Chapter 5 – The Cookout

The following Saturday

The Shopping District, Austin Texas

Edward Cullen POV

“What are you doing?”

“It’s called… buying shoes.”

“You have like, a bazillion pairs of shoes, Bonnie Raitt.”

“Bazillion isn’t even a fucking word, Edward.  And I told you, I like shoes.”

Bella’s aversion to my fake names for her seemed to have worn off completely over the course of a few days.  Or she was ignoring me as usual… Orrrr, she was smarter than your average female.  Meaning she knew if I thought it wasn’t bothering her anymore, I’d become bored and stop, therefore calling her by her real name, therefore meaning she wins… which wasn’t going to happen.

Not on my watch.

So I decided I would continue with my Chinese Name Torture as we made our way around the shops in Austin for the cookout we’d be heading off to soon.

I checked my watch.  Hopefully soon, that is.

“Um, bazillion is a word, and how can you even afford all those shoes? I mean, I know Marcus pays us well and all, but seriously?  Six hundred-fifty dollars for fucking footwear?”

And that’s on sale.

 Bella’s mouth twisted into an evil grin and I realized… my dick liked that evil grin.

It liked it so much, I had to turn my body and hide his complete distastefully good taste in evil grins.

“Why don’t we just head home? You have plenty of shoes that’ll go with that dress you picked up,” I said. And then my arm was grabbed, and I was suddenly being pulled into the Jimmy Choo store while trying to make sure I didn’t drop the bags full clothes I’d purchased.

This is why men don’t like shopping, by the way.

We’d been gone for three hours.  It took me fifteen minutes to get in and get out of my store.  You do the math.

I found a pole to lean against, inside the store, while Bella found what must have been the shrine of shoes she wanted to bow down to, and then caught myself watching her.

Every single move she made, I decided, seemed to be intentional.  As though she’d planned her entire day around what others would see, how they would react, when they would… stare inappropriately at her ass…

It was about a minute into this stare when I realized she was watching me, watching her.

Busted.

I adjusted my stance and tried to look interested in the six inch heels in front of me, but really it just made me think about Bella’s ass even more. It took me back to our initial meeting at BWI airport when she’d so rudely interrupted my angry thoughts of Marcus Volturi, and how he’d had Felix wake me up out of a dead sleep to inform me I was no longer retired.

Chancing a peek around the pole that separated our direct line of eye contact, I saw that Bella’s attention was back on her shoes… and that she’d apparently found something she liked.

She held two fingers up to the shoe store clerk after pointing at the overpriced six inch platform sling backs she was trying on and he nodded politely. 

“What colors, ma’am?” he asked politely.

She told him, “Black…and…” she thought it over, exaggeratedly.  “Red,” she finished.  Then gave him a wink and a smile.

A sexy smile, admittedly, but a fake one, still.  The one that got men to do anything she wanted them to, I was figuring.  The one I made a mental note to stay as far the hell away from as possible.

“Excellent, ma’am, I’ll have them wrapped,” he said then went to go adjust his young inexperienced dick, no doubt.  And get her shoes.

Before she made her way over to the counter to pay for them, I noticed her pull her cell out and type something into it. Then her lips turned up into that same evil grin my own dick happened to be privy to, and made her way over to the cash register.

She hadn’t called anyone.  Hadn’t texted… she just hit a few keys, somewhat like she had that night she miraculously fixed my laptop, then the cell was tucked away into her jacket pocket again.

I was curious.  Amused and very anxious to see where this was all leading, so I dropped my bag, crossed my arms and leaned against my pole, just… waiting for it to all play out.

The older woman behind the counter rang her up after the way too young for Bella, flirty clerk placed her shoe boxes next to her and then scowled at the register.  “That’s odd,” she said, but Bella didn’t respond.  She just waited, patiently.

The cashier rang them up again.  And again, and scowled deeper at the register.

This is when Bella decided to play along.  “Something wrong?” she asked the woman sweetly.

“Sixy-three dollars and eight cents?” the woman said… asked… I don’t know, but I know suddenly I felt myself smiling and my brow knit together a little as the woman tried to input the prices over and over and over again.

“What’s wrong, Mallory?” the flirty clerk asked, smiling over at Bella.

