Chapter 11

I keep saying to myself - you've only gotten through 24 hours in 11 chapters! Still, I'm chosing to follow my muse where it leads. Have a great day, everybody!

BPOV

My face must have looked really dumb. I knew for an absolute fact that my mouth was hanging open.

"What did you just say?"

He smiled and cocked his head slightly to the side as he repeated it again very slowly like I might be retarded.

"Bella, you are my mate."

He said this like it should be a perfectly normal and understandable statement as if he were saying 'Bella, your eyes are brown.'

I shook my head and laughed to myself mostly. "You are going to have to be more specific than that because you have seriously lost me."

"I apologize, Bella. I fear my courting skills are woefully lacking and your sudden appearance has rather surprised me to say the least. "

Now it's my turn to laugh. "My appearance surprised you? " I questioned. "I think that's one contest that I've won hands down."

He again tilted his head in a way that I'm coming to realize means he's embarrassed. How on earth could a creature this gorgeous be embarrassed by anything I said or did? It was beyond me.

He laughed this low, soft laugh that made me feel all funny and tingly inside and I suddenly realized that I was so out of my comfort zone.

Here he iwas telling me that he was 'woefully lacking' and I realized that I was in the deep end without my water wings!

"Bella, what I am trying so inadequately to say to you is that you and I have a very rare and precious connection."

He stood up. With me still sitting up on my stool, we were close to eye level. He took my hand and I felt like my heart was going to jump right out of my chest.

"Allow me start again. I realize that all of this must be terribly overwhelming but I can't seem to stop myself from telling you."

I couldn't seem to keep my mouth shut either. "From telling me what?" I inelegantly blurted out.

"Bella, as I said before you are my mate. While humans may fall in and out of love any number of times during their lifetimes, my kind does not. Sometimes we are lucky and find our soul mates relatively quickly. Other times, one may wait several lifetimes before finding that special person and still others never find the one who would complete them. "

"I have been frozen like this for almost one hundred years and I have never encountered anyone like you".

"Like me?" I questioned. How on earth, could he be acting as if I had somehow swept him off of his feet! If nothing else, this latest development again pointed to me being in a coma somewhere.

He let go of my hand and his hands came up to cup my cheeks. The contrast between my obviously flaming face and his icy cold palms grounded me soundly in reality.

This is real, Bella. This is real. I think to myself.

"I know it seems incredible. It seems incredible to me too but Bella, when I look at you… it's like my entire world shifts and I just know. I have never felt like this before. I have never even wanted to feel like this before, if that makes any sense at all to you. And now, now…"

His voice trailed off and he slowly brought his face towards mine so haltingly that it was obvious that he didn't want to frighten me.

He whispered to me in that same sexy tone, "Shhh Bella, let me kiss you. I'll be so careful, I promise."

It was as if I was the wild animal here and he was soothing me least I run away. Didn't he know that I couldn't move away if my life depended on it?

First, I felt his breath; it was cool but not cold. Again, I was blushing so much that the coolness was a welcome sensation. My eyes fluttered shut of their own accord, as my whole entire being readied itself to feel his lips on mine.

He touched me so softly that it took me a second to be convinced that I was in the midst of my very first kiss. First, his lips touched mine head on and he hesitated as if he was evaluating how to best proceed.

His hands left my face and suddenly, the remaining slight connection between the two of us was hardly enough. I felt anxious and fearful that he was about to pull away.

He moved but thankfully only to tilt his head slightly and then he cushioned my lower lip between both of his.

I felt his chest moving up and down, in time with my own. After a moment or two, he increased not the pressure exactly. No, he increased the suction just a bit and I felt it down to the deepest parts of me in a way that I had never even known to expect.

In the back of my mind, I pleaded with the powers that be, that he not stop, that he continue just like this as my body pounded in time with the beat of my heart.

Without deliberate thought, I opened my mouth and begin to respond in kind. By the time I realized what I was doing, I had my lips around his upper lip and my tongue was running back and forth over it. His flesh didn't give like normal flesh but it felt smooth and solid in an enticing way. It also had just the slightest taste to it – like honeysuckles.

He moaned at my forwardness and I knew I should be embarrassed by my actions but his taste, coupled with these strange circumstances had somehow emboldened me. Driven by an instinct that before this second was foreign to me, I opened my month further and drew that solid, inviting bow of his upper lip in between my teeth.

If my tongue caused him to moan, then I would say that my teeth elicited a full out growl from him. And while I wouldn't say that a growl would ever be classified as a happy sound, I had no doubt of its positive connotations.

His enthusiastic response didn't stop there and the hands that had previously been somewhere else now cupped me under my butt and lifted me off the stool and molding my legs around his waist in a way that really should have scandalized me but instead the position simply felt like exactly what I needed, what I wanted and didn't know it.

