"Do you have a ride home?" the receptionist had asked Bella before she began to head back to the operating room. Bella gulped and nodded, jabbing her thumb backwards.

"Yeah, him," she mumbled. Edward was sitting in one of the chairs, feigning interest in whatever magazine he was reading. Bella noticed the smallest smirk on his face and realized that whatever the receptionist was thinking must have amused him. She rolled her eyes and looked back at the lady sitting at the front desk.

"Well, your surgeon will be ready in a few minutes," she flashed a smile at Bella. "Just sit down and try to relax for a little bit."

Bella wanted to scoff at the word "relax." As if getting her gums cut into was a relaxing concept. In all actuality, though, she was not even most afraid of the pain getting her wisdom teeth cut out would birth. She mostly feared how she would react to all the medicine, especially when Edward would be the one bringing her home. How convenient that Charlie had an "emergency" come up this morning and couldn't take her to her appointment.

Stupid, conniving vampire, she thought, wanting to stick her tongue out childishly. Instead she just sighed and leaned her head against the chair, closing her eyes.

"Are you okay, love?" he whispered into her ear, and she could hear him adjusting himself to be closer to her. "Are you scared?" he asked, with a hint of mockery in his voice.

She snapped her eyes open, annoyed. "No, I am not scared," and closed her eyes again. She just heard his chuckle. She grew irritated, and opened her eyes again, leaning towards him.

"Are you sure the blood that will be gushing out of my gums won't cause you to massacre the whole town?" she asked teasingly.

Edward grimaced for a bit, but then held back a huge grin. "Hm. Good question. Guess we will just have to see."

Right after, a dental assistant walked into the waiting room, alerting Bella that they were ready to operate on her now.

"Well, for my sake, let's just cross our fingers," she whispered to Edward. "Maybe if you massacre the whole town, I won't have to do this."

Before she could see (or hear) Edward's reaction, she walked towards the assistant like she was about to meet her death.

"Bella, Bella," she heard a voice pull herself out of her unconscious state. "How do you feel?"

She opened her eyes half way, suddenly realizing the blood and drool pooling in her mouth.

"I've been better," she said tiredly, gauze muffling her sound. "I need to get home and do my homework," she said while closing her eyes. She heard a chuckle from the back of the room, which brought a visceral feeling to the center of her mind.

Edward. He was standing there in the corner of the room, looking amused as ever. And he was wearing a hoodie too.

Fuck.

"Homework, love?" he chuckled. "We graduated a month ago," he said, obviously enjoying himself.

"Hoodie," was all she could say. Maybe Bella had a kink for hoodies and didn't realize until now, when she was all hopped up on pain medicine. Stranger things have happened.

Edward was about to say something when the doctor announced that Bella could go home while simultaneously giving Edward a check list and orders on how to take care of her.

"Carlisle can tell you this," she said exhaustingly. "I need to go plant a garden," she said incoherently with a tinge of drowsiness. "Home."

Edward laughed but obliged, picking her up around her waist. "I'll take it from here. Don't worry; she's in good hands," he assured the doctor.

The car ride home was quiet. Bella perceived that Edward had probably turned on the heat on purpose along with his lullaby soundtrack to make her fall asleep. She wanted to argue with him; she wanted to tell him to take off that damned hoodie, but she found herself closing her traitorous eyes unwillingly.

She only woke up once when she realized that Edward was carrying her body to his front porch bridal style.

"Huh?" she asked, confused while drool fell out of her mouth. "Gotta go to the pharmacy," she reminded him.

He nodded. "Already taken care of. Now you just need some rest," he told her.

"I've been sleeping for like the past three hours. I've had enough rest," she told him, although her message might have been slurred a bit by the gauze in her mouth.

"You need all the rest you can get," he told her disapprovingly. "You'll get better quicker if you sleep."

"How would you know?" she rolled her eyes. "You haven't slept in like a century."

She heard a loud guffaw in response to her comeback. "Sick burn, Bells." She turned her head to see who the voice belonged to, and out of nowhere none other than Emmett Cullen himself appeared. In his hands: a video camera.

"Emmett, what are you doing here? You guys were supposed to be hunting. To give Bella privacy.You need to put that camera down," Edward said in an agitated tone.

"Ha! Like I would miss out on capturing Bella's reaction to pain medication. Not in this eternal lifetime. C'mon, Ed. You had to see this coming. You read minds," he said, shaking his head in mock disapproval.

Edward sighed, still holding Bella. "Alright but leave her alone. She needs to rest. I'm going to go place her in my bed."

Emmett chuckled, punching Edward on the shoulder. "Hell yeah, you are!"

