So, I know. I take twelve days to update, and then give you this short little transition piece. Will you believe me if I say it was out of my control? Because truly, it was. After this, they should come a lot quicker (that's what she said). Seriously, it's short. SHORT. short. Shoooort. Got it? Now you have been warned. Hopefully it's worth it. I think you will like this new transition, and the phase they are moving in to.

Thanks to everyone - my betas, and all the sweet reviewers (seriously, almost 200 for the last chapter. You guys pushed me over 1,000. WOW.), recommenders, story alerters, favoriters, Twilighted girls... you all make my day. I feel like I have more to say. But you are not reading this anyway, so what's the point? Here are the goods.

Disclaimer: I eat ramen like it's going out of style. Do you really think I own these characters?

With The Moon I Run

Bella walked into his room, her dress neatly folded in her arms. One of his soft t-shirts was draped over her body, hitting her just above the knee. He had insisted she change out of her dress, and she had complied, confused.

She wasn't exactly sure how these things worked, but she had read a few erotic novels, and wasn't he supposed to lay her down and peel off her dress layer by layer, kissing newly exposed freckles as he went? Wasn't he supposed to whisper how beautiful and seductive her dress made her, and how since the moment he saw her that evening, he couldn't wait to see her skin?

After Bella had agreed to stay, he had taken her hand and led her up the stairs silently. After he closed the door to his room, he had pressed her against the wood and kissed her so deeply she was certain he was about to start stripping her. But instead, he had drawn back, gone to his chest of drawers and handed her a long grey t-shirt to change in to. When she inquired, he had shaken his head and gestured wordlessly to the bathroom.

Edward Cullen was a strange creature.

He had his back to her when she entered, sitting on the bed shirtless and lean, and she drew in a sharp breath. Maybe… maybe he was going to…

He turned when he heard her, and smiled wanly. "Sit down next to me, please, Bella."

She began walking towards him. It was then she noticed the Tupperware container in his hand. "What is… what are you doing?"

He held out his hand to her, and as always, the sweet pink invitation had her smiling as she laced her fingers with his. She sat next to him, their palms scraping together as their eyes locked, leaves to bark.

"Do you trust me?" he asked in a low voice, keeping her stare.

She reached out her other hand and placed it on his warm chest, right over the staccato of his heart. "Yes."

He closed his eyes slowly, breath coming in and out of his nose. She leaned forward and pressed her lips against his while his eyes were closed, and he made a surprised noise against her mouth. His fingers went into the hair behind her ear, and he twirled it lightly around his shaking digits as he kissed her back, red and yellow, passionate and sorry for it.

He pulled back and rested his forehead against hers, and she was momentarily distracted from the giant Tupperware containers. But he wasn't – he had a goal, a plan, a blueprint of this night.

"No more distractions, please," he laughed lowly. He turned his attention to his bedside table, where a small, fine-haired paintbrush laid waiting for his artistry.

"Okay," she agreed, taking in a deep breath and releasing it into his atmosphere.

"Close your eyes."

She did, and it allowed her other senses to go into overdrive. The bed shifted with his weight, and his smell of turpentine, sweat and soap clung to the air particles around her. She heard a slight tapping noise, and then his weight shifted again, and something cold and wet was pressed against her face, right near her eye.

She flinched. "Edward!"

"Shhh," he soothed. "You said you trusted me."

"I do…"

"Then relax. Keep your eyes closed. Just let me feel you."

It took a couple more touches with the cold, wet substance for her to realize what was happening.

He was painting on her.

Her breath hitched, and she dug her fingernails into her thighs. The submission of his action was not lost on her, but she didn't want to focus her mind on what this meant. She just wanted to enjoy.

His strong fingers came up to her chin and held her head softly in place as the fine-haired brush stroked up and down her cheek in strange patterns.

"Do you remember the first picture I drew for you, in our notebook?" he asked eventually, his warm breath blowing across the planes of her skin.

"The drawing of my eye, with the flower," she whispered.

"I'm recreating it to scale," he said softly. "If you are willing, that is."

She laughed a bit. "You already started. It's a little late."

"Oh," he said, and his motions halted. "I'm sorry. I thought you wanted – "

"If I could open my eyes, they'd be glaring at you. Hush and continue."

