A/N 2/26/22 Revised & re-edited. No changes to plot or storyline. Contents not reflective of former beta Octoberland or former pre-readers.
**Warning - The following chapter contains graphic content intended for adult readers, including sexuality and mild blood play. If content of this type bothers you...well...what are you doing reading a Darkward fic? Lol. ;-)
. . . . . .
Prey for the Wicked
. . . . . .
Chapter 9
Kísértés
. . . . . .
And we cling to the past
to deny and confuse the ideal...
. . . . . .
Edward cannot remember the last time he felt as out of control as he does now. Control is something he mastered decades ago, something he thrives on. His victims haven't always made the most appetizing of meals. Drugs, alcohol, disease – they all taint the blood, lacing it with flavours that sour their essence. Choosing them over the untainted flocks that scurry about this world in blissful ignorance isn't an easy feat. It has required ceaseless mastery over his baser urges.
Isabella is changing all of that. The part of him that recognizes this, that craves control, seeks to justify it.
I have not killed her. I will not kill her...
The other part of him, the part that aches for more from this desolate existence he calls life, justifies it further.
Her blood calls to me and me alone, therefore she is mine...
The vehicle's engine purrs as he accelerates into a turn. The streets are deserted. Small town life, Edward thinks with a pleased smile. Shops, restaurants, stores, all closed for the evening while Forks inhabitants sequester themselves in their homes, content with family and televisions, resting, gearing themselves up for the start of a new week, the next chapter in their monotonous, short lives.
He makes another turn into a back alley, parking beside a dumpster that reeks with an excess of human wastefulness. A small village in Africa could be fed for a week with the amount of food tossed out to rot.
Opening the passenger door, Edward holds out his hand to Isabella, relishing the feel of her fingers in his when she takes it without hesitation. He wonders, not for the first time, if she is infirm in mind. Surely she cannot be sane to so readily touch him. The sharp clarity he sees in her eyes when she meets his gaze upon stepping out tells him otherwise, not that he solely trusts his judgement with her. Being unable to read her mind leaves him at a distinct disadvantage.
She glances at the door he leads her to, recognition dawning.
"It's closed," she tells him, as if he doesn't already know. "They're never open on Sundays. Archaic, I know, but Forks still believes in the philosophy that Sunday should be a day of rest." Her voice trembles though she appears composed.
Edward opens the door, demonstrating that nothing is closed for him, and ushers her inside with a hand to the small of her back. Touching her is an exercise in restraint, both in his strength and the fact that he wants more – more of her skin beneath his fingertips, more of her taste in his mouth. Just more, always more...
She narrows her gaze at the door. "Did you just break the lock? This is illegal, you know?"
He laughs at her expense, and the things her incongruous mind chooses to be concerned over. Apparently, breaking and entering gives her moral qualms that being in the presence of a vampire does not. "I didn't break the lock. I have other ways of opening doors, Isabella." He holds the small lock pick out for her to see, and she frowns. What he wouldn't give to see into her mind.
"You can do that but you break mine?" she asks.
Edward smiles, enjoying her indignation. Oh, how she pleases him, amuses him. Her kittenish temper is delightful. He lets the door close, taking away the small amount of light from the alley, and relishes the rich flare of anxiety he smells on her skin and breath as he leans in closer.
"I wanted you to know I was there," he tells her, ducking his head to brush his lips feather light over her accelerated pulse point. He steps back, pocketing the lock picking tool before snapping on the lighting. Without waiting for her response to his blunt explanation, he leads her inside, turning on a few more lights for her benefit, yet leaving most of the tavern shrouded in shadow to avoid detection from anyone passing by.
