Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Day Eleven Stranded

Bella

I splashed water onto my face again, trying to soothe my awful headache. Ugh, it hurt so much. I’d thrown up twice already and I still felt like shit. I should have paid more attention to how much I was drinking last night. When I woke up, Edward already had his wet tee shirt in his hands, waiting to put it on my forehead. Then, to my utter embarrassment, I felt the vomit coming up my stomach and into my throat, and I quickly turned my head to wretch onto the ground. I had looked at Edward apologetically, and he chuckled, putting the wet piece of clothing back over my face. An hour had passed since then, and it was just my luck to have a horrible hangover the first time I got drunk.

I looked back over to Edward, who was sitting in the sand watching me. I could make out his crooked-yet perfect-smile all the way from out here. ‘I love you!’ I wanted to yell. Instead, like the coward I was, I whispered the three words under my breath, as if he could hear me. And I knew they were true. I was in love with him, probably from the very start, but now that I was allowing him to break my guard down, I was starting to see it.

I’d never been in love before, but I knew this was it. And I didn’t want to fight the feeling or slow it down, because that was what old Bella would have done, and old Bella had been miserable. But even though I didn’t want to fight them, I didn’t know how to go about my feelings. What if I told him I loved him, and he thought I was crazy? I wouldn’t be able to take that. No normal person falls in love in just over a week, but this was definitely not a normal relationship. I mean, the only reason we met was because we got stuck together, the only two survivors of a plane cash.

Yeah, not normal at all.

We had been here with no one but each other, learning one another. I depended on him just as he depended on me. I had fallen in love with him after all of that, but what about Edward? Just because I felt that way didn’t mean he did, too.

I looked down at the water in front of me, reaching my waist. I could see my reflection, surprisingly clear. It seemed as if I had lost weight, but maybe it was just the water tricking me. My face looked slightly thinner, and my cheekbones seemed more prominent. My eyes were full of happiness, but confused at the same time.

It wasn’t too hard to figure out what that was from.

I looked back at Edward, blushing and smiling when I saw that he was still watching me.

What about when we got off the island? All these feelings of needing each other dependability could disappear, along with any love he could possibly have for me. In the real world, he wouldn’t need me, so who was to say he would still want me? Did he think this was just a fling for our time here, something just to pass the time, and once we were back on American soil, it would be as if it had never happened? I hoped not. I could see myself being with him, possibly even after we were saved. Possibly forever.

I shook the thoughts out of my head. If we were meant to be, we were meant to be. I was never much of a believer in fate, but now it seemed like my best option.

I walked back to the sand, back to Edward.

“Day eleven?” he said cheerfully?

I smiled. “Day eleven.”

***

Days passed in the same fashion, and I was unbelievably enjoying myself. Edward and I had a blast every moment we were together, and there was never a dull moment. We kissed and flirted like teenagers, and I was starting to grow more confident that Edward may love me back.

Maybe it was hopeful wishing, but something about the way he looked at me made me just know he loved me. He seemed to be so fascinated with me, which baffled my mind. I had never shared so much with someone before, and I had spoken more in the last twenty days than I had in my entire life. Edward was so full of energy, and his jokes even got me rolling in hysterics now, instead of scowling at him like I usually did.

Every time I wanted to tell him how strong my feelings were, I chickened out. I was starting to hope that he would say it first, seeing as he was so confident and outspoken, but he never did.

“What are you thinking?” Edward asked, pulling me out of my thoughtful trance. It was midday of our twentieth day here, and it was so nice, I just wanted to lay with him on the beach. He had been silent for so long, I thought he was sleeping. I rolled over onto my stomach closer to him, and we faced each other.

“I was just wondering…” I tried to think of something, buying time by rubbing his shoulder gently, “what we’re going to do today.”

“Liar,” Edward chuckled, calling me out on my fib. He traced his fingers along my jawbone, and I felt my face grow hot, even after all the times he had touched me. “You’re so beautiful, but you’re other-worldly when you blush like this. I wish I could make you blush every minute of every day for forever.” His words merely made me do it more, and at his mention of ‘forever’ I felt my face light on fire. I looked down in embarrassment.

Edward pulled my face back up and kissed me softly. I wanted to moan in pleasure. Just one kiss of his did this to me? Imagine if he made love to me. I would probably end up as a pool of Bella jello if we did go that far.

Edward retreated his face from mine, and laughed at my reluctant expression. He kissed me again, adding more passion this time. I tried to hold in giggles as his growing facial hair tickled my chin, but I failed, and I felt Edward smirk mischievously against my lips when he saw what he did to me. He paused for a second, and I wrongly thought he would have mercy on my face. Before I could pull away, he started rubbing his now thick stubble all over my face, making me break out in hysterical laughter.