Hopeful.  Desperate.  And most importantly, useless to a woman like her.

“Um,” she whispered, trying not to let on that there was an obvious error in the system that she couldn’t override.  Bella and I both waited patiently while Mr. Hopeful tried his hand at ringing up the shoes.

He scowled at the register and I checked my watch again.  “If something’s wrong, I’ll just go,” Bella told them, but she knew they wouldn’t let her leave.  They’d rather make a bum sale than no sale at all.

Flirty clerk guy stopped her. “No, no, ma’am, there’s no problem, just a little…confusion. It’s obviously the store’s problem; that will be sixty-three dollars and eight cents,” he told her, ignoring Mallory’s blatant distaste with how he was handling the situation.

I chuckled as I watched Bella take her wallet out, telling them, “Well, that is a great deal, I’ll have to come back more often.”  Then she handed the woman what must have been a hundred dollar bill and told her, “Keep the change.”

Still smiling.

She picked her bag of Jimmy Choos up off of the counter and left with a glint in her eyes and a spring in her step, winking at Mr. Hopeful’s shameless horniness as she did. 

Evil grin was back as she passed me, and I shrugged helplessly at the clerk as I picked my own bag up off of the floor, then followed her out of the store and into the bright afternoon sun that blanketed the outdoor mall she’d chosen for our emergency clothing errand.

“What… was that all about?”

“What on Earth do you mean, Edward?” she asked me in that same innocent way she’d responded to the cashier inside Jimmy Choo’s, as she pulled some sunglasses out and slid them on.

“Don’t give me that, Bernadette, I already told you, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter.”

She smiled playfully then, and I took note, it was a descendant of the evil grin.  It was the evil grin’s step sister.  My dick agreed and I adjusted… things.

“Are you broke?”

“No.”

“Marcus hording your money for some reason?”  Like mine.

“No,” she laughed.

“Then why not just pay full price… obviously you can afford it,” I pushed. I mean, seriously.  Based on those sunglasses alone… although suddenly, I found myself wondering how much she’d paid for those… if she’d paid at all.

I felt like I’d gotten my answer when she slowed to a stop and looked at me seriously before asking me,  “Now Edward, what fun would that be?”

Twitch.

“Heeeeeyyyyyy!”

The voice itself stopped us in our tracks, but then to see her.  In all her… perky glory standing before us, Bella and I became statues for a second or two.  “The Masens, right?” she asked, smiling at the two of us as though we were long lost friends.

“Alice… Alice Brandon,” Bella grinned, nodding her recognition. And me?  I just… stood there.  Trying to look… GQ.

Rich computer software developer husbands did that… right?

“What on Earth are you two doing out this close to the cookout?” she squeaked, and Bella waved a hand.

“Oh, you know, we needed something to wear, so…”

I got the look then.  From Alice Brandon.  “And your husband came with you?  I’m impressed.”

I smiled as Bella slipped a hand around my waist, informing Alice, “Oh, he loooooooves to take me shopping, don’t you sweetie?”  squeezing my side a little for an extra dose of icky disgusting doterificness.

Little did she know, though, she wasn’t the only one that could play hard ball.

“Only when I know it’s gonna get me laid, later,” I teased, letting a hand of my own slide down behind us to squeeze Bella's ass as I bounced my eyebrows... at Alice Brandon. My pinky finger might have gone rogue on me, slipping a little further than expected, eliciting a sight jump out of Bella, but I really wasn’t paying attention, I was in my own world… with a hand full of Bella Swan’s perfectly shaped rear end.

Man, I’d been dying to do that shit since Baltimore.

Nice.  Ass.

I’d like to take that ass and… smack it a little…

This, combined with Alice Brandon’s shocked look, should have by all means thrown Bella off, made her skip a beat perhaps, but no… not Bella.  Not in our world.  Because in our world, you learned to expect the unexpected and react accordingly.

Bella blocked Alice’s view a little so she could dig the heel of her shoe into my foot undetected, and my teeth were grinding so hard I thought I’d shortened them a little.

Fucking.

Ow.

