I own nothing to do with Twilight- clearly! Just a massive fan like everyone else!

Thank you all massively for your reviews and responses to this story- really loved reading them! Really hope this chapter is okay! :/ Hoping you will enjoy :D


Chapter 11

"Can I ask a favour of you before we head inside to my apartment?"

"It depends on what it is," I said quietly to Edward, surprised by my own honesty despite the terror I felt inside.

"I need you to close your eyes until I tell you it's fine to look."

My pulse quickened as he passed his hand gently over my eyes, shielding me from whatever it was I might have happened to see. I smiled slightly at the physical response he always seemed to make me feel for him whenever he touched me... though there was hardly anything all that sexy or intimate about it at all.

"Why am I doing this again?" I questioned uncertainly as he guided me slowly forward with a hand on the small of my back, the other clasping more tightly around my eyes to prevent me from seeing. His thrilling touch seemed to burn straight through me, the iciness trickling straight through the layers of the plain gray shirt and cardigan I was wearing.

I heard him chuckle softly from somewhere behind me. "Because the couple living across from me are secretly exhibitionists who rarely wear clothes, Bella."

"Really, Edward! Exhibitionists?" For some reason, I found that especially hard to believe.

"Unfortunately, yes," he said quietly. "The walls in my apartment are so thin that sometimes I can hear them fighting or having sex, or sometimes even both. The lady, her name is Irina. Sometimes after they argue, she will walk outside in the lobby only in her underwear and nothing else, completely frantic. Sometimes she'll even ask me to get involved. She'll ask me to try reason with her boyfriend into letting her back into their apartment, he tends to lock her out a lot. His name is Carmen."

"Wow." I was surprised.

"My thoughts exactly."

I didn't know where I was going exactly but I fully trusted him enough to steer me into the right direction, to make certain I didn't hit myself on something or run into anything. As his steering came to a hault, I assumed we were standing right near the door to his apartment because I felt him uncover his hand from my eyes, then I felt them slide down my sides and go underneath the bottom of my shirt. He ran his smooth long fingers across my stomach, fingertips tracing along my ribcage. I felt woozy, completely intoxicated by the feeling as my eyes fluttered open.

"All right, I believe it's safe to look now. You have my permission, darling."

Curling his long fingers around my wrist gently, he led me into his apartment, then let go of me to double back to turn on a light. As a lightbulb slowly blinked on, illuminating the whole room of his apartment and bathing it in a dim yellow glow, I noticed first thing that his apartment was very tastefully decorated, however minimalistic it might have been. There was no kitchen table in sight, no refridgerator, which surprised me. Without either of those, his apartment was very spacious and roomy, bare. The hardwood floor was completely bare with nothing on it in sight, aside from a few neatly stacked boxes that had been pushed to one side of the wall.

In one corner of the room, a grand mahogany piano dominated the area. On the opposite side, a leather tan recliner sofa and a wide screen television. My eyes widened as they instantly sought out the large bookshelve beside it, and I had to stifle a bewildered gasp. Edward had quite possibly the most largest collection of DVDs, music CDs and cassette tapes that I had ever seen a person own before. To my astonishment, there wasn't even a bed. I realized then that he most probably slept on the couch.

I spun around on the spot to find Edward standing eerily still and silent at the door, hands deep into his trouser pockets, watching me as I took everything in. He was looking at me anxiously as though afraid I might say something about the lack of items in his apartment, or as though unsure that I might decide to leave abruptly. I held his eyes for several more minutes through the uncertain silence that had enveloped between us, the depths of his green eyes appearing limitless, before peering down at my hands nervously, twiddling my thumbs around.

"Music? Candlelight perhaps?" He sounded breathless.

"Uh, sure. That sounds nice."

Several more minutes passed us by in silence where Edward raced around the room, lighting some white candles that had been scattered in various places around the room with a metal cigarette lighter. Only when he had switched the lights off did I look up to find the room dancing with little lights. Everything suddenly looked so much better with them, the room looking less dramatically bare than it had been before at first glance, more bright and welcoming.

As we both sat down on opposite ends of his leather couch, Edward shifted his body slightly to face me. The space between us spoke volumes. It was in stark contrast to the way we had usually been together, with Edward constantly taking the time to reach out and touch me, stroking my hands or playing with my fingers. I found I immediately missed the feeling of his gentle and tender touch, unsurprisingly.