He makes his way to the bar, leaving her standing alone. His movements are too quick for her to track, and he watches her spin to look for him, her human eyes slower to adjust to the gloom. The clinking of glasses gives away his location, and she turns toward it, startled. He can see and hear her fast breathing, the delicious quick rise and fall of her breasts through the cheap, fake silk of her night wrap. He thinks of the fine fabrics he'd like to drape her flesh in and makes note of them as he uncorks a bottle of red wine, sniffing at the contents disparagingly. So hard to get good spirits in a place like this, he laments, re-corking and discarding before selecting an aged, single-malt whiskey from the top shelf. A slight tinge of dust on the bottle shows how seldom a customer of this establishment has a discerning palate.
He places two glasses on the bar and splashes a generous amount of the amber liquid inside.
"Ice?" he queries as she finally finds her feet and makes use of them.
She doesn't answer, so he adds two cubes and pushes the glass in front of her. He lifts his own, waving it beneath his nose, swirling the contents, and inhaling the rich notes.
Ignoring the glass in front of her, Isabella frowns. "What are we doing here?"
Edward sets his glass down next to hers. He cannot drink alcohol, or any fluid other than blood, but he loves the smell of a properly aged whiskey, and the feel of a tumbler in his hand reminds him of days long past.
"Why, Isabella," he intones with feigned surprise, "this is where we met. Don't tell me you've forgotten?"
A furrow appears between her eyes, temper flaring in her expression. He moves to the table he sat at the night he encountered her, taking his glass with him, and settling back against that same cracked, aged vinyl bench.
"I saw you first right here," he tells her, smiling when she spins to face him. "You walked by, just another human in the crowd, no one special. I was looking for escape. A few hours to sit and listen to music I hoped would drown out all the other... noise." He remembers his bitterness, his loathing of his existence, and marvels at how a single moment changed so much.
She huffs out a breath of exasperation. "What do you want from me?"
He contemplates his explanation, discarding answers he perceives would not go over well. "Such a loaded question, pet," he murmurs finally in answer. "Perhaps you would receive a better answer by asking, what don't I want from you?" He rises, rejoining her at the bar. She turns to face him, and he leans close, pressing his mouth to the corner of hers. Her hands rise to fist in the fabric of his shirt. He thinks she means to push him away, but a whimper that sounds like acquiescence escapes her instead.
"I want everything, Isabella," he tells her against her mouth, moving his lips to the other corner of hers, dragging her humid exhalations into his mouth, throat, and lungs until her breath is his and his is hers.
"No," she whimpers, making him chuckle against the skin of her jaw, the small slope beneath.
"Yes."
. . . . . .
Bella feels herself being pressed back against the bar and clutches harder at his shirt. She wants to scream, to run, to do the sane, normal thing, the right thing, but her body craves closer contact.
I'm not a pet, she thinks to tell him, but all that comes out of her mouth is a whining, breathless sound that reminds her of sex.
Or more accurately, sex with him, because she has nothing else to compare it to. It's not normal how he makes her feel. Heat flares over her, part blushing embarrassment at the memories she can't suppress, part simple reaction and need.
As quickly as he initiated the contact, Edward steps back. She's shocked at how cold she feels, how empty with the loss of contact. She reaches for her glass instead, taking a deep drink and nearly choking on the burn as he moves behind her. Spinning around, constantly caught off guard by the way he moves, Bella works to catch her breath. He moves like a predator, and wariness bids her to keep track of him as much as she can. She trusts her instinct that he won't hurt her, though she doesn't know why, but that doesn't mean she thinks she's safe with him. On the contrary, she very much knows she is not.
"I watched you," he tells her, leaving her floundering for a moment until she realizes he's speaking again of the night it all began. "You walked by me without a glance, completely oblivious, while I fought not to slaughter everyone in this place just to get to you."
The question why teases her tongue, but the ingrained habit of avoiding it leaves it unspoken. Instead, she watches him pace to the small stage to run his fingers over an empty microphone stand.
"You stood right here in front of this stage, swaying to the beat of the music."
