Terminal Bachelor, Famous Ladies Man

First it started with the ex. The one he regarded as the love of his life. The wound had never really healed from that one.

Renee hadn’t been his first girlfriend, but she had been his first love, wife, and mother of his child. And nothing and no one could ever replace that. He had tried, countless times, to remove all the things that reminded him of her- Renee had left her mark on everything down to the curtains- but each time, his hands wouldn’t comply and everything stayed just as it was.

At least he’d changed the sheets since she’d left. Nothing smelled like her anymore.

He’d tried to replace the smell of her with other women’s perfume. Chief Swan had never been shabby with the ladies. Standoffish perhaps, and more than a little shy, but it was regarded as endearing more than anything. Mysterious. Chuck was hard to read, but women like that, don’t they?

Few people knew that the good Police Chief Swan tickled lady parts in all the right places with his mustache. And he did it well.

No one made up for the gaping hole in his heart Renee had formed, but he did his best to fill them, and no one ever complained. His handcuffs did more time on bedposts than criminals wrists. Forks isn’t an active town after all. Chuck was.

Bella moved back, and Charlie was secretly elated. Bella had her mother’s smile, but he ignored the painful similarities, and did his best to welcome her home. He’d have to be more discreet with his encounters now. Nothing worse than having your teenaged daughter catch you being anything less than fatherly.

But then Bella started up with the Cullen kid, and started bringing Alice home with her.

He knew it was wrong, because she was in high school, but Charlie couldn’t help but fall just a tiny bit in love with his daughter’s new best friend. He might as well arrest himself now for the feelings and thoughts he had for Alice.

She had short hair, cropped close to the face, highlighting her delicate features. Just like Renee. Charlie mentally slapped himself for making the comparison, but it couldn’t be helped. Alice was beautiful, smart, and wise beyond her years. Charlie always felt like she knew something he didn’t, like she was so full of secrets, and he’d never know them all.

But how he wanted to know them. And her. In the Biblical sense. Which was so wrong.

She was some sort of minx, or maybe the Devil incarnate, he wasn’t sure which, to make him feel the way he did about her. He was pretty sure even Bella knew of his infatuation, and Alice, with her significant glances, definitely knew. Every once in a while, she’d give him a little wink, and he’d feel things in his pants that no grown man should have over a minor.

And then Harry died. Harry, one of Charlie’s oldest and dearest friends. He meant a lot more to Charlie than just a fishing buddy, and it had been harder than he’d anticipated to say goodbye.

Sue needed him now. He did everything he could for her, including helping her through that time when Leah and Seth went crazy and gave Sue a hard time. He’d never understood teenagers, which always made it awkward between him and his now-married daughter. That was something he’d never been able to wrap his head around… especially when things got freaky.

The less he knew, the better.

And Sue helped him through those rough and troubled times, just as much as he’d helped her. Or maybe more.

He never saw anyone but her anymore. To be honest, he’d been rather celibate ever since Bella moved home, completely by accident. And now it was because the only woman he really and truly cared about was his best friend’s widow. And he didn’t want to move too quickly. She trusted him completely, and he needed to be whatever she needed him to be. Which, at the moment, was a friend.

Until one night, when she was making him dinner. Her hair, which was graying at the temples, was pulled back, and he could easily appreciate the long line of skin there. He wanted a taste. But he was too afraid to; he didn’t want her to scamper away like an afraid rabbit.

But Sue was stronger than she looked, and she sensed his presence behind her.

“Don’t lurk in the doorway,” she lightly scolded. “Sit down, dinner’s almost ready.”

He saw a steady, bright fire in her eyes, one that had been burnt out when Harry died. It had been more than a year, and that fire was back. Not as strong, but it was there. He wondered where that fire had come from. And yet… the way she was looking at him now, even in his old, faded flannel shirt he used to wear out fishing with Harry… it was easy to believe that the reason was him.

He took a long pull from his Vitamin R and watched her. She had always been beautiful, enough for him to fully appreciate it, but she had always been his friend’s wife. Now she could be something more. The feeling itched at him.

“Charlie?” She was looking at him now, not with fire but with annoyance. “Did you hear me?”