It made me feel instantly uncomfortable, this dripping pure need I felt to break the distance and reach out to touch him. Even if it was to simply press my hand against his knee to feel something completely Edward. Instead, I took the moment between us to kick my shoes off, then curled my legs underneath myself. I pulled one of the red satin pillows adorning his couch in front of me, holding onto it tightly. I played with the hem of the fabric, picking at it with my fingernails through the unnerving silence that had decided to grace us. I wasn't quite used to things being this quiet. At least, not in front of him.

I was nervous about being inside Edward's apartment. Nervous and excited.

I peeked over to discover Edward was staring at me. I wondered if he was about to say something to break the ice. I was hoping he would. But instead, he reached down and shrugged out of his suit jacket before leaning over to drape it along the arm of the chair. He wasn't wearing a business shirt this time, but a white undershirt that seemed to cling generously to him, exposing his arms and a little square of hair on his chest. I couldn't seem to stop staring. I had seen many boys shirtless before at the beach or in tank tops even but God, he was perfect. I felt the strongest urge to lean over and run my hands down along his shoulderblades.

"Can we... um... can I... ask some questions about you?" My voice came out high-pitched with the nerves I was feeling as I tried to look at his eyes, rather than at his bare arms. I felt as though I had turned into some disgusting pervert all of a sudden, some kind of sexual deviant...

"Of course you can." He gave me a smile and I hoped then that he wouldn't see the blush that had crept up onto my face underneath the soft low light of the room coming from the candles.

"All right." I found it easier to find my focus- and my voice- when I wasn't looking right at him. "Question number one. Will you tell me more about your parents?"

"Ah," he began, smirking. "You don't exactly start easy on the questions, do you?"

"What's so difficult in answering that?" I asked in a breathy voice as I noticed him kick off his shoes one by one.

I heard him give out a low chuckle as he bent down to pick them up, only to lay them out against the side of the wall closest to him on a lean. By that action alone, I deemed him overly fastidious about the cleanliness of his apartment. I don't think I had ever seen a living area look so untouched and tidy before, and what made it all the more surprising was that it was his apartment.

For some reason, I just had always pictured it looking differently...

"Well," he began very seriously. "I guess I would have to say that my parents are the most amazing people I have ever met, the most understanding and supportive. My father's name is Carlisle, my Mother Esme." His eyes began to light up slightly as he spoke about them. "They're completely committed to one another and their marriage, completely and utterly devoted." He paused for a moment, a smile spreading wide across his face. "If anything, I look up to them and aspire to be exactly like them..." I watched as his smile grew. "In all the years that I have seen them together, they've never once had a serious argument aside from who's turn it is to replace the gas they've used while driving my father's Mercedes." He had what I could only describe as an awed expression on his face.

"What about your parents Bella? Do you get along well with your father?" He sounded as if he genuinely wanted to know.

I rolled my eyes. I had already told him about my parents divorce, but nothing else of what happened afterwards. The difficulty and the hurt. For some reason, I just automatically assumed not only that he wouldn't really care to know, but that he wouldn't understand. Like he said on our first date together, his childhood was on the opposite end of the scale. His parents were still together and- according to what he had just told me- they never fought a day in their lives. All sunshine and roses almost, while mine wasn't.

"Well, yes. I do get along with Charlie well. But it...it wasn't that way at the start. My parents divorced when I was around six, and went off to do their own things seperately." I didn't particularly enjoy going into great detail about my parent's divorce. But something about having Edward here with me, sitting right next to me as I told him this, made me willing enough to tell. And he clearly wanted to know. It was only fair that I tell him about my family as well. "I wasn't living with Charlie at first. My Mom, Renee, she wanted me to head up to Florida with her for a few years until I decided I wanted to come back down here to live with my Dad."

I felt Edward's large hand on top of mine, and he gave it a light squeeze. "It sounds as if it must have been very hard on you."

