TLS Lyrics & Lemons Contest Entry

Title: I'll Stay Instead

Song: 'Never Gonna Leave This Bed' by Maroon 5

Rating: M/NC-17

Word Count: 1, 981

Pairing: Carlisle/Bella

Summary: Fight then flight, love and loss. Sometimes you can love too much. But when two people realize that they love each other just enough, maybe that's the key to making it all work.

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fanfiction. All recognizable names, characters, and plotlines are property of their respective owners. All recognizable lyrics, verses and stanzas are property of the original owners. Any original characters, names, plotlines, settings, lyrics, etc. are property of the fanfiction author and may not be used or redistributed without express permission of the author.

Author's Note: This was my entry. It didn't win, but I was up against some pretty awesome entries.

"Damn it, Bella, open the fucking door."

I can hear you muttering between bouts of screaming and sobbing. You're talking to yourself now, making excuses or rationalizations, convincing yourself of something I'm not yet privy to.

I bang my fist on the bedroom door, rattling the locked door knob for good measure. "Bella!"

"Forget it, Carlisle." I'm scared: you're not yelling anymore. It's when the fight is gone, that's when I get terrified. "Just… Just forget it."

I jiggle the knob a certain way and it finally, finally gives and I swing the door open gently. I look into the room and, though the sight before me is unfortunately familiar, I still hear the sharp gasp that leaves me.

You're sitting on the edge of the bed, shoulders slumped in defeat. At your feet is an open suitcase, the contents of which are littered in and around it. Before I know it I'm kneeling in front of you, the underwire of a bra digging into my knee but I bear it because the pain is nothing in the face of you leaving me.

"Go, Carlisle," you whisper brokenly. Instead, I lay my head on your lap, between where your elbows are resting. I want to look up at you, your beautiful, perfect face, but I won't be able to stand seeing the redness and dried tears.

"Go," you repeat. "It isn't working anymore."

"It isn't perfect," I reply, closing my eyes and locking my arms around your calves, hugging you tight. "We aren't perfect."

I don't know how long we stay there, two broken halves of one hellishly complicated and fucked up whole, but sooner than I expect I am up on the bed with you, clinging to you just as tightly as you are clinging to me.

Details suddenly don't matter anymore and neither do our clothes. We are gloriously naked, warm skin against warm skin reminding us that we are perfect together, perfectly imperfect.

Your teeth nip at my skin none too gently as your mouth searches out mine. The air around us has changed from desperation to impatience, needy to demanding. I hate that we fight, that both of us are too stubborn to know when to give in. And, in a way, I hate this, too, this cyclonic, carnal reconnection. I hate it because of how we seem to need it, we need to be hurting to make it feel good. But I love it, too, because I love you. I'd knock down walls with my bare hands for you, I'd do anything and everything you could ever ask of me, all because I love you so much that sometimes it drives me insane.

I use my teeth in return, finding your bottom lip and sinking my hard into your soft. I want you to hurt; I need you to hurt so you know what it feels like whenever you even think of leaving me.

"More," you slur, drunk on the achingly familiar sensations. You repeat yourself, your nails enforcing your point on my biceps and I hiss in pained pleasure because I can feel my skin yielding to the white manicured tips of your fingers.

I don't have the strength to resist you, especially when we are like this. It's so bad but it's so good at the same time, and it's ridiculous and nonsensical but it works because it, whatever this all is, is inherently us.

Our fingers move across each other's skin bruisingly and I'm thankful that the suits I wear will be able to cover up the deep purple marks you are bound to leave behind. I wear them with quiet pride, they are a reminder that I belong to you. But no one else needs to see them, they are on my skin, the skin that belongs solely to you.

Soon your hands are brushing up against my cock, the one place on my body that your hands treat gently. Despite it all, you don't want to really hurt me, no matter how much I'm sure I deserve it. Your hands, small and soft but deceptively strong, never cease to prove that point.

"Make it go away," you whisper, and it kills me that you still sound broken and hollow. I'm going to put you back together with my hands, even though it's these same hands that broke your soul to begin with.

"Always," I promise because I can. I'll always make it go away, as long as you let me.

My fingers trace the lips that I'm not kissing, feeling just how much you want it, need this, crave us. The smell of you, musky and sweet, invades my senses and gives me more permission than any words you could ever think to say. I want to slip down your body, taste the intoxicating sweetness, but that's not what right now is about. Right now is about taking and making things right in the only way we know how.

You tug on my erection, wordlessly begging, and position yourself perfectly beneath me. All I have to do is move a single inch to give us both what we want. It would be so easy, easier than moving away or not moving at all. So I take easy. We've done it the other way and I almost lost you then. I never want to lose you if I can help it.

