Cullen POV
“A little to the left…right, right…no…now down…up a
little….oh…yeah…right there…..”
I rolled my eyes, ‘cause…Jesus
fucking Christ.
“Can you move to the right just a…”
And then, I’d about had it.
“For the love of fucking God, Em…”
“Dude…you’re the one that shot me.”
“I said I was fucking sorry,” I told him. I mean seriously, how goddamn long was I
supposed to sit there scratching his itch for Christ’s sake?
He let out a chuckle. “I guess I should just be grateful your
aim needs work.”
He’s seriously so full of fucking shit, sometimes.
“Right, and your head needs work…what in the hell were you
thinkin’, lettin’ them take you into the goddamn building like that, anyway?”
He cocked an eyebrow at me.
“Probably the same thing you were thinking.”
Yeah, I guess he had me there.
“And Edward,” Rose sounded from the kitchen doorway, with
Lilly in her arms.
Shit.
I showed no fear, my friends.
“The next time my soon to be husband gets wounded while
playing with you and your stupid plans…”
Playing?
What are we in fucking
Kindergarten?
“He’s a fucking cop, Rose, what’d you expect?” I asked her, as I walked over and took my
niece from her. “Hey kid.”
“I expect him to
be in one piece when I come home from playing hide and go seek with crazy
people.”
Lilly made raspberries at me while I eyeballed Rose.
“And I expect him to stay alive long enough for Lilly to
remember what he looks like.”
She had a few more for me, but to be honest, I was too busy
making kookoo eyes at Lilly to hear ‘em.
And I know, let’s be completely fucking candid, here, I was
lucky all I was getting’ was a verbal lashing and that she hadn’t disassembled
Eleanor.
“Where’s Bella, anyway?” she asked me, once she was done
with the rant, as I wrestled with Lilly, tryin’ to keep her from grabbin’ my
face.
She liked to grab my face.
And pinch it and twist it and give uncle fucking Edward
bruises like a motherfucker.
I mentioned she was a strong little shit, didn’t I?
“She said she had an errand to run, or somethin’.”
Truth was, I didn’t fucking know where Swan was.
I mean, yeah, she said she had some shit to do, but she was
being really cryptic the couple a days following our confrontation with Aro and
I was startin’ to wonder just exactly what the fuck had happened with her and
Jane other than, you know, Jane gettin’ her brains blown out and all.
Not that she didn’t deserve it.
But it woulda been nice to ask her a few questions about
Alec’s whereabouts or…how Muldoon had managed to escape the whole situation
with all his parts still workin’…perhaps a couple other names of accomplices in
Aro’s organization?
But hey, that’s just me.
I pushed the second guesses outta my head while I visited
with my brother and his family for a little while longer, then did a drive by
check up on dad, to make sure that nothin’ suspicious was goin’ on over at the
manor.
My last stop, before headin’ over to my appointment for the
day, was Jasper’s place.
He, of course, hadn’t had any hits on lurkers or hackers so
we had to assume no one was on to his involvement in the whole take down we’d
headed up.
Which was a good goddamn thing, because I’d hate to demand
my sister stop seein’ his ass.
He was a good guy, and all, but fuck if I’d let her life
come into that kinda danger on a daily basis.
Know what I mean?
Her store re-opened by the way.
Seemed that somehow, the citations that had been filed on
her, had been mysteriously lost and I had my gut feeling deductions about who
the culprit was that lost them, but quite frankly, I was ignoring said
deductions ‘cause I couldn’t afford to feel like I owed the guy anything after
all the shit he’d just put my ass through.
After gettin’ hugged and squeezed and slapped in the arm by
Alice, a couple of times, I finally felt a little better about the aftermath of
the Volturi fuckery and made my way over to make good on a promise I’d made
someone on the inside of the Washington Post, seein’ how she’d made good on her
end of our bargain.
“Www…ow.”
“That’s all ya got?” I asked the tiny woman, as her mouth
hung open, reading the summary I’d written up for her about the case.
Angela Weber wasn’t exactly what I would call a “Hard Core”
reporter, considering the complete and utter look of worry on her face, but all
in all, she had potential.
And seemed trustworthy.
For now, anyway.
“You…” she pointed at a particularly touchy part of the
story and I simply eyeballed her, waiting to see if she’d have the balls to run
with it, tell me to go fuck myself, there was no way she was risking her career
over a theory.
“You really think the police force is this corrupt?”
I breathed out.
“I think a lot of things, Angela…it’s all just theory,
though.”
‘Till the fuck heads
slip up, that is.
