Monday, December 16, 2013

The Other Way : Twenty Two



Drunk, Or Stoned, Or Not Nearly Enough Of Both 

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I saw Jasper for the first time since I sent him away to Jacob when he found me in the bathtub.

With Alice. And enough bubbles to nearly overflow the tub, thanks to her extravagant usage of the expensive coconut bottle she found on the vanity.

She’d poured in six times more than was absolutely necessary and we looked like two overzealous toddlers dressing each other up in fragile, soapy jewelry. I had a bubbled crown on my head and Alice’s hair spiked into a mohawk, dotted with translucent spheres, a delicate smattering of suds against her chest like a necklace. We were giggling, toes against each other’s hips beneath the water, peppering our frothy dress up session with kisses.

She had arrived just moments after Edward left me in the hallway, still panting and pressed up against the wall, convinced that I couldn’t move for fear of falling. Part of me was certain that they’d passed each other on the sandy pathway outside and exchanged more of their uncensored secrets because she didn’t ask me how I was or what I had been doing. Just showed up at the door and pulled me into the bathroom, filling up the tub and piling it full of bubbles before forcing me in. All in all, it worked and I had just about forgotten to be confused over Edward’s latest actions.

Alice pressed a lathered earring to my earlobe just as Jasper appeared in the doorway.

“Well . . . ladies. Hello. While this isn’t exactly what I expected to come home to, I’m certainly not going to complain.” He leaned up against the counter, a smile widening slowly across his face as he undid the top two of the buttons of his shirt. His hair was wild and his face still looked tired but his eyes were bright and there was something complacently content about his demeanor that gave him a whole new kind of glow.

He was so beautiful.

Too beautiful, and even though I had my leg wrapped around Alice’s waist, I was intensely jealous of Jacob. I hadn’t seen Jasper in nearly an entire day and that’s all the time it took the kid to put that glow on him and fuck up his hair like that.  As it were, I was even more confused about our relationship than I had ever been before and loved Jasper so much I was starting to hate him for it.

“How’s the new and improved boat dock coming?” Alice asked, adding a few more fresh blobs to my rapidly popping crown.

“On schedule,” he answered distractedly, watching her ministrations before his eyes fell to mine. “Are you not going to even say hello to me?” He pushed himself off the counter and strode across the bathroom with his head tilted, teasing me gently. He didn’t give me time to even get my mouth open before he was on his knees beside the tub and had his hand around the back of my head, lips to the four cardinal directions of my face.

Forehead and chin. Both cheeks in tandem.

“Hi,” I gulped, back to love in one manic swing. Jasper left his hand behind my head, palm slipping to my neck as he glanced at Alice, a bubbly punk rocker with a gigantic ass grin on her face and a necklace of soap.

“I hear you’ve been making out with my wife,” he taunted with a matching grin.

“I hear you’ve been kissing the cabana boy.” Alice giggled and Jasper chuckled.

“I think you’re getting the better bargain.” Jasper glanced at me slyly. “Look at her, sometimes I’m sure I’m living in someone else’s dream.”

“You are.” My mouth went all mutinous on me from right underneath my nose and Jasper’s eyebrows furrowed the tiniest bit, eyes pinching at the edges.

“I know. I’m a lucky bastard who doesn’t deserve you.” He swallowed roughly and pressed a final kiss to the center of the compass, right over my lips, the bruise there from Edward throbbing beneath him.

“I just can’t believe that this affection hasn’t led you two anywhere.” Alice was watching us closely as though searching for clues. Looking to find answers in the space between Jasper’s lips and my own. Jasper settled himself beside the tub, dropping a hand to trail his fingers through the froth of bubbles and staring at it thoughtfully. He was still frowning, either from my statement, or Alice’s. Or both.

“I’ve never given it much thought. Women are beautiful, her in particular,” he tipped his head toward me, “but they’re not quite my type.” He smirked wistfully, still not looking at me but brushing his fingers along my thigh underneath the sudsy water.

“Is that an ‘always’ sort of thing? Or a ‘I kissed a boy in college and never looked back’ sort of thing?” Alice asked him.

“Always,” Jasper shrugged, hands in the water, fingers to my skin. “I’ve never been kissed by a woman.”

It was true. While I often returned his endearments, he was always the one to initiate them. Even when I did kiss him back, the traditional seal on his “will you help me with my tie” jag for example, I was careful to keep it one the proper side of the line. Short and sweet and innocent enough that it wouldn’t allude to my totally improper feelings.

“And you’re just sticking with it, like a default option?” Alice prodded.

“It’s not a default,” Jasper’s voice was edged in defense. “It’s comfortable.”

“That sounds more like fear to me, Jasper.”

“This is not something he can be cured of,” I mumbled, knowing full well that I had tried.

“I don’t expect that, Bella, but love is meant to be flexible. Remember?” Alice wrapped her hands around the lip of the tub and stood, a cascade of water falling around her knees and a body suit of bubbles hugging every inch of her. Jasper scrambled to his feet, eyeing her warily and backed himself all the way up to the countertop again as she stepped out of the tub, gripping the edge of it. I watched Alice pad toward him, a trail of soapy footprints across the tiled floor and bubbles clinging to all of her tattoos. She stopped right in front of him, put her hands to his chest and stood on her toes, the question mark scar on the sole of her foot peeking at me.

