The Passing Years-15Tease

One of the things that Jacob is really, really good at is driving me crazy, Bella thought as she scowled at the blurry view out the window.

He could do it with a look in his eyes in the middle of an argument, a much-too-innocent curve of his lips, a casually tossed comment over his shoulder, a long, level gaze from across the room, or a slow lingering fingertip at the back of her hand.

He could do it as easily as breathing.

So when he turned on her with the single-minded determination and intense focus that she knew him for and actually sought to drive her crazy, Bella could only brace for the whirlwind of emotion that he caused in her.

First of all, there was the silent drive from the beach to his house that she spent agonizing over whether to apologize for her friends’ comments or to explain about the Damien thing, but then again, she knew that Jacob wouldn’t feel anything but amusement over her friends’ comments, whereas the Damien thing, well, it wasn’t even like that between her and Damien. He was her friend and one of her trusted staff. Explaining it would seem like she was making a big deal out of it, or worse, admitting guilt.

Which is even more ridiculous.

Jacob being so silent only amplified the churning guilt that turned her stomach and the few minutes it took for them to arrive at his house, her restless mind had turned that guilt into resentment.

To make things worse, her hope for a quick escape was crushed when she saw Charlie’s truck in the driveway.

Then as she puttered around the kitchen to cook dinner for the Black men and her father—Rachel seemed to be MIA, at least she could be grateful for that—Jacob seemed hell bent on distracting her. She could feel his eyes on her back when he’d padded in, fresh from a shower, smelling of water and soap, to get a drink from the fridge. Bare-footed and bare-chested, he’d circled around her, not actually touching, but it was as if she could feel him moving around behind her back, opening and closing closets as he went about his usual business of finding something to munch on.

She’d seethed and hunched her shoulders when she felt his eyes on her, felt the prickles of heat of his stare that she couldn’t make herself turn around. Then as if she wasn’t frazzled enough, Jacob had surprised her by leaning down and scraping his teeth gently over the sensitive skin of her nape. His hot breath fluttering her hair as he nuzzled her neck.

Can anyone blame her when she dropped the skillet that she was holding into the sink where it clattered loudly?

When Charlie had poked his head in to see what the racket was all about, Jacob was on the other side of the kitchen, looking as innocent as a lamb. She could only grit her teeth when Charlie shook his head and mumbled about his ‘sweet, clumsy daughter’.

Dinner had continued like that, where Jacob would go from acting like she wasn’t there, then focusing on her like she was the only person in the room.

When their fathers sat on the porch to play a game of cards, Bella had settled in front of the TV, a past time that she had learned to appreciate at the end of her long hours in the store as she got ready for bed. Jacob joined her, slouching lazily on the floor against the loveseat sofa she was sitting on. His wide shoulder pressed against the length of her right calf, spreading heat across her skin. Stubbornness, pride and irritation made her refuse to move away, although every inch of her was tense, waiting for him to...well, do something, but minute by minute, she relaxed into what seemed like truce between them.

She couldn’t have been more wrong.

It didn’t take long for her to notice that, somehow, Jacob had slouched even lower and had inched his shoulders under her knee so that her right calf was no longer pressed along his arm but was in the awkward position of hanging over his shoulder. Bella could only blink when he braceleted her ankle with his fingers, playing with the soft skin there with slow, languid strokes that made fissures of heat climb up and down her leg.

It was certainly the wrong time to wear a skirt.

At first, she thought that he was just being Jacob, who could never be around her without some sort of physical contact. It was actually something that she depended on, something that she expected from him. It went as far as she felt something was wrong if he wasn’t touching her, so she tried to relax and, funny enough, succeeded.

Something about the way he was touching her, the heat of his skin against hers, the soft brush of his damp hair against her knee made her feel sleepy and she’d sunk further into the comfortably worn sofa, her eyes drooping heavily.

Then the touch changed, she didn’t know what precisely about it that changed, she only knew that it had. The sweep of his fingers was still lazy but instead of making her feel comfortable and pampered, she felt long liquid pulls that tighten her stomach. She bit her lip when his thumb brushed the back of her knee than swept down the length of her calf in one smooth stroke that ended at her toes that she—and Lulu and Misha and Tina—had painted silver with glittery undertones.

Her eyelashes fluttered shut when he rubbed his cheek against her calf and she could feel the solidness of his cheekbones, the valley of his cheek and the strength of his jaw.

