Chapter 1

What was the right thing to do?

I couldn't imagine my life without Jacob now – I cringed away from the idea of even trying to imagine that. Somehow, he'd become essential to my survival. But to leave things the way they were . . . was that cruel, as Mike had accused? I remembered wishing that Jacob were my brother. I realized now that all I really wanted was a claim on him. It didn't feel brotherly when he held me like this. It just felt nice – warm and comforting. Safe. Jacob was a safe harbor.

I could stake a claim. I had that much within my power.

I'd have to tell him everything. I knew that. It was the only way to be fair. I'd have to explain it right, so that he'd know I wasn't settling, that he was much too good for me. He already knew I was broken, that part wouldn't surprise him, but he'd need to know the extent of it. I'd even have to admit that I was crazy – explain about the voices I heard. He'd need to know everything before he made a decision.

But, even as I recognized that necessity, I knew he would take me in spite of it all. He wouldn't even pause to think it through.

I would have to commit to this – commit as much of me as there was left, every one of the broken pieces. It was the only way to be fair to him. Would I? Could I?

Jacob stopped the truck in front of my dark house, cutting the engine so it was suddenly silent. Like so many other times he seemed to be in tune with my thoughts now.

He threw his other arm around me, crushing me against his chest, binding me to him. Again, this felt nice. Almost like being a whole person again.

I thought he would be thinking of Harry, but then he spoke, and his tone was apologetic. "Sorry, I know you don't feel exactly the way I do, Bells. I swear I don't mind. I'm just so glad you're okay that I could sing – and that's something no one wants to hear." He laughed his throaty laugh in my ear.

My breathing kicked up a notch, sanding the walls of my throat.

Jake pressed his warm cheek against the top of my hair.

If I turned my face to the side – if I pressed my lips against his bare shoulder….I knew without any doubt exactly what would follow. It would be very easy. There would be no need for explanations tonight.

Butterflies began a dizzying spiral out of control as I slowly turned my face. A fraction of an inch, another fraction, and another fraction my face turned slowly while my mind went into spasms of thoughts. So many thoughts were bubbling up inside my head and the only one that kept resurfacing was my curiosity to know what exactly he tasted like.

My lips pressed so softly against his shoulder that I wondered if he would even feel it, but the reactions of his body told me he had felt it implicitly. Jacob's entire body went whipcord tight, his beautifully long muscles were even hotter than normal, a low gasp that sounded like my name broke from his lips and I felt my body begin to burn hot too.

Jake's dark eyes found mine in the dark, and held for an eternity. Finally, he shifted forward and lowered his face. I felt the banded steel of his arms come around me as his hand came up to tilt my head up accordingly.

I felt a small start of surprise that I had already tilted my head.

I was ready for this. My eyes were open and staring as his face continued its journey down to my level and I felt a check of warmth start up as I realized he had his eyes open too. I was memorizing his eyes when he stopped before kissing me. Not even a whole breath was between us.

My confusion and want must have showed because his hand on my waist clenched very hard, it was going to bruise me with either its heat or strength.

His voice was gritty and low, I felt as much as heard his next words. "Bella…who am I?"

I know that the confusion on my face now overshadowed the want because he explained his comment.

"5 seconds ago I could have kissed you, I could kiss you now," the breath in my lungs evaporated and my hands clenched on themselves harshly, with a start I realized I wanted to run my hands along his shoulders. With what I considered strong determination I tuned back into his words.

"I told myself before that if I had the chance I would take it with a running leap…but I just realized something. I don't want you to kiss a ghost through me. I'm not expecting you to profess love or anything, but I just want you to know that it's me you're kissing. No one else."

I had expected sharp ripping pain from his vague mention of Edward, but only a slight burn was left in my chest. And that burn wasn't overpowering the want roiling inside me.

I was still going over an appropriate response in my head when I felt his hands start to leave me. Panic and urgency had my own arms in motion, my hands following their own dictation, sliding up his waist, over his chest where the muscles jumped desperately until they slid around his shoulders putting us back to a breath apart.

Words were crowded in my throat until his clenching arms and hands made me so dizzy with his heat and my want that I didn't know where either separated. I heard myself as if from a far place, in a voice I had never used before. Not even with Edward.

"Jacob…please." I had barely gotten on the "s" of please when he groaned and swooped in on me.

I have always been treated as a fragile person, I even expected it from Jacob, but there was nothing delicate in the way he ravaged my mouth. He took my air and gave me his, he took the cold and made it sweltering. Hungrily, he guided my mouth into opening and shook my core. When his tongue caressed a spot inside my mouth, a sound I had never uttered before burned the back of my throat shooting out of my mouth quicker than I could stop it.

"Shit….are you okay…..Bella?" Jacob's raspy breathing made my own worse when it blew into my ear. He must have known because moving his mouth away from my ear, I felt him studying me, but I was too conscience of how I must look straddled across his lap, inside a parked truck, in front of my house, with someone who I had always thought of as a best friend until 10 minutes ago.

His quiet chuckle made me stare straight into his eyes, defying him to laugh at me. After a few seconds of silence from him, I began to become aware of other…rising problems.

Attempting to move off of him to maintain some control of the situation I was a little startled with how fast his hands returned to my body, more precisely my hips to keep us close together. Stubbornly attempting to move off of him only made me rub inadvertently against him. Making his head fall back and a low groan to once again be sent out into the quiet night.

The look on his face held me entranced, caught in limbo. I've always thought he was beautiful but he was never more so than right now and I had put that look on his face. No one else, but plain me.

My thought process was disrupted harshly when he bucked underneath me, and sent a bolt of pleasure I had never known straight through me. I answered his groan with a husky sound of my own. More of a husky hiccup of pleasure. The next few minutes found us doing nothing else but moving on each other, learning the others rhythm and feel.

I felt this strange tug inside and then nothing but warmth. My burning hole, inside my chest was gone.

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A/N: Since this is my fan fic, I have altered some details in the Twilight universe. Bella and Jake are both seniors in high school and only a few years apart in age. Bella will NEVER take back Edward, just to warn you now. I thought it was shitty, him leaving her and all, so I knew that any character in my story would never take him back. I do not own these characters, though I would love to be owned by Jacob Black. I also borrowed a few paragraphs from Twilight Moon to start my story.