Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns all.
Rated M for several reasons.
Chpt 2 Gains and Losses
BPOV
Of course I don't get to work with it for long but I'm very happy as I flop back onto the bed gasping for breath.
With a chuckle Edward transfers his attention to my jawbone, kissing gently along it.
"I missed you." He murmurs.
"I missed you too but it was almost worth it for a kiss like that."
He chuckles again, still caressing my skin with his cool lips, working his way down my neck to my collar bones.
A little ball of nervous anticipation is forming in my stomach. We're lying on a bed, a big new bed, in his room and I'm staying the night. I have two reasons for not voicing the obvious question. My own virginal status and total lack of experience with these things and a very real fear that the presence of the bed might not mean what I want it to mean. Even thinking about it makes me blush and I'm grateful he can't read my mind.
But he can feel the additional heat in my skin and he looks up from his ministrations to smile at me.
"I've been thinking." He says, rubbing his nose lightly against mine and teasing my lips briefly.
Not always a good thing when he's been thinking without me but I can't focus on that while he continues to tease me.
"You want me to change you." He stops teasing and kisses me properly, with enough pressure to send my heart hammering. "You won't give me more time." Back to teasing, his tongue licking at my parted lips. "I accept that now." Another searing kiss that curls my toes and draws a moan from me. "But perhaps you will agree to another desire I have."
Right now I'll agree to anything as he pulls back to tease me again, his gold eyes smouldering, warmth building in the pit of my stomach. Could he mean? Am I ready . . . .
"Marry me."
"What?" This must be what a bucket of cold water feels like.
He looks down at my startled face with amusement.
"Marry me."
"I . . . ."
"You love me don't you?"
"Yes, you know I do."
"You want to spend forever with me?"
"Yes."
"Then why wouldn't we get married first?"
Like soldiers falling in in a parade ground my many, deeply held reasons for not liking the state of matrimony, marshal themselves to be put forth but before I can utter a word he kisses me again. And this is the least careful most passionate kiss we have ever shared, he doesn't even pull back when I forget myself and respond. My hands automatically tangling into his hair to hold him to me and my body arching up against the one he was rigidly holding away from me.
I don't know how long the kiss lasted and I don't know how long I enjoyed the sensation of every inch of his perfect body pressed against mine. I lost myself completely in the ecstasy of it.
The limiting status of being alive is what finally breaks the moment and Edward tucks me into his side, my head resting on his shoulder and my hand trailing over his stone chest, as my breathing returns slowly to normal.
"Bella, I know all your reasons for despising marriage and I sympathise. But I have my own reasons for wanting it. First and foremost I want the whole world to know that I love you. But I also want to do this the right way, for you, for me, for your parents. Your mother in particular might not approve but it will give her closure, to know that you are moving on to a new phase in your life and that someone else has willingly taken on the responsibility of caring for you."
"You make me sound like a house plant." I huff, annoyed that he has a point I can't refute. Renee might be furious but she will recognise the gesture and it will mean something to her, Charlie too maybe, although Edward is far from his favourite person.
"It's important to me too." He murmurs, burying his face in my hair and letting his cool breath waft across my scalp. "I was born in a different time Bella. Marriage was an important rite of passage, a statement and it was something that my mother very much wanted for me."
"It's so pointless." I mumble into his shirt. "It doesn't prove anything to anybody and it doesn't magically mean everyone gets to live happily ever after."
"No it doesn't. But we will Bella. We will have our happy ever after." He promises fervently. "I will make sure we do."
"Edward, it's a really big step for me." I pause struggling for words. "I need some time to think about it."
"It's a big step for me too Bella, agreeing to take your soul."
I open my mouth to reignite the soul debate and close it again. My soul is not as important to me as Edward, rightly or wrongly, but he is entitled to feel the way he does. If he can find a way to do that for me, change me against his beliefs, then the least I can do is think about his offer. Shudder. Proposal.
The tension in my clenched jaw subsides and my stubborn streak gives me a look of surprise as it skulks off into the corner. I am not going to start an argument over this, I am going to think about it seriously. This is what relationships are about, getting everything out in the open so it can be discussed and a course of action agreed on as a couple. Precisely what I have been angry at Edward for not doing before.
"May I still have time to think about it?" I ask, the heat gone from voice.
"Of course." He answers with a happy sigh. "You gave me time to think through my issues."
"Thanks."
"You're welcome." He chuckles. "Aren't you going to ask me about the bed?"
"Um."