His eyelashes tickled her skin when he pressed his mouth to a spot just under her knee.

The moist heat of his mouth made her spring up from the sofa like a hyperactive jack-in-a-box. When she heard his low, deep chuckle, she ignored him.

She had proceeded to ignore him after that and ran around him whenever he was near, but although she felt his eyes on hers, he hadn’t gone near her after that either. When he saw her glare at him over their fathers’ heads, he merely gave her a distracted smile before taking her earlier seat and flipping over channels.

She was doing a pretty good job of warily avoiding Jacob without being obvious, an amazing feat considering the size of Jacob’s living room and the perceptive gazes of their fathers, but fate had conspired against her.

Charlie suddenly had to get to town to handle a robbed liquor store and left her, muttering all the while about stupid teenagers, in the tender mercies of Jacob, who flashed her a grin that made her suspect that maybe he had somehow orchestrated this.

So, here she was, trapped inside a car with Jacob, whose quicksilver moods kept changing, and she was hard pressed to keep up with all of them.

“What?”

She scowled at him. “What, what?”

A small smile curved his lips. The headlight of a passing car highlighted his dark eyes and made them glow as he glanced at her. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re expecting me to bite you.”

Irritated beyond belief, her scowl deepened. “Well, are you?”

The laugh that rumbled in the darkness of the car made her cross her arms and slouch further in the seat of Jacob’s snarling black Impala, all the while convincing herself that she didn’t look like a petulant child.

The first two years where she had stumble alone without the two men that had sustained her was lonely, miserable, desperate. But she came through by sheer force of will, something that she realized she had in abundance now, and the hope that someday she could meet them again on something close enough to level ground.

She found something of herself and tried to know more of herself in the process.

Two more years passed by and she had friends now, a business of her own.

A life of her own.

True, those friends were actually her staff and her business was her life, but it was progress.

Life was sweet...

...and predictable.

Now life had returned Jacob into her path, and she knew nothing would ever be predictable again.

Not because of the werewolf thing, but because Jacob was...Jacob.

And she didn’t know how she felt about it.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Jacob’s big hand change gears, and she followed the length of his arms to land on his face, ignoring the flutter in her chest. His had always had a handsome face, but it was more than that now that he’d grown into it. Not with age, but with experience, with knowledge. There had always been something in Jacob’s young eyes, put in there by the loss of his mother, the expectations of his father, the responsibility of his father and the caring warmth that was his heart. But now there was more; duty, obligation, not only to his family but also to his tribe, the responsibility of being the son of his father and the knowledge of who he was as a whole; the identity of his tribe, the identity of his ancestors, the identity of who he was and knowing his place in the world.

All of these things had added to the amiable handsome face; wisdom, bone-deep confidence, and the strength of heart that could light a fire in others.

She sort of envied that about him.

To know where you belong, to know exactly where your place is in the world is a powerful thing.

She didn’t envy what followed it, though.

She sneaked a glance at the man who sat beside her, watched the easy way he sat, all repressed energy and silent movements. Watched the hands that slid against the steering wheel with careless grace.

“Are you cold?”

She blinked at him. “Mmm?”

His dark eyes returned to hers. “Are you cold? Do you want me to put the windows up?”

She rubbed her arms. “No. No. It feels good.”

And it did, the wind felt good against her warm cheeks, at least she had a reason why her cheeks were flushed. Not that he noticed. He seemed busy with his own thoughts as he drove with one hand on the steering wheel, the other hand folded on the open window. Bella’s eyes flirted with the end of his ponytail and felt her heart warmed with memories.

Jacob was comfort.

Jacob was love in its simplest of forms...

...which was why it was also the strongest of its kind and the hardest to get over.

They had met when they were barely out of childhood, had befriended each other, had ached with each other, ached for each other, had fallen in love and had broken each other’s hearts in what had felt like a lifetime, but was, in reality, just a few short years. Barely two.

It was amazing how a lot of things could happen in such a short time.

People could wait a lifetime to experience what she had, would search just as long, if not longer, for what she had found.

A soul mate. The truest of loves.

She had found both in her eighteenth year.

And she had found not one...but two.

That would teach her to be an overachiever.

Jacob glanced at the girl—she was just so little—beside him when she let out a muffled frantic giggle, felt more than saw the smile that lifted the corner of her lips. Bella’s mood was a tangible thing for him, it was a vibration in the air, a tingle on his skin.

