Naughty Knickers

THREE:

Bella

I went home and drank three shots of vodka before I felt calm enough to sit down. Alice found me in the kitchen, hunkered over the half empty bottle and she raised one eyebrow at me as she stumbled to the fridge. She was in nothing but a wife beater and pair of little boy super-hero underwear, crotch slit and all. Her hair was a train wreck, nipples on high alert, and there was lipstick smeared down her neck. I didn’t even have to ask. She totally had a girl in her bed.

“What’s up with you?” she asked, gasping at the end of a long swig straight from the carton of orange juice. I hated it when she did that, but I’d been fighting it for years and there was no winning this battle.

“Rough day,” I grumbled.

“I thought your fancy leg cages were supposed to protect you from evil,” she chuckled at me, eyeing my garters which, yes, were supposed to protect me. They had obviously failed today. I remembered again the look on Edward’s face as he’d stormed out of his office after the shoot, all hard lines and rage, his eyes flashing gold and green as they trailed down to my shoes then back up to my face. He’d glared at me hard enough to make my eyes prickle with hurt before he stomped away. I knocked half of the shelf down around my head as I deflated. I had no idea what his problem was, but he hadn’t liked me from the moment he laid eyes on me.

“They didn’t,” I groaned, flopping down on the countertop to press my cheek to the granite. My head was spinning and it wasn’t all from the liquor.

“Dude, fuck this asshole,” Alice grumbled, taking the bottle away from me and putting it away. For all my intents and purposes, she took as much care of me as I did her. “I say you put on your big girl panties and tell this guy where to shove it.”

“If those are what big girl panties look like, you can count me out.” I pointed at her briefs, printed in big bright colors. I hated to admit it, but they made her ass look great and they looked really comfortable.

“Don’t knock ‘em till you try them honey. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

---

The second day was just as bad as the first. Worse, actually, if you counted where we spent most of the afternoon. I’d taken Alice’s advice and tried a new approach that morning, dressing warm and far outside my comfort zone, which was a good thing. Because Edward dragged us all outside into the biting cold air and told Jane to strip.

Thank god I wore pants for this.

“You can’t be serious!” I screeched, stepping in between them. I wouldn’t call Jane my friend, but there was no way I wanted to let her get naked in the chilly Chicago winter air. I hated hospitals and didn’t want to visit her there. “It’s freezing cold out here, you’ll give her pneumonia.”

A snowflake landed right on the very tip of his nose, just to prove my point. We all looked up at the sky, overcast and grey, the snow beginning to fall in earnest. Big fluffy flakes that melted all over Edward’s face and his glasses as he grinned up at the sky. “This is perfect!” he laughed.

Is that a smile? Holyshit.

I didn’t think he was even capable of that.

Jane obviously didn’t care as much about her self preservation as I did, and had no problem with catching some life threatening illness after prancing around naked in the snow. She handed me her clothes and did everything Edward asked her to. Dangled from a tree branch in nothing but her blonde curls. Draped herself across the trunk wearing a pair of black satin gloves. Threw snowballs at him in a giant fur hat and then played pretend with all of the statues scattered around the museum grounds, kissing a minotaur and stradling an elephant. She stood out in the middle of the little frozen pond with a big red scarf wrapped around her while I tried not to worry that she’d fall through and freeze into a hundred pound ice cube. Her crowning achievement was a couple of snow angels left on the front lawn while Edward cheered her on with his camera attached to his face.

It was a downright wonder we didn’t get arrested for public indecency.

I shrugged out of my own jacket and threw it around Jane’s shoulders the moment Edward called it quits. She was trembling violently, her lips a little too purple for my taste, and I hissed at her to get inside and get warm. I wasn’t wearing enough underneath my jacket to keep the snow off my rapidly cooling skin and I shivered as I knelt to start gathering up our gear. I hated winter because cold and wet were my two least favorite feelings in the world but, here I was, subjected to both simultaneously.

“What the fuck are you wearing?”

I narrowed my eyes and turned to face Edward, still in a crouch. He was eyeing my hips, his yellow eye open wide and the green one scrunched so tightly I could barely see it. He was dusted down in a light layer of snow with his breath frozen around his face.  

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” I grumbled, glancing down to find a hint of my underwear peeking out of my pants. He smashed his eyebrows together behind the glasses and took them off entirely to peer at me, as though that would somehow change their existence.

“Are those superman underwear?” he asked in disbelief.

“Of course not, why would I wear superman when there’s a superwoman?” I yanked a handful of the briefs I’d stolen from Alice out of my pants and his mouth fell open. He gaped at me for a few seconds before blinking roughly, shoving his glasses back onto his face and  shrugging out of his own jacket while he grumbled underneath his breath. The suspenders were grey today, elastic with silver clips, and his black button down was open one button too far, tucked into a pair of dark dress pants that did nothing for my self control. He held the jacket toward me, snowflakes landing on his shoulders, and tipped his head toward the museum with his hair flopping in front of his eyes.

“Get inside. I’ll deal with this.”

“I can handle it,” I grumbled, struggling to pick up more stuff.