Bella remembers the song and how the driving pulse of it vibrated up through the scuffed wooden floors. Even though she's never been big on dancing, she wasn't able to resist the beating rhythm of that song.
The lyrics pulse through her mind. Temptation, it never lets me down...
"Such a fitting song," he intones dryly and then, nearly in aside, taking her off guard – "The singer wanted you; did you know that?"
She blushes a little and shrugs, wondering how Edward would know that. She felt the singer's attention on her, saw the way he looked at her, the deep base of his voice curling itself around her spine as she danced. She remembers considering, just for a moment, letting herself go with the obvious attraction.
"He nearly lost his life for that wanting."
Bella shivers, thinking of Mike. What did Edward do with him? He looks capable of anything, she thinks, watching him now as he regards her thoughtfully, like he's trying to read her. He's all sinuously-coiled energy, dressed so casual yet elegant in his black pants and beige shirt that she bet money came with designer labels and a high price tag. She feels suddenly naked, all too aware that the only thing covering her is a thin robe. She crosses her arms over her chest and bites her lip, struggling to understand...everything.
Why am I alive? she wonders silently. Why didn't he kill me? That night - now? He talks like he wanted to.
Why me? Again, she can't make her mouth form the words, though her curiosity burns her from the inside out.
"I wonder," he says quietly, "why you don't ask me the obvious questions?"
Bella stays silent. A flash of irritation crosses his face.
"How do you know what the singer wanted?" She asks, finally.
The irritation grows, though he smiles, masking some of it. It's clear she hasn't asked the question he expected. "I read his mind."
She scowls at him. "Don't play with me." Despite the words and the doubt they convey, she feels her heart race. It's terrifying enough just knowing what he is. She still isn't certain she's absorbed that, but to think he can read her thoughts...
Edward laughs an amused sound that skitters over her skin like a touch. "Oh, my sweet Isabella. Playing with you is the most fun I've had in centuries. I have no intention of stopping. However, I assure you, I can indeed read minds. Easily and without effort. I saw all of his thoughts as he watched you dance before him. He took you seven different ways in seven different locations in his mind before the song was complete."
Bella takes a step back, shocked. "You know what I'm thinking, right now, all this time, you..." She shakes her head, but he merely inclines his, watching her thoughtfully.
"No," he replies, quietly. "I do not know what you're thinking."
"But you said..."
"I can read the mind of every human I encounter, except yours."
"I don't understand."
"Ah, then we are on equal footing," he answers, striding back to stand in front of her, brow furrowed like he's frustrated. "I don't understand it either." His hand makes its way back to her nape, wrapping around her skin like cool bands of steel. She knows she couldn't break free if she tried, not that his restraint is necessary. Every time he touches her, all she wants is to get closer.
"You are an anomaly in so many ways, Isabella." His gaze moves, darting from her eyes, to her mouth, to the place she suspects he can witness her racing heart before following the trail of her hair where it falls to her ribcage. "I cannot read your mind. Not a thought, not an emotion. You are completely silent to me." His gaze moves back to her neck. "But your blood? Oh, little fragile human. You're blood isn't silent at all. It's been calling my name from the very second you crossed my path, and it hasn't stopped since."
He drops his head to her neck, inhaling hard. She feels the prick of something sharp against her skin, and her heart erupts in fear and something else... Oh, God...desire...heat, all over her... The sweetest tension burns up her muscles, making them clench as something deep between her legs clenches, too. Terror and arousal mix and war as Edward growls, a resonate sound that rumbles up his throat and makes every hair on her body stand up. Liquid heat melts her core. She feels it gathering, and shame and desire share equal space in her body.
She can't keep her hands at her sides. They rise of their own volition and delve into his hair. She tells herself she means to push him away, but her back arches and her head falls back, and nothing about her grip on him could be construed as discouraging. It's Edward that stops, pulling his head back and away, forcing her hands to his shoulders when the movement puts him out of her reach. He growls again, and his nostrils flare. His eyes turn black, swallowing the gold that returned after they left her bedroom. The heat between her legs throbs, and she knows he is aware of what her body is doing.
