Title: A Simple Touch

Pairing: Bella Swan/Alice Cullen

Canon or Alt. Universe: AU

Summary: Just a simple touch, sometimes that's all it takes to set something in motion. (Twilight at the hotel in Phoenix)

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Alice and Bella not mine.

This comes from nowhere but 'MEG's mind' and is tied to nothing.

In other words, just a little fleeting one-shot. Different then the others but narrated like the first chapter.

Dedicated to geophf. Just because I think he deserves it.

And thank you all for your reviews! I give you all a virtual hug.

***

The touch was like an electric shock, surging up her wrist and zapping her heart, causing it to flutter.

It was icy and soft and nothing like any touch she had ever felt from anyone. Not even him.

And those knowing golden eyes glanced up into hers for the flicker of a second.

And her breath seeped out in a warm sigh that brushed across the pixie girl's face.

"Alice..."

And then she hummed, the little vampire hummed in utter delight, touching the human girl again, but this time more.

She slid her cold hand slowly up the girl's bared arm.

"You're so warm." Alice crooned, as her hand continued its ascent all the way up to the human's sleep-flushed cheek.

Her petite icy hand cupped that cheek tenderly, and the human breathed out again into her face. A warm, sweet breath like nothing she had ever experienced in her fifty conscious years.

Such a curious human girl, so comfortable around vampires, not at all feeling the need for distance from her predator, but rather, enjoying the closeness.

And those warm brown eyes the girl had; perhaps she was like a reverse-effect drug, drawing in vampires instead of the opposite. Luring them in with her...

Scent that was so enticing, the lavender and freesia smell that her brother so adored. She adored it too. In this tiny room, in these close quarters, with the girl she had known in her visions as a best friend. It made her head spin.

"Alice..." She was trembling. The vampire's eyes were not black, but was she hungry? She could accept that fate, she most certainly could. It was the trials of being human among vampires after all...

Human life is so incredibly tenuous and fragile. Alice thought, as she observed the girl's pulse beat in her neck and listened to the thrum of her heart in her chest.

And she realized her hand had been in place on the human's cheek for the longest time. And the girl had just let it rest there, not pulled back or flinched away from the vampiric touch. It was so very odd...

Then the human did the strangest thing, she nuzzled her cheek against the vampire's tiny, cold hand and made the most content sound.

It was the vampire who removed her hand in shock, and the girl looked startled, and then pained, as if she had done something wrong. But the problem was she had done everything right, everything in her power to lure the vampire in.

"I can see why Edward is so fond of you." Alice's voice cut through the tense silence.

And it was that which brought her back to reality. Her love's name ringing in her ears and making her heart ache at his absence. Her needy heart, which yearned for his constant company. Bella sighed then.

"I've upset you?" Alice watched Bella's movements so closely; she added every minute detail to her eternal memory.

"No," Bella's brow furrowed. "I've upset myself."

And no, the vampire did not quite understand. For what had the human done wrong? Nothing.

But, she did know what would fix things, and make them better once again. And she resolved that it was only to curb her curiosity about Bella, this particular girl, that she went through with it.

Cold fingers grazed her warm, full lips. And the icy skin was so smooth that she couldn't stop her body's natural reaction and her lips puckered and she pressed them lightly to the delicate icy fingers once, twice, three times.

And the vampire hummed again, but the sound was deeper, a low moan, soft and supple like her luminously white skin.

And Bella sighed again, a light airy breath that left Alice wanting. But she pulled her hand back, like a good 'sister' and kept her own space on the bed next to the alluring human girl.

"Thank you for laying with me." And the girl was confused, but sincere. Willing as ever to accept the vampire as her friend.

And Alice smiled a winning smile at Bella, searching for a word to express all of the strange fleeting emotions circling between them. "Anytime."

Bella's eyes fluttered closed. A simple touch was all she needed. Now she could drift into a peaceful sleep.

***