My mind reeled from Edward's revelation. I'd come up with many ideas, but never this one. His mom was sick, and though he hadn't specified with what, it was serious enough to make him come home from Paris to finish his degree online.

'She was admitted to hospital in early November, but I didn't hear right away.' His face was as miserable as I've ever seen it. 'I had to sort out a new cell plan, for Europe, and hadn't gotten around to it, so I was calling from payphones every few days. Except, at that point, I was busy getting accustomed to my class load, and left it over a week.'

'I'm so sorry,' I breathed.

'I've never told anyone that on the flight home, not knowing if she'd be alive at the other end, it hit me that I'd behaved like my father… Edward Senior. He left Port Angeles and never bothered with us again, and if Mom died, while I forgot to call home, I'd be just as bad.'

'You wouldn't,' I told him fervently. 'There's a huge difference between accidentally not being there for someone, and purposely neglecting them.'

He half-smiled. 'Thank you for defending me. And sorry, ma belle. I didn't want to have this conversation on your birthday, but you've got a ticket out of here in a week…'

'I'm not using it, Edward,' I assured him. 'Renee's turned over a new leaf, so the shit hole isn't unbearable any more.' He tried to interrupt, but I didn't let him. 'I'm glad you're confiding in me, though, because I felt so much better after telling you my… stuff, last week. Maybe talking about it will help you feel less guilty? Honestly Edward, it really doesn't sound like you have anything to be guilty about…'

He shrugged, looking unconvinced. 'Mom says that too. She was so angry I came back. She wants me to return to France, and Jasper to leave for college in the fall as planned.'

He rose suddenly and moved to perch on the end of his bed, his head lowered over his knees. It was a prayer stance, but his words were all for me. 'I'm so in love with you, Bella. You don't know how tempting it's been - invite ma belle to come live with me in the apartment in Paris… get jobs together for some coffee snob Carlisle-equivalent, travel whenever we can, exploring the whole of Europe side by side…' he lifted his head. 'Bella? You okay?'

I'd done an involuntary jerk at his words, then stood abruptly, all the blood draining from my head. I must have been as white as bleach, as I paced over. 'Would you… say that again.'

I didn't have to specify which part. He knew.

'I'm so in love with you, Bella.' There was no wavering in his voice. If he was concerned that I would throw it back in his face, he hid it well, as he planted his arms behind him slightly on the bed, and smiled up at me. 'So, so in love with you.'

I sat on his lap, facing him, propping my feet up on the bed either side of his hips, and kissed him. 'Say it again.'

'I love you,' he said, kissing me lightly. 'I love you,' he repeated, swiping his tongue across my lips.

I'd never been loved before. Never heard those words. And now I had, I couldn't get enough of them.

Lost in Edward's lips, it took a little while for me to recall that there was a response I needed to give.

'I love you too,' I said nervously. 'You know that, right?'

'Your reaction might have hinted at it,' Edward said, his mouth twitching.

We moved up the bed, each resting our head on one of his pillows as we faced each other, nose to nose.

'I don't know how long it will be until I'm not needed here,' Edward said quietly. 'Mom doesn't even have a diagnosis yet - we're hoping to hear it's something that can be cured, if she takes the right pill, or whatever. That's what I've been banking on, so I could leave with you.'

'But I'm not leaving yet,' I reassured him again. 'I'll wait until you can come.'

The vertical line between his eyes appeared. 'It could be a long time, Bella. The latest test results have excluded most of the less serious stuff, and she's facing more tests. There's a wide range of rare causes.' The line got deeper. 'And outcomes. Some of them are… are really bad.'

'I'll be here to help you face them,' I promised him. 'I'm not going anywhere in a hurry. Not now she says I can stay, and I have you to stay for.'

But it didn't cheer him up as I hoped. If anything, in fact, he looked even more worried. So I tried kissing the concern off his face.

As we became consumed with each other, somehow I was straddling him. His hands moved over my hips and up my back and then down my arms, as we kissed, before moving back to my hips and starting a new lap of my body. Well, of all the PG-13 parts of my body.

I was aching for more… and it wasn't grubby like Renee's perverts since he loved me… and the heat was up high…. I leaned back abruptly, released my hair from it's high ponytail and then pulled my shirt off, keeping my eyes on his.

My bra wasn't sexy, but maybe the cleavage it revealed would be alluring enough… His neck bobbed as he swallowed, and then he was scrambling to remove his shirt too.

If I'd spent plenty of time, over the prior dull week of TV, imagining Edward removing his clothes. I'd anticipated feeling nervous, embarrassed, maybe even intimidated. But the opposite happened; his pale, hard and mostly hairless chest somehow highlighted his vulnerability.

I ran my hands over him. His heartbeat was racing. I smiled reassuringly then raised his wrists, drawing his hands to my bra. It was black originally, but as my only well fitting one I hand rinsed it each night and left it to drip dry, and the colour was now faded. He really didn't seem to mind, running his forefingers along the edges, where the top seam met my skin, and groaning lightly. His eyes were fixed on mine as he tried pressing down lightly with the heel of his hand. I bit my lip and he grew bolder, stroking my nipples, covered only in thin cotton, between his thumbs and middle fingers.

'You feel amazing,' he said, and I murmured something nonsensical back, and bent down to kiss his jaw, his neck, his shoulder.

When I was gasping, he moved his hands to my butt. 'I want to make you feel good,' he breathed. 'Just… with my hands. Can I, Bella?'

I unzipped my pants but he didn't pull them off me, like I expected. Instead we rolled, until I was on my back and he was hovering over me, and then he lowered his hand, slipping it inside my loosened pants but over my underwear.

'Show me where it fells good for you…' he urged, and I slid my hand alongside his and pressed his index finger.

'Right there. Just… yeah…'

'Like this? Slower?'

'That's perfect… God…'

Coming to orgasm on the fingers of a boy was another thing that I'd thought would be embarrassing and intimidating. But when that boy was Edward, who whispered over and over that he loved me, I only felt adored.

He wouldn't let me return the favour.

'It's your birthday!' he said, outraged.

'What if I want to see…' I waved in the vicinity of the space between his hips. 'The thing as my present?'

He threw his head back and laughed. 'The Thing? Have you seen the movie? It's an extraterrestrial parasitic life form.'

'Well what do you call it?'

He screwed up his face, as if he were thinking deeply about it. 'It's a penis or a cock, I suppose, depending on degree of hardness, and right now-'

'I was sitting on your lap,' I interjected drily. 'I know it's hard.'

He was laughing again, and I marvelled at the fact that it was my making him so happy, even with everything he was worrying about with his mom.

Then my phone rang.