The kiss was not simple.

It was long and lavish and so wickedly sinful that it made my heart feel as though someone had set their taser right up against my chest and let me have the full force of the electric shock. I watched the bubbles glide down her skin, his hands trying to find a hold on her hips and the way her neck arched as she craned her head, half wondering if I was just daydreaming this, making it up in my head.

“What was that for?” Jasper asked her when she pulled away, his shirt splayed with her dark wet palm prints. Much to my surprise, he was almost smiling.

“For you.” Alice glanced over her shoulder, diamonds winking at me before picking up her clothes and scampering out of the bathroom, calling goodnight as she disappeared.

I had no idea if she was talking to him, or me.  




3:41 a.m.

I woke up in the water.

The moon was fully pregnant, glowing huge and silver and making everything look faintly metallic. My palms were spread out just over the surface of the ocean, the water licking my skin and my feet firmly in the sand. I had my short silken robe on, but was naked underneath, the sash brushing uselessly around my legs.

Trashed on insomnia and lavender and salty browned butter.

I had no idea how long I’d been out here. No idea how I’d managed to even get here, but I knew exactly where I wanted to go. Before I had time to even think it over, I was standing on his beach. Drenched from my swim around the rocks and shivering despite the tepid tropical air. My tattoo-scar was burning like kerosene lamp, too bright to look at directly and hot enough to singe my bones. I was drunk, or stoned, or not nearly enough of both and panting heavily, trying to get some more of that lavender opiate into my bloodstream before I did anything rash.

More so than showing up on his beach at four in the morning.

By now my eyes had adjusted and I could see everything through a kaleidoscope of silver. The moon was nearly as bright as the sun, turning the pearly sand into drifts of snow and that was when I noticed him.

Sitting not four feet away.

“Bella.” He sounded like he had been waiting for me.

“Why are you awake?” I whispered even though I didn’t need to, throat tight and lungs frozen. He’d probably watched my approach, rising from the water like an uncertain mermaid on legs that felt awkward and out of place.

“I could ask you the same.” He stuck out his chin, looking me thoughtfully with hollows of his eyes too dark to see inside. “I should ask you what you’re doing here, but I think I know.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” I huffed truthfully, falling to my knees beside him in the sand and starting to wondering if I was only just dreaming all of this up, actually peacefully asleep in my bed, curled up against Jasper.

“You don’t?” He reached toward me, a hand finding the damp edge of the robe I hadn’t bothered to fasten. I was fairly impressed that he managed to keep his eyes on my face, rather than the naked girl underneath it because I was failing miserably at not ogling him, shirtless and drawn all over in patterned shadows. He tugged hard at the robe, pulling me off balance and forcing me right up against him. Legs sprawled in the sand, chest to chest and face to face. He wrapped his cityscape arm around my neck and I put both hands to his chest, fingertips to the octopus limbs twining along his collarbones.

“I think you’re here for me,” he whispered, voice low and caught in his throat.

“Not for me?” I was pretty certain that’s what he’d been telling all of us this entire time.

“You too,” he exhaled against my mouth and dove between my lips, tongue finding mine and his palm on my neck. My heart was lodged so firmly up into my throat that none of my gasping was doing any good and I felt far more sober than I had the entire time I’d been here. I slumped against him, wet and chilly to his sanded heat, the moon giving him a silver version of the golden halo that had become Jasper’s favorite accessory.

Edward set his palm to my chest and ran his fingers lightly from the base of my neck to the dip of my abdomen, pausing just below my bellybutton and staring at me for a fraction of a second before moving on. He groaned when he sunk his fingers into me, clutching me close enough to put my face right up against his chest. I pressed my forehead hard against his neck, inhaling butter and sugar and salt that tasted foreign and exotic on the back of my tongue.

Every minute movement nudged me closer and closer to the edge. Every breath and brush and stroke only adding to the raging fire that burned just underneath my flowery, invisible tattoo.

He pulled away, putting a margin of space between us and leaned down to run his tongue around my nipple. I watched him suck it into his mouth and he pulled far away before he released me, stretching out the puckered nub and I clenched my eyes and my fists and everything around his fingers tightly, trying to stave off the inevitable. His mouth moved to my other breast, teeth to flesh and the lip rings pressed fervently to my skin, the heel of his palm rubbing at my clit and those fingers deep inside me. I batted my eyelids furiously against the overwhelming urge to scrunch them closed and just let go already.

He was half an inch away.

His hair to my skin and his eyes searching my face. He swirled his fingers, stared hard at me, pressed his thumb roughly against my clit and I burned. Willingly clambering to the top of that towering cliff and swan diving off the edge. Relishing every silver-spun second I spent plummeting to earth like a molten comet.

Eyes locked on his through my entire scorching orgasm, silent though I felt like screaming.








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