AN: *ack*
The air about him sang in rushing ripping darkness. He could hear the voices of his family swelling into a deafening roar, pressing on his ears, his eyeballs, filling his chest until he thought it would burst. The cacophony spun about him in the black void of his mind, lifting his clothes, pulling at his hair, freezing him, blinding him, until suddenly the earth beneath him dropped away and he tipped and tumbled into the yawning abyss.
Like a leaden weight he plummeted, goaded on by guilt and regret, the jagged ground of his own misery rising up to meet him, and he shattered against it.
Edward could feel himself fracturing, white and red and agony exploding in his retinas, his body crumbling away, burning once more, the sobbing breath of Bella's uncertainty fanning the flames.
"I don't know."
It throbbed within his mind, mating with Rosalie's apologetic gaze in an obscene dance, whirling in a kaleidoscope of thoughts from the rest of his family, sympathy and grief, and undeserved understanding, at last coming to focus on the image of an emaciated young man, glistening with the sheen of a dying fever, his pale lips painted red as his lungs hemorrhaged, and Carlisle's knowing eyes meeting his.
"I am sorry."
Sorry that Edward could never become a man, could never live the course of a normal life, could never spare Bella of the dreadful choice of immortality.
I should have died, Edward thought despondently. I should have died before it came to this.
For now he was bound to her, accursed thing that he was, destined to be forever in orbit, unable to let her go whether she wanted him or no.
Her name on his lips, Edward opened his eyes to the sound of Bella's doubt, and realized he did not know where he was.
All around him was the dim purple of evening snowfall, and velvet stillness. He was jammed awkwardly between a shoulder of granite and scrub pines on an unfamiliar hillside, his jacket long gone, while tiny flakes dropped insistently into a giant rip down his shirt front. From the feel of it, he had fallen from somewhere above, and the stinging, sticky fluid leaking from his left eye told him he had jabbed it on something very hard and extremely sharp on the way down.
He had run again; and what was worse, he had not realized it.
Would it always be this way? Would he always be prey to his own failings? Would he always be playing that part? Forever crossed, fated to drink the poisonous elixir of impetuousness?
Scrubbing the venom out of his eye, Edward choked out a bitter sob.
"I am not Romeo!" he shouted into the falling snow. "God! Please." And then softer, in his final prayer, "Bella."
The cold air swallowed his voice, the drifting flakes shrouding his sorrow. All around the night watched him, entombed in the darkness.
Yet out of the still night, he heard a small voice, far away, but clear, in every way just for him.
"Edward."
X X X X X
She was warm and surrounded and content. Esme rocked her, murmuring unintelligibly, and Bella dimly registered someone awkwardly patting her hair.
She was home.
Home with her family, home with Edward. The rest of it didn't matter. It was a strange feeling. She had always thought of their absence as being a part of her self that was missing, a giant hole, right through the middle of her. Yet standing in the middle of the family she had lost, Bella felt as though she had finally stepped back into her own skin. As if she had been a ghost, finally reunited with the body she had left behind.
All she needed was the spark – the fire that would set her kindling alight, and resurrect her whole.
And she knew her answer.
"I don't care, Rose. I don't know and I don't care." Her eyes caught each of theirs in turn, as she scanned the room looking for the one whom she wanted to tell the most.
Edward.
He was nowhere to be seen.
"Edward?"
With sudden clarity she remembered the defeated look on his face as Rose spoke, and the dull 'thunk' his head made against the wall as she whispered, "I don't know."
Oh, no.
"Oh, Goddamnit," Rosalie muttered.
"He popped, didn't he?" Emmett looked thoughtful but not upset. "It's about damn time."
"I don't understand – Edward wanted to come –"
"I think we've established that what Edward says and what Edward means aren't always the same thing." Jasper rasped dryly. "He's been about ready to burst since he laid eyes on you again well nigh a month ago."
"He's a traitor, you know," Rose offered helpfully. "Eats him up inside, that does."
Esme's arm tightened around Bella. "Now, Rose –" she admonished, as Emmett snorted.
"Nah," said Emmett, shaking his head. "He's just embarrassed. Poor Edward's spent the last fifty or so years being perfect. This is his first disaster since, well, ever."