I didn't want to lift my head to meet his eyes, because his tone of voice had said it all. I could hear the softness in it, the pity. I didn't want any pitying looks from Edward, that wasn't the reason why I was telling him this. Mostly, I wanted to tell him because it dawned on me that we hardly knew each other. Several days ago, I felt my mind was clouded, in this foggy haze of sweet words and romantic interactions. I felt I knew Edward so... physically. But I wanted to know more about him as a person than anything else on the planet.

"It was at first, especially with the way my Mom was acting," I responded lightly, still not daring to look up at him. Instead, I kept my eyes to his hand, covered wonderfully over mine. "Once the divorce proceedings were over, it was as if my Mom had changed into a completely different person. The first year was hard. She was still grieving the loss of her marriage, but really she tried her hardest to keep her pain hidden from me." A small pathetic smile tugged at my lips at the memory. "I could still see straight through her lies and pretense, of course. But then, after that year, things seemed to have dramatically changed for her once I hit eleven."

I fell silent for a moment, wondering whether I ought to continue or if I was just boring Edward's brains out.

But then he asked quietly, "How did things change for her?"

It took me a moment to find my voice again. "Well, suddenly my Mom was acting happier than I had ever seen her in a long time. Suddenly she was buying all of these new fancy dresses, and wearing a lot of make-up. I think it was obvious to me then that she had found a new man that had sparked her interest."

"And the new guy? Was he someone you found appropriate for her?"

"Ummm... no... not really at first." I was beginning to feel very uncomfortable at where the conversation was heading.

I remembered coming home from school one day, only to find a new man sitting at the table in the house where my Mom and I lived together. I remember having to stuff my ears with pieces of tissue on the first night he slept over, to keep from hearing the wild murmerings and squeals emitting through the paper thin walls between the pair of them. They had obviously been having sex. I remember the very next morning waking to find her new younger boyfriend splayed out on the sofa in the lounge room, wearing nothing but a white towel wrapped around his naked form. It was enough to give any young girl nightmares!

Edward seemed to notice my hesitation. "You know you can tell me anything, don't you?" he asked softly. He raised a hand to gently brush my hair back from my face. "Nothing you say will ever make me shocked or uncomfortable. But if you feel uncomfortable, then it's okay for it to be off-limits."

"It's not that I don't want to tell you," I responded quickly. "It's just... it really damaged me back then. To see this man who wasn't Charlie suddenly take over my Mom's life..." I shuddered. "When he moved in, she didn't even ask me whether I thought it was okay or not- not that she needed to. I suppose I was old enough then to look after myself. I mean, I do like Phil. He makes her happy! Looking back to it, it should have only really mattered that she was happy. But it was just something that happened so suddenly!"

When I realized I hadn't even looked at him once while speaking, I lifted my gaze at last. He was watching me with the most compassionate expression on his face. There was nothing sad or pitying about the way he was looking at me. He looked like a person who truly understood, or could.

"What do you like to do when you're not working?" I asked, finding myself desperate for a subject change.

"I tend to dabble around a lot in quite a few different areas. As you already know, I enjoy travelling to different locations. I enjoy reading. I especially enjoy hunting. Hunting is some sort of family tradition for us, we like to do it every second weekend at the most."

"Hunting?" I was shocked. "Like whipping out rifles and shooting wild animals, you mean?"

He chuckled lightly at my response, finding something funny in it. "Something like that, yes."

Grinning widely at myself through the momentary silence that had lapsed between us once again, I found myself glacing over the room to look at his piano out of habit. I wanted to ask him whether he played well, or if it was just for decoration. But really, what kind of person splurges on a grand piano and never plays? But it seemed he already knew what I was hinting at with my looks.

"I play, you know," Edward said softly.

"No, how could I possibly know that?" I joked, smiling over at him. "You've never said anything about it all the times we have spent together. Then again, I did kind of figure that out judging by the very large piano in your apartment..."

"I've just always loved to play. It has been such a remarkable diversion to me."

"Diversion?" I asked, intrigued.

"Well, when I play I focus entirely on the music. I give my senses over completely and it... it centers me, and brings me back down to earth." I could tell playing the piano was one of his greatest passions in life just by the way he spoke of it, exactly the same way he spoke of his parents. Both were equally cherished. His eyes had lit up almost instantly, and a small wistful smile came across his face.

