into the game when I decided I needed more… more information about Bella Swan… not my fake wife, Bella Swan… but her… who she was underneath the bad ass.

So I threw one out there she wasn’t quite expecting.  “How long have you worked for Marcus?”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with what our neighbors need us to know about each other, Edward.”

“Changing the game, I think I know enough about your childhood.”

“I don’t…”

“Are you gonna answer, or are you gonna drink?”

She waited and I thought the game was about to end until… “Eight years… give or take,” she said quietly.  I knew I was travelling dangerous ground… sensitive territory.  Most of us who worked for Marcus didn’t exactly know each other… or the details of how we came across the line of work we were in… but… like I said… needed to know.

I scrunched my eyebrows at her.  That was a long time.  “Why haven’t I seen you till now?”

“That’s two questions.”  And… the arched eyebrow again, only this time… it was accompanied by a smile. 

“Fine.”

“Fine,” she teased.  And I wasn’t sure how to react to this Bella… she was… toying with me, but in an oh so much better way than before.

Twitch.

I gestured with a hand for her to go on then.  And boy did she. “Why did you want to leave the business?”

“Why would ask that?”

“Why would you ask me how long I’ve been with Marcus?”

“Point taken.”

I pretended we were moving on, but she was not having it.  “Well?”

She was a pit bull, this woman.  “Well.. don’t you?”

“Uh uh, Edward… Not your turn.”

And then, even though I kinda sorta hated to do it, I took the first shot since we started the game.  I just wasn’t sure I wanted to go there yet. 

She nodded sarcastically.  “Okay, you can have that one.”

“So… why haven’t I seen you, Miss? I’ve been with Marcus for eight years… give or take…”

“It actually makes sense when you think about it…” she started. “You worked East Coast most of the time… Marcus tended to keep me on the West Coast… working Silicon Valley, Las Vegas… places like that…” and I’m suddenly noticing… the more Bella drinks, the more she talks.

“I’d heard of you, of course… we had just never… crossed paths I guess.”

“Till now.”

“Right… till now,” she smiled… then, “My turn… what is it that you love… Eddy boy?”

I snorted.  Eddy boy?
And note here….  She didn’t ask who I loved.  No one loved anyone in our profession.  It was frowned upon.  Not by Marcus, mind you.  It was us.  The con-men.
Because when you love someone… Marcus destroys that love. Entirely. It’s not good for business, you see.
I swallowed.  And stared into her eyes… trying to figure out what it was Bella Swan was digging for, settling upon answering her question with a question.  “Were you in my bedroom the other day?”
Silence. 
It was a long, drawn out silence.  As though both of us were attempting to read the other’s mind… and oh… how much would I pay to have read her mind.  I waited… and listened… paid attention for anything she might have to give me, but… nothin’.
Then we both downed our shots.

After I finished mine, I nodded a little nod at her, assuming it was my turn again for some reason.  “Why do you need a cell phone that has nothing to do with Marcus?”

“I told you, some things need to be…”

I shook my head at her for the umpteenth time that night, waving the Patron bottle at her.  “I want the long version.”

I thought she was gonna take the drink I poured her.  I thought she’d bail on that one for sure, but… after a short debate with herself internally, she took a deep breath and held it for a second or two… then let it out slowly. 

“Marcus knows every aspect of my life, Edward.”  She rolled her eyes a little at the thought and mumbled “literally” under her breath.   Then looked right at me.  “He was there when I began walking… he knows when I first started my period, and the day I got caught hacking into my high school’s computer system and changed a grade I didn’t want my dad to see… he’s seen me at my best, but he’s also seen me at my absolute worst… and he was there for me.  He knows the precise amount of money in my bank account and has access to it… or so he thinks…” 

She hesitated and I asked, “So, he knows your dad?”

She didn’t answer. 

“Is that who you talk to on the phone?  Why can’t Marcus know you’re talking to your dad?”

 “My turn now… ” she told me defiantly, refusing to show emotion that seemed to really want to surface. 