Carlisle rested his hand gently on Bella's shoulder. "It hurts when one falls off the pedestal of their own making. Of all of us, Edward has had perhaps the most difficult life – being alone in a family full of lonely couples. His transgression with you, and by association, with us, well . . . " He broke of thoughtfully, turning his gaze to Emmett and Jasper. They nodded silently, flickering quietly out of the room. "We can't rightfully demand punishment for him when he has done it so well for himself."
Carlisle's voice was sad, the usually harmonic tones ringing harshly with something else.
Guilt, Bella realized. He feels guilty for Changing him. Poor Carlisle.
"Edward saw that, didn't he? Before he, um, left?"
Carlisle's eyes widened for a moment in surprise, as he gathered the true meaning of her question.
"Yes," he said softly. "I'm afraid he did." He looked down at Bella sadly. "I am a selfish man, Bella. I cannot say I regret Edward's life, or his companionship, because those were things that eased the painful solitude that I felt – and he did become a friend I delighted in. But to take his life, to take his death away from him for my own pleasure . . . that I will feel guilty for every day of my existence. Now more than ever."
Behind them the fire crackled dully as Carlisle struggled to shape the words of his own shame. It was a strange thing, seeing him so uncertain, and Bella was suddenly grateful for their years apart. For the passage of time meant she could see them now, in all their flaws, and, finally, in her own way feel an equal. They had all fallen in their own way – and had she seen it still wrapped in the naivety of her youth and infatuation, it could very well have shattered her. Still, she felt her foundation tremble.
"Because even though he would have long been dead and buried had I let him go, in his human form he could have given you all those things, and I have given him the curse of knowing the difference."
He looked at Bella beseechingly, as if he were willing her to understand all the ways in which he had gone so horribly wrong, as if his own guilt could absolve that of his son's. Rosalie came to stand by him then, grasping his hand as it dropped from Bella's shoulder.
"Bella, Edward never came back to us after Alice killed Victoria. Up until a month ago he avoided every one of us but Carlisle." Esme's voice sounded so very strange in Bella's ear as it rested against her hollow chest. As if she had stuck her head inside a bell, and let her own words strike the tone. "And even then, he only saw Edward a handful of times."
"Edward never really came back," said Alice softly. "Even when we finally saw him last month. Even when we knew. Whatever came home from Alaska, that wasn't him."
Emmett and Jasper breezed through the door, bringing in the smell of the forest and wet snow fall on their clothes.
Their eyes fell on her, and instantly Bella knew her task.
"Bella, I am so sorry," Carlisle murmured. "I have no right to ask anything of you. None of us do. But Edward won't come back for anyone but you."
I just got here, a small voice inside her whispered.
Carlisle must have sensed her silent protest, because he reached out and drew her into his arms, embracing her for the first time in years.
"Do you love him?" he whispered quietly, just for her.
Bella leaned into his chest, feeling more certain than she had in years. "With all my heart."
"Then go to him." Carlisle pulled back, placing his hands on her shoulders in a gentle entreaty. "Help him be whole, Bella. He needs you. More than you will ever know."
Emmett held out a hand to her.
"You'll need someone to show you the way. Did you bring cold weather gear with you?"
Bella nodded slightly. "It's in the car."
"Let's get you ready then. This night isn't going to get better for waiting."
Carlisle let go of her then, and the rest of the family embraced her in turn, an odd sort of invocation: as if she were a vessel to be imbued with their hope and affection, carrying it away into the mountain fastness; to be poured out in the unknown darkness with the blood of her own sacrifice.
"God be with you, Bella," Carlisle said at last.
"Edward is a right idiot sometimes, but he is my brother, and I can't help but love him." Rosalie followed Bella as she walked to the door, almost as if she were stalking her, looking for weakness. "He made an awful mistake leaving you, but so help me God if you break his heart I swear to you I will kick the head right off your body."
"Rose!" Carlisle and Esme's voices harmonized oddly in parental outrage. She ignored them.
The two women looked at each other for a long moment, golden eyes staring into brown; both appraising, both earnest; and then Rosalie's face softened, twisting into a wry smile.
"If Edward breaks yours again, it's his head I'll be kicking."
X X X X X
Emmett took her as far as he dared without alerting Edward to his presence.
"Can't he 'hear' you?" Bella had asked as they stepped off the back porch, adjusting the fit of the headlamp he had given her.