“Uh, no,” he stammered, realizing she’d probably just caught him staring at her.

“I asked you if you wanted two or three pieces?” She gestured towards the salmon frying on the stove, freshly caught last week by his own rod and reel.

“Um, three,” he said.

“Are you alright? You have a funny look on your face,” she observed.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“OK,” she said, and turned back to the stove. Surreptitiously, he continued to observe her backside. For a woman easily in her late forties, she was beautiful. He wanted to…

“Charlie Swan! What’s the matter with you?!” she exclaimed, and he realized now he was staring at her front side, as she whirled around. She’d caught him again.

“Nothing! I mean, I- and then- and- I’m sorry, Sue,” he stuttered. He wasn’t easy with words, but it was rare when Charlie stammered.

She gave him a knowing look, hands on her hips. He tried to look apologetic, but he wasn’t really sorry. It was too easy, with her like this, to forget the boundaries they’d somehow silently set up. He hated them, but he knew that there were rules, just like laws, that had to be followed and obeyed.

So he was shocked as hell when she strode across the kitchen, took his head between her hands, and leaned down to kiss him.

Her lips were soft and gentle, making no demands against his. He felt his eyes shut closed as she pressed herself against him, but he didn’t dare reach out to touch, no matter how badly he wanted to. This was about her, not him.

“Kiss me back,” she breathed. “Please.”

He pulled away for a moment. “Are you sure?”

She didn’t say anything, but nodded, eyes filled with tears. Yet she didn’t look sad. She leaned forward, and he couldn’t stop himself this time from returning the kiss. It was sweet, but held yearning for more, from him, from Sue, or from both of them, he couldn’t tell. He let his hands wander to her waist, and tugged so she was sitting on his lap. Her arms wound around his shoulders, and for the first time since Renee had gone, he kissed a woman with passion and genuine feelings. It was new and startling, and he loved it. He pulled her closer, and their tongues danced together. He felt… good again. More complete than he had been since Renee left.

Maybe Charlie Swan wouldn’t be a terminal bachelor after all.

Though maybe, perhaps, he could still be a famous ladies man.

Let's Just Stare At Ashley For A Moment

Mmmm, yes please!

Thank God for wet material...

I'd tie her up...

Or push her against a wall...

Oahu

Getting ready to leave for Oahu... in two days. Am I packed? Not yet. Do I have a place to go? Sort of. Am I scared out of my mind? Hell yes. Am I excited? Make that a double hell yes. I feel like I'm going to grow up a LOT with this job, and being absolutely and completely independent for the first time in my life. Sure, I went abroad, but I had friends with me, and a place to stay all arranged. I was nervous to be away for 5 months from my family on another continent, but I dealt with it easily because I had everything all planned. And now... I definitely don't. I have no idea where I'm going, who I'm going to live with, what part of the island, nothing. And the stress of it really makes me nervous. But I love to travel, and I'm good at it to boot, so I feel like I can do this. Maybe. If I get my shit together, I can do it.



And maybe I'll go to a luau or something. Probably not. But maybe. :-P

Centerfold

"Centerfold," based off of the song of the same title by The J. Geils Band.

EmPOV

Fuck. My. Life.

It was everywhere, or at least it seemed like it. She was everywhere. Each and every newspaper stand taunted me, her sinfully beautiful face and body reflecting up at me from the glossy pages of a magazine.

Jealousy seeped through me, cold and unrelenting, and I was seeing red.

She was mine, and anyone and their mother’s twin could walk by and see my angel, the love of my life, the woman of my dreams… half naked. And worse.

I already knew what they would see. Soft, gently glowing skin, supple and smooth to the touch. Brilliant blue eyes that could peer into your soul. Perfect, gently waving blonde hair that you could wrap into your hands and run through your fingers when she was kissing you. The perfect features, her angel’s body that could make you whimper with need and desire.

My memories up for purchase.

I stalked home, trying my very best not to look at the magazines that cried out to me as I walked past. I knew that she loved her career, and I knew that I had always told her I’d be supportive of her when she began modeling when we were seventeen, but that all seemed incredibly naïve to me now. I’d always thought it would be hot for my girl to pose for Maxim or Playboy or Sports Illustrated, but I had no idea what I was talking about, clearly.