“Will you just listen to me for once?” Edward snapped and hauled me to my feet with a hard hand on my elbow. I could feel a surge of heat off him and part of me wanted to snuggle closer to it, goosebumps breaking out all over. The smart side of me knew that was a really stupid idea. We stared at each other for a moment and I noticed for the first time that he had shaved. Smooth cheeks and a sharp determined jawline, his mouth suddenly big and soft and smirking at me. Again.

“I can take care of myself,” I stuttered dumbly.

“I don’t expect much self preservation from a girl wearing the underwear of an eight year old boy.” He spun me away, pushing me roughly toward the museum. I left a staggered string of footprints through the snow as I rushed toward the building, trying not to look back, darting down the hallways to my office, collapsing against the door.

Edward

I was walking home when I saw her.

The snow was still falling, heavier than before, and the streetlights were on even though it was only three o’clock. Jane had been a champ today, despite Bella’s protests, and I’d gotten some really great shots in a matter of minutes. The girl would probably have frostbite but she smiled through the whole thing, which was a true measure of commitment in my book. I was crossing the street, contemplating the next day’s project, when she walked right in front of me. In ln a soft lambskin coat and a slouchy black hat. Lips that forever shade of burgundy and her hands clutched to her chest, the ring I’d given her still on her middle finger. I stopped right in the middle of the road, my heart suddenly not working at all, until someone honked their horn.

“Esme!” I yelled, shuffling out of the road, but she didn’t stop. She rounded a corner and I broke into a run, darting between people to keep her in sight. The cold air was catching in my lungs and that ache was back. Not that it had really gone away, but it was stronger than it had ever been before. I caught up to her at the same time I was convinced my body just couldn’t do much more. Reached out and grabbed her shoulder, the wool of her jacket damp and rough beneath my fingers and my heart up in my throat.

She turned, and it wasn’t her at all.

The woman looked startled, scared even, and I must have looked half crazed. I apologized, explaining that I’d mistaken her for someone else before slinking away, shoulders around my ears and tail between my legs as I made my way back to the apartment. I crawled into my cold empty bed and fell asleep despite my heart’s best effort to keep me awake and aching all night long.

---

I swear to god, if Bella wore something ridiculous today I was going to fire her.

I decided that before I even got to work. The superwoman underwear had tipped me over the edge. The garters were one thing, fuckhot, but the little boy underwear did something completely obscene to my fantasies. I’d never had a woman in that sort of underwear. At first it turned me off, but I’d rubbed one out in the shower this morning and it wasn’t until half an hour later that I realized I’d been thinking about her in that underwear when I did it.

Of course, she had a death wish.

In a short pink flowery dress that just barely covered her ass. Four inches of pale, delectable skin between the hem of that dress and the tops of the heavy black knee socks she was wearing, hoisted up by another set of garters. She was bending over the wide table top of her makeshift workspace, leaning close to the mirror to apply a dark shade of lipstick to herself. The dress was riding high and my eyes traveled up those garters to the bare hint of a lace covered pussy between her thighs, all of her strapped up in a complicated packaging. I groaned and called Carlisle into my office from behind the safety of the closed door.

“We need to talk.”

“Is everything ok? Did the jellyfish not arrive?” he asked, sounding like he was running down the hallway. Sure enough, he burst through my door not two seconds later, panting.

“It’s not that.” I set the phone down and ran my hands through my hair, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my palms. This was so much bigger than the fucking jellyfish. “It’s Bella.”

“Bella?” Carlisle sounded confused.

“She’s -” I stopped myself from saying that she was so infuriatingly sexy that I wanted nothing to do with her except for bending her over that makeup table and fucking both of us senseless. Was I really going to try to get her fired? Her work ethic wasn’t the problem, it was her goddamn clothes. “She has problems following instructions,” I muttered half heartedly.

“She’s the best designer I know, Edward,” Carlisle hedged, obviously uncomfortable. I’d put him on the spot, and I knew it. He’d intoned more than once that they’d known each other for years and he shifted uneasily in his chair.

“I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that I-” Can’t concentrate around her? Want to rip her clothes off? Need to get laid and she’s only one I want? “I need someone who listens to what I say and then does exactly that.”

“She’s a tough girl, but she’s not impossible.” Carlisle shook his head, glancing away. “I’ll talk to her if you want me to.”

“No, no. I’ll say something myself,” I grumbled. Carlisle left with his face to the ground and I spent fifteen minutes trying to decide what to say to her. How to word my forthcoming tirade against her knee socks and her garters. I needed a free creative space to work and here she was muddling it all up with lust because all I could think about was tying her up with those damn straps. Lashing her to my bed and having my way with her. I needed to her tone it down so I could get this project completed.

I didn’t say any of that.

Instead, I walked into her office and lost my grip on my coherency. I’d forgotten what she was wearing, even though it was the very thing that spawned this entire problem, but with one look that girl hung me up to dry.



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AN: Hadley is still rolling her eyes at me. And still editing this hot mess. And I still love her so much it hurts sometimes.