She thought it over for a minute or two, closing the door to
her office and then told me, “I’d like to run this under the premise that it’s
an unofficial investigation by an unnamed citizen, and I’d have to leave
official names out…” then was quick to add, “Slander is a very touchy subject
around here, Mr. Cullen.”
“I get it,” I said, crossing my arms as I leaned against her
desk, surprised she was gonna go with it at all.
“You’re really gonna print it?”
“Absolutely, are you crazy? This is news worthy gold.”
She was already typing the summary into her laptop as I
stood there.
I laughed at her and wondered how close she’d been with
Lauren because, swear to fucking God…two peas in a pod.
“Well, that was my one good deed I needed to do, today, I
gotta bolt,” I told her and then she stopped me before I could make a clean get
away.
“I have sources, Mr. Cullen, I’ll keep an ear to the ground
on your man, Alec…and this…” she looked at the summary again. “James,
character.”
I smiled.
Angela was alright.
“Thanks, but…do yourself a favor…”
She tilted her head, pushing the glasses on her nose, up a
little.
Cute.
“Don’t keep it too close to the ground, if ya know what I’m
sayin’.”
She did.
I winked and then I was outta there.
On my way home to fucking sleep for a goddamn year, if I had
it my way.
But since I didn’t…Have it my way, that is…I was up rather,
late, again.
Not that I was complaining, considering why I was up late…
“Who’s your daddy?”
I spanked her again and Swan grunted as I pounded into her
from behind.
She and I were tryin’ something new and I wasn’t exactly opposed to it…it had just never crossed
my mind to ask…’cause you know…
Women.
She liked that shit, though, and surprisingly, so the fuck
did I.
“You,” she whispered into the pillow and I bent over her,
telling her into her ear, “I didn’t hear you, Swan.”
“You, Edward…you are…”
“Are you ever gonna deviate from the plan, again, Swan?” I
questioned, as I let a hand slide around to her tits to pinch a nipple or two.
There was double nipplage pinching, goin’ on.
She smiled.
“Probably.”
Exactly the response I
was lookin’ for.
I leaned back and spanked her again.
And she yelped.
“Ouch, that one
hurt.”
“Sorry.” I rubbed it out, chuckling a little bit and
decided, the whole…domination and masochism deal…not really my fucking thing.
Most of the time.
I rolled her over and kissed her, slidin’ and finger or two
into her, watchin’ her face as I managed to do her justice and make her feel
all kinds of good.
“Open your eyes,” I told her and she did, putting her lips
to mine a few times while I made her cum.
When she came down from the high, she pulled me over top of
her, encouraging let Eddy Jr. to find his spot inside the sweet wet goodness that
I like to call…well, for lack of a more interesting word, Bella’s pussy, and then
her legs found a home, wrapping themselves around me, pushing me to dig deeper,
so to speak, from behind, with her heels.
Fuck me heels, to be a little more accurate.
‘Cause I never get fucking tired of those bad boys.
Girls.
“So,” I started, and don’t ask me why, but somethin’ about
making love to that woman, and all the shit we’d been through together…combined
with the visit to Em’s that day…just…got me thinkin’.
“Yeah?” she asked, breathlessly as I pushed into her,
kissing her neck line…her breasts…her ever-fucking-thing.
“How do we…you know…”
And the Swan giggles…ya gotta love ‘em.
“How do we…what,
Edward?”
Her sex voice, by the way?
Does me in, every…fucking…time.
“Shit,” I blurted out as I came and then had to catch my
breath before I continued on with the topic of discussion for the evening.
I placed my elbows on each side of her and played with her
hair, a little while I asked her, “How do we go about this whole…tryin’ to have
a baby, thing, anyway?”
I thought I saw something in her eyes, then, when I’d said
it.
Like, I dunno, fucking love, maybe…if there is such a look.
It made me smile.
“How about this,” she said. “I’ll stop using birth control,
and we’ll just…see what happens?”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is just another reason why I
love that fucking brilliant woman that was sharing my bed with me.
And my life.
“I think that’s a fucking perfect idea,” I told her, and
then I rolled to the side of her and she cuddled up into my side, puttin’ her
head on my chest as I let my fingers graze up and down her arm.
After a few minutes, Swan was silently shoulder bobbing and
I asked her, “What?”
She didn’t look up or anything when she answered and I
didn’t stop grazing the arm.
I was too goddamn comfortable, that’s why.
“You know,” she teased.
“Technically, Charlie is my
daddy.”
And yeah, I guess she had to fucking go there.