"Esme helped me get it. If you are going to be staying over we wanted you to have somewhere comfortable to sleep. Even I find my couch unsatisfactory after a couple of hours reading and I'm considerably less soft than you are."
Despite my disappointment I can't say I'm surprised and I smile into his shoulder. Things are changing between us, but not that quickly. And I think I may just have had an idea.
…..
It takes a week for me to put my own proposal to him and as expected he doesn't take it very well. His big new bed is a place of restrained passion and mutually explored conflicts.
And now I am the one playing for time. Time to pluck up the courage to tell Charlie, to tell Renee, to tell everyone in my human world that I, Bella Swan, have agreed to marry my High School Sweetheart before we leave for college.
Just the thought of it makes my skin crawl and I have to keep focussing on what I will be getting in return. My dream for Edward to change me and for him to give me a proper honeymoon.
So absorbed have I been in the delicate negotiations and evolution of my relationship with Edward that much of the events going on around me have passed me by. So it is with a sense of guilt that I am catching up on the things I've missed.
Not least of all because I had to lie to Edward to get down here to La Push to confront Jacob.
He won't look at me, staring stonily across at the tree line his face hard and he won't talk to me, which is no bad thing. I didn't come here to listen to his myriad reasons why I'm making the wrong choice or a vitriolic tirade of his closed minded opinions on all things vampire.
I came here to say goodbye to my best friend, the one I know with a heavy heart will not accept where my life is going.
The muscles in his jaw work furiously as I explain honestly and calmly almost exactly what decisions I have made and my reasons for making them, some things are private between Edward and I and will only hurt Jake more.
"He left you." He growls when the eventual silence has stretched out into minutes.
"To protect me."
"And now he's back. Not protecting you now is he?"
"We don't work apart Jacob. We belong together and the only way for that to be fair is for me to be like him."
He turns toward me finally, a single tear rolling down his cheek that matches my own.
"Do you know that the treaty forbids any one of them to bite a human?"
"No." I shake my head, not understanding.
"It means that when your bloodsucker bites you he'll be starting a war." He spits. "That makes you like Helen of Troy."
I shake my head again, this time in denial.
"Is he worth it Bells? Is he? All the people, and your precious vampires, who will die so you can be with him? A man who left you once already."
"Jacob no! It's my decision, my choice, no one else has to suffer for it. No one else has anything to do with it. We'll leave anyway, straight after the wedding." Tears are flowing freely down my cheeks now.
"And you think that makes a difference. They'll still have broken the treaty. And you'll still be dead. We'll have to kill you, we won't have any choice. And if you leave and we come after you, who is going to protect Charlie from your redheaded friend, or have you forgotten about her in your indecent haste to become immortal?"
"She hasn't been back for months." I whisper, stricken because he's right, I had forgotten all about her with the other things going on in my life.
"She's gone before and always come back but I suppose you don't care about that. You're leaving Charlie anyway, why should you care if Victoria gets him, if you're really lucky maybe she'll change him for you. Then you really can have it all."
He surges to his feet, towering over me and instinctively I recoil.
"I'm not going to hurt you Bells." He snarls. "That's Edward's job."
I take a step back anyway and another. Rage is coming off him in waves, his nostrils distended, veins standing out on his massive arms. Yet he's not shaking like he's going to phase, it's a cold hard almost emotionless fury which is even more frightening because it's so unlike him. Jacob feels things deeply and never makes an effort to mask them, it's one of the things I love about him.
"Go on." He urges, tilting his head toward my truck. "Run back to his cold dead embrace. It's not safe for you here anymore."
With a sob I turn and flee to the safe familiarity of the truck, barking my shins as I scramble inside and slam the door behind me.
My trembling hands spill the keys onto the floor and I lean down scrabbling blindly to retrieve them. When I look up, keys in hand, Jacob is starting at me through the open window.
"Jake . . . ."
"When you come to your senses I'll be here waiting for you. He's dazzled you again and I care about you too much to stop fighting for you. Until your heart stops beating at least."
My mouth opens to restate my intentions but for once my brain forces it into silence. Sobbing hard now I start the engine and drive out onto the road.
I need Edward. I need him to tell me that everything will be okay. And I need him now.
For the first time I curse the slowness of my truck as I push it as hard as it will go towards the Cullen's house.
It's not until I pull up beside an unfamiliar sedan in the driveway that I remember that Maria is due any day and I'm supposed to be staying away from the house.
Too late now.
I hurl myself out of the truck and fly up the steps, flinging the door open on an unexpected scene.