He did so, and she could feel his smile in the brushstrokes. They sat in silence for a few minutes, the sound of their breathing the only accompaniment to the crescendo of her heartbeat.

"So…" he began nervously as he used his fingernail to shape some blob of paint underneath her eye. "Did you enjoy yourself? On our date, I mean?"

Bella smiled. She still wasn't allowed to open her eyes, but she could practically see the magenta dots on his cheeks and the tip of his ears. "Yes…" she laughed, trailing off. "I thought I made that pretty clear."

"Well," Edward said, his brushstroke faltering a bit. "Yes, I mean… you did. I just wanted to make sure, you know, if I did anything wrong, so I can I leave it out… next time."

Bella considered teasing him – she loved a nervous, flustered Edward – but something was gnawing at the fleshy peach depths of her brain. "Edward," she hedged.

"Oh God, I did something – "

"No," she laughed. "No, nothing like that. It's just, this girl… Kate?"

His painting stopped altogether. "Yes?"

"What did you say your relationship to her was?"

He sighed and the body heat she had felt so close to the left side of her form abruptly turned cold. She opened her eyes, and he was standing away from her, picking up a container of black paint. He turned and saw her eyes open.

"No peeking," he chastised with a soft smile.

"Why won't you tell me?" Bella was getting antsy.

He sighed again. "She was the sister of a girl named Tanya. Tanya was a person I used to be close to. I am no longer close to her due to circumstances out of my control."

Bella glared at him suspiciously, feeling some dried paint crack on her face. "Don't insult my intelligence."

He stared at her, his eyes hard chips of malachite. "You're much more observant than I gave you credit for."

"What? I'm not some doe-eyed girl, walking around batting her eyelashes at you like some cow – "

He sat back next to her at once, taking her small, flushed hands in his large, calloused ones. "It's not a matter of your intellect. You're right, Bella. There's a story here. But it's one I am just not ready to tell. Please, I promise to tell you. I swear it. But I just, I can't – "

He was viscerally upset, blood pooling under his skin as he fidgeted.

"Okay," said Bella, after counting to ten. "I'm not… trying to pressure you in to telling me anything. Thank you for acknowledging that there is, in fact, a story."

Edward frowned at her. "How old are you, Bella?"

Bella answered, surprised. "Seventeen. You knew that."

"You don't seem seventeen."

"Would you like to see my driver's license?" she grated.

He smiled at her briefly. "Close your eyes, please."

When she opened them again at his bidding, it was half an hour later. The whole side of her face was covered in paint, and her eyes were watering from the tiny pressure he had applied to her under eye as he wrote the word 'blooming.'

"You're finished," he said softly, rolling his brush on a towel. "Would you like to go look?"

Bella nodded. She stood up and stretched, very stiff from sitting in the same place for nearly an hour. Edward watched the lines of her body as his t-shirt skimmed the bottom of her underwear, and she was not nervous.

She walked to his bathroom and flipped on the light. She looked over at the mirror and her mouth dropped.

Her whole eye and surrounding cheek and forehead were covered in an ornamental purple flower, shaded perfectly with black and white and green, fleshy leaves. His script of 'blooming' underneath her eye was almost calligraphic, and she looked exotic and mysterious and open.

He came up behind her and tugged on the bun she had thrown her hair up in. She closed her eyes as his fingers went through her hair, taking it down in long tendrils, fanning it over her shoulders.

"Is that satisfactory, madame?" he asked in her ear, his white-hot breath across her neck.

"Do you think it is?" she asked instead, dying to see if he saw in her what she saw in herself.

He pressed his thumb against her cheek. "I think you are so devastatingly beautiful, it's hard to look at you for very long."

She was very aware of his bare chest and her own bare legs, and she wanted nothing more than to paint warmth on his skin with her fingers. She stood up on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth to his, chastely at first, but then wilder when he groaned and picked her up off her feet. Her legs went around his waist, and he carried her back to his room. He gently placed her on the bed, and she ran her blunt fingernails down his chest, scraping a soft nipple with one her nails.

He breathed out heavily and took his lip between his teeth. "Bella, this…"

"Edward." She stopped him, putting her hands on his hips. "I've never been in this situation before. I don't know anything about what to do, where to put my hands or mouth or legs or… or anything. All I really know is… all I really know is that I'm in love with you, completely and totally, and you don't have to love me back for this to be valid. I want you, and this."

