**Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the Twilight Saga depicted in this story are the legal property of Stephenie Meyer, Summit Entertainment, and Little, Brown & Company, and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended, and no profit is being made.

Chapter 7: Piano

"Hey."

I looked up. Bella was in the archway leading from the hall into the parlor, where I was sitting on the loveseat in the dark. We were both freshly showered from our trek through the rainy forest. Her hair had been blotted with a towel but was still wet. She was wearing some drawstring flannel shorts, thick woolly socks, and a soft-looking oatmeal colored sweatshirt that I first thought was oversized, and then realized was actually mine.

"Hey."

She padded over to the loveseat and climbed onto the cushion beside mine, facing me with her feet pulled up under her. "Feeling any better?"

"Not really." I propped my elbows on my knees and lowered my face into my hands. "Bella, I don't know what to say."

She sighed. Her fingers slipped into my damp hair and I heard her inhale a halting breath. "Edward, I understand that what we are dealing with has been really hard. But in this case, I want you to know that I absolutely do not need an apology. In fact, please don't say you are sorry for any of it."

Turning my head to look at her, I saw how open she looked, how soft her expression was.

"This last week," she began, and paused for a heavy swallow, "has been really hard for me. Because I started to figure it out—I had a theory, at least—about what was going on with my body. Why I couldn't seem to want sex at all." Her hand withdrew from my hair and she dropped her gaze. "Do you remember me telling you how the thought of you losing control and taking me hard was so hot only because I knew I would be safe?"

"Yes."

She spoke slowly, as though she was taking care to use precise words. "Well, I think that actually, it was all like that. Everything we did. That I wanted you so much because of how safe you've always made me feel. Even when I felt shy about getting naked for you, or asking you to make love to me, kiss me here, touch me there, confessing to you all those silly and perverted things I fantasized about…I was able to get past that shyness because nothing bad could happen to me. I was with you. You always handled my body and my feelings like they were the most precious things in the world. So, I could be myself, I could be vulnerable. I could jump, because you would catch me. And my body felt free in that environment of security and trust you created to just…want you. All the time, and so badly."

The floor was falling out from under me. The room was getting darker. I was realizing the depths to which I had jeopardized my relationship with Bella, everything I had worked to cherish and protect over the last three and a half years.

Bella picked at a ribbed cuff of the sweatshirt, eyes on her knees. "After our fight, I think…I wasn't feeling as safe. I was questioning all kinds of things about our relationship, especially how much you really wanted me. Sexually. Obviously, I didn't question your love—what other reason could you have for putting up with me pawing at you all the time? I knew you must want me at least sometimes, but looking back over our sex life, it was disconcerting—because I couldn't tell when for sure. You always seemed to want to when we…. I could think of a few instances where you seemed reluctant or begrudging at first, but," her shrug was so defeated, "I realized I legitimately couldn't tell if you changed your mind because I seduced you, or if you were just going through the motions out of obligation to me. Or if there were even times you rolled up your sleeves and put on a smile from the beginning without tipping me off at all, like taking me to bed was the vacuuming or grocery shopping or any other chore to keep our household running. Trying to sort through when sex was real and when it was just you acting out of duty…it freaked me out," she confessed.

Watching her face as she laid out her thought process broke my heart. My one little comment had hurt her so deeply, more deeply than I thought. Words failed me.

"You explained and apologized, and that helped. I believed you—at least, I believed that you were sorry." Her voice had somehow gotten even quieter. "But even with you on top of me and rock hard and tearing my clothes off, there was this little whisper of fear, this horrible little voice. What if you were only doing what you thought I wanted? You could make yourself hard for me at will—I've seen you do it—and if I was hurting and you wanted to comfort me, I know you'd do anything, anything, to take my pain away. Even pity sex. And once the thought popped into my head, I couldn't make it go away. I was so scared. I've never felt that way before—not with you."

Without thinking, without considering whether it was appropriate, I was crowded over on the other side of the loveseat with her, pulling her onto my lap, holding her tight to me.

I scrambled, trying to find the right words, but Bella's hand came up to gently cover my mouth. "I need to get this out, Edward. Please." But she was gripping my body as tightly as I was gripping hers. "The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that my theory was right, that a key component of my sex drive was how safe I felt. I knew I was going to have to tell you eventually, and I dreaded that. Because, however much you to used to get frustrated at me insisting I felt perfectly safe with you, I knew that if I ever actually felt anything less, you would be devastated."

Her head was tucked under my chin, with one of my arms wrapped around her stomach, and the other cradling her jaw against my chest. She gripped my wrist, holding me in place. She was right, of course; Bella feeling unsafe to express her feelings, her sexuality, with me was a failure on the most basic level—my failure as a husband, as a man. It felt disastrous in the worst way, and overwhelming, because how could such damage ever be repaired?

"I didn't know how we could fix it. If we even could. What if our relationship was just permanently different now?" She echoed my fears. "But that's why I don't want you to take back what you did in the forest earlier. Because I'm not worried so much anymore." Bella kissed my palm. "I have never seen you like that—that wild, desperate look in your eyes. Your hands were so rough—you've never pinched my nipples that hard before. And the sexual things you said? They meant the world to me, because they were clearly true, and it was the most detail you have ever given me out loud about what you like in bed." She nuzzled my neck. "You saying those things to me in that growly voice? It was…so hot, for a second I thought I was having an out of body experience. It made me so horny."

I was nonplussed. "It did?"

She nodded against my chest. "There I was, terrified my sex drive was dead forever, and you brought me back to life. I…have never felt so wanted, so desired by you. Sure, you told me you were missing sex, too. And intellectually, I knew my fears that you didn't want me were ridiculous—obviously you did. But it wasn't until you were babbling all those dirty things at me that I fully believed it. You really do lust after me, Edward, don't you?"

"Yes," I said, my voice hoarse with emotion. "Like crazy."

She sighed. "Good. Then, maybe we'll be okay."

"So…your sex drive…it's back?" I wanted to make sure I understood.

Bella chuckled humorlessly. "No, I don't think so. At least, not completely." She lifted her head out from under my chin and shifted on my lap so that she could meet my eyes. "I think that will take a little time. I don't know how to make that little whisper of fear go away. But I know now that my body can still feel desire, that I can still feel safe and wanted enough with you that I will want sex again, and it's…such a relief."

She tenderly kissed my cheekbone. I closed my eyes and leaned into the touch of her lips.

Naturally, I was glad that she felt better, that my embarrassing and lewd ramblings had been helpful, but I also suspected that she was right—I had planted a nasty little voice in her head that would probably never be completely quiet. I would never forgive myself for that.