Then she removed her heel, sighed, and batted at me playfully, telling our neighbor, “Please ignore him, Alice, he forgets that not everyone is as vulgar as he is.”

Despite the pain, I gave her a wink.  Alice that is, and she blushed as she tried to play it off.  “Of course, well… I’ll… see you in a bit then?”

“Absolutely,” we told her simultaneously, plastered smiles on our faces, and then made our way to the Hummer as Alice Brandon disappeared into a store, pulling her cell phone out.  

“Calling all the local yocals, no doubt,” I mused.

Bella’s fake animated smiled faded as she told me, “Way to bring even more attention to us, idiot.”

I chuckled at the way she just never found the fun in anything. “You’re gonna be the talk of the town, Bambi… you should be thanking me,” I told her with a sarcastic grin.

“Grab my ass like that again and you’re gonna to be the talk of the town.”

“You liked it.” 

“About as much as I like getting a Brazilian wax job.”

Fucking… Twitch.

I changed the subject.  Kind of.  “Five bucks says I get propositioned at the cookout,” I told her, turning the engine over and revving Betty up. 

Bella rolled her eyes at me after throwing her bags into the back seat… but she took the bet, doubling the anti.  “Ten.”

See it’s not really the amount of money you might collect off of a win that’s important with con-men, so much as it’s the fact that you won.  Ten bucks was stupid.  I could spit ten bucks out at the blink of an eye on a good day.  We both knew ten bucks wasn’t gonna make or break either one of us.  It was simply the fact that she was insinuating I wasn’t gonna get a proposition that made her offer all the more enticing.

“Deal,” I told her, and then we headed home in silence other than the click clickity clicking of her fingernails against the key board of her iPhone as she typed something else into the thing.  

Until it rang.

She checked the number, debated answering as her eyes drifted my way, then back to the phone. Finally, she slid a finger across the screen and simply said, “Don’t call me on this phone,” then ended the call and typed away some more.

Interesting.  “Who was that?”

Nothing.

“You have another phone?”

“Gotta keep some things to myself.”  That was all she offered up.  But it was all I needed to start the wheels turning about why she’d need two phones.

“Was that Marcus?”

Back to nothing, but… her eyes closed.  I figured she was virtually kicking the mystery caller’s ass for their idiocy.

“Boyfriend?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” she offered and I huffed a little.

“No doubt,” I mumbled, but also couldn’t help but notice the distinctive twitching between my legs at that realization.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I shrugged. “I just… you know, you’re….” I looked over at her and made a face. “Scary.”

More silence followed that comment, even though I noticed that the tapping had gotten a little more profound… exaggerated if you will, onto the iPhone.   Then after a few minutes… “I could have a boyfriend you know… if I wanted to… lots of guys happen to think I’m a great catch.”

“I’m sure they do.”  In prisons.

“I just don’t have time for one.”

“Of course.”  And yeah, at this point, I’m just agreeing so my balls don’t get cut off.

“It’s not like you have a girlfriend.”

My god she was a defensive being.

I tried to leave it at that, honestly, but she just… kept on goin’… “Nobody in this business can even afford to have a… relationship…”

Her hands were flailing and, had I known this was going to spiral out for her, I’d a just kept my fucking mouth shut in the first place.

“I’m not disagreeing… in case that was unclear.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t agreeing.”

“Good, because I wasn’t… not… agreeing.”  What the fuck did I just say?

“Good.”

“Good.”

“Fine.”

“Glad that’s cleared up.”

“Me too.”

I shook my head as a short laugh escaped me, and I almost kicked myself for even letting that shit get to me like that.

“What?” she asked incredulously.

Fine, I said to myself, and then really did kick myself for using that goddamn word again… then I let her have it.  My humble opinion. “You really can’t stand not getting the last word in, can you?”

That got her riled up a little.  Not that I hadn’t expected it.  “I don’t have to have the last word.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Okay then, don’t say another word.”

“Fine.”

“HA!” I pointed at her.

“What?”

“See? You still had to say it.”

“No.”

“You absolutely did… you cannot handle not one upping someone.”

“I…”

My eyebrows shot up and she huffed out a breath, crossed her arms, and threw herself back into the seat, staring out of her window. 

Good lord it was fun screwing with her.