And her mind was a constant stream inside his head.

It was a point of pride for him that he could follow her thoughts by the twitch of her lips, the line between her brows or the depth of her eyes.

He knew it irritated her and knew it bothered her vampire even more; how he could take a glance at her face and translate all of her jumbled thoughts into semblance of reason. Sometimes he didn’t need to think about it, sometimes he looked at her and just understood, as if her thoughts had leapt inside his head to masquerade as his own.

And boy, did he love to look at how the vampire had struggled with the knowledge that although he was the one with the mind-reading powers, it was actually he, Jacob, werewolf, dog, that had access to her mind.

It was almost enough to make him pity the vampire.

Almost. After all, didn’t he get the girl?

Or so he thought.

She shifted in her thin green long-sleeve shirt and he breathed in the smell of strawberries, sugar and sea.

Again that one question niggled inside his mind and demanded to be asked.

What happened, Bella? What happened with you and the vampire?

Even in his most blackest of moods, his most pitiful of conditions, the thought that somehow the vampire had stopped loving Bella had never crossed his mind.

Jacob could give him that, acknowledge his love for Bella was strong and true.

Which is why he didn’t damn all and rip out the vampire’s throat the first chance he got.

People don’t just get over something like that.

He tried.

And even at his most bitter or most hopeful, he knew that Bella’s love for Edward was also just as true. Just as strong.

Something must’ve had happen.

The curiosity burned inside his mind like acid, but he couldn’t make himself ask. Afraid, afraid that if she said it out loud, she would somehow realize that it was all a mistake, or that she’d find something in his words, in his demeanor that would solve whatever problem there was between the two of them.

And she would leave him again.

Losing her once had almost killed him.

If he lost her again, he might not survive.

Stupid drama queen, he rolled his eyes as soon as the thought formed inside his mind. Of course you’ll survive. Haven’t you survived every bad thing that has happened in your life? You’re a survivor, that’s what you do. You survive.

No one dies of a broken heart, he chastised himself.

Yeah, but no one really lives, either.

He scowled at the smart-ass voice that appeared out of nowhere inside his mind. Worried about it since it sounded too much like Quil.

A glance told him that Bella was sulking again, but he didn’t really care. He liked it when she sulked, especially if it was because of him.

There was just that small part of him that relished the fact that he could.

He lifted a hand and ran his palm down the length of her arm and felt satisfaction shoot through him when she shuddered. “You’re cold. Close your window.”

“No.”

He returned his hand to the gearstick and didn’t comment or react to the snap in her voice. He settled more comfortably in his seat and enjoyed the silent bubbling of her temper, thinking of creative ways to either rebuff or heighten it.

Bella seethed, his obliviousness to her temper spiked her anger with resentment because of the easy way he stroked her arm and made goose bumps run up and down her skin.

The car had hardly stopped when she got out and slammed the door, barely remembering to toss out a ‘see you when I see you’ over her shoulder.

“You’re so cute when you’re angry.”

She jolted and dropped her keys when his voice crept to her ears. She should’ve known that Jacob wouldn’t leave her there, and if she was honest, she was expecting that he wouldn’t. Her breath caught in her throat when his hand pulled her back, his T-shirt brushing down her leg when he bent to pick the keys up from the porch.

“Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

“Since when do you need permission to come in? You’ve been in an out of this house more often than I have.”

She felt rather than saw him shrug.

Bella kept her hand on the doorknob and dropped her eyes. “I don’t think so.”

She kept her eyes down when the silence stretched.

“I missed that.”

She felt him step closer, felt the heat radiating from his skin through the air and her own clothes. “What?”

He’d turned her toward him and lifted her chin. Bella’s eyelashes fluttered down at the look in his eyes, but stubbornness forced her to stare right back at them.

“Seeing you blush.”

Her breath hitched when his thumb pressed against her bottom lip.

When their lips touched, it was with a sigh, a breath, a whisper.

Barely touching, Jacob’s lips skimmed her lips from one corner to the other, and thousands of pulse points awoke at the gentle touch in between, filling up the pockets inside her that had remained empty for some time.

Breath for breath, pulse for pulse.

A quote from one of Christina Rossetti’s sonnets floated inside her mind like feathers.

She made a sound at the back of her throat when his lips heated and when her eyes drifted open, her heart jammed against her ribs when she saw his dark eyes were also open; intent on her face.