Something of my despair must have been visible on my face, because Bella stroked the side of my face. "We're going to be okay, Edward. That's what I realized. Even if it takes a while to build that sense of trust and safety back up again. I know we can do it."

I forced a smile.

Bella's encouraging nod was confident. "Remember where you found me today?" I did, and it did not make me feel better. My fragile human Bella alone and curled in a ball on the cold forest floor was not something I liked to think about. "I've been going to that spot because things were starting to feel hopeless, honestly. I ran into Sam a few weeks ago while I was hunting and he pointed it out—I hadn't remembered where it was. I was too out of it at the time. I didn't mean for it to become a place for me to hide out, but it sort of did." She was saying all of this entirely too casually for how awful it was. "But I'm glad, because it reminded me that what we're going through right now isn't so bad."

"It isn't, is it?" I asked acerbically.

"You left me, Edward." Her words were a gut punch. "On a scale of one to ripping my heart out and throwing it in the garbage, which do you think hurt more: you telling me you never really loved me and walking out of my life, or you saying that sex with me is sometimes a chore because I'm too needy? Which do you think made me feel less safe emotionally?" Her gentle hand on the side on my face kept me from pulling away. "But we came back from that. Somehow we did. And if we can come back from that, we can come back from this."

I couldn't fault her logic, but it couldn't be that simple, and something about the comparison didn't sit right with me. "Wait. Bella, you don't still worry that I'll leave, do you?"

Her shoulders pulsed upward. "Every once in a while—but hardly ever compared to the way I worried at first, and now I am able to quash those fears pretty easily when they do creep up. I mean, you turned me, you made me your wife. We have a daughter. It's hard to picture you leaving me for any reason now, even if you thought it was for the best." She squeezed my hand. "And that's my point. We came through that, so we can handle this. We can improve our communication. I can…scale back."

Her earlier words were pulling at me, needling for a proper response. I repositioned our hands so that rather than her holding mine, I was holding hers. "Bella," I began before brushing my lips against hers. "It was all real. All the sex we've ever had was real. Every single time was an act of love, an act of pleasure. Maybe I didn't always appreciate that properly. Maybe sometimes I did think of sex as something I was doing to make you happy. But I've had a lot of time to reflect over the last month, to truly come to terms with my own sexual needs and how empty my life is without you with me in that bed. I was kidding myself if I ever thought that sex was more important to you than it is to me, and it was cruel of me to ever let you worry about that. This last month, I would have given my right arm for even the most routine quickie with you. I was crawling out of my skin with how badly I needed your touch." I brought her knuckles to my lips. "It was all real, and I will never take your desire for me for granted again."

Bella's breathing was quick and shallow, her eyes wide. "Oh…Edward." She moaned and collapsed into me, her face in my neck. "You did it again."

"I wasn't trying to turn you on," I said with dismay. It was a thrilling moment, especially given our sex drought, but my intention had been to soothe hurt, allay worries.

She laughed, and my God, it was the world's most beautiful sound. "I know. I know you're just trying to assure me that sex isn't a chore for you. It's working—you're very convincing." She lifted her head off my shoulder and peeked at my face. "Especially when you keep looking at me with those hot eyes."

I was looking at her with 'hot eyes'? Since when?

Bella straightened with a groan and chuckle. She kissed my lips. "Seriously, Edward, some night soon, I am going drag you to bed and have you say everything you said to me in the forest again. I might have to add your dirty talk to my fantasies, because Jesus, you're good at it. When you started telling me everything you missed, and then everything you were about to do to me." She shivered. Then her gaze turned more serious. "And when you put your mouth on my neck, and I felt your teeth…. That may have been the single hottest moment of my entire life. When you pressed down, just short of breaking my skin…for a second, I thought I was having an orgasm."

My grave mood had returned. Everything I had been thinking about alone in the dark before Bella walked in came rushing back to me.

"That look on your face right now?" she said. "It's the reason I stopped you. I knew we hadn't sorted through your baggage yet, and I wouldn't be able to bear it if you did something like that with me and wound up regretting it." She pressed a tender kiss into my brow and sighed. "Though, for what it's worth, judging from the way we each reacted, I don't think actual biting is needed from the kink perspective. Pretty sure you could just press your teeth into my skin and we would both get off just fine."

I thought back to that moment in the forest, each and every millisecond of it accessible in a visceral way that transcended mere memory, felt my pants stir in spite of my disgust, and knew that she was absolutely right.

"Look, Edward, I think we should make a distinction here. On the one hand, we have mating bites and the ritual of commitment they represent, and on the other we have a strong sexual response to the idea of you biting my neck. I think, despite their overlap, they should probably be two different conversations." She bit her lip. "Do you agree?"

For me, I didn't know if they separated so easily, but I nodded slowly. I could see her logic.

"Bella, whatever physiological response I have to the idea of biting you neck, it doesn't change the way it makes me feel. Psychologically."

She nodded. Her expression was open, understanding. "You feel repulsed. Not so much by the act, but by yourself." She stroked the hair on the back of my head. "I saw that very clearly today."

A bit of the tightness in my chest released. She knew me very well, and she was taking my feelings seriously. "Not only that, I worry about indulging…that part of myself. That it could be dangerous down the line to feed him."

Her brows knit. "Him?"

"My monster. The part of me…the part of me that is the vampire, I guess. Sometimes it's easier to separate it out and think of him as someone I am fighting against to keep the humans around me safe. Especially you, before you changed," I explained. "I know he and I aren't really separate, but sometimes it's easier to live with myself if I pretend."

I knew I had chosen my words poorly when I saw the look on her face.

"I didn't mean it quite like that." I tried to backpedal.

Bella didn't buy it. "Yes, you did." Emotion in her eyes swelled and then she acted, pressing the most reverential of kisses on my nose, my cheeks, forehead, chin, eyelids. They weren't hungry, like when she peppered my face with kisses when she was turned on, or exuberant like when she was thankful or celebratory. These were somber and slow, full of pain and love.

"Bella, it's okay," I murmured.

She stopped kissing me, which wasn't what I intended. The expression on her face was so distinct and familiar from her human days, I had to touch her cheek to reassure myself there were no tears. Nevertheless, she was crying, whether she physically could or not. "I'm allowed to be sad that the best person I know hates himself and thinks he's not good enough." An uncompromising glint in her eye, Bella said, "Edward, I love all of you. All of you, do you hear me? Even your monster."

And this was the crux of the issue, wasn't it? What was eating me up inside? "And you're attracted to him, too."

