He hovers around her, dark eyes following her every movement.
She wants, wants, wants – but there are clasps that she doesn't know how to undo.
There is a tickle at the back of her neck, an itch in her palms. Expectation. She is expecting something. She's not entirely sure what, but her gradually-returning common sense dictates that it is to do with the tall boy that loves her silently. That caresses her with his gaze, no longer innocent enough to simply hold her hand.
The sky, the earth, the very air is saturated with water. A darkness hovers over the days, reminiscent of her underwater stint.
Bella remembers the cold. The many layers had done nothing to ward it off but in a distant past, she had welcomed it like an ignorant fool. Hypothermia had eventually caught up with her and had nearly stolen her away.
The humidity is warm now. The mist that swirls around the tops of the pine trees makes her think of saunas instead of walk-in freezers.
They barely touch anymore but their combined presence steers the temperature higher. A blanket of quiet stifles them both. Underneath the downy warmth, they are writhing, tangling up bed sheets, gasping with awareness.
Awareness and want, want, want. So much want…
One day, there is blood on his paws. There is no more calm for him to be had; a fine trembling in his body persists as he enters her darkened kitchen.
"It's done."
She turns around to face him and she cannot feign indifference anymore. Something has changed. The equation has a new factor – or perhaps has lost one.
"What is?"
"The blood feud. Victoria."
Rising up from the depths of the earth, through the house's foundation, through the linoleum, a stabilizing sensation enters Bella through the sole of her bare feet, settles in all of her limbs.
Safety.
She closes her eyes and Jacob allows her this moment for her mind to resettle, to shift back into a reality where the worst that can happen to her is a scraped knee on asphalt. He needs her to be ready for him.
He has slain her dragons. He is her knight in shining armor. Traditionally, a chaste kiss would be the reward.
Jacob finds that he wants Bella splayed out underneath him instead.
She opens her eyes to him and notices the subtle trembling. He is blurry around the edges, if one looks close enough. Their blanket grows heavy, heavier until they are both choking underneath it.
Until they both throw it off.
She extends her arm towards him, palm facing up. He steps up to the offer and his shaking worsens a fraction more. This is the first time they have touched in months.
Their fuse has been lit. With each step closer to her bedroom, it shortens, the flame nearing the dynamite.
They explode as the door clicks shut behind them.