Rosalie was my girl, but now everyone knew what my girl looked like in a bikini, and I did not like it.

We grew up together in Forks, Washington, and I’d had a crush on her ever since we were in kindergarten. She was always my unattainable dream, the one girl whose attention I could never manage to grab. I tried everything: I wrote her poems, pulled her pigtails, joined the football and baseball teams starting in middle school, and did everything in my power to sound smart and funny in front of her, much to the amusement of my jackass best friends, Jasper and Edward.

She ignored me, because she was always better than me, and I knew it.

Who knew that she would fall in love with me because of an accident?

It wasn’t a major accident or anything. A small fender bender in the parking lot. But for the first time, she looked at me with blazing eyes, hands on her hips, and I was suddenly grinning like a fool. She slapped me, thinking I was making fun of her, I asked her out on a date without thinking, by some miracle she said yes, and we were inseparable ever since.

Our senior year, she was scouted at the mall in Port Angeles while shopping with Jasper’s girlfriend, Alice, and once it was determined it wasn’t a scam, she decided that after graduation she would move to LA to live out her dream of being a model. Being the lovesick fool I was, and still am, I followed her, and we’d lived here ever since.

Rose was an instant hit as a catalogue model, and she was happy even as she dreamed of bigger and better things. She did a few ad campaigns for some new designers, and tried to make it into commercials, but never really found her niche there. She was dyslexic, and always had a hard time memorizing the lines.

Then one day, a new lingerie company approached her for a runway show and ad campaign, and she jumped at the chance. I didn’t mind, because the only people who really saw her were other women in fancy magazines. She would strut her stuff on the catwalk, posing her ass off for swimsuit and underwear designers, and looked sexy as hell doing it.

She was successful and happy, and I was happy for her.

Until now.

I hadn’t had a single reservation when she told me a major men’s magazine wanted to do a shoot of her in little more than a bikini. We’d gone together on the shoot in Mexico, and I had watched each and every day. We went back to the hotel afterwards and fucked like crazy. Watching her pose in the surf and sand was like an aphrodisiac to me, and I couldn’t get enough of her.

Clearly, I hadn’t really thought this all the way through. If I felt this way about her, what would all the millions of men who read the magazine think of her, too? A cold fist clenched around my stomach as I thought about other men getting pleasure looking at my Rosalie.

Our apartment was empty when I got home. A note was laying on the counter for me. Went to get stuff for dinner, be back soon! XXOO, Your Rosie.

I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and collapsed on the couch. I couldn’t stop thinking about just how many other men would see my girl. I hated how possessive I was being, but I couldn’t seem to help it. I felt more like how Edward behaved with Bella. I’d always mocked him for it, but now I knew how he felt… and Bella wasn’t even a model.

I took a long pull from my beer, and felt sorry for myself, kicking myself for making the mistake of letting her do the shoot. I should have known…

Keys rattled at the door, and seconds later, Rosalie was walking through the door. Her arms were full of bags of groceries, and she was wearing a tight, form-fitting, soft sweater. I wanted to pull it off of her and throw it across the room… but not before I had a few words with her.

“Hey, baby,” she said, her cheeks flushed from the walk up the stairs. She tossed her keys onto the counter with a musical clatter. “How was your day?”

“It could have been better,” I said sullenly.

She frowned. “What happened?”

I frowned back. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a certain issue of a certain magazine came out today…”

She squealed. “Really?! Did they send a copy here?! I want to see…” She seemed oblivious to the black cloud that was over my head. I wanted to share that excitement with her, but I just couldn’t seem to manage it.

“I saw it.”

“How did it look? Did I look like a total mess? Remember, that week I was PMS-ing, and I just felt so fat, and maybe it looked that way…”

“You looked amazing,” I told her honestly. I remembered that she was bitchy that week, which had only made the sex better. “You don’t look fat, trust me.”

“What’s wrong with you?” She knitted her eyebrows together in confusion.

I sighed. “Baby… everyone can see you in those pictures.”