She blinked. "I don't make that distinction. You're you. But if you're asking am I now and was I then, when I was a human, sexually attracted to you as a vampire, and all that entails? The answer is yes."

It was one thing to know, to have pieced it together for myself from all the giant, obvious clues, and another to hear it directly from Bella's lips. I nodded in acceptance and told myself nothing had changed. I lifted her off my lap and slid back to my side of the loveseat.

"You can't be surprised by that?" Bella said incredulously as she watched me rub my face.

"No," I answered, dejected. "I'm not surprised. I knew. I've known for a long time." I rose to my feet and stepped over to the window. Sunset was approaching behind the dark rainclouds. "But that doesn't mean I understand, or that the thought doesn't make me uncomfortable."

It was silent in the room for a moment. I watched the drizzling rain rolling down the climbing roses on the other side of the glass.

"The first time I realized you were more than you seemed," Bella's voice came from behind, "it was because you saved my life. Would a human boy have realized what was happening in time? Been fast enough to get between me and that van? Strong enough to lift it away from me?" I looked back at her. She arched her brows and continued. "Would a human boyfriend have been able to find me in time to stop those men in Port Angeles? Would he have been able to intimidate them into running away? Or hunt and kill the tracker that took a liking to me? Rip its mate's head off to defend my life? Because I am pretty sure that all that stuff could only be done by a vampire boyfriend."

I closed my eyes. "Bella…."

Her tone was slightly defiant. "Yeah, that guy? He's hot. Sometimes he snarls, literally, and it always makes my panties just a little wet. He can be scary, but so can the world we have to live in, and I have only ever been scared for him, never of him. He's decent and strong. My life it better because he's in it, and I feel safer looking toward the future because he's beside me."

She was doing it again, romanticizing the ugliest parts of me.

I whirled on her. "And you want him to bite your neck. Take you hard, make you sore on purpose. Pinch your nipples until they hurt. Pin your wrists, pull your hair." I had been taking notes from her requests and responses; the picture was as clear as it was disturbing.

But Bella was disconcertingly unruffled. "Yes."

I crossed the room, further away from her, and sat on the piano bench with a heavy heart. It was with some relief that I heard thoughts approaching and realized we wouldn't be alone much longer.

Bella scooted to the edge of her seat cushion and leaned forward. "I'm not going to keep my desires a secret from you anymore, but want doesn't mean expect. I'm done pushing your boundaries, and you should give yourself a break, too. It's obvious that we need to back off here. You're hurting. I know this goes against everything you are, but Edward, just because I want something doesn't mean you have to give it to me."

I met her eyes and nodded stiffly, without conviction. "Let's leave this for now. Renesmee is home."

Her ears perked up, and I could see the moment when she heard the approach.

The kitchen side door opened about fifty seconds later. "Knock, knock," Charlie called into the cottage. "Bells?"

"Hey, Dad!" She rose, but made a detour on her way to the kitchen doorway to kiss me. "I love you," she whispered.

The cheerful voices and thoughts of Charlie, Sue, and Renesmee were crowding our little kitchen, recounting the day of adventure had by all riding the ferry and eating pizza. I knew good manners demanded that I join Bella in the kitchen, but my mood was black and I didn't know if I could muster smiles and small talk. Instead, I found myself fiddling with the piano keys.

It had been weeks since I had felt their familiar texture and pressure under my fingers. I let loose a breath and surrendered to the comfort. I rotated on the bench to fully face the keys and began to play. It was almost thirty seconds before I realized I was playing Bella's lullaby. I changed direction immediately, my fingers trilling out gibberish and snippets, waiting for something to catch. In my head, I ran through dozens of favorite pieces. Schubert, Debussy, maybe Chopin? A nocturne? The idea appealed at the moment—I even chose one. But my left hand was playing with some dark chords and they were snagging in my brain in that particular way that meant they might become a song. I wouldn't know for sure until spent some time spinning them out.

"Daddy?"

I must have been more engrossed in what I was doing than I realized to have not heard Renesmee approach. Her expression was troubled. Those large chocolate-colored eyes that I used to see in her mother's human face knocked me to the floor every time, but especially when she was worried. Any greeting I may have managed was stunted. Her thoughts were plain: she could see I was unhappy and she didn't like me playing sad music.

With a grim smile, I shifted to one side of the bench. "C'mere Ness."

She climbed up beside me at the piano, the sound of conversation over in the kitchen still filtering through the air. I kissed the top of her head, and reached for the keys again. Schubert it was, then.

I began one of our favorite four-handed pieces to play together, Fantasia in F Minor, and she joined immediately, flashing a grin up at me. We played like that for several minutes before the chatter wound down. Charlie and Sue poked their heads in to say goodbye and headed home. After the door closed, I heard Bella's footsteps approach and stop in the doorway. She watched us play the rest of the piece, and then moved to a nearby wingback chair when Renesmee launched us into Fauré's Dolly Suite.

After that, we all watched a movie together and Bella made Nessie some dinner. While we were getting our daughter settled in for bedtime, I pulled Bella aside. "After she goes down, I'd like to head up to the big house."

Bella hadn't been expecting that. "Oh. Okay."

Part of me felt bad. I knew that Bella was excited to have rediscovered her sex drive and could tell from the way she had been looking at me that she likely intended to invite me to bed tonight. I had deliberately given no indication I had noticed. I was still feeling unsettled and uncomfortable from our conversation earlier, not in the frame of mind for sex, but the last thing in the world our marriage needed right now was for Bella to feel rejected.

Besides, "I think I may have a song," I explained. "I haven't written one in a while, and I want to see if there's something there. But I don't want to keep Nessie up all night by playing the piano."

Bella's expression cleared a little. "Oh, that's exciting. Of course, go compose. I'll hold down the fort here."

I kissed her in thanks, and after Renesmee was asleep, I departed, walking through the trees and up the hill to the main house.

Alice was nowhere to be seen, but I deduced from the thoughts I could hear that she had informed everyone I was coming and my family had cleared a quiet environment for me. Emmett and Rosalie seemed to be out of the house entirely, and Carlisle was working a night shift at the hospital.

Esme greeted me, but forced herself to give me space. She was happy, not just that I was composing but that I was playing in her home at all—she had missed that since Bella and I had moved out. She was concerned for me, but considered my renewed interest in music to be a good sign.