"I have always wanted to be able to play a musical instrument." I sighed. "I love music, but I'm just not good with my hands."

"I think it is fair to say, Bella," Edward lifted his hands into the air, regarding them with feigned wonder, "that I am very excellent at using my hands. Wouldn't you say so?" I shook my head and laughed at him but found myself distracted by the sight of his large hands and long sinewy fingers momentarily.

The very same hands that had pleasured me in his car. Oh God, he was good with his hands!

"Bella," he began, his voice deadly serious. I didn't know what he wanted to ask of me but I felt myself tense up with wariness over the sudden tension in his voice. "About what happened with that boy at your school, I know I told you half of the story. But I feel as if I should tell you the full picture of what happened. I know you would expect that of me."

"Yes." I agreed, hoping that he would tell me whatever it was he felt he had missed out on telling me with complete honesty.

"Will you promise not to get mad and leave?"

"Of course, I promise," I whispered hesitantly.

"Okay, well, I have another explanation as to the way I acted when I saw you two together." He paused for a moment, then smiled uncertainly at me. He leaned over and reached his hand out, looking into my eyes, silently asking permission to take my hand in his. I didn't even think about it. Without a moment of hesitation, I reached my hand out and he took it, holding it tenderly. "Even though, I have been in several relationships before in the past, nothing quite compares to the staggering, uncontrollable feelings you've brought out of me when I'm around you."

I looked over at him to gauge his reaction, not quite believing what he was saying but the sincerity in his eyes was unmistakable.

"Bella, it seems that you have resurrected something deep inside of me that I don't quite know how to handle yet. I've never felt this way before, so you can imagine how hard it is to keep myself under control." He scooted closer over to me on the couch, our legs touching as he clasped onto my hand tighter. "I never even knew what it felt like to feel such jealousy and concern over someone until the last twenty-four hours frankly."

He kept his head down, looking anywhere but at my face. His fingers were stroking circular movements against my hand gently, each and every time sending a peculiar jolt-like sensation through to my entire system.

"I need you to know that, I will try to control myself next time. And that it will never happen again. I will never let it happen again!"

The moment he had said those words, I knew I had already forgiven him all over again. I was just pleased that he had finally said them- and meant them.

As he slowly released my hand from his, he placed two hands, two now trembling hands, on the sides of my neck, and pulled me in close to him in a tender embrace. I didn't know what he wanted in that moment but as he bent his head down toward my face, I felt his mouth meet my ear.

"Ich liebe deine Zerbrechlichkeit," he whispered. Then I felt him take the shell of my ear into his wet mouth, and shivered.

I didn't know what it was that he had whispered to me into another language, but I was familiar with what language it might be. "German?" I guessed. My voice was trembling and my heart pounding.

"You certainly are smarter than I give you credit for, darling." I laughed at his statement until... I felt his hand roam. He dragged his fingers in a straight line down the center of my body, across my stomach and navel and down over the waist of my jeans…and then lower. He began tracing the seam in the crotch of my jeans, slowly sliding it up and down and over repetitively. I felt a rush of moisture instantly pool between my legs over what he was doing to me.

"What does it mean in English?" I panted, trying to focus on having decent conversation rather than giving in completely to what he was making my body feel.

He moved his mouth down onto my neck and the feel of his weight on me caused me to have to lean back against the headrest. The feeling of his tongue gently licking my neck made me feel almost dizzy with desire. It was overwhelming, never quite having felt this way about a boy before. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to touch him back but felt so unsure with how. I was reduced to merely whimpering out his name through the blissful attention he was giving me.

"Oh, Bella," he rasped in between kisses on my neck. "I'm so in love with you. It's all too much."

My body jerked in surprise over the sudden words he had uttered while he continued rubbing me over the pair of jeans I was wearing. I wasn't sure if he wanted me to say it in return; I wasn't even sure if he had meant to say it or even have me hear it. He'd said it so quietly. But I felt it was too fast. Of course, I did like Edward a lot. But was what I was really feeling for him love? I felt confused.

But with him holding me to his couch and with the way his cold mouth attacked every part of my neck, all I was certain was that I felt whole and complete. I never wanted the moment to end. And what I wanted the most in that instance was to stay in his apartment forever and never have to return home to where Charlie was.