“What’s your beef with Marcus?”

She sounded like she was sobering up a little and I was confused.  Wondering if she was asking for him… or for herself.  I wasn’t divulging that information though.

No way in hell.

So I drank.

“Who do you talk to on your phone, Bella?”
She drank.
“Is it Whitlock?” Where’d THAT come from?
She laughed it off though.  “Whitlock!?”
I took a step back as my head spun and I wasn’t entirely sure as to whether it was spinning from the alcohol or the conspiracy theories that had just flown out of my mouth. “Okay, okay…” I laughed too.  “Let’s… back up, here…” I thought about it… “What’s our song?” I asked.
And although she had to think about it for a little while, she finally came up with, “Well…maybe we don’t’ have a song.”
“Don’t have a song…”
“Right, I mean… we’re unconventional right? We don’t do all that silly… romantic bullshit like most people do… it’s what basically cements the downfall of every marriage in America…”

“It does?”

How did she know this shit?

“Yeah, totally. I mean, seven out of ten marriages end in divorce anyway, right?” She didn’t wait for me  to respond.  “What is it you think those seven have in common, anyway?  The LOVE?  The PASSION?  Hell no!  It’s the expectations… that’s what… and I’ll tell you another thing…”

She took another shot.  I don’t know if she thought she’d not answered a question or what, but I just sat there, leaned back, and let her have at it.

“Who needs a stupid piece of paper to say they’re gonna be together forever anyway?”

She waited, eying me suspiciously.  And I said, “Proof?”

“Proof of what?  That you were so insecure in your relationship that you needed a contract to bind you to that person?  Forever and ever?”

“Um…”

“Bullshit, that’s what I say.”  She was pointing at me, one eyed.

“I …”

“It’s all… bullshit.” She waved a hand and poured another drink.

She wiped her mouth and I choked on the amusement.  Until she eyed me… Hard.  “My turn… Edward…”  she slurred and I waited for the bombshell.  She leaned toward me a little then, and tilted her head the way I liked… then smirked slightly, narrowing her eyes before asking me, “Do you really get a hard on when I shimmy my ass?”

Oy.  Not this again.

“That’s not…”  I am so screwed here.

“It’s something I should know, isn’t it?  I mean… I’m your wife, aren’t I?” she asked me, very matter of factly.

I had to keep reminding myself… Fake. Wife.

Bella Swan was my fake… wife.

I swallowed the pride inside and went ahead and gave her a bone.  No pun intended.  It wasn’t like she was gonna remember this part of the conversation anyway…  “What idiot in their right mind wouldn’t sport a hard on for you, Bella?” 

The look on her face said something… what was that?  Deer in the headlights?  Confusion?  What? 

Her hand lowered a little, seeming to inch toward me.

“What?”

“You just called me Bella again.” 

“I decided I like your name.”

She grinned.  “I like hearing you say my name.”

We stared at each other for what seemed like a timeless moment and then she downed another shot, slamming the glass down onto the coffee table afterwards.

I chuckled.  “What was that one for?”

“Good measure,” she told me and then leapt forward, tackling me, and I’m pretty sure my head clocked itself against something hard as … fuck, but really, I just didn’t give a shit.  Know what I mean?

Shocked? Yes.

Passing this up?  No goddamn way.