Emmett had simply tapped his nose in a gesture morbidly reminiscent of Santa Clause, and grinned wickedly at her. "I have my ways," he said conspiratorially. Something about his tone made her strangely glad that he did not elaborate.
Running alongside Emmett on the tiny deer track that wound up the hillside behind the Cullen's home was nothing like her days of being packed around with Edward as a young girl. At first she was surprised that he did not just haul her under his arm and heave her bodily into whatever direction Edward had gone, but as Emmett took her gloved hand in his, Bella felt a surge of gratitude for his deliberate show of equanimity.
Together they ran along the narrow trail, Emmett's pace mindful and deliberate while Bella stepped carefully within the lighted path of the headlamp.
The air was thick and wet here, with none of the mountain dryness Bella was accustomed to. It clung to her, laden with salt from the ocean, sinking heavily in her lungs, slowing her steps even as the trees thinned.
"Where are we going?" she managed to ask, when Emmett paused for a moment. She heard him take a deep breath – tasting the air, no doubt.
"Did they tell you about Edward?" In the glow of her headlamp Emmett's face was starkly white, his eyes dark, and strangely flat, while his lips glistened Kabuki red. He reached down and flipped the light off. "Maybe three miles north of where we are as the crow flies there's an old fire lookout. After Alice . . . well, old Edward exiled himself up there. Five years, Bella. Five years in his own head, getting stranger and sadder . . . " As Bella's eyes adjusted in the soft violet glow of the clouds she could see the sad line of Emmett's mouth. "It's not that long in the scheme of things, I suppose, but it is when you can't sleep, and all you have is your own guilt to keep you company. That's why I can't hold all this against him – the scrawny bastard is hard enough on himself as it is."
His shadowed eyes met hers in the dim light, willing her to understand.
"I'm guessing he went there. That's where his track is leading anyways." Emmett took her hand again. "I can take you just a bit farther without him hearing us, and then you're on your own." He squeezed her fingers encouragingly. "Ready?"
Bella nodded. She left the headlamp off.
X X X X X
True to his word, Emmett left her about a mile further up the trail, on a narrow saddle between two very large upheavals of granite and alpine scrub. Her ribs ached from where he had grabbed her as she had scrambled along side him, murmuring, "Jump" in her ear and they cleared a void far beyond the capabilities of her own legs.
And that's what if feels like to fly.
Bella rubbed her side surreptitiously, peering into the darkness below her while a growing wind lifted her hair.
"He's there. Upwind of us – well, as up as he can be down there. Good luck, Bella." And with a squeeze of her shoulders and a peck on her temple, Emmett had vanished into the night.
"Down there," Bella muttered, looking into what appeared to be nothing. "Right."
Grimly, she switched her headlamp back on, stepping carefully down in the tiny crescent of light it threw at her feet. It was still snowing heavily, the wind whipped flakes pelting around her like frozen moths.
She was descending into some kind of chute, the sole purpose of which seemed to be to funnel great blasts of air up the hill at her, threatening to knock her off her feet as they skittered over the loose stones that hid, treacherous, under the new snowfall. The sound of it wailed about her ears, taunting her with secret voices and whispered incantations; while with every step the snow fell faster, and the wind worked it into the gaps in her collar, the ends of her sleeves, and, very considerately, up her nose, which began to run most indelicately.
The tiny beacon of her headlamp showed nothing but a blurring white in the gathering storm, and Bella realized that she was, effectively blind.
"Brilliant idea, Swan," she groused to herself. "Run off into a storm you have no business being in. I can't see shit!"
Her last epithet was punctuated by an undignified squeak, as she stepped on something particularly slippery and lost her footing, landing with a thump on her backside. Reaching down to grasp the offending object and hurl it deservedly into the dark night, her fingers brushed against something that was most definitely not a rock.
It was a boot. One that she had seen tapping nervously on the bright wood floors in the house somewhere down the mountain; eagerly stomping the gas pedal while the Mustang roared down the highway – Edward's boot. The laces were gone, but it was too new looking, and too dry to have been out in the cold for long.
"Edward." The boot lay guiltily in her lap, as though it were ashamed it had been separated from its wearer, wherever he may have gone.
Somewhere down there is a vampire wearing only one boot, and here I sit, blind as a bat. Bella sighed in exasperation.
