What She Doesn't Say
By
chagrinned
#
Prologue…
She was just an ordinary girl. She wore blue jeans and a red t-shirt with a gray zippered sweatshirt over it. She had very long, dark hair and it lay across her back in waves. Her eyes were brown. Not the beautiful black-brown of Gianna, but a warmer, lighter brown.
Maybe it was her eyes. The way they were liquid, her irises rimmed with black, the brown depths swirling. They marked a sharp contrast to her pale skin. All that dark. All that light. I shook my head. My growing infatuation with a human girl could lead me nowhere that I wanted to be.
Still each morning that the clouds gave cover, I found myself outside the door of her shop, waiting for her to let me in. I wandered the musty towers of books, touching this or that one, thinking about who used to own them, and why they'd ended up here. Finally choosing something, anything, and then waiting for that ninety second transaction where I exchanged cash for a glimpse of her brown eyes, a dose of her smile. Ninety seconds of being close enough to smell her, clean and sweet and pure. No other human had ever smelled so delicious and I found myself sucking on my bottom lip, imagining it was hers.
I huffed a sigh and chose a large book on Botticelli. Nine weeks and I would see his beauties in person. My heart, unbeating, hungered for the sight. I could sit for hours, undisturbed, and take in each tiny detail, each brush stroke. Never would the pieces add up to the sum. Never could I decipher why this shade or that created such a pull inside my chest. His Venus on her clam shell, his graces, dancing, while gods played around them. I thought, too, of the other works, the hall of marble Daphnes, taking flight from her Apollo, never able to escape. Bacchus: his pale skin and deadly brew, heavy hooded eyes telling of passion and pain. I hungered for them all. Soon, I promised myself. Soon.
I carried the book to her counter and she graced me with her smile again.
"Back so soon?" she asked. "I'm going to have to name a wing of this place after you. Mr…?" She asked my name with open curiosity in her eyes.
"Cullen," I answered. "Edward Cullen." I reached out to shake her hand. Physical contact, and if I was lucky I would be able to carry away a bit of her scent on my fingers after this exchange was through.
I watched her hand come forward and felt the panic rise up in me. Gloves! I'd forgotten to wear gloves. My cold hand would repulse her. I began to draw away but she was too quick, too friendly and eager to make at ease her new best customer.
"Bella," she said, gripped my hand and
Blue. Current of blue jolting down her arm and into my hand and hot so hot and soft the skin and clean the smell of her clean and sweet and coffee not enough milk for the coffee this morning his eyes are so pretty, gold never seen that before wonder where he's from Cullen god he's beautiful his hand is cold offer him coffee his mouth suck on that lip-
I snapped my hand back, my mind screaming.
What the fuck was that?