It was immediate… the way we both just seemed to fall into the moment that was being created.
Hands fought for control and clothes ripped… I think some buttons flew off into the corners of the room somewhere and Bella’s lips were… fucking everywhere while I tried desperately not to bite the motherfuck out of her neck… her shoulders…
“Jesus,” I choked out as she grinded against me, pulling at my jeans.  I mean dick twitching was one thing… Bella flush against my body… rubbing him in all the… right…
“Off,” she grunted.  “Please get these fucking things off.”
“I don’t think so,” I growled back.  I still owed her a little something.  Whether she was fessing up or not. 
I slinked her dress up over her hips, and nearly fucking lost my load right then and there when I realized I was palming a bare ass.  Of course… she wasn’t wearing any fucking underwear.
I thought a moan escaped her.  It was barely audible and part of my brain entertained the idea of Bella Swan practicing withholding any inkling, whatsoever, that she might actually be enjoying herself.
Her mouth was on mine after deciding she’d allow my hands the access they needed and it was hard and bold and our teeth clanked a couple of times… “Ow… fuck.” Was I bleeding? 
 “Sorry,” she breathed as she continued her attempt to consume me in one fell swoop.
Grunts and groans came out of me that I hadn’t previously been aware existed, as I pulled the top of her dress down, exposing a breast for me.  I palmed it.  Under the dress, over the lacey bra.
God she was hard.
I was hard.
Shit.
My other hand found its way between her legs and I nudged her legs apart from underneath of her. 
“You’re so lucky I’m drunk right now,” she giggled with excitement, dipping her head to bite my neck. “Jesus, Bella, that shit hurts.”
She didn’t give a shit though… she hummed and pushed herself forward a little more, bringing her breast directly into the line of fire with my mouth.  So I took one, sucking hard, feeling for the wetness between Bella’s legs and she literally… hissed when I bit down a little.
Mother of god.
“You’ve got great nipples,” I told her and then a hand of hers went to my hair, grabbing a fist full, causing pain to fuel my aching fucking need.  And then… finally, I found what I wanted to explore and slid a finger along her slit, to get a little bit easier access into the….
She let out a gasp and held her breath when I made contact with her clit, then delved inside of her with a couple of fingers. 
I let the breast go and leaned my forehead against her chest as I moved in and out of what I’d recently only dreamt of getting a firsthand… no pun intended … experience with.
I kissed along the dip between her tits… and while I was making Bella writhe with one hand, the other clutched her ass, moving her as my own hips moved in sequence with the rhythm we were creating.
She was tortured.  Breathing heavy… whispering something to herself… “I fucking…”
I pulled my head away from her body to look up at her.  She was beautiful, scowling with those eyes of hers closed and an expression I locked away as a new one for the books.  That would be… mine.
“What do you want, Bella?”
“I need your… shhhhit…”
I could tell she was close as I ran a finger around her clit, bringing her to the brink, then diving into her folds again.  I was good at this… making women want more… making them need more…. But Bella… she was…
“Come here,” I told her, picking her body up by the waist, and then pulling her pussy to my mouth with both hands on her ass. 
“No…” she started, but then it was more like, “oh… God.”
I didn’t waste time on teasing, she was too close and I wanted to taste her… to own her, so I pushed my tongue into the hot, sweet juices of one, Isabella Swan… wondering how many men had done this… or, attempted to do this before me.
How many were serious about her?
How many was she serious about?
“That’s…”
I hummed in response to her and noted, I did have my hands on her ass, in the hopes of creating a push pull kinda thing, but I hadn’t needed to.  Bella was losing that façade of self control and her hips moved… and her body angled itself to get all the right feelings out of what I was doing to her.
What I was doing to me.
Screw that, what she was doing to me.
I added some fingers and that was her end, as I sucked on her clit and pumped in and out of her, deep and hard.  She was nothing like the cold deep abyss I’d originally imagined… she was hot and ready and passionate and…. Perfect.
She didn’t scream when she came.  Or say even a single word, actually.  She just grabbed at my hair and pushed herself against me, forcing my head into her as best she could while climaxing hard and long and finally… after she’d caught her breath and regained her composure, she slid down and sat back, staring at me with…