"Oh for fuck's sake," she muttered and hauled herself to her feet. "EDWARD!"
The wind caught her voice, muffling it in the snow. If he answered, she doubted she could even hear him. Carefully, she began picking her way down once more.
And then she heard it, faintly on the wind, "Bella."
For a moment the snow abated, and she could see a vague dark hummock several yards off. Even if he was not there, Bella thought she could at least get her bearings, and hopefully, wipe her nose before the damn thing got frostbite and fell off. Eagerly, she made her way toward it, slipping and scrambling across the terrain, until at last she came to a halt beneath an over-hang on the leeward side.
The dark haven underneath was already occupied.
Nestled in the farthest corner was a crouched figure. His back was to her, his head pressed into his knees as he wrapped his arms around them.
Edward.
Even in the uncertain light of her tiny lamp, Bella could see that he was crying. His shoulders wracked with silent sobs while his hands fisted in the ruined fabric of his jeans.
Bella was torn. Part of her wanted to go to him, to pull him into her arms and take his sorrow into her own breast, while the other part wanted to chuck the boot she was holding at his head and then sit down and weep herself.
I'm so tired.
In the end, Edward spared her the decision, his choked voice barely audible over the roaring wind.
"Rose is right, you know." Edward's voice was muffled in his knees. He had yet to look at her. "About all of those things. I can never be a man for you, never give you children." He choked on a sob. "I can't even grow old with you."
Edward hunched his body even further. "I'm not whole, Bella. I have nothing to offer you – nothing but death."
"Oh Edward," Bella whispered, and then gasped when he turned.
Edward was filthy. His clothes were torn, smeared with mud and wet bark, and his hair lay plastered, lank and sticky against his skull. But it was his eyes that were the most shocking.
Flat, and feral and altogether dead they stared back at her, seeing, but not really seeing her.
The light of the headlamp flickered over their lifeless depths, catching on the brilliant sheen of liquid that seeped out of his left eye, and that was when Bella noticed that his retina had ruptured, if that were possible, and the inky fluid flooded his entire cornea.
"Jesus," she breathed. Gingerly, Bella knelt in front of him, trying to edge herself out of the falling snow as best she could. Tentatively, she brushed away the dirt smeared on his cheekbone, avoiding the trail of poison that wept from Edward's wounded eye. It looked like tears, but shone oddly in the artificial light, heavy and thick against Edward's pale skin, like liquid opals.
He shivered at her touch, leaning into her hand just the littlest bit as his eyes flickered closed; and when he opened them again, Bella thought she saw a spark in their depths.
"I'm sorry," Edward murmured. "I'm so sorry. I took every thing. I hurt you. I hurt them." He was rocking slightly. "But god help me I want you – more than anything in my life."
His hands slid up to grab her wrists as she cradled his cheeks. "You are everything, Bella. Light and happiness and hope. I am nothing without you." His face twisted. "But I don't deserve you. I've done nothing to earn your esteem, let alone your heart. I've lied, I've destroyed the happiness of those I loved. All because I'm afraid that you won't want me."
Edward shifted so he was kneeling, his grip still strong on Bella's wrists, pulling her close; knee to knee, hip to hip, so that her belly pressed against his with each breath she took. "I want to be someone you want," he whispered. "I want you to want me as much as I do you –"
"Then why did you run?" Bella leaned back to look him in the eye. The headlamp slipped off her head, leaving them in darkness. She felt Edward's nose trace against her jaw, and her body began to tingle.
"Because," he breathed against the sensitive skin of her throat, "you consume me Bella. So much that tonight I was ready to forsake my whole family, and be a traitor ten times over if it meant I could be with you. And I was ashamed. What kind of son am I, what kind of brother, if I would forsake all that for a future I'm not even certain of?" His lips brushed over her pulse. "I don't know what you want, Bella. I don't know if it's only this –" his hands slipped low on her waist, lifting her, forcing her breasts against his chest beneath her heavy coat. "Or if you can ever love me in spite of who I am."
His words tickled against her skin, trickling down her spine, making all of her nerves come alive. Bella could feel the slow beat of her heart, throbbing against Edward's sternum, and the warmth that spread, despite the coldness of the night, deep and low inside her, making all her joints loose as he held her close to his firm body. He smelt of incense and sin, and the giant purple lilies that Renee used to grow in the back yard in Phoenix.
