A/N: I'm moving house in a couple of weeks, and there seem to be all kinds of things that need to be done before then. So posting might have to be alternate days after all, at least for a couple of weeks.

(If I can hold myself back, that is. We all know how well that worked before.)

26.

The silence between us is broken by the occasional crash of thunder outside. Her breathing is still choppy, and I can see that she is holding back tears.

We both need a moment to regroup.

"Hey, your story isn't so bad. And you could do better than just study literature. You could create literature. 'The Adventures of a Failed Stripper'… it has quite a ring to it, don't you think? Hell, I can see the copies flying off the shelves!"

She chokes out a surprised laugh, and it might be the most beautiful sound I've heard all evening.

"Oh, I don't know," she replies, deadpan. "'My Night with a Stranger' is sounding better and better at the moment."

"Make sure you write about how amazing the handsome stranger was, and how he rescued you from the most dreadful storm you'd ever seen," I nod. "He sounds like quite a prize. I'm sure people would want to read your book just to know more about him. Maybe you could add a sketch of my… I mean his abs, as bonus content."

Her laughter is real, and I'm a little stunned at just how relieved that makes me. Why do I care so much? I've barely known her five hours and I'm trying to find out her deepest, most painful secrets, just so that I can rid her of the sorrow they clearly cause her.

She leans forward and pecks my cheek chastely, sweetly. It makes my heart beat just as fast as the kisses we'd shared earlier.

I smile and pull her closer in a hug. We're comfortable, her head on my shoulder, my arm around hers.

For a while, we just stay where we are, unwilling to move away. She's looking out of the window, a faraway look in her eyes. I'm looking at the rose I gave her, sitting by itself in a glass on the coffee table.

Bella's been prickly and skittish since she entered my garage this evening, but I'm beginning to understand what that's all about. I thought she was rude to me, but I can see now that she's harsher on herself. Her thorns point inwards, and I wish there was some way I could protect her from her own self.

We watch the rain batter against the window relentlessly, and I sigh. The raindrops dancing down the window pane create strange, grotesque outlines of what my overactive imagination readily imagines to be faces of men… men who used her, men who fed her insecurity, men who degraded her as though her very presence wasn't so much more than they would ever deserve.

But it's just water.

Our fingers intertwined, we watch the storm's impotent fury.