"Such a temptation you are, Isabella." He moves behind her, his arm going around her waist and pulling her back to him so that she can feel the granite-like form of his chest, the hard cradle of his pelvis, and the even harder jut of his erection. "You ask what I want from you," he growls. "I want this." His lips press down, cool as a frosty morning, firm yet soft with the heat they ignite on her neck and down her body. "And this." His hands undo the sash at her waist and part the material, sliding fast down her stomach to the space between her legs, cupping her firmly, feeling so cool against her heat. His grip is possessive, and oh, God, it feels so good.
"I want to drink you until you're nearly drained while I fuck you until you are nearly insensate. And then, pet, I want to do it all over again."
Desire spills out of her against his fingers, and her heart races even faster. She can't breathe and doesn't care. She wants to deny him, but doesn't dare. Nothing she could say right now would be the truth anyway.
"Please..." It's all she can manage, though she has no idea what she is pleading for. Her hips are moving against his hand, and her back is arching to give him more access to her neck. She's courting death, inviting it in, and this is insanity. Fear makes her heart stammer, but its fear of herself and what she wants more than a fear of him and what he'll do.
"Breathe, Isabella," Edward chuckles against her throat, and her sudden inhale catches on a sob. His fingers leave her, and he turns her around. Both hands cup her head tugging her neck back as his eyes seem to devour her face. "So fragile," he mocks, something wicked and heated dancing in those black eyes. "So foolish. You barely survived the last time, Isabella, and here you are, pleading with me for more." He tsks, the click of his tongue mocking her further.
Tears of humiliation, and strangely, rejection, fall before she can stop them. They burn like fire on their trail down her cheeks finding the curve of her lips and catching there until she licks them away. He follows the movement of her tongue with a deep-throated groan, while something in those dark eyes softens. A smirk tugs up his mouth as his thumb catches a tear at the corner of her eye.
"Tears?" he questions, staring at the stray droplet on his thumb before bringing it to his mouth and licking it away. "Do you think I don't want the same?" Seductive tones of velvet lace his voice as he drops his head to kiss her. Such a kiss... Claiming, yet oddly tender, his lips press down over hers, nibbling softly, coaxing a gasp that allows his tongue entrance. He deepens the kiss, sweeping into her mouth and stealing every ounce of rational thought. Bella can't do anything except tremble and move her mouth with his, greedy for his taste and vacant of anything resembling a sense of self-protection. Her head spins, her knees buckle.
Once again, Edward steps back. The broken contact allows her to catch her breath and with it a small shred of self possession. On shaky legs she makes her way back to the bar to drain the remainder of her drink. The burn forces her eyes closed, and when she opens them he's behind the bar again, watching her, his eyes still black as coal.
He leans forward as she finds a seat on one of the benches, clutching her robe closed and fumbling with the sash.
"Ask me a question." He refills her glass.
She shakes her head. "I don't know what to ask."
He laughs. "Liar. I cannot read your mind, but I know your head is spinning."
"What happened to Mike?" The question falls out of her mouth before she can consider whether it's a good idea to confront him. His surprise is masked, though she catches it in the way his movement to raise his own glass falters for a brief second. He doesn't drink, just spins the glass until the contents slosh and spin as well. She thinks he sniffs it. She wonders if he can drink anything besides blood. Her skin crawls unpleasantly with the thought. Now that he isn't touching her, she's all too aware of how wrong this is. She cannot believe that only seconds ago she was aching to have him take her. Whatever he wanted, however he wanted it.
You still do...
Her mind taunts her. She tries not to think of the fact that if he touches her again, she would be just as helpless to resist.
"He's gone. Without a trace," she prompts, desperately trying to control some part of this night, and fearing the failure and consequence if she doesn't.
"Mike?"