Just when I thought I’d made a point, she muttered, “Asshole.”

The rest of the ride, needless to say, was silent, and once we were home, I didn’t see Bella Swan again until it was time to leave for the cookout.  I’d gone with casual.  You know, nice pants, but not too nice. I went with solid black… and a button down shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, unassuming shoes.   I was comfortable, but looked modest, which is how I would have assumed someone like me would dress… but Bella…

What does she wear? “You do know this is just a cookout, right?” I asked her as I tried not to look directly at the hem area of the mini dress she had on.  Or the black Jimmy Choos from earlier that day. Or the way those shoes made her calves look… lick worthy.

“It’s warm, I’ll sweat my ass off in pants.”

“You don’t have something….”  A little less Marilyn Monroe maybe?  “Longer?”

She giggled as she passed me by, encouraging me to follow her and I did. I don’t even know why I just… did.

When we arrived at Alice Brandon’s place, there were homemade signs pointing us toward the back yard so we followed them.  We scoped the scene out as people came into view, but I wasn’t spotting anyone who resembled our guy yet.

“Maybe he’s not coming after all,” she teased, referring back to whose idea attending this thing was in the first place.

“He’ll be here,” I assured her.

“And you know this because…?”

I rattled a few things off as I put an arm around Bella’s waist, noticing people… noticing us.  “He’s a social kinda guy.  Threw celebrations for big promotions at his company over in Tampa, Florida, held quarterly meetings in the Keys, all expenses paid cruises for top sales reps here in Texas… he even sponsored sports teams and played on them over in his Arizona offices…”

She didn’t even flinch as she slightly leaned her head against my chest in an affectionate sort of way, placing one of her hands over top of mine and I instinctively intertwined our fingers. 

It didn’t escape me how natural that had come… or felt…but I blew it all off quite honestly, chalking it up to experience in the field.

Yeah.

“Huh,” she mused to herself, and I half way smiled down at her as I pulled our bodies apart a little, curious about her comment. 

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. I’m just surprised is all,” she said, bopping me on the nose with her index finger for show as she made a goofy face at me, scrunching her nose up in this cute… mousy sorta way.

“Surprised at what, exactly?”  I asked, chuckling at the nose scrunching thing.

“That you did your homework.”  And now she was scanning the crowd again, as though she was looking for someone. 

“Didn’t you?”

“My specialty is in the covert invasion of computer and security systems and or disabling virus protection and fire walls within a network in order to retrieve pertinent information regarding a target’s personal or professional missteps within legal specifications. Not background and social settings.”

Why did that completely and hopelessly, without a shadow of a doubt, just turn me on?

I shivered a little, and then cleared my throat. “Well, regardless, Marcus doesn’t call me his ringer for nothin’,” I advised proudly.

“I believe his terminology was asset.”

“Tomaaaaatoh, tomahhhhhtoh.”

She smiled cheesily at someone.  “Some ringer, you haven’t even been around for the last six months.”

“Not supposed to be here now either, and yet… here we are.”

Bella gave me a slight roll of her eyes while I managed a grin at Alice Brandon as she greeted us, ending the conversation.  “Welcome to the neighborhood!” she squeaked, and then began the painful process of introducing us to some of the other habitants within the realm of cookie cutter homeowners extraordinaire.

When she was done, she showed us the food and said she had a few things to attend to, which left us to our own for a while.

Or so we thought.

As we started comparing notes on some of the neighbors, and I was starting to pile food onto one of the not so papery plates set out for us, a loud yet friendly voice sounded from behind me.  “The Masens, right?” he asked, and Bella spun as I kept piling the food onto my plate.

She was shaking his hand as I finished and I turned to see a mountain sized man whose smile directly conflicted with the size of his biceps.  It was too welcoming… too… non-threatening.

“Emmett McCarty, I’m catty corner to you guys,” he said, extending a hand out to me and I shoved a chicken leg in between my teeth to free a hand up so I could shake it.  Then he looked to Bella again.  “You sure got one sexy wife here, Masen,” he advised me.  Duh.  And then eyed her up and down once.  “Now that’s what I call a party dress.”