Feeling weirdly catered to, I sat at the piano and began fiddling with those dark chords that occupied my mind. It began as slow going; they wouldn't adhere properly to each other, string together or reveal what should be between them, and I started to become frustrated and discouraged. But then an inspiration hit me and I added the melody of Bella's lullaby as a motif. Everything started rolling together after that, and I realized what story I was trying to tell. The human girl sleeping in her bed had been carried back to the underworld after all. The monster had taken her and she could never go home again. Persephone and Hades—only my Bella had gone willingly rather than being kidnapped, and maybe that was part of the tragedy. A sweet girl in love with a monster, who eagerly follows him into the darkness, choosing to become like him rather than be parted from him.

I knew the source of my black mood, of my reluctance to reenter the bedroom with Bella after weeks of wanting nothing else. Those things that Bella said I didn't need to give her, that we should back off from? I knew that we would do them. Not tonight, but soon. And we wouldn't do them because I felt obligated or was trying to please her. We would do them because I was desperate to.

I didn't want to want those things, but I couldn't see how I could continue to fight against the desire. It would be one thing if Bella was repulsed; then it would be straightforward, simple. But knowing that was not the case was systematically dismantling the fortress I had built to keep that part of myself contained. It was absurd—I had spent years doing everything in my power to keep my monster away from Bella, and all along she had been dying for him to touch her.

It seemed wrong, in a fundamental way. Objectively and totally wrong for my monster to want her, for her to want my monster, and yet, Bella seemed utterly unbothered. There was no dissonance or conflict inside her. Perhaps that went back to how, for her, the dark in me was fully integrated with the rest. You're you. If she saw the monster when she looked at me, had always seen him, then whatever peace she would have had to make with loving and wanting him would have been resolved years ago.

I was behind her, lagging. Still struggling to accept.

"This song just keeps getting darker."

My fingers paused on the keys and I looked up at Jasper, sitting the second stair from the bottom watching me. He had been there for a while, but I had ignored him. It wasn't uncommon for members of my family to watch me compose. Granted, usually not Jasper, but I hadn't thought much of it. Now that I was paying attention to him properly, I became aware that there was purpose to his presence.

"Alice sent you."

He nodded. "She seemed confident."

I could see the inciting memory.

Alice had paced, talking with her hands. "He needs someone to talk to, but not just anyone. Carlisle and Emmett weren't any help at all. Emmett made it worse!"

"And you think I can do better?" Jasper was unsure.

"I know it," she responded confidently. "I have run through all of the possibilities for the best outcomes. We need to time it right, but it has to be you, because you're the only one of us who understands."

And then she had broken one of our unspoken rules of privacy and told Jasper everything she knew about what Bella and I were going through, all the things she would normally pretend she didn't know, because, "Edward won't tell you everything if you ask. He'll edit, leave important things out. And you need to know all of it if you are going to help."

I suppose that would have been a fair assumption to make, but even so, Alice wasn't making an assumption—she was going off of visions. While she didn't know everything that had happened between Bella and me, she knew enough, and certainly more than I would have volunteered if asked. I could have been angry that Alice had broken our code, but mostly I was just alarmed. I trusted her and knew that she would never do such a thing without a damn good reason. Whatever was happening in her visions must be dire for her to put her thumb on the scale like this.

My hands fell from the keys. "Okay," I submitted. "What do we need to do?"

Jasper grinned, mostly to reassure me. "Apparently, we play pool." He rose and motioned for me to follow him.

Downstairs, Jasper and Emmett had recently designed a sound proof (to human ears) games room, with Esme's architectural expertise as a resource. They had wanted a place where they could get rowdy without alerting passers-by—nothing as loud as baseball, but shenanigans that would definitely draw attention. A side effect was a room where quiet conversation didn't carry to the rest of the house, even with the keenest of vampire hearing. Esme and Alice would be able to hear the muffled bangs of the game, but as long as Jasper and I didn't start shouting at one another, our conversation would be private.

I walked with Jasper into the room and he hit the lights. The centerpiece was Emmett's pride and joy—a pool table with balls and cues that could withstand vampire strength. The thing had taken years of prototypes and redesigns. It was one of a kind, and the only real attraction for the room at the moment, but I knew my brothers were hoping to add more games in time.

Jasper closed the reinforced door behind us and it sealed shut. He lifted two cues from the rack beside the door and handed me one of them. "Take me through it," he said.

I shifted anxiously. "I thought Alice already told you."

"She did," he said as he readied the game. I realized he was avoiding eye contact to minimize my discomfort, make me feel less on the spot. "But hearing you describe the situation in your own words will help me understand what the problem really is, especially your emotions as you go."

That explained why he had reached out with his gift to make the room feel more relaxed, but not overly so. He needed me talkative but didn't want my emotions to be blunted.

Fair enough. In a halting voice, I summarized our fight and the events that had taken place since chronologically. I hesitated over Bella's desire for mating bites, overly aware of Jasper's personal experience, but kept going. I included more detail than I would have normally, because the person I was speaking to already knew most of what I was telling him anyway, but it still felt awkward and embarrassing to say these things out loud. Compared to the rest of my family, I was, to use Alice's word, a prude. I had never talked openly with my brothers about sex.

"It bothers me," I admitted, "that Bella is attracted, sexually, to the worst parts of me. When she talks about what she sees, it mostly comes off like she's romanticizing a predator. Is it that she doesn't understand? Or that she still, even after becoming a vampire and experiencing the thirst for herself, doesn't take the fact that I wanted to kill her seriously? Or…is it that she isn't who I thought she was, and she's actually attracted to…to evil?"

When I finally looked up, Jasper was watching me shrewdly. Okay, he was thinking, I get it now. Why Alice said it had to be me. "I can see why you didn't get very far with Carlisle and Emmett." He bent over the table and fired the cue ball into the triangle of waiting solids and stripes. With an ear-splitting crack, the balls scattered, ricocheting off the sides of the table and rolling to eventual resting places. The number four ball dropped into a side pocket.

"Carlisle's a saint," I said bitterly.

"And Emmett isn't worried about good and evil." Jasper's smile was sardonic.

I shook my head and grinned weakly. "His only takeaway was that mating bites were 'hot' and he told me that I should just ignore whatever misgivings I had and do anything Bella wanted."

Jasper inclined his head. "And that wouldn't be bad advice, if you and Bella were Emmett and Rosalie. That way of dealing with friction works for them because Emmett doesn't really have boundaries or hangups. He doesn't let himself get bogged down by metaphysical questions. So, no matter what Rose wants, Emmett is never compromising something that actually matters to him when he caters to her. For the rest of us, it's not so straightforward." He considered the table in front of him and chose a target, crossing to the far side and lining up his shot. "Em can't really relate to a worldview as buttoned up as yours."

I bristled.