That look.
That look in her eyes was familiar and she said, “I don’t think I feel right,” holding her head. 
I remembered where I’d seen that expression before… so I quickly grabbed a pillow and put it behind her as I re-assured her, “It’s okay Bella, I’ll see ya in the morning.”
Her eyes rolled back into her head and she fell back just as she was shooting me a confused look. I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that I’d just caused one bad ass bitch to black out from one seriously spectacular orgasm.
I was sooooo never letting her live that down.
I was also not about to let her just pass out and sleep alone downstairs, with her dress hiked up and her hair a mess… so I went and grabbed us a blanket and the remote and made myself comfortable for a post orgasmic sleepover.
…..
The next morning, I smacked my lips as consciousness crept in… they barely separated for me, by the way, and then went to move when I noticed a heavy weight was holding me down in the position I’d apparently landed in the night before.
Okay maybe not a heavy weight… more like a hundred and ten… hundred fifteen… wet.
I was still wearing the clothes I’d left in the night before, still smelled like sex and Bella was…
Well, she was Bella.
Bella with zero walls up and un-brushed hair… or teeth for that matter… she had a leg thrown over mine and one hand was under her cheek while the other lay flat against my…
That would be my dick.
I moved it.  But only because, had I not moved it, I’d be sitting there for who knew how long with a goddamn hard on and no real way to take care of it. 
I shuffled my way to the kitchen, avoiding the bright light that was streaming through the curtains in the front room.
That hurts.
I found some Aleve and a couple glasses of water, and on my way back to the den, I forced myself to check across the street. 
I didn’t know what time it was, but I knew there should have at least been some sort of activity going on outside… which there wasn’t.
No Alice Brandon, making stealth like sweeps of yard measuring or… Seth the lawn boy… mowing lawns… He’s probably mowing another type of lawn… if ya know what I mean.  And no Emmett McCarty, checking on his grass insects…
I guess I could explain it all well enough, except for Seth… they probably all had the same hangovers I had… that Bella would most certainly have.
One thing I did notice though, were the trucks in front of Whitlock’s home.  Two of them.
Not UPS trucks, mind you… just plain, white trucks with no markings whatsoever.  And no one loading or un-loading anything, either… Where are the truck drivers?
“Huh.”
I popped the Aleve and swallowed the water down, thinking.
I should have snuck a peek into the back of one of them.
Should have at least written a plate number down.
But I didn’t have a pen handy… which was a lame excuse… but regardless, I chose to nurse my hangover instead, figuring Whitlock wasn’t about to just up and stop his truck visitations any time soon.
Besides, waking up with Bella sprawled across me like she had been was something I was about to try and re-create while she was still passed out.
I picked up the remote to the seventy-eight inch plasma television that was lying on the floor and channel surfed for a while until I found an older movie that happened to be an all time fave of mine.
As I lay there, with a zombie like Bella Swan snuggled up against me, I tried to review some of the information she’d passed along in her drunken state the night before and wondered just how much of it was actually true and how much of it was completely falsified.
I decided on zero falsification based solely on the fact that Bella really was a terrible liar.
The fact that she’d downed about ten shots of Patron alone was evidence of that.
The woman just did not like to share personal data.
I figured I’d take what I could get with her, though, enjoying the fact that we were now at least sleeping together as fake man and wife. I smiled at the babble fest she’d spewed about marriage and contracts and… Marcus.
I mean, what kind of man keeps tabs on a toddler her whole life?  Was he waiting for her to grow up so he could, what… prime her for some role in his organization? 
His wife? 
Ewe. That’s gross.
The dad thing was killing me.
I needed more info and I no longer really gave a shit about why I seemed to need it… I just did. 
A groan from beside me told me the beast had awoken.  “What are you watching?” she asked, pulling a hand up to her head to hold herself up somehow and I silently chuckled. 
“The Brother’s Bloom,” I said and she curled up in to me a little more.  Something I hadn’t expected.  “What’s it about?”
“You’ve never seen… The Brother’s Bloom?”
She snorted.  Or… something.  “Want some headache remedy?”  I asked and she could only nod.   So I handed her the Aleve and the water then told her, “They’re brothers… in the game…”