Bella gave him a twisted smile, and then eyed me.  There was something in the look she’d given me that wreaked a warning of some sort but I couldn’t quite digest it fast enough as she answered our new friend.

“Thanks Emmett,” she said, then leaned in a little to whisper the next part with a Mrs. Cleaver grin plastered on her face the entire time. “Sometimes Edward likes to finger fuck me at these things; it’s all about easy access.”

I choked, spewing the chicken leg against Emmett’s iron clad chest and then was barely able to make eye contact with the guy while Bella waved to Alice and excused herself, practically skipping away.  Which is when I noticed, as her dress swayed back and forth a little when she shimmied for me…

No underwear.

I was pretty sure.

Fuck me.  Twitch.

I immediately looked around to see if anyone else had noticed what I had indeed noticed, but they all seemed engrossed in their own discussions about the height of the grass blades in Alice Brandon’s yard or the color of her fencing, so I turned my attention back to the big guy in front of me, pointing after Bella, trying to laugh her comment off.  “She is… really drunk.”

I don’t think he bought it though, as he nudged me a little. “Dude… you are one kinky bastard.”

Score.  He’s impressed. Yay me.

I would have disagreed with the guy, except that I kept catching myself peeking over at my fake wife, who may or may not have known I was spying on her based on the way she was playing at the hem of her way too fucking short for my dick party dress, as Emmett kept on talking about… something.

It was extremely hard.  To pay attention to Emmett’s rant, that is.  Not my dick.  I mean yeah, my dick was hard, but it apparently had a mind of its own these days.  Thank god for loose pants.

Then another guest caught my eye.

Whitlock.

“Sorry about your shirt. Excuse me, will ya Emmett?” I said, setting the plate of food down as I walked away.  Then I murmured into Bella’s ear as I passed her by, “You can stop with the shameless flirting, target’s here.”

I didn’t look back; I’d gone into work mode.

Before I got to Whitlock, a woman standing on the outskirts of a group of people stopped me momentarily.  She didn’t say anything, just slipped a piece of paper into my palm as she smiled and winked, then canoodled back up to who I had to assume was her husband.  I pushed the scrap into my pocket, not really thinking about it.  I was too focused on not losing track of our target.

More importantly, I was focused on getting this job done and getting back to life as I was just starting to know it.

Let’s see here… I thought, running over a few ideas I had on how to get an introduction without seeming like I was looking for an introduction… Ah!

It helped that Bella had caught up to me a tad.  She was still behind me.  Just far enough for a louder voice to be necessary.   I made like I was looking for a more private section of the backyard, in order to have a conversation with my fake wife.

“I’d rather not go with the run of the mill security system, darling,” I said to her just within earshot of our guy and I noticed him look our way as I continued, ignoring Bella’s confused expression. “I think a bit of research would do us good. It’s not like we know anyone here yet.”

Luckily, the slightly confused look on her face could also be passed off as her being stubborn.  It wasn’t that far off from her stubborn face, actually, I noticed.  Maybe they were related.  Maybe her confusion is what drove her stubbornness… or visa versa… maybe she was just naturally stubborn…

Maybe…

Oy.

Maybe I needed to stop thinking about the many faces of Bella Swan before the hard on I was sporting became more than I could hide behind those stupid fucking loose pants I was wearing.

“I think I may be able to help you out.” The southern voice came from beside us, breaking me completely free of the deep pondering thoughts about just how many expressions of Bella’s could make my dick hard within moments.  That was when Bella got what I was doing and then smirked a little for me.

Only a little though.

Wouldn’t wanna give me a fucking inch now, would she?

Nooooooooooooooooo.

“I’m sorry?” I said to him, turning to insinuate that he’d invaded our private conversation.

Not that I wouldn’t have minded a private moment alone with our heroine. 

“Sometimes Edward likes to finger fuck me at these things.”  I mean what the fuck was that?

“My apologies,” he said, offering a hand to shake. “I just happen to over hear you talking about security systems… it happens to be my specialty.”

Cha-Ching!

“Really,” I replied blandly, shaking his hand.  “Isn’t that…”

“OH! That would be so nice of you to help us,” Bella added in a sappy sort of way that didn’t really become her at all and then Whitlock smiled for her, letting go of my hand to take hers. 