Jasper responded to my emotions, and he didn't give an inch. "You are buttoned up, Edward. You must know that, and you must know that's part of the problem here." He took his shot and the number six ball slammed into the pocket. Afterward, he straightened and pinned me with his gaze. "Some of this is you being uptight and judging Bella for wanting something you've deemed is outside of what's proper."

Yes, I was old-fashioned and squeamish about a lot of sexual things, but I chafed at his assessment. My jaw tightened. "And the rest?"

The expression on his face shifted and he grumbled, "The rest, I get." He triangulated the best shot for the number two ball. "You're a big nasty, a creature that goes bump in the night. You're part of what makes the world ugly and dangerous—and it's not just your rotten nature, what you are. It's also what you do. You've done some unforgivable shit, deeds that would haunt your nightmares if you could sleep. And then, into your life walks a beacon, everything you want and don't deserve, and she says she loves you—which doesn't check out, because who could love you? But she means it, somehow, and what do you even do with that? Doesn't she see the blood on your hands, the pile of corpses behind you? Doesn't she appreciate that if you had met in another time and another place, she would be one of those corpses? That shit messes with your head—how can it not mess with hers?" The number two ball rolled into a side pocket. "So, you can't relax. What's wrong with you that you can't just be happy? What's wrong with her that she wants you?" Jasper sighed, and looked up at me. "Sound familiar?"

Very.

He shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you, man. It doesn't go away. You just get better at living with it."

"How?"

"Time, mostly," he admitted. "It passes. You stay with her, because you can't not, and you adapt like you would to any other constant state. You get better at not thinking about it, and she makes you feel good, happy even sometimes. So, there are periods of time you even forget completely."

"That's all?"

Jasper leaned on his cue. "Well, I can tell you to probably stop worrying about her so much. Bella's not in love with evil any more than Alice is. It took me a while to sort through it, but eventually I just had to accept that Alice and I saw a different person when looking at me. It's like you said before—she's just romanticizing. It's not because she's naive or not listening to you, it's that she has a different context. She can understand up here," he tapped his head, "that you're theoretically a danger to her, but if she's only ever been exposed to that side of you when you were protecting her, it's not going to register on a gut level. If she's anything like Alice, she may even find it comforting. When I get in a deadly mood, the scarier I get, the calmer Alice becomes. It took me a while to realize it's because she associates me being violent with her being protected. Fuckin' bananas, man. But what are you gonna do?"

I winced. "That might account for Bella being drawn to the dark parts of me in general, but I don't think it explains why she's so turned on by the thought of me biting her."

"Doesn't it?" he raised a brow. "She understands how deadly that urge was. Trust me, she does. That it was a direct threat by you, to her. But that's all theoretical danger as far as she's concerned. Think about her actual personal experience. Didn't you say she rhapsodized on and on about you drinking her blood and how it was this grand gesture of love? And how it also felt taboo because of all that symbolic crap about you being the sexy vampire and her being the corrupted maiden? That's a double-whammy: romantic and naughty at the same time. No wonder she swoons at the thought." He smirked at the look on my face. "Look, Edward, it's sex. You have to disconnect your logic, because desire doesn't run on that hullabaloo. Desire is emotion and free association, and sometimes it takes baggage you have about things that were actually traumatic and terrifying in real life and lets you play with them in a place that's safe. Maybe for Bella that's being in your power, physically. Being your prey."

Jasper closed the gap to where I was leaning against the wall and placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "You can stress about this until the cows come home, but I wouldn't. Bella was a human girl who fell in love with a vampire, and she picked up a few kinks while she processed all those implications. Sure, I'm no expert, but it makes sense to me. Your girl…is probably pretty normal."

He walked away, around the table and lined up his next shot. "That goes for you, too. You're not the only vampire to make an association between the pleasure of drinking and the pleasure of sex. You're not even the only vampire in this room. And the girl you fell in love with was not only human, but her blood, what was it the Volturi said? Sang for you?" He shook his head. "I mean, goddamn. It would have been more surprising if you didn't develop a fetish, to be honest."

I wasn't sure if I accepted his premise, but what he was saying was helping. At least, right now it was. I would probably have to sit with it a while to figure out how I really felt. His words seemed too comforting to be completely true.

He sank the number three ball into a corner pocket and it occurred to me that I might not get a turn to shoot. It wouldn't be Jasper's first break and run. I didn't really mind; pool wasn't really my thing, and we weren't really here for the game anyway.

"Of course," he said as he leaned over the table again, this time across from me, "I know you have to consider the source here." Yet again, he made his shot. He spread his palms. "I imagine hearing from me that your sex isn't that weird is the kind of thing that has to be taken with a grain of salt."

Jasper and Alice's sex life was one of those things that we all pretended I didn't know anything about, so it was jarring for him to reference it directly. It was true that things they regularly did in bed made not just Bella and me look tame by comparison, but also everyone else in the family and most of the general population of Forks to boot. What they did behind closed doors was…not my taste, to put it as diplomatically as possible, but as they were both happy and it seemed to work for them, it was none of my business either.

"Suffice to say, whatever you're worried about your 'monster' bringing into the bedroom, I can guarantee my monster has dragged something worse into mine. Not sure if that makes me more qualified to offer my advice or less, but it is what it is." Jasper shrugged. "I hope I helped some."

I cleared my throat and straightened from where I was slouched. "You did—you are." I tried to smile. "And Bella and I have been talking about how to move forward with…what I said, and how it makes her worry."

He grimaced. "Yeah, that's hard. When it's your bullshit, you can just work on it, but when problem is inside her, and you were the one who planted it there…well, there's a lot less you can do."

"But it'll get better, right?"

Jasper chalked his cue and eyed me charily. "Before I met Alice, I got around. As a human and as a vampire. Maria had no qualms about me doing whatever the hell with whomever the hell, so long as I stayed by her side. She had more than her fair share, too—ran the house like a goddamn Roman forum."

We had never actually talked about this part of Jasper's past, but I had seen glimpses of it in his thoughts before. It had boggled my mind at first because it hadn't occurred to me that group sex was something real people in real life did. I had been certain orgies were just a boogeyman that only preachers who railed from the pulpit about Sodom and Gomorrah really believed in. Meeting Jasper had been…eye-opening in that regard.

"The point is, I came to Alice, shall we say, experienced. Once, I was talking with Peter—don't even know how we got on the subject—but I mentioned, laughing, like an absolute ass, because we were laughing in general, that Alice had the smallest tits of any woman I had ever been with, and she overheard."

I winced on Alice's behalf, and Jasper nodded.