"Don't act like you don't know who that is." Her tone is scathing, and she takes another drink – gold liquid courage. Her hands are shaking despite the insistence, her false bravado showing.
"Ah, yes," he replies, those pitch dark eyes flashing. "Michael Newton." Before Bella can react, he reaches out to grasp her hand, turning it so that the weak lighting falls over the mottles of discoloured flesh on her wrist. She doesn't know how it's possible, but his eyes darken further when they meet hers.
"What did you do?" Her voice is too soft, too choked, and she swallows hard over the sudden lump in her throat. Not for Mike or whatever end he's met, but for herself and her culpability in his death, because she can see what she already knew in those midnight eyes and that maddeningly gorgeous face. Mike is dead.
"Understand me, Isabella, and make no mistake," Edward tells her, one finger ghosting a sweeping touch back and forth over her wrist, hypnotizing. "I do not make idle threats. You are mine now. I will protect you, and I will possess you. I won't allow anyone to harm you. Nor will I allow anyone to think they have a claim to you. Only I have that."
"I'm not a damn possession. I'm not a toy or your pet."
He smirks again. "You are whatever I say you are."
She tries to stand, but his grip on her wrist keeps her from being able to move. He doesn't hurt her, but she feels the sudden tension in his grip that locks his fingers on her flesh.
"Do not think you have free will, Isabella. You're fate was decided the second you walked by me in this dismal bar." His grip tightens.
"I don't belong to you," she snaps knowing the second she says it, she isn't sure she can mean it. The way he makes her feel, even now when her independence and will scream at her to resist, leeches the power from her words. She tries anyway because the idea of caving to him sparks a deep rooted terror. "It doesn't matter what you are. You can't own someone. And you can't take a life based on some messed up idea that you're protecting someone. Don't you see? It's just wrong!"
His thumb brushes her pulse, and Bella gets the sudden impression he enjoys her fears and frustrations as much as he enjoys her willingness. She makes an effort to calm herself, trying not to think of Mike's final moments and failing.
"Isabella. Do not make the mistake of thinking me human," he tells her softly, something gentle in his tone belaying the harshness of what he says. "I kill. It's what I am. It's how I live."
She shakes her head, unable to absorb it.
"I was once human," Edward tells her, watching her face, gauging her reactions so that she tries to hide them. She's never been good at that, she doubts she is now.
"Just like you, I had a life, a family, friends. I don't remember that life now beyond vague bits of useless memories, but I am not human now. I have not been human for a very long time, Isabella. Blood is my sustenance, the only food source available to my kind. Vampire's cannot die, but without it we suffer unimaginable pain. Do you understand?"
He doesn't wait for her to answer, only continues, still holding her wrist, still sweeping his finger over her pulse, the touch as mesmerizing as his words and the silk tone he delivers them. So much darkness should never be spoken with so much heat.
"I've spent many decades trying to find a way of life that allows me to get what I need," he continues, missing nothing of her reactions, she's certain. "What I must have, with the least amount of human suffering. I am a monster with a conscience, Isabella." He seems to give her time to absorb this, his gaze prying deeply into hers. She almost feels as though he's calling to her, asking for understanding. She feels like she's falling further under his spell.
"I have committed unspeakable acts. I don't ask you to understand or condone, only to accept that there are things in this world that don't adhere to a moral code. I'm a predator, simple as that."
"You said you have a conscience?" The idea of that doesn't match with a predator. It so obviously isn't as 'simple as that.'
"I hunt and kill evil." He releases her wrist so suddenly she nearly falls back off the bar stool. She didn't realize the amount of tension she held in her body as she fought the pull of him.
Clutching the bar, desperately seeking some kind of anchor in this ever increasing sense of unreality, Bella stares at him.