“Jasper Whitlock.  I run a couple of companies that might be able to help you all out.”

Now in my experience… Kay?   You shake a hand, you let it go.  You don’t… sit there… holding that persons hand… putting your other one on top of it, smiling like an idiot at that person like…. I don’t know… like you’re propositioning them or something.

I mean she is fake married… did he not know this?

“Masen,” I told him, placing a possessive arm around Bella to let him see the fake fucking wedding ring on my finger.  “I’m Edward… this is my wife, Bella.”  Hint. Hint.

Oh.  That was weird.  Saying her name out loud like that.   Her real one that is.

Bella must have thought so too, because she gave me this look like what in the hell is wrong with you, and I had to pull my eyes away from hers to focus back on the task at hand.  Or rather… the target at hand, who was staring at the two of us with some interest, it seemed.

“We’d uh… be grateful for any help you can give us, maybe we can come by sometime… listen to your schpiel.”

“Oh, I don’t talk business at home,” he said, blowing off my attempt to get into his house. “My office isn’t far, though. Here’s my card.” 

He managed to let go of Bella’s hand finally, and pulled a business card out of his wallet for me. 

“Call me after the weekend.”

After giving Bella one last charm the pants off of her smile, he excused himself to go chat with some other guests and I was left without my hit.
Getting into his house was a crucial first step in getting some bugs set up possibly, finding out what kind of network he had… maybe even snooping for some relatives we could go scope out but apparently, he was gonna be a tough nut to crack.
Just like Marcus had warned.
I'd kinda thought maybe he was exaggerating… you know… to get me on board. Guess not.
Another delay, I thought. But we'd work it out.
"What are you thinking?" Bella asked, and I could have sworn it hadn't sounded snide or rude or sarcastic at all, just… curious.
I looked down at her, confounded by the near friendly tone in her voice, then noticed her cleavage… which was… nice to look at. Then my eyes roamed the seam along her cleavage that barely covered the red lace bra she was wearing underneath and I swallowed. Then I let my eyes drop, taking in the rest of her dress, then the hem of it, dangling around her mid thigh… teasingly… tauntingly… remembering what was underneath that hem.
What was not underneath that hem.
Edward likes to finger fuck me…
Finger.
Fuck.
Me.
And okay, I'll admit it… curiosity about what it would feel like to slip a finger or two into the black hole some might call Bella's pussy got the better of me as I towered over her. At least it felt like I was towering over her as I took a few steps forward, backing her up against the side of the house.
For the first time since I'd met her, she seemed… taken aback.
No pun intended.
"What are you doing?" she asked but I didn't answer her right away, I just pinned her there, without touching her, exactly, I just… rested an arm up against the house, blocking her from leaving our personal space as my free hand dipped between us, grasping at the lower, free hanging part of that fucking dress a little bit.
My eyes closed as I leaned in to smell her hair… it was… coconut or something and my lips were so close to her ear that I could almost feel the hum of the electricity that radiated between the two of us.
At least I thought it was.
"Wondering what kind of attention a finger fuck in the Home Owners Association President's back yard might attract," I muttered and my voice sounded like it was on the verge of growling, to me. A slight intake of the air surrounding us on her part told me that maybe she was wondering the same thing.
Maybe… I mean, I couldn't have been imagining that, could I?
I pulled away to take in her expression… to see if it matched her body language and then, it seemed like it was a stare down of sorts. I didn't know what kind of reaction I'd wanted from her. I wasn't even really sure why I'd said it… but I waited for an answer. Half expecting her to take me up on it.
Hell I thought she was going to until… something changed in her stance. And that single eyebrow of hers like she liked to use against my manhood raised itself up some. And the bitch was back.

“Lay a finger on my anything, Edward?  And I will slice your dick off… inch… by inch while you sleep.  With a rusty nail file.”

Ouch.

Neither one of us moved for what felt like minutes.   We were close.  So close, I could feel her breath against my neck as she waited for me to react.  Only, little did she know, I was already reacting.  Or at least my dick was.

“You weren’t kiddin’ were ya Bella?” a voice laughed as the mountain man approached us. 

