I'll be home for Christmas

Chapter 45

Chapter 45 - I'll be home for Christmas

Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods.

Thanks to BanSidhe [ruadh sidhe] and Feebes86 for betaing and pre-reading.

Spooning just didn't describe it adequately enough. Josh's bicep was her pillow and his other arm passed over her stomach. The hand around her waist held her against him firmly. Her butt pushed in against his groin. He was asleep. After they had talked his voice had got slowly quieter until he had fallen asleep. She supposed that he had had a very early start to the day, up before dawn for the stick ceremony. She was more than content to take the opportunity to breathe and just lie quietly with him and he was so relaxed with her that her being awake didn't disturb him.

But it wasn't to last. Footsteps on the porch woke him before the knock at the door sounded. She felt his body go from relaxed to tense in seconds.

"Thomas?" he asked.

"I drew the short straw," Josh's elder brother answered.

"Hang on." Josh rolled out of bed and slipped his shorts on.

Bella sat up and peered at the jumbled mass of her clothes on the floor. "I should hide in the bathroom."

"What's the point? He knows you are here."

"I'm naked, Josh."

"I can stay out here," Thomas contributed through the door. As a wolf, he wouldn't feel the cold.

Bella rolled her eyes. "I am going to shower anyway."

Josh touched her on the thigh. She looked down and could see some light bruising; it looked like finger marks. Four of them in a row from Josh's hand where he had gripped her too hard during their frantic sex. It would probably get worse, after a few days. They had hit it pretty hard. "Nobody will see it," she said.

"Sorry."

"I'm not." She smiled at him reassuringly and just to really convince him that she was fine, she ran her fingers down the fine hairs below his navel that led down to his groin.

He sucked in a breath and reached for her, but she skipped away from him.

"Pack," she reminded him, with a head jig at the door.

He groaned before shaking his head as if he was waking up or coming out of water.

She poked her tongue out at him before she scurried into the bathroom and relative privacy.

"What's up, Thomas?" he asked as he opened the door.

"Billy wants everyone at this Cullen meeting thing."

"Right."

"There's some debate about who stands where."

"Seriously?"

"Alphas, tribal council, pack and — "

"Me."

"Yeah."

"Izzy? Can you get to the hall by yourself?"

"Sure, sure," she shouted through the bathroom door.

Thomas gave him a look.

"She used to spend a bit of time with Jake," he explained.

Lifting a treaty made way back in 1936 between vampires and werewolves (or more technically shape-shifters) was a big thing, but did they really need to argue about it?