"I know you saw the pictures in Michael Newton's apartment, Isabella. Innocent that you are, you still must have some idea of the kind of mind that would stalk a woman and plaster his walls with her image." He picks up his glass again, staring down at the liquid, frowning. "I don't need to imagine those ideas as you must. The things he thought, every twisted imagining of depravity and pain that he wished to inflict, I saw in his mind."
Bella swallows over her dry throat, wishing her glass wasn't empty as her blood runs cold. "Thoughts aren't the same as actions. He never hurt me, or did anything to me, other than take those pictures. You could have killed someone who just needed help," she whispered, tears burning her eyes. "You don't know if he would have ever..."
She can't finish. Her stomach twists and knots, and she wonders if she's going to be sick. She thinks she might because this kind of bile black knowledge isn't something she can swallow and keep down.
Edward is a vampire.
Edward reads minds.
Edward kills.
She swallows again and wonders if her mind has finally snapped. Madness after all runs in families...
. . . . . .
Edward inhales the bouquet of his whiskey, but finds it flat and stale next to the bouquet of Isabella. His control is taxed to its outmost level. She smells like the finest wine and sex. Her fear and confusion blend so erotically with her rich blood and scintillating arousal. He can smell her on his fingers where they hold the glass; the remembered feel of her plush sex that fit perfectly into his palm makes him contemplate other avenues of entertainment. Everything about Isabella fits so perfectly into his hands.
He tightens his control. Not yet. Soon she will be under his body, writhing like a tempest, surrendering fully to his dominance and possession, but not yet. He's enjoying his revelations, and even more, her reactions. It's been far too long since he's had a real conversation that goes beyond the exchange of, 'Please don't kill me,' and his answer of... well... he's never bothered to answer such a plea, at least not in words.
Isabella doesn't make it easy. Both her challenging of him and his ways – as though she's saying anything his own mind hasn't realized and contemplated thousands of times – and her trembling heat that calls to him in the same siren tone as her blood.
She reaches for the bottle of whiskey. Her fingers barely graze it when Edward takes it away, and she frowns at him, licking her lips, her face pale. He doesn't want her intoxicated, nor does he want her to think she has free will. From this point forward, at least while she is in his presence, everything she receives, wants, or needs will be given by his hand and his hand alone.
He tips the bottle and pours her a small measure more which she swallows in a gulp that causes her discomfort.
Fragile, so very, utterly, deliciously fragile.
"Michael Newton was beyond the realm of 'hope,' Isabella." He delivers this in a soft tone meant to soothe. "I am not so foolish as to think thought and action are the same. I understand the human mind in ways you cannot. I discern the difference between the exhausted mother who thinks briefly to shake her squalling infant in frustration, and the cold contemplation of the father who is planning to rape and murder their seven year old neighbour."
Isabella flinches and shakes her head. "I've known Mike for years. He was a douche bag, yes, but not evil."
Edward grows impatient with her defences and leans forward, not missing the clench of fingers on her empty glass. "I planned on warning him away from you, nothing more. I do not kill innocents. I found him exiting this establishment reeking of an underage girl he plied with alcohol and drugs and violated against the stairwell wall. Her virgin's blood no doubt still stains the cement floor, if you'd like to see it. He was neither gentle nor kind, and the entire time he took her, he thought of you. He longed for her cries of pain and begging to be yours."
She shakes her head, but her eyes are wide and horrified, betraying the action as nothing more than the vestiges of her failing denials.
"I saw the photographs in his mind. I sensed his growing impatience at waiting for opportunity. He was obsessed with the idea of you. An obsession that began in high school. He viewed you as pure, sweet, innocent, kind – all the things that you are – but you did not return his affections. When you began to date another, his obsession turned sour and twisted. You fell from his pedestal of perfection. What had once been obsessive daydreams about white wedding dresses and happily ever after with the one female he thought was untainted and perfect, became sexually degrading fantasies filled with your suffering and humiliation. It was only a matter of time before he acted, Isabella."