“Uh, yeah?” She was really confused now. “That’s sort of my job…”

“Well maybe I don’t want to see my girlfriend’s hot body splashed across every fucking magazine in the world!” I shouted. “Maybe I don’t want other men to see you like that!”

She looked like I had just slapped her across the face. “You said you’d always support me,” she said in a low voice. “You said you were proud of me.”

“I AM proud of you-” I started.

“Like hell you are!” Her eyes flashed with anger and she folded her arms across her chest. “I can’t believe this!”

“I just hate to think about other guys looking at you like that!” I shouted. “I love you, and you’re mine and-”

“Let’s just get one thing straight here, buddy,” she said, her voice barely above a growl now. “You may be my boyfriend, and we may have been together since we were teenagers, but that does NOT mean I am yours. I am my own free person, and if you think for one minute-” Rose was seething. Her face was beet red with anger. This was one side of my girl that few others got to experience. Lucky me.

“Fuck, Rose!” I shouted. “I LOVE you! Do you think it’s easy for me to see you looking so sexy and gorgeous, and knowing that every other guy, and women, too, might just think the same thing? That they’ll touch themselves looking at your body, imagine you being with them?”

Her face was frozen with shock.

“I just didn’t realize how hard it would be to see it,” I said, much more quietly. “I know it’s your job, and that you love what you do, and I realize this is a huge opportunity for you. I really am proud of you. But fuck, Rose, I can’t stop feeling this way. You’re the only girl I’ve ever been with, and somehow I wanted it to always feel like I was your only, too.”

“You are-”

“I know,” I said. “I just mean… now I feel like every guy in the world has seen you like this, and imagined you like this, and it used to be something only I could enjoy.”

It really hurt when I thought about it that way.

Tears sparkled in Rosalie’s eyes, and I knew that she was either really pissed at me now, or just as upset. I prayed for neither, but knew we couldn’t get out of this completely unscathed.

“I was just doing my job,” she said, wilting into the chair next to her. “You were there, Emmett. You saw the pictures being taken. You knew what I was doing. It’s not like I went behind your back or anything. You know I’ve always been open and honest with you.”

“I know you have,” I said softly, now angry at myself for making her think I doubted her in any way. I was suddenly glad for Jasper‘s gag Christmas gift of How to Understand and Communicate With Your Partner. “You know how I always appreciate that.”

She sighed again. If the guys who saw her pictures now could see her, they’d see no comparison. This was my Rose, real and in the flesh, and suddenly I realized how full of shit I really was. I was the only one who would ever see her like this, vulnerable and hurting, and as bad as it made me feel to think about it, it was also nice to realize. I was the only one who would ever truly know her, love her, care for her. They might lust over her body, and they might fantasize about her in the bedroom, but they couldn’t have her. They would never see her now, in her most natural beauty, and I was a goddamned idiot for not seeing it sooner.

“Rose, I’m so sorry,” I said, hanging my head. “I just got stupid jealous, and I know I really fucked up. Please forgive me?”

I heard and felt, rather than saw her move to me on the couch. She wrapped her arms around me and rested her head on my shoulder.

“I just don’t want you to resent me and my career,” she said sadly. “I’ve worked so hard for it, and I don’t want to give anything up. I want you, need you… but I also love modeling. I’m not going to apologize for that.”

“I don’t want you to,” I said honestly. “I just didn’t realize how badly it would affect me.”

“What are we going to do?” she asked, worry now seeping into her voice. “I can’t give either of you up!”

“I’m never going to ask you to,” I said, trying to get her to realize that I was just a stupid ass who shouldn’t have said anything in the first place. “I want you to be happy, and I know this makes you happy.”

She turned to me, eyes red rimmed with unshed tears. “I love you, Emmett. I want you to know that. You’re the only one- ever. I swear. It doesn’t matter what other people say or think. You and me, for the long haul, OK?”

“That’s the way it’s always been,” I said. “And I’ll never ask to change it.”

She gave me a small smile. “At least it wasn’t a naked shoot, huh?”

“Yeah, about that…” I said, adding suggestiveness to my tone. “I was sort of hoping for a private posing.”