You consume me. How could he not know that the very thought of him set her aflame?
"Edward," she whispered, her mouth next to his ear. "I've wanted you since I first laid eyes on you. Every breath, every dream has been for you since I learned your name. I am yours. I will always be yours. And when I die, and all I am is dust, that dust will want you, too." She reached up then and gripped his ears, pulling his face before hers in the darkness. "I love you. I will always love you."
And when his lips touched hers, she knew it would be forever.
X X X X X
It was a rough scramble back up the hill. The snow had fallen over wet ground, freezing it, and leaving a treacherous slick of ice hidden beneath a layer soft white. Edward held Bella's hand as she slipped and giggled, the cold and exhaustion making her giddy.
Finally Edward slipped an arm around her waist to steady her as they made their way laboriously back to the trail.
"How did you know where to find me?" Now they were out from their shelter, he had to fairly shout in her ear.
"Emmett helped me. He said you wouldn't be able to –" she broke off with a yelp as Edward stumbled, dragging her to her knees.
"Did he say anything else?" Edward's voice sounded strained.
"No, why?"
Edward did not answer, but as he helped Bella to her feet, she thought she heard him mutter, "Thank God."
X X X X X
The home of Edward's exile was a strange place indeed. Emmett had not been exaggerating when he told Bella that Edward had isolated himself from everyone.
After a considerable climb in what amounted to be almost total darkness – Edward said the light of the headlamp made it hard for him to see, although Bella was certain he just wanted to stare at her uninhibited – they reached what appeared to be a sheer rock face. Edward snapped the light on for a moment, gesturing for Bella to look up. Illuminated in the meager beam of the headlamp, Bella could see that crouched atop the rocky promontory there was a boxy little building, its dark, square lines sharp against the jagged landscape.
It was a tiny, human eyrie: Edward's fire lookout.
"Please tell me there's heat." Gore-Tex and wool could only keep out the cold for so long, and Bella was all too familiar with what qualified for insulation in forestry service buildings – single pane windows, a musty wool blanket, and a bottle of cheap whiskey if one was lucky.
She doubted Edward had any whiskey.
Edward grinned at her, his teeth brilliant in the artificial light, and in a fluid practiced movement, he pulled down a retractable ladder from somewhere far above, and then they were climbing, up into the night sky.
Bundled quickly inside, Edward shuffled her through the darkened main room – the only room – moving so quickly she had barely enough time to register that he was pulling up a section of the floor, revealing a dimly lit spiral stone staircase; and then she was going down again, past narrow windows and glowing plaster walls into –
"A Hobbit hole!"
Edward shot her a pained look.
It was very much like something out of Tolkein. The stairs opened into what was a remarkably open space, for being hollowed out of the inside of a mountain. Warm wood beams curved upwards from the floor, meeting in a cantilevered arch above them. Nestled against one wall was a tiny kitchenette, and through a doorway on the opposite side, she could just make out the inside of a bathroom.
Though her ears ached with cold, she could still just barely hear the quiet hum of a furnace.
"Every place we own has to be re-sellable." Edward seemed to hear her unspoken question. "Even imaginary creatures need a bathroom."
Something about his tone caught her attention, but it was just at that moment that the floodgates of Bella's sinuses opened, and she simultaneously began to shiver.
"Shower, Bella," said Edward tersely. "The whole family will have my head if I let you freeze."
Bella thought it best not to mention that Rosalie would be first in line.
X X X X X
And that was how Bella found herself wearing one of Edward's button down shirts, kneeling on the upstairs floor, toweling her hair dry after a scalding hot shower. Edward was taking considerably longer with his own, but he did have roughly half a mountain to scrub off himself.
Seeing him under the bright light as she stepped out of the bathroom, he had looked ghastly. His shirt hung in tatters, exposing a broad expanse of chest, while his damp hair hung lank and bedraggled over the smooth plane of his forehead.
It was his injured eye that had looked the worst. Swollen and weeping venom, and thoroughly black, it rendered the rest of the grime adhered to his face wholly unremarkable.
"Jesus, Edward." Bella had started toward him, completely forgetting she was wearing only a towel. Unlike her, Edward did not. His good eye opening wide, and looking utterly scandalized, Edward had thrust a shirt at her, and pushed past her into the bathroom without a word, locking the door quickly behind him.
