Again, many thanks to Darth Ishtar (Imprinted Ish on R&T) for the beta! :)

I sat in the Volvo, my head resting against the steering wheel, waiting for Alice. Jasper trusted her enough that he didn't pry into why I was stealing her away for several hours last night and again tonight, but I didn't want to arouse unnecessary curiosity. A small, more truthful part of me added that I didn't want anyone to know what I was feeling right now. It was bad enough that Alice could (and did) guess at my self-loathing.

Edward, I'm ready, she thought as she came down the stairs. I fell in step with her and we ran through the deepening dark to Bella's house.

The ironies of life as a Cullen were many and varied. One was that I'd grown up an only child to become part of an immortal family that was huge, even by human standards. So many different personalities, and yet we coexisted remarkably well. It would have been so easy for any of us to walk away from the demanding complexities of such a large coven, but I was the only one Carlisle had ever lost.

Alice, in particular, had been a revelation. I couldn't have custom-designed a better kid-sister. Her talent was impressive enough to give me a rather well-deserved humbling, and her vivaciousness balanced my melancholy. Best of all, she knew how to love selflessly — Jasper, Carlisle, everyday humans, Bella. Last night and tonight were perfect examples of that.

It was such a risky thing, allowing myself to lose so much control, even if it was only in my thoughts, but Alice was helping me navigate that minefield. As she focused on our return from the honeymoon, I was getting a clearer idea of what would guarantee Bella coming home a vampire, if she came home at all. Touching her face, I learned last night, would be unequivocally deadly in a passionate moment. There were no guarantees yet of her coming home human. Still, the odds were better. Even before I actually agreed to "desensitize," the odds were better.

Assuming I didn't kill her before we got to the honeymoon. It was such a little thing by human standards — a French kiss — and yet so deadly for Bella. I was still ashamed that I had to run away. I was still ashamed that she'd called out "Come back" in her sleep, that I had wounded her that way again. More shameful still was that, even when I saw her writhing with the burning venom in Alice's sight, the vision didn't change until I left.

I would have accidentally changed her last night. I would have robbed her of her farewells to her family, of our wedding, of the only human experience she'd ever asked me for. There were so many ways I could accidentally kill her, so many ways to lose control. Again I blessed whatever grace or good deed sent Alice my way — her vision stopped me in time last night.

Barely.

However, her unique services did come at a price. "You're such a — "

"Of course I am," Alice interrupted, trying to lighten my mood. "I'm a psychic. I'm naturally a voyeur."

I sighed. It meant indulging Alice's natural voyeuristic tendencies. She only agreed to do this if I let her stay close enough to hear. It wasn't fair, she insisted, if I got to eavesdrop on her thoughts and she didn't get to hear Bella talk in her sleep. It was a line of reasoning that only made sense inside of her head.

It wasn't until she threatened to eavesdrop on both the desensitizing and Bella's sleep-talking with her sight that I finally agreed to let Alice hang out near the house. There really was no stopping her once she got a notion to do something. At least she gave us privacy while Bella was still awake, focusing on her visions instead of on what was happening in the bedroom fifteen feet away.

Alice scurried up the tree in Bella's front yard and settled onto a branch that looked far too thin to support even her slight weight. "Good luck," she said softly.

I focused on tonight's choice for the honeymoon — a private villa in Cyprus — and Alice's mind wandered to September twelfth. There were so many events and choices that could interfere with a future that far distant, but the more I learned and planned, the more solid this reality became. My still-human Bella and I were climbing into the rental car to catch our flight home. The street, the gentle rain, and the surrounding houses were all relatively sure, but we were a little hazy. I'd give you about a three-fourths chance, maybe a little less. It'll be no worse than Sydney was last night.

Last night, the danger had been here and in the present, not in a couple of months in Australia.

"Thanks," I whispered anyway.

Bella was in bed, her eyes closed and her ring glinting in the moonlight that filtered through the thin clouds. And she called me beautiful; I shook my head at the thought. She was the beautiful one. Too beautiful.

Lethally so. What a sick, masochistic lion.

Her steady heartbeat was too quick for her to be asleep, but I motionlessly watched her, vividly aware of how great the danger was to us both. Was this how human men felt near my Denali cousins? She was so frail, so fragile, and yet she made me feel frighteningly breakable tonight. It was as though I was the lamb destined for slaughter, wandering into the lion's den.

She opened her chocolate eyes and smiled. "Hi."