Her interest was piqued.  “Cons?”
“Yeah, and see the one brother doesn’t wanna do it anymore… but Mark Ruffalo’s character keeps on manipulating him back into the game…”
She paid closer attention, handing me the glass of water back, and I set it on the table next to the couch. “Adrien Brody falls in love…”
“Ugh…” she said, disgusted.  “Mistake numero uno.”
“Right… and you think his brother’s gonna screw him over… but in the end… he kills himself.”
“What?” she asked, whipping her head around, giving me that confused look of hers again.
“Well, more like he fakes his own death… it’s a con they’d played on people their whole lives… but this time… he lets his brother think he’s really dead so he can…”
“What a nut muncher.  That’s like…. I mean really?  Letting your own brother think you’re dead?”
She was right.  It was pretty shitty actually… but hey, they were con-men.
“I know, but in the end, his brother was free and clear,” I told her  and she looked back at the television, then rested her head down against my chest. 
I put a couple fingers against her temple and rubbed softly, hoping to soothe the headache I knew she was sporting. 
“Free and clear, huh?”
“Yeah… I know right?”
She didn’t say anything else and I moved my fingers from the side of her head to her hair, playing with it a little bit as we watched the rest of the movie.
It was just a normal… everyday… regular Joe kind of afternoon.
One I wasn’t used to having and would bet ya ten dollars, Bella wasn’t either.
After the movie ended, we somehow managed to get ourselves showers and cleaned up a little.  I threw some clean jeans on and a button down, Bella had this… really too large for her shirt on, over top of sweats… no make-up.
I liked this look.
Even better than the tight number she’d slinked into the previous night.
I’m claiming this look.
I smiled at her and she rolled her eyes, then we both plopped back down to try and find something else to view while nursing our hangovers and avoiding any and all conversation that might lead us to talking about what had transpired between us on that couch.
What do you say about something like that anyway?  “Hey, excellent finger bang last night, huh?” – and even though I was dying to give her shit about passing out… it was gonna have to wait because it just wasn’t the right time. 
Not too long after we found another movie… the door bell rang.  When I opened the door, the look on our visitors face gave me a bad feeling.
“Alice?”
“Oh my god can you guys please help me?”
Bella heard her urgency and came up behind me.  “Everything okay?”
“I need you to help. Jasper’s not answering his phone, but I know he’s home and when I went to check on him, I found his window broken and all the lights were out.”
She was nearly in tears, this woman.  “Where’s Emmett?” I asked.  I don’t know why he’d been the first person I thought of for a time of crisis… but hey, what are ya gonna do.
“I don’t know, not home, please Edward.”
“Of course,” I told her, grabbing the keys. 
Alice ran back across the street and Bella was rambling incoherently about shit while I tried to find shoes.  And my gun…  Every so often I distinctly heard the words cum… or… cumming and I could’ve sworn she was finally starting up a conversation with me about the night before.
It seemed like a highly unusual time for her to bring it up, but quite frankly, I couldn’t move passed the word cum.
I think at some point I must have stopped what I was doing to stare at her like an idiot because she became extremely irate with me.  “Are you coming or not?” she spat.
Yes. I wish this, fair lady.  To cum… and cum hard.
I stared at her. Doing the best I could to not just burst out laughing at the words she’d chosen to ask me, all angry and persnickety like… making my fucking dick twitch like the pervert sex deprived limb that it was.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Edward.”
I smiled.
A little.
And figured I may as well fess up.  She wasn't about to let up until I fessed up.  Right?
“You said cumming… and I just…”
“I said a lot of things, Edward… and all you heard was coming?”
“You said it a lot.”
“I said it, like…twice.”
Four times…she said it four times.
“I’m a guy.”
“You’re an asshole.”
This is true.
But only sometimes.
“Let’s go,” I said, changing the subject and situation back to Whitlock and we left, wondering to each other what the fuck had happened.
“You think Marcus got pissed about something and just decided to off him?”
“I don’t know, doesn’t seem like him, he would have…”
And then, as we entered Whitlock’s home, with our guns at the ready… about ten or twelve people screamed out at us - “Surprise!” and I nearly knuckle punched the living shit out of Emmett McCarty just because he was the closest to me.