Nonplussed, Bella had pulled the shirt on over her towel, and made her way back up the stairs to explore the room above.
The upstairs space was quite remarkable. Nothing remained of the old fire post, except the floor to ceiling windows that made up the exterior walls. In order to preserve what must have been a spectacular view in the daylight, the furnishings were limited to a low table, a knee high bank of shelves along one of the walls, and a large futon mattress rolled out in the center of the room.
All bore the markings of a hasty attempt at tidying up – no doubt while she was in the shower. Random bits of paper and hastily stacked books were stuffed into the shelves, while the thin film of dust on the table's surface bore the tell tale swipes of a shirtsleeve carelessly scrubbed across it.
So now she sat, waiting for the next development, while Edward and his awful eye attempted to make themselves presentable in the room below.
Eventually, she made her way to the futon, wrapped herself in one of the puddle blankets she found there, and lay down and waited.
She must have dozed off, for the next thing she knew she was awakened to a gentle shove of her shoulder.
"Bella? I need you to help me."
Edward was kneeling next to her, his now clean hair gleaming in the soft light shining from the lamp on the floor next to the futon. Blearily, Bella sat up, gathering her blanket around her waist.
"What is –" She broke off as she looked up at him, and the fresh stream of poison trickling down his face. "Oh."
"I've got something in my eye. That's why it won't, um, heal. I can feel it, but I can't see it." He gently grasped her hand. "I need you to be my eyes for a me."
"What do you need me to do?"
Edward took the hand he was holding and brought it gently to his lips, and Bella was suddenly very aware she was not wearing any underwear. His voice was low when he answered.
"Show my hands where they need to go." His mouth tickled against her fingertips, and Bella felt the jolt of it in her stomach.
She rose to the edge of the futon on her knees, and the long tails of the shirt she was wearing whispered around her thighs. Her nipples pricked and tightened against the soft material.
Gingerly, Bella took Edward's face in her hands, tilting it toward the light. Carefully, she pried his eyelids apart, and wiped away the venom as best she could with her shirtsleeve. It did not take long to find the source of his trouble. Nestled in the outside corner of Edward's eye was a large piece of what appeared to be granite.
"How in the hell did you do that?"
Edward barked out a rueful laugh. "I'm immortal, not impervious. Now, will you please help me?" He tugged impatiently on the hand that was not holding his eye open.
"Sorry."
Getting the shard of granite out proved to be an awkward business. Venom, it seemed, was very slippery. Every time Bella thought Edward had just about got it, something would slip, and the messy business would begin again. At long last, after a good deal of poking and prodding, and muffled swearing on both their parts, they were finally able to work the offending stone to the surface of Edward's eye, where it emerged with an audible pop, landing neatly in Bella's palm.
"Got it," she crowed triumphantly.
Edward ducked his head, looking down at the piece of rock in her hand. When he raised his eyes, both were clear, though the now healed left eye remained a shade darker than the other.
"Thank you," he said softly.
Bella wiped off his face with the end of her shirtsleeve. "You're welcome."
Their eyes met, and held for a long moment. In the long silence, Bella found her self suddenly very aware of the way Edward's hair curled, just the tiniest bit, behind his ears, the long, strong length of his thighs as they brushed against her own, the heavy pounding of her heart, and the aching hardness of her nipples as they pressed against his chest.
It was as though every molecule within her had come alive – as though every cell, every nerve, every round red corpuscle that coursed beneath her skin had awakened with the clamoring desire for the man in front of her.
Edward.
The man she loved.
The man who had saidhe was consumed by her.
The man who she was finally ready to draw down onto her own earthen pyre, and let the licking flames of love and lust and unending want burn them both to ash.
"I love you," Bella whispered into his hair. "I love you," against his cheek. "I love you I love you I love you."
She clenched his collar in her hands as one of his own slipped down to the small of her back, pulling her impossibly close, while the other reached over and turned out the light.
"Edward?" she breathed in the darkness, feeling his hands grip at her waist, bunching the material of her shirt – his shirt – and then sliding down to the bare skin of her thighs.
"Bella," he murmured, his lips against her throat. One of his hands trailed under her shirt, ghosting gently over the smooth skin of her belly, reaching up to cup her breast, rolling her hardened nipple in the center of his palm. She arched her back, pushing herself into his grasp, pressing her lips against his temple, desperate for his kiss.