I closed my eyes as I started to drift off.
“That’s just fucking gross, Swan,” I told her and then the
silent giggles grew louder.
We fell asleep like that and didn’t wake the fuck up till
well after Noon the next day.
I tried to convince her to stay in bed but she had her own
plans for us.
Plans that included house work, yard work, washing cars and fucking
oil changes.
Shit I’d personally, much
rather pay someone to take care of for me, but since Swan is all about saving
up for futuristic circumstances, I lost that argument.
“Jesus, I’m fuckin’ tired.”
I fell down onto the couch, once most of the bullshit work
was done and noticed the annoying pink gun, sitting on the book shelf, next to
me.
Miscellaneous ideas flew through my head about all of the
recent activities we’d had the privilege of being a part of, and as hard as I
may try sometimes, to block that shit out, sometimes it was just easier to let
it ride.
‘Cause the amount of energy it took to not think about possibilities, and all of the shoulda-woulda-coulda’s and all the other conspiracy theorized
ideas that poked around in my brain, was all used up for the day and I just
decided to lay my head back and close my eyes, basking in the joy that we had
zero cases on the desk, back in the office.
For what felt like the first time in months.
I heard Swan throw the car keys down onto the end table and
walk passed me, heading for the kitchen.
“I thought we were getting rid of the Hello Kitty gun,” I
moaned.
Eyes still closed.
Muscles still aching.
Head still spinning.
I mean, we’d joked about the idea that it would make a great
first weapon for a baby sized Cullen or Swan, but in reality, I didn’t want any
part of something that had been owned by someone in the Volturi organization
stayin’ within proximity of our home.
Or children.
Swan didn’t say anything at first so I managed to open a
single eye at her and she was pulling a piece of paper out of her bag, reading
it.
“Swan?”
“It’s amazing, the
way things turn out, around you, Cullen.”
She laughed, stuffing the paper back into her bag, then
going to open up the fridge.
I let my head fall back, again and closed the eye.
It felt…so…fucking…good.
“Yeah? You mean how I managed to thwart the evil plan of Aro
Volturi, save the girl and still
fucking manage to let James get away, again?”
“We need milk, damn,” she said, tossing the empty milk
carton into the sink. “No, I mean, it doesn’t seem to matter what situation
people put you in, you still manage to come out alive.”
That was a fucking
weird thing to say.
Right?
“What the fuck are you talking about, Swan?”
“I’m talking about
the fact that you had incredible
circumstances to deal with and yet, you still overcame them, still tracked down
Aro, somehow…and made a major discovery of one of the areas largest human
trafficking rings.”
She huffed through her nose a little.
Was she pissed about that?
“Well, I’m sure they knew, from the fucking beginning it
wasn’t gonna go down neatly for ‘em…they couldn’t have been happy that Mendez
chose me to find Kate…I mean, I’m not a fucking lap dog.”
She closed the fridge and started opening some cabinets.
“We’re out of everything…how
does that happen?”
I kept my eyes closed but smiled at her ass.
“Try the pantry.”
I could hear her walking toward that direction and when she
stopped, opening the door, she spoke again.
“I dunno, Cullen, I mean…if I was on the wrong side of the
law….I wouldn’t exactly mind having you chasing after me, so much,” she teased.
I think.
“You wanna role play, Swan, ‘cause I’m in.”
Seriously.
“Well, think about it,” she said, “theoretically speaking…”
She paused, checking some bags of chips out, it sounded
like, then threw them back into the pantry.
“Ewe,” she mumbled, throwing the bags into the trash can.
“If some…woman was
positioned to…say, distract you…”
“There’s only one woman for me, Swan…and she’s ridding my
kitchen of everything consumable.”
She huffed, again.
“Humor me for a minute, Cullen.”
“Uh huh.”
I was nearly asleep, then, I’m not gonna lie. But I didn’t mind fallin’ asleep to Swan’s
babble fest. She wasn’t half bad to
listen to.
“I mean not that that woman couldn’t have possibly gained
real feelings for you…possibly even love you…but her main focus, her first and
foremost priority, was to keep you distracted…give you a reason or two…or ten,
not to be one hundred percent on your
game…”
I yawned.
What was she saying?
And were we still talking hypothetical, here?
“Maybe her only job, her sole focus, was to make you care
about more than just…work.”
She sounded almost, fucking annoyed, or something…it pulled
me further away from unconsciousness and closed in on the real world.
Somethin’ about the tone in her voice…was…
Off.