"Mind you, not that they were in any way disappointing or lackluster, because they're not. So we're clear, Alice's tits are gorgeous and I wouldn't change a damn thing about them. Just that they were the smallest. That was fifty-six years ago and I still catch her feeling self-conscious about her chest. I did that. And there's no putting shit back in the horse. It doesn't matter what I say or do, it'll crop back up—because we don't forget anything. Sometimes she believes me when I reassure her and she feels better, sometimes she doesn't and tells me to pound dirt, but we always circle back eventually."

I groaned, seeing where he was going with this. It didn't help that, as he talked, his memories of Alice's years of anxiety about this were flashing through his head and mine.

Growling, Jasper rubbed his face. "And that's because you don't know how something's gonna hit. If it's a place she was insecure already, and the context of the stupid thing you said gave her reason to believe that those are your deep-down real and true feelings, it'll leave a mark. There's no easy fix. She'll never fully believe you didn't mean it. Yeah, sometimes it'll get better, but you can't take that for granted. It's an open wound, period, and you will always need to treat that subject with care, no matter how much time passes."

Swallowing, I nodded. "Understood."

"It's not all bad," he flashed a half-grin that was meant to be encouraging. "If anything, the fact that Alice and I are okay should give you a boost in confidence. Whatever you are, I'm worse. Whatever you've done, I can top it. If I can hold onto Alice, keep her safe, fulfilled, and mostly happy, then that bodes well for you and Bella, doesn't it?"

I laughed humorlessly. "I suppose it does."

"So," he said slyly, pivoting for his next shot, "I guess that just leaves whether or not you and Bella are going to mark each other with bites?"

I studied him. "You're not going to warn me not to?" I had expected a screed, or for the subject to be touchy for him at least.

Jasper shook his head. "Nah. Don't get me wrong—the ship sailed on me seeing any kind of romance in it a long time ago." He hooked a finger in the collar of his t-shirt and pulled to reveal the bite Maria had left. It caught the overhead light, cleaner than the dozens of half-moons up and down his visible forearms. "Mine's basically a cattle brand. And I've been bitten too many times by too many vampires not to take the pain level seriously. I can't see finding pleasure in that." He paused, Bella's face flashing in his mind. "Of course, that's just me. Some people like a little pain with their pleasure."

I looked away. It seemed that Jasper had picked up on something I had also come to suspect: that Bella had a bit of a masochistic streak she was downplaying, most likely for my benefit.

"But Bella's right," he continued. "What matters most is how you two see it. Not me, or anyone else." He couldn't help the thought that, Carlisle won't like it.

I was well aware, and it was weighing on me. "You're right, he won't."

"Sure, but you're married to Bella, not him," Jasper reminded me. "His opinion on this doesn't matter. At all. You wanna bite your girl like a feral nomad so that every vampire in the wide world knows damn well that she's yours, you go ahead and do it."

"What if I don't?" I said defiantly.

Jasper's smirk was knowing. "You know you can't pull that with me. You feel anxious, conflicted, a little queasy. But all that's because you want to, not because you don't. Behind all those civilized manners and high-minded ideals, underneath the chinos and wingtip shoes, there's a little caveman in you yet."

It was unpleasant, being so transparent.

"And then there's the other side of it," he said as he finally lined up his shot. "We've mostly been talking about you biting her because of the, uh, fixation you and Bella seem to have. But in a mating, she bites you too, and, who knows, maybe you'll like it. You've certainly been a glutton for punishment in your day, enjoyed yourself a few good torments and woes—maybe that translates and maybe that doesn't. Physical pain as an expression of your love of Bella?" He inclined his head, and snapped his elbow forward for the shot, the crack of the cue ball rending the air. "You might be into that. It is a particular feeling, having a woman's bite on you. The mark is as distinctive as a fingerprint, and when you see it, you see her, on your skin. Not to get sentimental on you, but generally I don't much like looking at myself in the mirror, and I have wondered if perhaps I would feel different if it was Alice I saw here," he placed his hand over Maria's bite. "I don't know. Something to think about."

As it transpired, Jasper did miss a shot, so I got a turn, but he beat me handily regardless. Afterward, Jasper went up to Alice, and I returned to the piano to work on my song.

I felt calmer in my skin after talking with my brother, and that translated to the song. The broad strokes of the story were still the same, but there seemed to be more acceptance, less desperation, in the movements. The girl was where she wanted to be, in the underworld with the monster she so loved. Nothing could be done.

Esme came to watch around three and stayed until dawn, when Carlisle pulled up. I walked down to the cottage and found Bella curled up on our loveseat in the same clothes as when I left, hair dry, and reading.

I knelt beside her on the floor and kissed her when she greeted me, then kept kissing and kissing her until Renesmee woke an hour later. The truth was, I missed Bella and I was tired. Tired of anything but being with her. It was draining, trying to protect her from all the darkness in me, and she didn't even want that. I gave up. If Bella wanted my monster, she could have him.

After we saw Renesmee off for her school lessons with Aunt Rosalie, I took Bella by the hand and led her to the piano in our parlor. Morning light from the window shown on us while we sat together on the bench, and I played her the new song. Her expression was startled when she heard her lullaby integrated, and her brows drew together as the song turned dark. It didn't stay dark—there were points of hopefulness, but then the story spun toward resignation and finality. By the end, Bella was resting her head on my shoulder.

When the final note had finished reverberating and faded completely from the air, Bella asked, "What's it called?"

"Persephone and Hades."

For a moment she didn't respond. "So, you'd be Hades, then?" There was a hint of amusement in her voice.

I took her hands in mine. "It's not a joke. You wanted it and I wanted it, but I did what I did, and it's permanent."

She took her time with that. "I like your underworld."

"I know," I answered. The thought still caused me pain. "Bella? Can I ask you a question?"

She lifted her head from my shoulder and met my eyes. "Of course."

I floundered for a moment, feeling foolish for caring, but I needed to know. "Didn't you ever wish…that I could be human, at all?"

Her eyes immediately softened in that way that tipped her hand. She was concerned her answer would hurt my feelings. "No," she admitted. "I have always loved you as you are."

"But wouldn't things have been so much simpler, so much better, if we were human?"

Bella sighed. "Perhaps. But I don't think that way—too practical maybe, to wish like that. You came to me as a vampire, so that was how I took you. The fact that I got to have you at all seemed like more than I had dared hope for myself. What would have been the point of what ifs, especially such impossible ones?"

I nodded. Her answer saddened me, but it wasn't surprising, not at this point. "And you like the vampire in me? You want him? Even…love him?"