His chin dented in and his bottom lip dipped in and out in a strange tremble. "Did… what did you just say?"

She stared at him, right in the eyes, not afraid as she had always been. "I'm in love with you."

His whole body crumpled, and he moved forward, gasping breaths permeating the air around them. "No," he whispered, his forehead finding purchase against her sternum.

"Yes," she said, cradling him as they fell back against his bed. "I love you. It's okay, Edward. You don't have to love me back."

"Bella," he whispered against her neck, where she felt molten tears. "Don't you know, sweetheart?"

"Know what?"

He settled against her, his head over her heartbeat. "You are my life now."

XxXxX

Her hips arched up, seeking the pressure building underneath. It writhed and wrought and wreaked havoc on her insides, her head thrashing about on the pillow as her lover brought her closer and closer to the plateau, to the peak, and then to the fall. Or, was it flying? She thrashed again as the sweet toxic press increased, her insides slick and ready, and she sought it, cried for it, a two-syllable absolution on her lips as she sat straight up in her sweat.

Panting, she came back down from her almost lover's hand, wiping perspiration off her brow. She fully intended on rolling over and going back to sleep when two points of light caught her attention.

They were Edward's eyes, silver in the moonlight. And they were staring straight at her. She swallowed, feeling like she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She knew she had said his name; she had felt him inside her as she dreamt of his sex, and he had her panting, moaning, sweating for him.

He had her on her back before she could take her next breath. He settled between her thighs and ground himself against her once, and then stopped, waiting for her permission to continue. Bella was too busy being completely enamored by the feeling of something so solid, something such a part of Edward, something so… so masculine, being forced up against her. And she loved it.

He was funny and kind, handsome and talented. He was an artist and a musician, a smoker of weed and mildly anal-retentive. But at the core of him, he was a man… a man, with a… penis (she tried out the word in her head) that was very hard against the still-throbbing pink patch between her thighs.

"You said my name," he whispered, his voice gruff from sleep. His lips pressed against her neck, her collarbone, and his hands snaked up the t-shirt of his she was still wearing. His long fingers smoothed over her trembling skin and brushed a rosy nipple. She breathed out, amazed at how different it felt when someone else was touching her there.

"I was dreaming… about you," she admitted, arching her back to help him with lifting off her shirt.

He pressed their bare chests together and kissed her, desperate with his lips and the first taste of his tongue. The red-hot heat of his chest burned against hers, and she wrapped her arms around him and ran her fingers down the thick cords of his back. He groaned and thrust his hips forward again, hitting that pulsing, tender skin that ached so sweetly.

She cried into his mouth the next time he did that, and again, and again, and so many times that it became a pattern, a rhythm, a beat. His forehead found purchase on hers, and they shared each others steamy air as he drove them closer and closer to the orgasm that was threatening to explode right out of her womb.

"Bella, I…" he said, his voice strained, his thrusts taking on a frenzied, random motion.

"It's okay," she whispered, glad he was close, because she was starting to get sore. He nodded and picked up his pace again, rubbing himself shamelessly against the heat she was emanating, and she cried out as he came, his pleasure her own.

He collapsed shakily on top of her, taking in great gasps of air as he trembled. She kissed his sweaty forehead and he hummed contentedly.

"This is…" he said after a moment. "Really uncomfortable." He gestured to the blatant wet spot in his flannel bottom. "I'll be back momentarily." He grinned at her and pinched her nipple, which surprised her – she gasped and giggled on the same breath.

"All clean?" she teased as he climbed back into the bed in a fresh pair of pants.

"Mmm-hmmm," he muttered, snuggling up to her. "You're so warm." His hand trailed down her bare stomach and found the damp spot between her legs. "And still so wet for me."

His fingers worked her throbbing clit in tight circles, making her writhe and arch up to meet his patterns. He dipped one long finger inside of her and groaned, but she tensed up.

"Does that hurt?" he whispered in her ear, kissing the sweaty hair on her neck.

"A little," she whispered. "Nothing… no one has ever been there before, besides me. I don't… oh," she cried as he placed his fingers back on her clit. "Um, Edward, don't… stop. Don't… do not… oh God…"

He didn't stop, and she came at another person's touch for the first time in her life. As she closed her eyes and sank into his skin, she counted herself lucky.

Not many people get to experience that with the love of their young, and maybe whole life.