“Yet…you still did it…you still took Aro down, still screwed
up his businesses…”
“Swan, what are you…”
“I mean, sure, a few people died along the way…but that’s
expected, right?”
I pushed myself off of the couch and started for the
kitchen.
Swan was leaning against the counter, staring at the shelves
across from her.
Eating cheese.
She seemed to snap out of her daze when she noticed me there
and laughed a little. “Not that it could be proven, right? I mean, Aro’s dead…what difference would it
make at this point? He was probably the only person who would have known about
her role in the whole thing.”
The crease in my brow deepened.
She was kinda fucking freaking me out.
“There’d be no reason for her to be a pawn, anymore.”
“You okay?”
“Right?”
She smiled.
“Swan?”
She was back then, and looked up at me.
“Hypothetically speaking, that is,” she said, leaning up on
her tippy toes, to kiss me, quickly.
Then she walked passed me, into the living room and picked
up the keys from the end table and I was suddenly wondering if she’d been
talking a little more hypothetically than she was letting on.
I didn’t like the feeling that was starting to stir shit up
in my gut all of a sudden as I turned to her.
“Where ya goin’?”
“Store,” she said, pullin’ her coat on. “We’re out of…everything…I won’t be long.”
“Swan…”
I started for her but she spun on me. “I’ll be right back,
Edward,” she said, then kissed me, again.
A little more…Swan’esque, that time and I held on to her a little longer
than she’d originally planned.
When I let go, she breathed in and told me, with her eyes
still shut, “I love you.”
Then she left me standin’ there.
That was when I realized, she’d taken Eleanor’s keys.
Which wasn’t like her.
She hated Eleanor.
I looked at the door with a pain forming on the inside of my
head for a minute or so…then blew myself off, and let out a laugh.
“You need to fucking get your head examined, Cullen,” I told
myself, pickin’ up the remote and turnin’ the TV on, as I took my spot back on
the couch to channel surf.
Some old black and white was on, so I left it there and
tried to get back to the sleepy state I’d been in when we’d first come back
into the house.
She’s just fuckin’
with you, I thought, trying to get comfortable on the fucking sofa.
Where was Pup, anyway?
Fifteen minutes later, I still wasn’t asleep, and decided to
call her.
What?
I wanted to see if she was gettin’ some sandwich meats.
She didn’t answer and I didn’t leave a voice mail.
I don’t know what I was all worked up about, anyway….she
always remembered sandwich meats.
I got up and started pullin’ all the expired shit outta the
fridge while I waited for her to get home and wondered when the last time we’d
even really been home was.
“Jesus,” I whispered, pulling my nose away after smelling some
old sour cream that had been sittin’ in there.
Another twenty minutes or so, and still, no Swan.
I started randomly thinking about a timeline, since I’d met
her.
What can I say? Old habits die hard.
There was the day she first entered my office…
Newton…
The declaration of never getting orally fucking satisfied in
front of hundreds…
The way I’d ended up working with her, despite my own
cardinal rule about no partners…the whole, blonde Ferrari driver bullshit…and
how she’d even admitted it had been her…but then…
That movie quote shit…
Maybe she was having a
moment of weakness…couldn’t go through with it.
Besides…they were throwin’
her under the bus…I was about to kill her that night.
“Stop it, it was just a theory…She. Was. Fucking. With you,
Cullen…she knows how you are,” I
said, as I wiped down the counter…
For the third time.
I knew Swan loved me, I knew she was on the up and up…she
was the daughter of a police chief, for Christ’s sake…
But I couldn’t stop the timeline from playin’ out in my
head, either.
Disappearing at the
casino…
I mean, I never see what she’d supposedly found that night…
Running off to Forks…
“It was Charlie…she was makin’ sure Charlie was
okay…asshole.”
The baby talk…
That one stopped me in my tracks and I checked my watch.
It had been a little over an hour since Swan had left for
the store.
It didn’t usually take that long for us to grocery shop.
I mean shit, there was only two of us.
Fury was knock knock knockin’ at the door and I was trying,
really fucking hard not to let it in, but fucking seriously…would that not be
the most fucking up shit you’d ever heard in your life?
The one person I let in…the very….
Fucking only woman
I’d ever…
Loved.
I mean, deep down in your gut kinda love….and she was
playin’ for the other side?
Fucking seriously?
It’s just…
“Motherfucking typical.”
And why, by the goddamn way, I put rules into motion in the
first fucking place.
Locations within an hour of us started running through my
head, then.
She wouldn’t have
headed West…that’s too obvious.
Let’s see…
I dialed her cell again as I headed for the office to check
out the map that was still tacked onto the wall, there…
No answer, again.