She raised her eyebrow at me. “You think you can be an ass, make me question my career and our relationship, and then think you can just suggest sex and get away with it?”

“Uh… yes?” I said, a sheepish grin on my face.

“Uh… no,” she said firmly, and I groaned.

“Please, Rosie, baby?”

“Hell no!” she said, and hopped from the couch, but I could see her smile in the reflection of the microwave. I would get some, eventually, and we both knew it. She started unpacking the grocery bags on the counter. “So I’m going to make some steak for dinner.”

I jumped up from my seat to wrap my arms around her. “I love that you eat steak,” I said, biting her ear. “Thank God you’re not a rabbit.”

“That would be gross if I were,” she joked. “Didn’t realize you were into animal sex, McCarty.”

I growled in her ear and felt her shiver against me. “That’s not what I meant. You’re a real woman who eats real food, and I love it.” I ran my hands up her sumptuous curves and cupped her generous breasts. “I can see why they asked you to do that shoot.”

She laughed. “Are you liking the shoot again now? Because I vividly remember you enjoying yourself on the beach…”

“And in the hotel room, and in the pool, and in the rental car…” I ticked off the locations on my hand with a shit-eating grin on my face.

“And in our apartment…” she said softly, and turned in my arms. Our lips crashed together in a needy, desperate kiss. We were both trying to sort out the feelings that were coursing through our bodies, and though we both knew the fight wasn’t really over, we knew we would resolve it eventually. We just needed a little help from Mr. and Ms. Libido, and we’d be back to normal in a few days.

I pushed her up against the kitchen counter, feeling Rose stretch onto her tiptoes to fully reach my mouth. I helped her jump onto the counter, and she wrapped her legs around my waist, pulling me even closer. The soft sweater she wore rose up against her body, revealing her soft, sweet smelling skin, and I lavished it with my hands, feeling her tremble gently beneath my touch.

Mine, I couldn’t help but think over and over. All mine. Soon enough, her sweater had joined my T-shirt on the floor, and we were scrambling to undress each other. We greedily marked each other with our overly-eager mouths, and our bodies crashed back together when we were finally naked.

“Emmett, I love you so much,” she moaned. “Only you, forever.”

“Only you,” I echoed, and lowered her hips so I could plunge inside her, hard and fast. She shrieked as I pounded into her, her arms flailing around my neck, my hands fast and firm on her hips as we rode wave after wave of lust and need.

It wasn’t soft, it wasn’t tender. We were being greedy and possessive and needy, and we were both trying to erase bad thoughts of each other away, and I really think it was working. Her breasts bounced in front of my face, and I concentrated on them, capturing a nipple between my lips, sucking hard on it. She moaned and dug her fingernails into my back.

“Fuck, Rose, I’m almost there,” I gasped, and she nodded soundlessly. Her hand snaked between us so she could rub her clit, and I had to concentrate on not cumming right away as I saw her touch where our bodies connected together, my thrusts so shallow now I barely left her body.

“Gah! EMMETT!” Rosalie shouted, practically deafening me as she came hard around me. I grunted, trying to prolong her orgasm for as long as I could without instigating mine, and then finally I gave up the effort and came hard inside her.

We finally stilled, our sweaty bodies sticking together in the most delicious of ways. I licked a long line up her neck, and she shivered.

“Only you,” she said shakily. “Only you forever, Emmett, do you understand?”

I nodded. “I know, I know. Only me.”

“Don’t forget it,” she said. “Or else I’ll have to fuck the shit out of you again so you remember.”

“Well in that case…” I said teasingly. “I may have to forget all over again.”

She rolled her eyes.

Yeah, things would be back to normal.

Rambling Over Hotness

Just to establish the mad, passionate love I have for some of the characters/actors in Twilight... These three pretty much make Twilight worthwhile for me. Emmett/Kellan, Jasper/Jackson, and Alice/Ashley are by far my favorites. Because, well, look at them! Gahh!!!

Oh, and I can't forget Stacheman... ;-)

First Try

Hey all, this is my first foray into blogging... I hope it goes well. What you'll find here... uh... lots and lots of stuff about Twilight. Cuz that's how I roll lately. And probably random rants here and there, too.