His mouth met hers then, hard and desperate and compelling, and suddenly they were tumbling back on the mattress, Edward's hands fumbling with the buttons of her shirt, his knees falling between her parted thighs.
Somewhere in the back of Bella's mind, a tiny plaintive voice was shouting that everything was moving too fast, too soon, that there was too much left unsaid, but the burning want that raced through her blood, and Edward's mouth on her bare breast quickly silenced it.
He was everywhere, his lips, his touch, the smell of him, and her breath came in choking sobs as she strained her body against his. Her fingers plucked at his clothes, pushing his shirt over his head, letting her palms find the smooth skin of his chest, the flex and pull of his muscles, down his stomach to the waistband of his pants.
As her thumb brushed over his hipbone, Edward stilled, one of his hands reaching down to grasp hers.
His breath was coming as rapidly as hers, and the hand that held hers trembled. When he spoke, his voice was low and strained.
"Are you sure? We can't take this back, Bella."
Bella chuckled darkly, feeling Edward tense as her belly pressed against his.
"I've been out of take-backs since I met you, Edward Cullen." She rose on her elbows, pressing her breasts against his bare chest, letting her tongue trace his Adam's apple. "I want this. I want you."
Edward shivered, and tipped her back gently onto the mattress, his mouth next to her ear.
"I don't want just one night, Bella," he said intently. "I want every night."
The words washed over her skin, settling warm and low between her thighs, and the rasp of fabric that scraped against her yearning flesh was suddenly too much, the five years between them too long, with Edward burdened with the weight of a century in solitude, and then they were both pushing the material down, and she was grasping his hair and gritting her teeth and whispering, "Then show me. Show me," over and over again, while his hands, his lips, his tongue made every inch of her his.
And then he was above her, strong and fierce as his slender hips nestled between her thighs. His hands reached for hears, drawing them out of his hair and pinning them down on the bed up above her head, so that her whole body was drawn up taut and she could feel him, all of him, and she knew that he was as desperate and wanting as she.
"Bella – I can't – I don't think I can– " his voice was choked and gasping, and he was hard against her.
"I know," her voice throbbed with the beat of her heart. "Just be Edward. Just be."
"I love you," he murmured against her pulse. "God, how I love you." He kissed her, slowly, sweetly, though he trembled against her, his fingers weaving with hers above her head. He kissed her until she was dizzy, and aching against him, and she arched her back, lifting her hips, and his mouth was on hers and then Edward shifted, pressing himself into her with a groan.
It hurt. It hurt. Her body flinched, and she instinctively parted her legs, trying to get traction with her heels to escape the painful intrusion, but it only drew him deeper.
Edward buried his face in her neck with a deep guttural sound, and she felt his lips nip sharply at her skin.
"Be still," he hissed, and there was blood on the air, slick in between them, her blood spilt for him. For a moment they stilled, the air thick and charged with lust and death, their breasts heaving, their bodies all the length of them joined, and then he was moving against her, hard and strong, and Edward. She felt herself flush in spite of the pain, the heat of it spreading down to her breasts, and down low between her thighs, mingling with the ache, feeling Edward pressing, possessing, deep inside her, and Bella lifted her hips, taking him, bringing him home as only she could, again and again, until he shuddered against her with a muffled cry, his body going limp against hers.
Bella drew the blanket over them both, kissing Edward's hair with a wild tenderness, and rested her cheek against his shoulder. As the blank fog of exhaustion settled over her, she felt Edward shift onto his side, and draw her close, rubbing his nose behind her ear, his arms wrapping around her waist, cradling the thing they had created between them that night: hope. And she smiled at the thought, the word sweet on her lips, as sleep took her, and she slipped away into the dreamless night.
Yikes. That's all I can say. I feel like I had a knock down drag out fight with this one. And, um, I hope it worked. Let me know about that, yeah?
Thank you all so very much for all the enthusiasm and support you have shared with me over the life of this story. I've done my best to thank everyone where I can, and answer questions as they come, but if I've missed a few, I do sincerely apologize. I read each and every comment and take every one of them to heart. Thank you.
That being said, it's not quite over yet, folks. Remember Jake-dog and Dr. R? They still have a part to play in these shenanigans. See you all soon!