Bodice Ripper Oh Mercy

Chapter 1

Okay... that really wasn't helping. The heroine of that book was a copper-haired beauty with porcelain skin and flashing emerald eyes.

With the heaving bosom, of course.

Then there was the strikingly handsome dude with hair the color of midnight; inky black and glistening like the wings of a raven. With eyes, stormy grey; intense as the roiling clouds thundering over the icy still waters of the depth-less loch.

Okay. Whatever.

Then there was the other ruggedly handsome, sword-wielding dude. He had the lustrous golden locks that curled sensuously about his chiseled jaw; framing his full, firm lips.

Piercing azure eyes that hid an earth shattering secret?

Check.

Naturally.

Of course the thought that those two manly warriors were wearing kilts... Hubba, hubba.

I shivered, sighed and dropped the book over my face.

I sprawled across the cream colored couch in the living room, ratty old paperback covering my eyes. The heel of my left foot was hooked on the back of the couch, my right leg dangled off the front; twiddling my toes. Well, that's what Renee... er... Mom used to call it. It wasn't that I was actually twiddling them, I was just wiggling them. And why was I focusing on my toes?

Maybe because my twiddling toes were more interesting than that book? Well, that wasn't it exactly. The thought of a daring, kilt-clad rogue making it to third base, and rounding for home, with his titian haired conquest by the third chapter; while I had barely gotten a twiddling toe on first base with Edward...

I was a little frustrated.

Well, maybe more than a little. Maybe "unfulfilled" would have been a better word. Er, disgruntled. Displeased. Peeved. Irked. Okay... downright cranky.

I shouldn't have been reading that. Why was I reading that?

Okay, so I was a little, uh, tense.

Edward and I had been enjoying a special moment up in his room and special Alice had come charging in and somehow convinced Edward to go pick up some special thing she had special ordered over in special Port Angeles and had specially insisted that I wait, specially, for them to return.

Wasn't that special?

I hoped it wasn't another one of her special surprises for me. It was nearly my birthday and I really hoped she wasn't planning anything stupid. Or overblown or extravagant.

Alice? Extravagant?

Pffft.

Our special moment had been filled with gentle caresses, soft sighs and tender kisses. Sweet, chaste kisses that had slowly been moving beyond "tender" and were entering the realm of "urgent," when my special friend Alice barged in and wrested him from my desperate grasp.

(As they said in those bosom heaving romances.)

I had released a gusty, bosom heaving sigh.

Well, anyway, then I had stomped down the stairs to the living room and flopped (bonelessly) down onto the couch.

I fussed with the waist band of my jeans, trying to hike them up. Why Alice insisted I wear these low rise things today... The stupid things just wouldn't stay up.

And the sweater! Granted, it was a nice sweater. It was really soft and I even liked the color. Alice had said the forest green looked good with my hair, but... Jeez! Did it have to be so short? I yanked the hem down to try and cover my stomach. Again. The stupid thing just wouldn't stay down.

Fiddling with my clothes hadn't used up quite enough time, so I combed my fingers through my hair for a few minutes and draped it (languorously) over the edge of the seat cushion.

I huffed and flipped over to lie on my stomach and picked at the threads of the cushion. (Perhaps I was picking at them dispiritedly.)

With another bosom heaving sigh, I re-flopped onto my back, yanked down the sweater, and stared up at the ceiling; ending up in the aforementioned sprawled position, twiddling my toes.

Rosalie (the strikingly beautiful, flaxen haired, statuesque siren) sashayed by and dropped an old, bedraggled paperback on the cushion next to my head.

"Care for a bit of reading material while you're waiting?" she asked sweetly as she slinked (slunk?) on over toward Emmett.

Emmett (he of the adorably dimpled, boy-next-door good looks and appealingly charming, and sometimes downright friggin' annoying, playfulness; and the oft-times disturbing hugeness) was planted in the recliner in front of the equally huge flat screen, watching some boring sport thing.

She stopped next to him and trailed a cherry red painted nail down his neck and along his shoulder. (Seductively, I would have said.)

When he looked up at her, she smiled (coquettishly, of course). Then Emmett grinned (impishly)

and waggled his eye brows at her (lasciviously). Then she responded by curling a lock of that flaxen hair around her finger and she winked (suggestively) at him.

I didn't know where they went and I didn't want to know. I just didn't even want to go there.

Esme and Carlisle had been wandering around but even they had disappeared. Didn't think I wanted to know what they might have been up to either.

So there I was, abandoned, disappointed and disheartened; reading about vigorously virile, tested by battle, forged-in-war warriors (wearing kilts!) and soon to be not-so-innocent ravishing (ravishable?) maidens (with the bosoms); and passionate kisses, and grasping hands, and groping fingers, and thrusting...

"Bella."

I shrieked and vaulted up off the couch, flinging the paperback across the living room. I dropped to the floor in a heap, landing on my side, my hair falling over my face. I scrambled to sit up, flipping back the hair, and there was Jasper across the room, standing near the bottom of stairs, the hint of a smirk on his face.

Ho-lee shit! He was so damn quiet I had completely forgotten he was even there!

"Jasper! You scared the crap out of me!"

"So I see." His smirked widened and he stepped forward. He bent over (sinuously) to pick up the paperback I had sent zipping across the room.