"You," she corrected. "And yes, to all of the above." Eyes earnest, she let go of my hand and placed hers on my chest. "Edward, whatever is in here, I take and love as is."

Fully resigned, I said, "All right, it's yours."

She inhaled, her face showing confusion.

"All of me, whatever that entails. I won't try to protect you from the worst of me if you don't want me to." I recaptured her hand and squeezed it. "But Bella, I'm not sure what all is in there. I only just came to terms with my…sexual…." I closed my eyes and groaned in frustration. "I know you don't like me wording it like this, but it's the only way I know how to explain. My monster—he's my thirst, but think he might also be my sexuality. And maybe that's okay with you. Maybe," I died a little inside, "he'll want to be rough with you and hurt you all the time and you'll like that. I know he wants to bite you, but I don't know what else he wants. I have been repressing him for so long, I have no idea. I'm just warning you, because maybe you'll like it, but…maybe the things I'll want will be too much for you. Maybe they'll be dark and ugly and sick. Things that will make you feel bad about yourself. And if that's the case, push me away, tell me no. If he's too much, Bella, I'll repress him again, I swear."

Her eyes were wide when I finished. She extricated her wrists from my grip and wrapped her arms around me. "You've been worried about this for a while." She leveraged herself up onto my lap. "Edward, I can tell you with reasonable confidence that your monster is not your sexuality."

When I tried to speak, her finger pressed against my lips.

She gazed into my eyes and caressed the side of my face. "I know I'm not you, and you know a whole hell of a lot about your sexuality that I don't. I'm not disputing that. But I am the person you've been having sex with, constantly, for more than a year. So, I know a thing or two about what gets you going. I just spent a month agonizing over every second of every sexual encounter you and I have ever had trying to figure out which parts were sincere for you, and do you want to know the results of that data analysis?" She stroked the hair at my temple. "You, my love, are a sap. Almost all of the encounters where I was absolutely sure of your enthusiasm were tender and sweet. Sure, there were a handful of outliers, but your favorite sex is making love. That night in Port Angeles, when we fought? We started off the night stuck in that lust cycle, riding high. I was the one who resorted to kink to break out of it. The sex that satiated you enough to come down? Purely romantic. That dirty talk from yesterday, the things you missed most about sex and what wanted to do to me in the rain? Again, a lot of pretty lovey-dovey stuff."

I had expected to argue with her, but she had actually stumped me. My mind raced. Oh my God….

"Edward, haven't you always said that your sex drive is heavily tied to how much you love me? That for you, sex is about how much you love me? If that's true, how can it be your monster? I mean, yeah, the biting thing is pretty clear at this point, maybe you're not as averse to getting a little rough as you thought, and sure, there could be something new and shocking hiding in your subconscious, but I refuse to believe that there's unfathomed depths of sadistic depravity you've been completely unaware of up to this point. Your sexuality might be broader than you thought, but it's also been fully active over this last year. If there is anything I know from my time in our bed, it's that you get off on making me feel loved. Literally, it makes you come. That doesn't sound like a monster to me."

Oh, Lord…. She was right. Had I really become so terrified of the specter of my monster's sexual urges that I had completely lost sight of what was right in front of me? Yes, there were things I had been repressing, urges I didn't like, that I didn't want to have, that I worried were too linked to feeding to be safe, but that didn't delegitimize everything else I wanted with Bella. Of course it didn't—that seemed so obvious now. And most of what I wanted was loving, rooted in how much I cherished her and wanted to take care of her.

It wasn't until I realized Bella was stroking my hair and making soothing shushing noises, that I became aware of how erratic my breathing had become, that my whole body was trembling, but I couldn't stop. I was just…so relieved.

I clutched her to me.

"Edward, it's all right." Her angelic voice was so tender.

Yes, it was all right. I believed her.

But no sooner had I felt that peace, than a worry came crashing to the forefront of my mind. "Bella, is…is it that okay? With you? If I mostly like romantic sex? Will that be…enough for you?"

She smiled fondly down at me, but she barked a laugh that was full of exasperation. "For crying out loud, Edward. What part of 'all of you' are you not getting? Yes, damn it. I'm crazy about you making love to me. It does it for me, pushes all of the right buttons. And yes, I am thrilled by the idea of it being the meat and potatoes of our sex life. Maybe that's sappy, but so are we. Everything else can be a here-and-there treat—it's more exciting that way, anyway."

I felt so light, giddy almost. I didn't think I could feel any more exhilarated, and then she kissed me.

I kissed her back, and for the first time in far, far too long, our kiss turned truly hungry. Not just me, not just her. Both of us. We both wanted. And I exalted. Her lips were nourishing nectar and I was a starving man. Her fingers slipped under my shirt collar as she pulled herself closer to me, moaning. I could feel her nails digging into my shoulder blade. Her touch was so welcome, so comforting, and I was so hard.

My hand swept up her back to press her closer, and I received confirmation of something I had suspected from the way my sweatshirt had shaped around the curves of Bella's chest—no bra. Bella wasn't wearing a bra. My hand dipped down, went under the hem, and slid up along the soft, uninterrupted skin of Bella's back. With a grunt of pure yearning, my other hand slipped under the sweatshirt, too. My touch roamed the delicate lines of her ribs, her spine and shoulders, holding her fast against me. Mine. She was mine again.

Bella was undoing the buttons of my shirt, fingers brushing the bare skin of my chest as she went down, and down, and didn't stop. She went right from the bottom button of my shirt to the button of my trousers, then my zipper. Her hand dipped into my open fly, cupping me through my underwear, and I groaned.

"God, Bella. I want you so much."

She nuzzled my ear. "Edward, let me suck your cock. Please," she begged. "I love…I want you in my mouth."

I almost came in her hand. My fingers clenched against her skin. I was unable to answer, but she took me humping her palm as a yes.

Bella maneuvered herself, sliding from my lap to her knees on the floor. Her elbow banged the piano keys as she went, so I pushed the bench back a little with the heels of my feet to give her more room. As she moved down, my hands under the sweatshirt pulled the hem upward, and she went with it, raising her arms so that I could lift the garment over her head. Dropping it to the ground, I marveled at the sight of her before me: lips parted, pupils dilated, soft hair hanging loose over her naked breasts, tight nipples standing proud, while she kneeled between my legs. My cock oozed precum.

"God Edward," she shivered. "The way you're looking at me."

I was helpless to resist reaching out and groping her breasts. They caught the bright beams filtering through the lace curtains, and they looked so tempting, exposed in the sunlight. "You're so sexy."

She bit her lip and whimpered. "Okay, so we are keeping that growly voice. God." Her fingers dipped between her legs, and she touched herself briefly through the flannel fabric of her shorts.