She felt the door at her back and opened her mouth to say… something. They were on her father’s porch, for God’s sake, where Charlie or anyone could see them, her mind flinched at the possibility of small-town gossip.

But Jacob was having none of that.

He curved his arms around her waist and pulled her closer, arching her body to his. Lifting her up to her toes.

Her heartbeat pounded in his ear, urging him on and he ducked his head to the soft skin behind her ear and nuzzled. The muscles of his back tightened when he felt the sharp bite of her fingernails on his skin.

It had always given him a kick to find that he could draw a reaction from her, emotionally or physically. The emotional stuff – how she couldn’t bare to hurt him, how it always seem like she was hurting herself when he was hurting – it was a cool balm to the ache in his heart, but the physical stuff?

That was just...awesome.

Glee streaked his heart every time she turned, spotted him and couldn’t help but smile when she did. Pleasure spread through his body whenever he heard her heartbeat jump and speed up when he was near. When her scent thickened as her body-heat elevated, it made him break into a sweat.

It was one of the reasons why he was so adamant on pursuing her.

He tightened his arms around her and cradled her close, realigning their bodies until not even air could get between them. A sound of greed ripped out of his chest to tremble deep in his throat when she let out a small, helpless gasp that scraped at his insides. “God, Bella.”

“You drive me crazy.” He ran his mouth up her throat, nipped her chin, twisted his fingers in her hair and kissed her long and deep.

He heard her say something against his lips, but was distracted by the feel of her hands in his hair that was somehow loose from the rubber band that held it together.

Bella struggled to clear her thoughts, but they seeped out of her head as his mouth pressed against hers, her hands already creeping up to touch his skin. She arched when his hands swept inside her jacket, a brushing heat along her spine that made her bite his bottom lip, drawing a demanding groan from Jacob.

She was suffocating in his heat, overwhelmed by the sheer size of him. His wide shoulders threw her into shadows and the possessive strength of his arms excited and alarmed her, adding a dark layer to all the scalding pleasure.

Jacob shuddered at the quick bite of her fingernails on his shoulders and wished, for the very first time, that he didn’t heal so fast. Surely whatever mark Bella would leave on his body, he would gladly wear it, although, it would be problematic when he spent time around the pack.

The thought was enough to make him draw back, if he took things further, he wasn’t sure that he could block out his memories when he phased. He wasn’t sure if he could as it was.

It was with great regret, and even greater frustration, that Jacob lifted his head.

His breath in tatters, he nodded. “You’re right. I shouldn’t come in.”

“Huh?”

“Here. Let me get that for you.” Jacob picked up the keys that had once again dropped from her fingers and unlocked the door.

Taking a long, calming breath, Jacob tried to wipe the grin off his face when Bella merely stared blankly at the opened door, the one that she was dead set on slamming in his face not a few minutes ago. “You should go in.”

Breathing hard, Bella blinked blearily at Jacob before returning to the door, her brain still a pile of mush. “Huh?”

She looked so cute that Jacob had to drop a few kisses on her lips as he maneuvered her inside. “Bells.” Kiss.

“Hm?” Kiss.

“Who’s Damien?” Long, deep kiss.

“Damien?” Kiss. “Who?” Nibble. “Huh?”

Jacob grinned against her collarbone and after schooling his face, at least making it look less smug, he gave a last nip on her top lip, then smiled gently down into her blurry brown eyes. He shoved his tingling hands down his jeans pockets, and with what he considered a Herculean effort, took two, very wide, very deliberate, steps back. “Never mind. Good night, Bells.”

“Hm?” A frown decorated her forehead. “’Key.”

Jacob covered the laugh as a cough when Bella merely stood inside the house and stared uncomprehendingly all around, as if she wasn’t quite sure what she was supposed to be doing, or where she was, or who she was.

His ego shot through the stratosphere.

Jacob nudged her further into the foyer, smiled and closed the door. Just in case, he locked the door with the key that Charlie had given him three years ago. He listened a few seconds and whistled his way down to his car.

He was halfway out the driveway when he heard the sharp intake of breath and the stomping of her little feet. The door sprang open, but he was already speeding away.

When she ground out his name, her blush a healthy glow on her face, he grinned and waved cheerfully to her.

For the second time that day, Bella found violence to be a pretty good answer to her problems.