I slowly moved closer. "Hello." Stepping deeper into danger.

"You okay?"

Alice had been with us all day, and this was the first chance she had to mention my abrupt exit last night.

I sat beside her on the bed and played with her mahogany hair, letting the silken strands slide though my fingers. "Yes. For now." I smiled and reveled in the sound of her syncopated pulse. "I was just a little too tempted last night."

"Sorry." It was little more than a whisper.

"Don't be." She wasn't the weak one. The dangerous one.

I took her fragile hand in mine and kissed her ring, reminding myself again of all that I was promising her. I wished the vow were enough to keep her safe.

Her touch set my hands burning. I brushed my fingertips over her cheek one last time before trying again to desensitize. Gently, I returned her hand to the quilt.

This was insanity, but then, when had Bella and I made sense?

Bella's eyes were wide as my gaze held hers.

Unlike last night, I didn't concentrate on her soft, warm, inviting body or on the knowledge that she would soon be my lover. I'd already proven I wasn't ready to face that yet. Instead, I focused on planning. Alice was helping me rehearse this potentially lethal role.

I closed my eyes.

Cyprus. I could picture it clearly, the courtyard that would hide my inhuman nature from all but my bride. Our own private Garden of Eden. The Mediterranean sun playing in these same strands of hair, bringing out the auburn highlights. Her warm skin made hot under the sun. My own skin a welcome cool against the heat. I imagined my hand resting lightly on her bare shoulder. I could almost feel the way her body would lean into mine, as though she, too, craved my touch.

I opened my eyes to the dim pearl-grey light and reached out, brushing the top of her exposed arm.

The still-life in Alice's mind remained unchanged: Bella — human and without obvious injury — and I on the rainy street.

I crept over the faded quilt to lie at her side, leaning slightly over her. Even with the blanket between us, her body heat awoke the warm echoes. She turned her head, her expressive eyes following me. Tentatively, she brushed her own fingers against my face and I flushed with memory. Careful to not touch her, I rose up higher on my elbow and kissed her.

The echoes blossomed into welcome, living fire. I opened my mind, embracing it. Embracing her touch — soft, yielding, slightly rougher where her lower lip was chapped, moist, moving. So eager.

Where her living skin touched mine, I was also alive.

Her lips parted, her sweet breath misting on my skin. I wanted to play with her mouth, to tug on her bottom lip, to tease her upper lip with my tongue. I broke away, moving to the soft corner of her chin.

Her warm aroma swelled the closer I drew to her throat, sweet despite the fire. It held no temptation for me. Her graceful neck, however…

Her soft skin yielded under my lips. The movement was so fluid, so easy, like the rustling of silk. I'd never let myself dwell on the sensation before — another step into the lion's den. I kissed her again and again, down to the hollow at the base of her throat.

This was the point where I should pull back. This was when I would tuck her in and call it a night. This was the line in the sand. This is where the planning began, where I began rehearsing.

I leaned further over her, grasping her shoulder and kissing her collarbone.

Alice's vision shifted. Bella wore a sling. No plaster — a dislocation, then.

I released my grip on her arm, and the vision-Bella was whole again. I rested my head against her shoulder; at least it wasn't a break this time. Or worse.

As if that mitigated the violence.

Bella's hands played in my hair, her scorching touch tugging me away from the envisioned injury.

I would keep going. For her, I lied to myself. Selfishly, I lifted my head and brushed my lips across the top of her shoulder. Her quick breathing encouraged me, urged me on. I tried again, pulling her fragile, delicate body to me instead of gripping her arm.

Alice's vision showed an unharmed Bella.

Success. The relief was almost fierce.

Now if I could only remember that when the time came.

I decided to indulge in a little more practice; that's what the desensitizing was all about. I held her to me, kissing along the top of her shoulders to her neck, pausing to again pay some attention to her collarbone, her pulsepoint, the hollow at the base of her throat. It wasn't until I realized just how fast her heart was moving that I decided we'd had enough practice for one night.

Her eyes fluttered open. "You stopped."

I smiled. "Figured I'd spare you the heart attack that was coming." Her pulse was still wildly erratic.

"My heart can handle it."

"Maybe, but I don't know if I can." It was futile to try to blame anything on her mortality. She wasn't weak, and I didn't want to give her the impression that I thought she was. "Enough for tonight."

"Before you have a heart attack?" she laughed.

Before I did something that broke my heart and her body. I smiled. "Something like that."