Please Note: Alternating points of view—Bella/Edward/Bella

20. Pieces of valentine

Jasper wiped my venom off his face with his sleeve. "After I bit you, I didn't know what to do. I'd interfered when it wasn't my place to do so."

"You mean you changed me when Edward said not to."

"I should have let matters run their course. I was there to protect you, but then you jumped, and you nearly died and I… I couldn't allow that to happen." He hung his head. "I didn't go far when I left you. I only needed some time to think, but then I caught Victoria's scent. I had to lead her away from you."

"Did you kill her?"

"Yes, not long before you would have completed the change."

"But you didn't come back to find me."

"I did come back, but you'd already gone without a trace. It was as if you'd never existed. For what it's worth, I've been looking all over for you, but I never stood a chance with your gift. No scent, no sound, no feeling."

"Sorry about that. What can I say? I'm a stealth vampire."

His lips curled up slowly. "That you are."

"You really can't tell what I'm feeling?"

"Nope. It might work if you let me touch you, though," he said, winking at me.

"I don't think Alice would like that, do you?"

At the mention of his mate, he got up from the table and walked across the room to look out of the window.

"Did you know you're wearing Rosalie's boots?" he said.

"I am?" I stretched my legs out in front of me to look at them.

"And Emmett's hoodie. Where did you find them?"

"I followed your scent down a trail to a large cabin."

"Denali," he muttered.

"I used the shower in the outbuilding. The boots were hanging on the back of the door and the hoodie was in the dryer. Their scents were… comforting. Do you think they'll mind that I took their things?"

"Not at all," Jasper said, turning to face me. "We're going to have to tell them all. You know that, don't you?

"Why did you not tell them before?"

"With these eyes and no evidence, would you believe me?"

"Probably not," I said, reaching for my backpack. "I have something else—from the house in Forks." I brought out the antique comb, and he strode back across the room.

"That's mine!"

"Yours?"

"Yes. Alice said she'd lost it. I was quite upset. It might seem an odd thing to be sentimental about, but it means a lot to me."

"It was under the bed in your room," I said, offering it up to him.

"Was it now?" He sat back down on the table next to me, examined the comb carefully, turning it over in his hands before putting it in the front pocket of his shirt.

"Do you think Alice saw me? There was a window left open and things I needed—"

"There is such a thing as coincidence, Bella," he said abruptly. "Alice stopped watching for you the day we left Forks, and I hated her for it. Edward had asked her not to, told her to stop with her interfering, but he wasn't in his right mind and she knew it. Your decision to kill yourself must have been so strong, she couldn't avoid it, but she couldn't see you beyond that point."

"But I didn't die. You saved me—sort of."

"She didn't see me intervene. I was careful not to make any decisions from the moment we parted, and then after I bit you, it no longer mattered. She couldn't see me any more than she could see you. There was something about your blood…

"The announcement of your death served to confirm her vision, and I did nothing to disabuse her of it. When we met up again for your funeral, she took one look at me and assumed I'd slipped."

"Shouldn't your eyes have changed back by now."

"You'd have thought so, wouldn't you? But no, I've been stuck with them red for over a year."

...

When I looked at her, I found her beautiful. When she looked at me, I wanted to give her everything, and when she touched me, no one else existed.

When I thought of her leaving to return to her coven, I wanted to follow her. When I imagined her turning her attentions on another, my chest constricted. But when I remembered her in my arms, taking me inside her body for the first time, nothing else mattered.

During the little pockets of privacy we afforded each other, I managed to memorise the instructions for a new project. I ordered the necessary materials and waited. My ability helped me to pick up the mailman's thoughts well before his van came thundering up the driveway, so I was outside ready and waiting to receive the small parcel wrapped in grey plastic.

"What are you up to, Edward Cullen?" Tanya said as I came back into the house.

"Nothing," I replied, trying to get past her.

We ended up on the floor, her pinned beneath me, and I'd like to think I distracted her sufficiently.

Later that morning, after my shower, I sat with my back against my door, working on my new project. Tanya grew concerned when, after a few attempts to persuade me, I refused to come out.

"You're having second thoughts again, aren't you, Edward?" she said through the door.

"I'm not, I promise, but I am thinking—about you, about us. I just need some time alone to do it."

I listened to her footsteps retreating down the stairs, and then moments later, I heard the piano. Slow, melancholy songs filled the house. I would have to work fast because the last thing I wanted to do was hurt her.

At dusk, I went downstairs to find her on the couch with a blank expression on her face. I offered her my hand, and when she took it, I pulled her up gently and lead her out of the house.

We ran hand in hand to the small clearing in the trees that we favoured after a hunt. I sat on the grass and pulled her down onto my lap, presenting her with the parcel I'd been carrying inside my shirt. She carefully opened the tissue paper, laying it down on her thighs so she could pick up the pieces of emerald green crochet.

"You've made me a bikini?"

"It's a set of underwear really, but I don't mind how you wear it so long as I get to see it on you."

"And what have you got there?" she said, eyeing the bulge in my pants.

I pulled the second package out of my pocket and she tore at the paper, staring at the pair of matching stockings for a whole minute before turning her gaze on me. It didn't take very long for her to make the connection, and if she'd been able to cry, I'd have seen tears forming in her eyes.

"Do handmade stockings count?" I whispered.

"If the sentiment is the same."

I swallowed and nodded.

"Oh, Edward."

"Will you wear them for me?"

"Yes. I'll wear anything you make for me. Will you say it? Out loud?"

…

Jasper leaned toward me, his face close to mine. Venom pooled in my mouth, but I wasn't the only one licking their lips.

"Would you let me hold your hand now, please?" he asked.

"But Alice—"

"Alice is not my mate anymore. We're done."

"But Edward said—"

"That vampires only mate once, I know. It's a myth, Bella—one the Cullens seem hell bent on perpetuating."

"But he told me—"

"You think that if two people can't forgive each other, they should stay together? You think that now I'm alone, I'm doomed to never love again? No, Bella, I don't buy that. Vampires can fall in and out of love just as easily as humans can. We're capable of more than one type of love, so why shouldn't we be capable of loving more than one partner. Losing "the one" does not have to mean an end to our existence."

He raised an eyebrow and I stared at him open mouthed, not resisting when he reached for my hand and took it in his, rubbing his thumb back and forth over my palm.

There was no electric shock, no lightning bolt to the heart, but there was a sense of being found, unlost... complete. Oh, hell! I'd promised myself I'd never ever use that cheesy film quote.

"No!" I said, tugging my hand free with such force, he lost his balance and fell onto the floor.

"No?" The corners of his mouth were twitching.

I stood over him, fuming. "You might be my sire, but I do not want an intimate relationship with you!"

"Whyever not?" he said, smirking. "You're aroused by me. You've admitted as much yourself."

"Fuck! Yes, Jasper, I cannot deny I find you attractive. Your scent does things to me, but you just said it yourself—we can form bonds with more than one person. You might be one possibility in a whole spectrum of suitable candidates, but right now, I know who I want and it's not you."

"Who do you want?"

"Someone I can no longer have," I whispered, sinking back into my chair.

"Edward?" he said, incredulous.

"No," I sighed. "Wait! What? Why can't I have Edward?"