“Mother of…”
Swan would be getting a whole hell of a lot more than a
chase, if I fucking found out she was one of Aro’s play toys.
I let my finger do the walking on the map as I tried to
figure out where she mighta headed off to.
North, there’s fucking
Canada…New York…possibly…she could’ve ditched the car and was at an airport…but
which one…
BWI?
Nah.
Then I thought, no, Swan wouldn’t go to the cold.
She hated the cold.
She’d head South.
Miami, maybe?
No, further…the Keys, perhaps, even.
She was always buggin’ the shit outta me to take a trip to
the Keys.
A door slammed and I snapped my head up.
A little groggy, I had to blink a few times before I could
focus on anything.
It was another couple of seconds before I realized, I had
just woken up.
Pup was on the couch, next to me, with his head in my lap
and he looked up at me, tilting his head a little.
“Yeah, me too, pal.”
“We’re out of…everything…”
Swan was saying.
She was still in the kitchen.
Still at the fridge.
What just fucking happened?
“What?” I asked her,
rubbin’ at my eyes.
She stood up straight then, looking at me, over the fridge
door, with this expression on her face like…
Caution?
“You didn’t hear what I was just saying?”
“Um….”
Good question.
“Why, what were you saying?”
It was the safest way to go.
If I’d heard her correctly, while sleeping that is, then she’d
react the only way someone with a guilty conscience would.
Nervously.
“You didn’t, did
you?”
She seemed peeved, but not too peeved.
It could have gone either way, I figured.
“No, not at all,” I confessed, and then needed to ask her,
“You alright, Swan?”
Dreams are funny fuckers, my friends. And light weight dream states are even
worse.
Especially when they’re supposed dreams about apparently
betrayals of fucking trust.
Swan smiled, a quirky, Swan like smile at me as she walked
over to the couch where Pup and I had been napping, inappropriately…allegedly…and then she bent down to kiss
me.
“I’m great, now…that
this whole Aro thing is put to rest,”
she said, sliding a hand over to the end table to pick up the keys to the car.
To Eleanor.
“Where ya goin’?” I asked, hesitantly, ‘cause…didn’t this
shit just happen?
“Store…we have absolutely nothing to eat, and I refuse to
starve to death, for the sake of going to bed and getting some rest.”
Hmmm.
“Store, huh?”
Can you say de ja
motherfucking vu?
“Yeah.”
“Takin’ Eleanor?”
She looked at the keys and scrunched her face up, a
little. “Is that okay? The truck’s been acting irresponsibly,
lately, I need Rose to take a look at it, for me.”
“Right…yeah, sure.”
She gave me one of her looks like I was going wackadoodle or
somethin’ and then said, “Okay, well…I’ll be back.”
I watched her close the door behind her and it didn’t take
me long to start after her, that time.
As I opened the door, she was reaching for the handle and we
both scared the shit out of each other.
“Hey,” I said, cautiously.
Maybe she’s having
second thoughts.
“Hey,” she mimicked, then scowled a little out of
curiosity. “Did you need something?”
“No, I….”
Trust you about as far
as I can throw you at the moment, thanks to a completely fucked up dream I just
had.
….Think I had.
“Well I forgot to give you this,” she said, holding a box
out to me and I took it, feeling like a complete fucking dick for even thinking…
I mean, this is
Swan we’re talking about, after all.
For the love of
fucking god.
“What’s this?”
She smirked at me. “Okay, it didn’t exactly cost me
anything, but I knew you’d need it…so I went and got it out of hock for you
from the precinct…”
Confusion hit and I gave her the look.
‘Cause…why would she need to go down to the precinct?
“I knew you wouldn’t want to have to deal with Muldoon, so…”
I opened the box.
It was my Colt.
And I grinned, taking it into my hand.
Hello, old friend.
“This is…” I started, and the schmuck feelings…they were a
plenty.
I let out some air. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she told me. “I’ll…see you in a bit.”
She started off again, then but stopped at the ‘Stang,
turning to me.
“You wanna come with?
I mean, I know you’re tired and probably want to just go to bed, but…”
“Yeah,” I said without a single bit of hesi-fucking-tation.
Maybe even eagerly.
I set the Colt down, grabbed my coat and closed the door
behind me.
‘Cause paranoid or not.
Conspiracy theory or none.
It couldn’t hurt to keep a close eye on the woman you love, who
may or may not be involved in activities that were less than dignified, my
friends.
If not for the sake of my own goddamn sanity…at the very
least, for her safety.
Right?