Her gaze snaps up to his, her face now so pale, her eyes appear as dark as a vampire's. "What makes you so different from him? You almost killed me, don't think I don't know that." Her voice delivers her condemnation as a hiss, and Edward adores her fierce strength, feeling it as pride. His beautiful pet is no swooning frailty.
Edward smiles, once again moving the bottle to avoid the reaching grasp of her shaking hand. "Surely you know the answer to that." He leans toward her until their faces are mere inches apart and breathes his answer only just loud enough for her to hear. "Aside from the fact I do not engage in rape and torture, I am different from Michael Newton in one crucial way, Isabella. He never took a life. I've taken thousands. I am the true definition of a monster."
The tip of her tongue scrapes over her bottom lip before she tugs the succulent bit of flesh beneath blunt white teeth. Pushing her glass towards him, she indicates the bottle. "More," she mutters, adding a belated but sweetly uttered 'please' that he simply cannot deny. He gives her a few mouthfuls more, then places the bottle back on the shelf.
"You didn't kill me," she says, not drinking the small ration he's given her, merely wrapping her hands around the glass. She phrases the remark like a statement, but he senses she wants to know why.
"Do you want to know why?"
Something flickers over her expression, fleeting and too quick for him to understand. The enigma of her silent mind stretches his patience.
Isabella shrugs, her face a mask of contemplation. "Does it matter? Why is a stupid question that never really has a good answer."
Edward is further delighted by the incongruities of her mind, and her intelligence. It is an accurate statement. There is, after all, a reason for a child's ceaseless repetition of the word as they seek to understand the world and its workings. One 'why' merely leads to another, and another, no answer ever completely satisfactory.
"It is enough for you that I did not?" he can't help ask with amusement.
Her fingers tap an uneven rhythm onto her glass—a nervous fidget and the only outward sign of her stress.
She shrugs again.
"Are you going to kill me?" Lifting her head, she pins him with those fathomless eyes, waiting to see what she'll detect in his answer.
Such bravery, he thinks, though what he says out loud is, "Did you not tell me yourself that I will not harm you?"
"I don't know if I should trust anything I think right now," she replies acerbically.
Edward chuckles. She flinches a bit at the sound, and he suddenly wants to soothe her in some way. Offer her comfort. As much as he enjoys her fear, he realizes that it isn't conducive to what he knows he truly wants from her. She's back to gazing at the contents of her glass. Placing a finger beneath her chin, he urges her face upwards till she once again meets his gaze.
"You have sound instincts, at least in this regard. You should trust them." The line of her shoulders eases a little at the words, but her eyes still flit back and forth between his, searching for what measure of truth she can define. "I told you, Isabella. I feel very protective of you. I will not harm you. I am many kinds of a monster, but I am not the kind who hurts innocents." Not any more, he thinks to himself. Never again, no matter how close of a call it was. "Your blood was a temptation I didn't know how to resist. I walked too close to the line before I realized that you, Isabella, are a gift, not to be wasted in such greedy gluttony."
The idea of Isabella as his, alive and well for the duration of her human life, solidifies and roots in his psyche. Until this very moment, Edward realizes he walked a precipice between wanting to deny his nature and keep her alive, and his doubts that he could do so under such extremes of temptation.
He can.
He will.
"I will not end your life," he repeats, letting her see the truth in his expression. She relaxes further, but before true relief is hers, he feels it necessary to add an addendum. Moving from behind the bar, he pulls her from the seat and tips her face up to his own. "You are mine now, Isabella. I will take care of you, protect you."
Edward lets her digest his words, waiting for the inevitable of the stubborn workings of a human mind. "I will give you everything you need, anything you want."
"Anything?"
"Anything in my power to grant."
He waits for it. His wilful, fierce kitten doesn't disappoint.
"Then let me go."
Edward drops his hands to his sides. Isabella shakes her head, tendrils of hair rippling over her shoulders with the force of the vehement movements.
