**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 10: Bite
"Okay," Rosalie's voice prompted from under the bright yellow hood. "Try it now."
Dutifully, I attempted to start Alice's car. The engine spluttered and whined, but did not turn over. The smell of motor oil hung in the air and the pathetic noises the engine made were amplified in the echo of the garage.
Rose's thoughts were a string of vitriol. She closed the hood with slightly too much force. "It was worth a shot," she muttered, more to herself than to me. "Looks like there's no getting around replacing the starter."
From the driver's seat, I leaned out the open car door. "What about the timing belt? Is something up there?"
"No," she griped, wiping her hands with a shop rag. "I checked. The stupid thing is fine."
I fought the impulse to find her bad temper funny. I was refreshed and in a good mood at the moment, but I had only been helping her for the past thirty minutes. She, on the other hand, had been hard at work on this issue all night before I'd heard her grumbling thoughts and offered a hand, so maybe a little frustration was earned.
"We'll have to go through my specialty place in Seattle," Rosalie said with resignation. "Order the parts in from Europe. Also, the front passenger side wheel well is dented and the paint is damaged. I don't know if she scraped a pole or a barrier or what. And I'm pretty sure she's been putting the wrong gas in the tank. Not every time, but even sometimes is too much."
I winced. Shaking my head, I gave the dash of this beautiful specimen of a car a comforting pat. "Criminal."
Rose snorted. "You're the one who gave the car killer a Porsche."
Alice had a history of being...hard on vehicles. Not on purpose. Things just seemed to happen, despite her clairvoyance. In her head, Rose snarked bitterly that Alice was too busy using her visions to monitor other people's lives to check in on the long-term consequences of putting cheap gas in a sports car.
I didn't disagree.
"You should be the one to give her the lecture," she declared suddenly.
My eyes widened in horror.
"She'll listen to you better than she will to me," Rosalie argued. She wasn't entirely wrong there, but "better" didn't mean I would make an impact. "Especially if you guilt her over the car being a present from you."
I gave a hollow laugh. "You're overestimating my abilities."
"You got Bella to put the correct gas in her Ferrari."
That was different. Bella's primary concern had been cost and all I'd had to do was explain that it would ruin the car. Alice had no problem spending money, so that wasn't the issue. Most likely it was inattention. I had no idea how the hell a reminder from me was supposed to fix that.
But Rosalie pushed forward as though I had acquiesced and the plan was settled. "Let me wash up, and then we can go," she said.
I sighed. "Sounds good." I hadn't planned on a road trip to Seattle today, but I had promised her my help.
I was waiting with my car keys in hand when she returned, but she walked right to her BMW. I rolled my eyes and replaced my key ring on its designated hook.
"If you get to drive, can I at least pick the music?"
Rosalie quirked a brow. "Don't push me, Edward. I'll replace you with Jake in a heartbeat."
My jaw dropped in horror. But I recovered quickly, because the threat was empty. Jacob knew as much about cars as Rose, and thus would probably have more opinions and input than I did—neither of which would be welcome in her garage. Whether she would admit it or not, I was her ideal shop assistant for this kind of work. I knew enough not to make problems worse, but not enough to challenge her conclusions.
Besides, I could tell the difference between when Rose was actually annoyed with me and when she was being prickly just because it was her default setting.
Sure enough, when we were settled in our seats, she gestured magnanimously toward the stereo. "Just, for the love of God, no emo shit."
I laughed, but kept my selections upbeat.
It was early morning. The air was misty with light rain and heavy clouds as we drove at twice the speed limit down the highway. Conscious that we would be spending the day together and the way conversations could flip suddenly and turn contentious between us, we kept to the safest of all subjects: Emmett. He had soundly beaten Carlisle and me in a pinball tournament last night, and I gave her the play by play.
We made the drive in fifty minutes and split off as soon as we entered the shop to save time. We needed to be back home before the storm broke and clouds parted around noon. Rose went to gather the parts she needed that were in stock from the aisles, while I went to the service desk to place the special order for everything that would need to be shipped from Germany.
The young woman at the desk had the shuffle of someone not quite awake yet, and she was blotting helplessly at a stain on her white shirt with some napkins. Raspberry jam from the half-eaten doughnut by her keyboard, I deduced. Her name tag said NINA.
"Good morning," I greeted her in a pleasant tone.