"With that hoodie, he can put me anywhere he wants," Bella whispered, forgetting that vampires have supernatural hearing. Emmett chuckled loudly, a thunderous sound. Edward just grinned and kissed her on the forehead.

"That's exactly why I am videotaping this! I can't wait to humiliate her with this for all of eternity!" Emmett said, laughing. "Medicine make you horny, Bells?"

"You need rest," he told her. "And you need to shut up," he warned Emmett, while rushing her up the stairs.

All Bella could think of when she woke up was pain. Her mouth was in a tremendous amount of pain, and it took all she could to not cry from the pain. In the blackness of the room, she could still feel Edward's figure and the movement of his chest as he hummed.

Her mouth hurt so bad it almost was too much to even open it to talk. It was times like these that she wish Edward could read her mind.

"Mouth," was all she could mutter. "Pain." Immediately, she heard Edward's humming come to a cease. Before she could even blink, he had run out of the room and returned with her pain medicine and a glass of water.

"Can you take this?" he asked, concerned. Bella nod her head shortly, trying to bite her tongue so she wouldn't cry out in pain.

He opened her mouth with his fingers, and his cool fingers juxtaposed amazingly with the hot swelling on her gums. She sighed in content. For a second, she thought she was going to start purring. He pulled the gauze out of her mouth, and she felt a moment of panic for a second as she realized all the blood coming out her mouth.

"Edward, don't," she warned him as the blood pooled in her mouth.

"I'm okay," he stood very still, and even in the darkness she could tell that his eyes were blackening. "Give me a second."

He rushed out of the room, quick as lightning. Bella stood there, blood running out of her mouth, holding gauze in her hands, and for once she truly understood the danger of vampires.

Before any panic could truly set in, Edward was back.

"Sorry," he said shortly. If vampires could pant, Bella imagined that's what he would be doing right now. "I just haven't been exposed to that much of your blood since the…incident in the ballet studio."

He gulped, and Bella immediately felt shameful. His throat was probably on fire right now, and there she was. A stupid human with stupid blood running through her stupid veins.

"Edward, you should just take me home," she said, casting her eyes down. "Charlie can take care of me. I'm sorry to put you through this."

She looked up after Edward didn't respond, but he didn't show any signs of registering what she had said. Instead, he walked closer to her, cautious.

"Can I kiss you?"

His voice was strained, and Bella could tell that he needed this. She became aware of the blood in her veins again, pulsing through like electric currents.

"Can you?" she asked, knowing her mouth was full of blood.

He rushed towards her, gripping her face with his hands. He brushed her hair back, placing a strand behind her ear. "I need to," he admitted, feeling ashamed. "I don't know why," he stopped for a minute, becoming increasingly aware of the fact that he was permanently a teenage boy. "But I have never wanted to kiss you more."

She stopped breathing for a second. She no longer felt any pain and the only thing she could hear was the drumming in the back of her head.

"Yes."

So, he kissed. Deeply, passionately, like he couldn't get enough. In the back of her mind, Bella could sense the danger of a vampire kissing her when she had blood pooling in her mouth. But he had never let himself go like this. He was giving her almost everything, and she had never felt so overwhelmed.

They continued kissing until Bella noticed that Edward was placing his tongue in her mouth. She could feel his tongue against her wounds, licking the blood that was on the walls of her cheeks.

"Edward," she moaned. "You can stop if you want to."

He stopped, looking at her with black eyes. "Do you want me to stop?"

Bella shook her head furiously. "No. God, no. Don't ever stop."

He smiled, and Bella noticed the blood staining his pearly whites.

"And, so I won't."

If the pain she felt with her wisdom teeth was excruciating, then this was another level of pain. She knew this had been possible—even inevitable—but then again, she was beginning to wonder if she was turned on by risky, dangerous behavior.

Edward had bit down on her lip—a little too hard. And thus, the pain began. She knew what it was: vampire venom. She could hear Edward's panic and guilt as he pulled away.

"Bella!" he had screamed. "Bella, I am so, so sorry. Oh, God. Oh, God. Where's Carlisle? He won't be home soon enough. Emmett left a couple hours ago. We are all by ourselves. FUCK!"

Even through her pain, she was surprised by his language. Finally, he stopped pacing around the room and leaned towards Bella while she was thrashing in pain.

"Bella, love, do you want me to suck the venom out?" he asked, touching her arm gently. "I need to know now. I don't know if I'll be able to stop with no one around," he said, shamefully. "I don't know how all of this happened so fast."

"No," was all Bella could croak out. "Let it happen."

After all, Bella thought in the midst of her pain, this will be one hell of a wisdom teeth story to tell one day.