As he pulled me forward, he whispered to me in an even rougher voice, "harder" he commanded and I bite harder. He growled once more and pulled me even closer and I answewred him with tiny, hard bites all over his pouty but unyielding lips.

This activity may have gone on for minutes or hours, I honestly didn't know. I also didn't know how far it would have gotten it if Esme hadn't come into the kitchen with several grocery bags.

EPOV

I heard Esme's car turning off the main road and knew that I had no more than six minutes to indulge in this overwhelming desire to touch her, to kiss her, to taste her.

There was once a time when I worried that if I ever found someone,that I would not know how to react. Quite obviously this was a moot point, it was like hunting. My body just knew what to do. I just needed to allow it to do its job.

When I heard Esme's car turn, I allowed myself enough rope to hang myself figuring that we'd only have six minutes of contact. I also rationalized that I seemed to actually crave her blood less when I was in direct physical contact with her. It was a win/win as Emmett liked to say.

It may have been a win/win but I learned that in six minutes, things could go pretty far.

By the time the garage door opened, I had somehow picked her up and clasped her to my almost immediate erection while encouraging her to bite me in a fairly disturbing way.

I had imagined a gentle kiss or two, a whispered declaration of literally undying devotion.

Instead my naïve, soon-to-be intended had gone from 0 to 60 or more specifically from hand holding to grinding in 0 to 60. And at some point, I managed to crack Esme's marble counter top.

When the door opened, I abruptly pulled her away from me and sat her back on her former seat.

As Esme opened the door, I was treated to the scene we made through her eyes.

I was standing way too close to Bella and my chest was noticeably going up and down even though it didn't need to. I am running one hand repeatedly through my hair so a portion of it stands on end. Somehow, half of my shirt was untucked.

If I seem disheveled, then Bella had faired even worse. Her face was red, her heart was noticeably pounding and her lips were slightly swollen and the bottom one was beginning to bruise.

As I faced Esme's bemused expression, I couldn't believe that I had somehow found myself in such a stereotypical teenage situation – parent walks in on make-out session.

However, as I heard Esme's thoughts I knew that her reaction was not that of a typical parent, she was thrilled that things were moving so quickly between me and Bella. She saw it as further proof that our relationship was meant to be.

The smile that Esme graced Bella with was brimming with happiness.

"Hello Bella! I see you found your breakfast. I hope you found it satisfactory."

Bella blinked a few times before answering. "Yes, it was wonderful. It was too much, really…especially for just me!"

Bella's eyes turned toward me and it was clear that she was thinking about our conversation about my dining habits. Fortunately, she didn't seem too unsettled. Perhaps the fates had smiled on me after all? How could I have found a human girl who had taken all of this so well?

In the past 24 hours she had been bombarded with one oddity after another. I imagined that some people would have required sedation by now! But not Bella, she was sitting here cheerfully talking with my mother after just fearlessly kissing a vampire!

Carlisle suddenly appeared he was back from the Quileute reservation.

He drew Esme into his arms for a quick embrace. I noticed that Bella seemed quite interested in the two of them.

I tried to see them through her eyes. It was difficult to see them objectively because I had such histories with them. Maybe one day Bella and I could have such a love? No, I stopped myself from even thinking that, it was too much to hope. I presumed too much.

We followed Carlisle and Esme into the den.

We settled into what were becoming our regular spots. I focused more on Bella and less on Carlisle's thoughts. Once more, she settled into my side and grasped my hand of her own accord. I attempted not to smile like an idiot or act on my shocking impulse to pull her into my lap and bury my face in the bend of her neck.

"I met with Billy and Sam Uley. They are also of the mind that it is one of their kind who attacked Charlie and stalked us. They wish to attempt to handle this in their own way. I have agreed to stay out of it as long as they understand the circumstances that have led to Charlie's situation and that they handle this quickly. If another member of our family is harmed in any way, we will act."

I could read Carlisle's perfect recall of his conversation with Billy Black. It was not nearly as simple as he was portraying to Bella and Esme. While there was only truth in Carlisle's words, he had muted the intensity of emotion that ran through the negotiations.

Carlisle leaned forward toward Bella and I heard what he was thinking before he puts it into words.

"Bella, as you know Billy Black is quite fond of your father. The circumstances regarding his injuries and his subsequent transformation have wounded Billy. Billy is also very concerned about you staying here with us. He would like you to consider moving out to the reservation for the time being, at least until everything settles a bit."

I hold back a growl at the suggestion not wishing to distress Bella.

Bella squeezed my hand as hard as she could squeeze a stone, and cried out loudly, "No, I won't leave. I stay here!"

The vehemence of her reaction surprised all of us including her. I could hear Carlisle marveling at the level of attachment that she and I had developed literally over night. Esme thought back to her first contact with Carlisle all those years ago.

Me? I tried to convince myself that she likely just didn't want to leave her father in his current state but another voice inside my head reminded me that it is my hand she was clutching, that it was my mouth that bruised those rosy lips.