“Stop! Stop!” I yelled. He laughed along with me as he tickled me, and finally stopped when I had trouble breathing.

“Edward!” I chided him, slapping his chest, then forgetting everything when I saw his pecs flex. He snorted loudly.

“Your face is all raw now,” he laughed, rubbing his stubble. I personally liked the scruffy look on him, but he probably looked good no matter what happened to him. He could wear a garbage bag and make it look good.

I rubbed my burning face, trying to soothe it, but my palm was so rough and sweaty, only making it worse.

“I’m sorry,” Edward said, pulling me into his lap and peppering my face with kisses. It felt nice until his stubble got in the way again.

“That’s going to become a problem, isn’t it?” he asked, smiling against my cheek. I didn’t answer, for his actions were filling me with desire again, and I didn’t want to show it. Edward must have noticed, though, because he tilted my head back slowly, gaining access to my neck. I closed my eyes unwillingly, giving in to the feeling of Edward trailing his lips across my throat.

I swallowed in anticipation. His hands came up around my ribcage where he stopped, probably unsure of how far I would let things go. I felt him kiss my collarbone, and nearly lost it when I felt his hot breath on the hollow of my throat. Then he licked around the bones and blew, eliciting a low moan from me. He must have realized that I was okay with this, because his hands finally came up to cup my breasts.

Then a stupid bird hooted loudly, and the moment was over. Edward’s hands fell to my hips again, his mouth leaving my heated skin.

Bastard bird, I thought, it seems that all the creatures on this island don’t want me to lose my virginity. I looked up at Edward, whose face looked apologetic.

“I’m sor-” he started to say again, but I cut him off with my fingers on his lips.

“Don’t apologize.” I wasn’t going to let him feel bad or regretful, especially when I was having the time of my life. He winked at me, and I removed my hand from his mouth.

“What do you want for dinner?” he asked as he removed my body from his lap carefully. I stood up and helped him to his feet, brushing sand off his waist.

“What do I want? I want a nice, big juicy steak and a stuffed baked potato,” I said.

“Okay, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a cow around here,” Edward joked. “Maybe there are some animals somewhere on the island.”

“I doubt it. We would have seen them by now if there were any wildlife,” I countered.

“Hey, you never know. We never really explored that much. We haven’t even been to the other side of the damn thing, and it’s already been three weeks.”

“Okay, smartass. Why don’t you go look for animals?” I asked, walking back into the shade. I was expecting him to answer me, but he stayed silent, and I looked up at him. He was smirking.

“Edward?” I stopped walking and he finally looked at me. “Mind telling me what’s so funny?”

“Sorry. What you just said made me remember something that happened to me when I was younger,” he said slowly.

“What was it?” I asked, curious. He sighed, pursing his lips to keep from smiling.

“When I was little, about five or six, Emmett used to always pick on me. He always called me smartass because I could read a whole book by first grade. One time we went to a horse stable and paid for a whole day of riding. So, when we were about to leave, Emmett and I ran into the barn and there was this stalled horse named Crazy.” Edward shuddered and continued. Well, the horse was crazy, you could tell just by looking at it. Emmett bet with me, saying he would give me five bucks if I went in and petted the horse. So, naïve like I was, I went in. The horse threw a fit that I had stepped into his stall, but I was determined to get that cash.” I gasped-he could have been badly hurt.

“What happened?” I asked anxiously. Edward grimaced.

“I went to pet Crazy on the nose and it bit me between my neck and my shoulder. That hurt like a bitch, too. I ran out crying, and I had a huge bruise for a whole two weeks. Emmett called it a horsy hickey.” I burst out in giggles. “I’ve been afraid of farm animals ever since. Talking about getting you a cow made me think of it.”

“Did you get your five dollars?” I asked. Edward scoffed.

“No, I didn’t! I’m going to have to remind him of that one day!” Edward said, laughing.

“So, I’m guessing you want me to go with you, since you’re scared?” I tried to clarify. He shook his head.

“Of course not. I’m just scared of horses. And there aren’t any on this island,” he said. “You just go sit and look pretty. I’ll go try to find something.” He kissed me quickly, turning toward the “jungle,” as we had deemed it.

I marched to the shoreline, wetting my feet, trying to burn time until Edward got back. I would have insisted on going with him, but I knew that we shouldn’t spend all day every day together so much, or we would either get sick of each other or drive each other crazy.

My face felt so dry and my mouth tasted disgusting. I didn’t know how Edward could stand kissing me-my breath must have been horrible. Edward’s wasn’t, though; he always tasted good, like honey and cinnamon and fruit. I wished I had some soap or at least a toothbrush.

I went back to the shade once again and took a nap.

I was woken from my sleep about an hour later by Edward calling my name and touching my face tenderly.