I surge my hips forward and your hands move to my hips and thighs in perfect sync with me. The intake of breath from both of us soundtracks the sudden immense pleasure we are both feeling.

"Move," you demand through gritted teeth before using your hands, teeth, and inner muscles to clench every single part of me. But I don't and I won't until I'm damn good and ready to. And I tell you so.

"Take it," I tell you, plead with you. "Take all that I have."

"Yes," you promise in return and so I begin to move.

"Never again," I grunt as my hips set the right rhythm to complement the turmoil we put ourselves through. My words don't make sense but my thoughts are less jumbled and it doesn't matter anyway, you're not listening to my words, you're listening for what is going unsaid.

You're so wet, so smooth, so slick. You fit me like a glove, just tight enough to be a little too tight when I'm buried in you fully. Your breasts are perfect, soft against my chest but your nipples get rough against mine when we're moving like this. Your skin transforms from smooth peach to a slick, goosefleshed pink before my eyes and I promise you with every thrust that I'll always be here to give you this, this fucking, having sex, making love. I'll always be here, even if it's for this one reason only.

Your hands are wandering across my shoulders when I grab one and pull it above you, trapping it at the wrist with my fingers. I can't explain why but I just know that I need you to be at my mercy for once because every other minute we spend outside of this bed I know I am at yours.

"Carlisle," you breathe and I feel myself swell with pride. Me. My name. No one else's. "I love you, Carlisle."

"Fuck, Bella," I moan, capturing your mouth with mine once again as I find the groove that disengages my brain and amps up the rhythm of my hips against yours. "Fuck, Bella, I love you."

Though the physical push and pull is wet and slick, it feels like a fire that has found a fresh fuel source: an inferno of epic proportions with no hope of stopping. I'm giving everything I have to you and you're giving right back and the hurt and pain from earlier is finally gone when I feel your pussy walls constrict uncontrollably around my cock.

When we are finally spent, nothing but charred bits of one soul shared between two bodies, you fold yourself into my side, into the nook that you discovered years ago. You still fit perfectly and I know you always will as long as you claim me as yours.

You're still asleep when I wake up, your soft but deep breaths a balm over the ragged parts of my heart. Sunlight is filtering dimly thought the fancy, expensive blind-and-curtain system you insisted we install; it's early, we both need to be up soon. But I don't want to get up, I never want to leave this bed when we're perfect like this.

The clock radio on my bedside table clicks on and a song floats on the air, something in the melody or the lyrics stopping me from slamming on the snooze button like I normally do.

Take it, take it all, take all that I have
I'd give it all away just to get you back
And fake it, fake it all, I'll take what I can get
Knocking so loud, can you hear me yet?
I try to stay away but I can't forget

Wake you up in the middle of the night to say,
'I will never walk again, I'm never gonna leave this bed,'
You say, 'Go, it isn't worth it,'
And I say, 'No, it isn't perfect,'
So I stay instead: I'm never gonna leave this bed…

"And that was Maroon 5 with their latest single…" I tune out the campy sounding DJ and try to hear the song's melody in my head again. Snippets of lyrics, eerily profound considering the night we just had, weave their way through my thoughts and I find myself holding you just a little bit closer.

"Never gonna leave this bed…" I murmur into the silken crown of your hair.

"Mmmm, I like the sound of that," you say as you stretch your body against every inch of mine. A thrill runs through me and I can't stop the involuntary shift of my hips against your thigh.

"I like that, too," you whisper devilishly, rolling us over so you are straddling me as I look up to your gloriously gorgeous form.

"Bella," I breathe, grasping your hips as you rub yourself wantonly against my morning wood.

"Carlisle," you sigh back and I love the way you say my name so desperately, like you actually need me for more than just sex, fucking, making love.

My right hand grips you tighter as my left travels up your torso to your breast, the silver glint of platinum on my third finger matching the sparkle of diamond on your own. Together our hands manipulate your breasts in the best way and you are wet and ready for me. I shift you enough that you get the point and then you help to guide my warm hard into your hotter soft. We move together, tumbling around on the bed, a carnal fight to be on top, but it doesn't hold the same desperation as last night, just a contentment that we are together and that we will never try to walk away again.

I find myself on top soon and I use this to my advantage. Your panting moans have hit the beginning of their crescendo and I know that you're ready to explode around me. I change the tempo of our meeting hips: what started out lazy, languid, and almost playful is now driven and demanding and serious in its intent. The coil of fire I feel burning in the lower half of my stomach is growing and flames shoot through every inch of me when I feel you come around my cock. My mouth is over yours because I don't want to share this moment with the world, it's mine and mine alone.

"I'm never going to leave this bed," you vow breathlessly as you snuggle yourself into my side. "Never."