McCarty, I silently reminded myself of the name he’d given me.  Emmett… and Bella took the opportunity to push me away gently, taking my hand for show.  “I think it’s time to take Edward home,” she announced, keeping up her sweet, smiling persona with him. 

“I’m jealous,” he told her, giving me the not so secret wink guys liked to give each other when they think the other one is gonna get laid.

She added, “He’s had a little too much to drink.”

“You just got here!” he teased.

She told him, “Yes, well, that’s his problem; he can’t hold his liquor too well.”

I waved and nodded to people as we left, letting her pull me along from behind… watching her… behind with a grin, but then… we were home… behind closed doors, and suddenly I was afraid.

She threw my hand aside and then paced, grabbing at her hair.   There was a tiny part of me that wanted to grab her hands and stop her from doing that… to try and calm her.

“What’s…”

“Don’t… even… say… a word,” she warned me, holding a finger out at me and I shut my mouth… for a few seconds, anyway.

“Are you…”

The glare alone shut me up that time… then I tried another route, taking a small step toward her.  “Could I just…”

An arm swung around blindly, then, nearly taking my nose out.  “You had… no right! To…”

Me?

“Hold on a second here… you’re the one who made that… fucking… I mean what was that anyway?  Edward likes to finger fuck me at these things… bullshit?”

The tension between us was thick, I’d noticed suddenly.

I mean it was… really…. really thick and I was feeling…. extremely confused about what just exactly it was I was mad about, when she threw the next accusation out at me.

“HA! You started it when you grabbed my ass in front of that… homeowner’s association lady!  You and your… stupid long fingers!”

My hand flinched, thinking about that moment… it was a good moment.

“So you did like it.”

She huffed. “Oh, trust me, Edward… I… hated it,” she insisted as she stalked up the stairs toward her bedroom… and I followed, unable to shut my mouth off.   Or shut her up.   Or kiss her mouth shut.

No.

Not a good idea.

I like my dick in one piece, thank you very much.

Still, that fear didn’t stop me from badgering her.

“You want me to grab your ass again, Bathilda?  All ya gotta do is ask.”

At the top of the stairs, she spun around on me. “I wouldn’t ask you to touch me if you were the last… idiot on Earth.”

“Really.”   I wasn’t buying it.  Or maybe… I just didn’t wanna buy it.  But why? 

This is getting ridiculous.

“Really.”

“Well,” I advised her, pulling the scrap piece of paper out of my pocket that I’d disregarded earlier in the day.  I opened it and read it, smiling.  “Mrs. Jessica Newton wants me to grab her ass.”

“What?”

“You owe me ten bucks!” I said, waving the piece of paper at her. 

She grabbed it and read it, then laughed. “This isn’t a proposition.”

“It’s insinuated.”

“It’s. A.  Phone.  Number.”

“Yeah? And exactly what do you think she wants me to do with it?”  I asked her smugly.  Wanting something from her I just couldn’t exactly put a finger on…

And then there it was.

Nothing.

FINALLY, she didn’t have anything to say.  She just… gave me this… weird look of defiance and threw the paper at me.  “Great… go… fuck your lonely… sorely misguided house wife and oh!  Here…” she took a ten out and threw that at me too.  “Make sure you buy some condoms… ‘cause I’d be willing to bet she’s done it before and most likely has every sexually transmitted disease you can think of.”

She took off again and I didn’t follow.  I was feeling a little bushwacked by how angry she seemed to be at me, honestly.  

I did pick up the ten spot though and headed off to my own bedroom.  I opened up the drawer where I was keeping the photo of my future boat and placed the ten on top of it, thinking about Bella Swan’s threats… Bella Swans dress… her smirk, her glare, those eyes… everything, and then immediately admonished myself for letting things get so out of control throughout the day.

There was just something about her, though, that… completely… pissed… me off.

I took a deep breath, rubbing at my jaw, and then let myself concentrate on something else.

Whitlock.

I took his card out of my pocket and then got a hold of my laptop.  I did a little more research on our newly found friend before finally finding myself exhausted enough to close my eyes.

Unfortunately even sleep didn’t give me rest.

I dreamt about Bella Swan, short dresses with nothing underneath… and rusty nail files.