"Oh, yes," I rasped.

She paused, and it became evident that her response had been automatic, not something she had planned. Briefly, she looked slightly self-conscious, but her jaw squared and she said, "Okay."

Bella pulled on one of the drawstring ties, releasing the bow, then slipped her thumbs into the waistband of the shorts and push the fabric down her thighs. And thank God, she was taking her panties off too. My Bella was naked.

She was so wet, I could see her dripping.

With a noise that more bestial than human, I pulled my cock out from my underwear and began stroking it frantically while I looked at her.

She gasped, and then her fingers were in her pussy, in her juices.

I was already close. No, that wasn't right. I was already there.

Bella could see that and acted with lightning speed. "No!" She lunged forward. Her nails dug into my thighs and her wet mouth sank down over my cock, swallowing me deep.

The guttural sound that ripped from my throat rang through the entire house, and as I came, I had to grip the piano bench to keep from falling, so hard were my hips spasming into her beautiful face. The aftershocks were sharp with pleasure, but also need. It wasn't enough—I wanted more. Bella was of a similar mind; she nursed my arousal, kept me hard. She licked and sucked me with enthusiasm and skill, but it was the way she kept interrupting the blowjob to drop desperate kisses on the shaft and head of my cock that was killing me.

She loved me. She missed me, missed this.

"Bella, I love you."

She looked up at me, panting with desire. "Edward…."

I nodded. "I know. I know what you need."

With a grateful whimper, she sat back on her haunches. She took my hand and tugged, "Get down here."

"Okay."

"No clothes."

A reasonable request. I stood and shed everything I was wearing. Bella had maneuvered herself behind the pedals to lie down on the fluffy rug under the piano. Her arms were stretched above her head, and her legs spread for me when I crawled between them to join her. Her eyes were bright with emotion, body trembling and eager, as I settled over her. One of her knees moved and then her leg was hooking around me, pulling me even closer.

"It's been so long," she whispered.

"I know." The absence had been excruciating.

"I've felt so empty and lonely," she confessed. My heart ached at her evident vulnerability, and even more when her plaintive voice continued, "Please, make me full."

I nodded and swore, "I will."

To prepare her, I licked two fingers and reached down between our bodies for her core. At the first electric touch, she cried out, loudly, her whole body jerking.

"You don't understand," she said, gasping, when I pulled back in alarm. Eyes downcast, she explained, "I have been…like this…since the forest yesterday. I tried touching myself last night and it didn't work. I think I need you. I'm…so ready, I think I might…," her eyes darted up to mine and then back down, "I might, you know, right away. When you're finally inside me again. But keep going if I do. I'll need…more. As much as you can give me."

Her words left me breathless. I was painfully turned on, but also frantic in the face of her need to alleviate her suffering.

I positioned myself at her entrance and kissed her passionately. "Bella love, I'll give you as much as you can take."

And then I pressed forward, surging into her. She screamed.

The pleasure was blinding. It made my body quake. We had been apart so long, and now I was coming home to her. Her heat, her wet. She came as I entered her, just like she warned, and I kept going, just like I promised. My thrusts were strong and deep, slow enough that she could truly appreciate each and every one of them. She clutched at my body, but she was shaking too violently to hold me tight. She went from one orgasm to the next with hardly a break between them, like she had been saving them up for a month and now they were all pouring out of her. I had never seen anything like it. Her cries were half pleasure, half pain, and sometimes they even sounded like sobs, but she begged me not to stop. So, I cradled her to me and continued, in and out of her clenching heat while she crumbled into spasms over and over.

I dropped kisses all over her face and shoulders, murmuring how much I loved her. The pleasure was too much for me to lose my erection, but the worry over her was too much for me to climax. How could I have allowed myself to neglect her like this?

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, but was only twenty-seven minutes, Bella's hand came up to my shoulder and pressed. "Okay," she choked breathlessly, "I need a break."

Immediately, I stopped moving my hips, and she collapsed backward onto the rug. Concerned and unsure as I was, her contented sigh was jarring for me.

"Are you…good?"

Her eyelids peeked open and I was consoled. She looked dazzlingly happy. "Hell yes! You just kept me in a rolling orgasm for a half hour. I didn't even know that was possible." She touched my face. "So good to me," she muttered, and then moved to kiss me. But the shift caused friction, down where we were joined. I felt her pussy grip me hard and then pulse around me as she went into yet another orgasm.

Bella moaned. "Damn it." Then she laughed, an outright giddy giggle. Only to stop abruptly, moaning again. "I can't even laugh, or I'll come."

"Is that bad?"

"No, I'm just sore." She grinned. "Which I don't mind, but that was…a lot. I wasn't expecting—I mean, I knew I was horny, and I was trying not to get my hopes up too early this time. You know, seduce you first, just to make sure it actually happened. I knew I was on kind of a hair-trigger, but Good Lord." Her voice was becoming oddly breathless, and I saw that she was fisting handfuls of the rug. "It looks like my vampire body still has surprises for me."

Dismay wracked me as I took in what she was saying. I realized that I had gotten her worked up and then left her hanging twice in the last twenty-four hours, the way I used to when we were dating and swore I never would again.

"You think it's a vampire thing?" Honestly, I wasn't so sure this was normal—at least, not until a memory creeped up on me of some of the thoughts I had picked up from Tanya once upon a time. Rolling orgasms, just like this. At the time, I had assumed she was exaggerating as part of her bid to seduce me, but perhaps not after all. Regardless, I wasn't about to bring Tanya up right now.

Bella's expression was growing more pained. "I can't imagine my human body doing that. Maybe for a minute or two, but not half an hour."

"Do you need me to pull out?"

"Don't you dare!" Her eyes closed and a second later, and her body shuddered with another orgasm.

I hadn't even moved.

"Wow," Bella sighed. "I love this."

Her contentment was so evident, so genuine, I found myself smiling. "Yeah?"

She nodded. "Well, you said you missed my pussy. I think my pussy missed you, too."

That startled a laugh out of me.

Bella's hands came up to caress the sides of my face. "We're really back, aren't we?"

"Yes," I said, her joy taking root in me, too. "We're back."

Author's Note: Yay, they made up! We're not done unpacking The Baggage yet, but hey, we're getting there. Our next stop will be to begin exploring more of Edward's sexuality, which should be exciting.

I hope you all liked this one. It was fun to incorporate callbacks to Midnight Sun, and I have been looking forward to writing this scene with Jasper for a while now. Thanks for reading, and for all your awesome reviews and kind support!