“Bella, I have something to show you!” I groaned, not wanting to wake up from my wonderful dream in which Edward had not stopped his ministrations on my body from earlier.

“Come on, Babe, you’re going to love it!” I groaned again-such a good dream. Suddenly I felt my body being lifted from the ground, Edward having picked me up.

“I can walk,” I said, looking up into his excited face.

“Silly girl, I know you can, but this is a surprise, and you need to keep your eyes closed. I’m afraid you can’t even walk straight with your eyes open, so there’s no way I’m letting you do it blind.” I scowled at him, but closed my eyes all the same.

“I hate surprises,” I muttered.

Edward chuckled. “No peeking.”

He traveled with me in his arms for nearly twenty minutes, still not giving me a hint as to where we were going.

“It’s at the heart of the island,” was all he would say.

“I hope you didn’t find a herd of monkeys or something,” I said dryly. “Because that wouldn’t really be a good surprise.”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” he said. I could hear the smile in his voice.

“How much longer?” I groaned.

“About ten minutes. This island is bigger than I thought. Still not big enough to build anything, though. Maybe a summer home at the least.”

I waited another ten minutes, counting in my head.

“It’s been ten minutes, Edward.”

“Bella, we’ll get there when we get there. It’s not much longer, petulant child.”

A few more minutes passed until finally Edward told me to keep my eyes closed as he set me down. I could hear a strange noise, and I got soaked as Edward lowered me.

I sputtered and tried to open my eyes, shocked that he was putting me in water. He covered my eyes with his hand so that I still couldn’t see. I spouted his name off, worried.

“Calm down, Bella,” Edward said soothingly. I felt my butt hit ground under the water, so the water wasn’t deep. Edward removed his hand from my eyes and I looked around.

It was a…creek? I looked down at the cold water around me, and it was clear and beautiful, floating over the packed gravel. I splashed it over my face, and licked my lips, gasping.

“It’s fresh water!” I looked at Edward, who was watching my reaction. He nodded and splashed water into his face, too. I turned to where the noise was coming from. It was a mini waterfall, the water cascading into the little stream I was in.

“It’s a spring,” Edward told me. “I can’t believe the island has one. And look what I found!” Edward pulled something from his pocket and showed it to me, palm up. It was a coin, and it looked gold and beat up.

“Do you think it’s real?” I asked, taking it from him and examining it closer. I could just make out the carving of a person, but I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, it was so packed with dirt and grime.

“I don’t know. You think pirates hid gold here a long time ago? Seems pretty exciting, huh?” Edward said, taking the coin back from me. I nodded. “You want to go on a treasure hunt?” I laughed at his happy face; he looked like a little boy on Christmas morning.

Edward laid back in the water, causing little ripples to float my way. I took a few sips of the water, feeling fully satisfied after being without fresh water for twenty days. I laid back on Edward, and he hummed the beautiful melody he had made up. We watched the sky through the trees as it darkened and the stars came out, shining brightly.

“You want to go back before we fall asleep here?” Edward asked after a while. I got up and we walked back to our little sanctuary. I yawned.

“My back is starting to hurt from laying on the ground every night,” I told him.

“Yeah, mine, too. I’ll have to do something about that.”

I buried my head in his chest once we reached our sleeping place, falling asleep quickly. The last thing I felt was Edward’s lips kissing the top of my head.

Edward

I watched Bella sleep as I drifted off. She started mumbling, which was strange because she normally only talked early in the morning, when she was about to wake up. I heard my name a few times and a couple moans which were really hard to ignore. I remembered how far we had gone earlier and felt my jeans tighten. This woman really would be the death of me. I didn’t want to ruin everything by going too far, but this waiting and watching her body all the time was driving me crazy. Why is it that when you don’t love someone, it’s so easy to not care and you have all the confidence in the world, but when you do love someone, your ego goes out the window and you never want to take a chance at messing things up? I never thought being in love would be this hard.

I ran my hands over the swell of her hip, enjoying the satin of her skin on my fingertips. Why couldn’t I do this when she was awake? I knew why; I was afraid she would reject me. I was afraid she didn’t love me, or at least didn’t love me enough to let me make love to her. But she didn’t complain earlier, a voice in my head said.

I shook off the thoughts. Maybe I would just know when she was ready, like how I just knew when I loved her.

I wrapped my arms around her little body, enjoying the warmth of her. She sighed happily in her sleep, still mumbling.

“Edward,” she said, “love you…” I looked at her in disbelief. I could almost feel my eyes bulging out of my head. She smiled lightly, obviously dreaming about me. Oh, how I wished she would say that while awake. I snuggled closer, beaming.

“I love you, too, Sweetheart.”




All pictures are taken from either Google or Deviantart.