"You know that isn't what I mean." She almost sounds despondent, her confusion so ripe in her blood and skin it perfumes her essence with her contradictory wants. Desire is still alive in her, earthy sweet arousal and longing. He can smell them all, taste them in the air surrounding her. He's denied himself long enough.
Edward's hands find the weak clumsy knot she retied in the sash of her robe. One small tug opens it, gapping the material, revealing her perfect form to his adoring gaze. He lifts her, places her on the bar top, urges her knees open though she tries to keep them closed. The perfume of her blood and sex make his teeth and cock ache in equal measure.
"Let me go," she repeats, breathless now, her emotions less contradictory as sexual need flares over her and lessens the impact of her plea. Edward's hands move up her thighs as her fingers clench into fists on the scarred bar top. "You said you'd give me anything," she reminds him. Despite her stubborn tenacity, her hips move, inching her body closer to his touch and the place she so obviously wants it. Her intimate flesh glistens with that want, so perfect, so sweetly ready, so headily scented.
Edward places a bracing hand at the small of her back, arching her easily so that she has no choice but to brace herself and lean back on her elbows. His head drops, and he presses his mouth just above her pelvic mound, silken curls tickling his lower lip, the satin smooth skin on her abdomen against his top. He exhales against her, feeling her shuddering at the coolness of his breath over her intense heat, lifting his eyes to watch her head fall back with a purring moan as she poises on the brink of surrender.
"Look at me, Isabella," Edward commands, giving her only seconds to respond before sharply insisting, "Now."
She lifts her head, and her eyes blaze with limpid need, that plump maddening lip once again trapped beneath her bite.
"Watch," he demands simply, and lowers his mouth to her flesh, parts her with lips and tongue in one long dragging sweep. He groans at her taste, and turns his head to lick her upper thigh, allowing his tingling incisor to nick her flesh just deep enough to pierce the surface skin. He sucks the tiny droplet of blood away slowly, and he feels her shudder all over, panting now, whimpering. His thumb brushes over the flower petal folds of her sex, opening her to his gaze.
"You have a say in this and only this. Tell me to stop, I will walk you to the door, drive you home, let you take your rest alone in your bed."
Goosebumps rise on her skin, and she shivers, pupils dilating on a whimper she struggles to contain.
"Or, say yes, and I will ease this need and show you the benefits of being mine."
She tries to deny them both. He sees the struggle, and knows the second she loses her battle.
"Please..."
It's all he needs. He presses his mouth fully to her sex, a low growl of conquest and pure male pleasure ripples from his throat, and her climax is instantaneous. It takes her hard, and leaves her gasping, shaking. Edward uses one finger to penetrate her body and scrape gently over that slightly raised ridge inside, sending her instantly into another series of spasms as he sucks her swollen clitoris into his mouth, dragging his teeth over it carefully. The action makes her scream as she loses all sense of propriety and restraint and comes again. When he senses her human body can take not one more second without blacking out, Edward moves his mouth up to the tender skin of her lower abdomen and licks, before nicking her flesh again. The wound is deeper this time, the blood pooling to the surface, trickling downwards, scarlet ribbons of liquid ambrosia gliding through desire-slick, sweat-slick, intimate flesh. Round, ruby red droplets quiver upon ivory cream and satin pink.
So beautiful, so delicious, so pure, so...his.
Lifting his head, he locks his gaze on hers, staring at her intently, his mouth dark with her blood, shining with the gloss of her climaxes. He lets her see him as he truly he is; the monster who wishes to be her angel, both her protector and her master.
"You are mine, Isabella. I will give you everything your heart could ever desire, but I will never, ever, let you go."
Edward allows her one small second to catch her breath, and to absorb the meaning and promise behind those words, before dropping his head to take his meal with his dessert. Isabella's body responds perfectly. She cries out his name in her pleasure as darkness takes her, making its claim just as surely as he has.