She jolted and looked up so suddenly that her glasses slid down her dark-skinned nose. "Oh…holy…Jesus," she mumbled while taking in the sight of me. And then promptly spilled her coffee all over her desk.
Her thoughts were a tumult of panic and humiliation as she scrambled for the nearby motley stack of napkins from various local restaurants. She was making a real mess of things, spreading the spill rather than moping it up, so I reached over the barrier and helped her, offering her my kindest smile.
Maybe it wasn't so kind. It seemed to short circuit her brain for a few seconds.
When Nina gathered herself, it was to thank me and then to grumble in horror at her ruined shirt, which now had coffee stains as well.
Her coworker in a back office called out, "I told you Mercury was in retrograde."
Nina rolled her eyes and her thoughts on the matter were impatient and dismissive. "How can I help you?" she asked me in her best effort at a professional tone. Embarrassment radiated from her in waves, which I politely ignored.
I unfolded the list written in Rosalie's neat, elegant handwriting and placed it on the desk in front of her. "I need to place a special parts order for a 2006 Porsche 911 Turbo."
"S-sure," she stuttered, her eyes lingering on my face. Then she blinked, jiggled her mouse to wake up her computer, and tried to avoid looking at me while she entered the information.
I found myself making small talk I normally wouldn't have bothered with, trying to make her feel at ease. I felt bad that I had, what was it Bella used to say?—dazzled?—that I had dazzled her so thoroughly that she'd ruined her shirt and dumped out her coffee. But then I remembered that she had already spilled on her shirt before I had walked up, and when she accidentally shut her own fingers in her desk drawer while retrieving a highlighter and not thinking of me at all, I started to think that maybe she was just naturally clumsy.
The thought had no sooner occurred to me than she looked up from her computer screen and smiled, and I…. My stomach turned over. I froze—stopped breathing. I realized my chest was warm, that I was enjoying her scent. It had sweet and floral notes that made my throat burn, and I…well, her lips looked like they might be nice to kiss. I was slow as ever on the uptake, but the realization dawned on me then that I was attracted to this girl.
Just for a flash, I could picture myself pressing my lips to hers, to her neck, drinking and seducing her.
I took a step back, nonplussed. Why? How? This never happened.
Well, not never. But almost. I could remember each instance distinctly. In fact, the last time it happened before Bella came along was almost seventeen years ago, in 1991. I had been attending spring semester at Brown University. She was an outgoing Jewish girl with dark wild curls, a nose ring, and terrible taste in music who sat next to me in an introductory course on statistics. I hadn't given her a second glance initially, but her mind revealed itself over time and I saw she believed that the world was capable of being a good place and she wanted to spend her life doing good in it. She wasn't interested in me, in fact, her thoughts revealed that she had been in the process of discovering she was a lesbian that semester, but she thought of me in the way she always thought of anyone forgotten or excluded. She didn't like the way our classmates treated me and went out of her way to make sure I was never left out. I remembered realizing one day that I liked her as a person, and maybe she was kind of pretty. The next thing I knew, my mind was flooded with horrible, evil thoughts—that confusing mixture of erotic want and monstrous thirst.
It had felt doubly repugnant at the time, like the violation was compounded: not only did I yearn to feed off of her, but I was also thinking of her sexually while in the unique position of knowing how unwelcome my advances would be. She had been nothing but kind to me and I proved myself unworthy of that consideration.
I left school that same night, picked up and moved to Canada without so much as formally dropping my classes. The day I met Bella was a completely different scenario—comparing her in any way to anyone else I had ever met was a ludicrous thing to do. In terms of scale and scope of feeling and response, there was no comparison. But hadn't I left then, too? The difference was, leaving New England had felt like a practical decision, and I hadn't thought of that girl once in the intervening years until this moment. Leaving Forks had felt like running away, and Bella was too magnetic, even after such limited exposure. I couldn't stay away.
Thinking through both of those instances now helped me orient myself in this present moment. Usually, in order to develop even this kind of mild attraction, I required prolonged exposure. I had to start liking and caring about the person before sexual thoughts, even sexually charged feeding thoughts, presented themselves. This was…fast. But the explanation was obvious enough. Nina didn't look at all like Bella, but she had spent the last five minutes reminding me of her, particularly the human Bella I sometimes thought of wistfully: the clumsiness, the pragmatic dismissal of anything superstitious or spiritual, and just now she was biting her lip. Yes…I was definitely attracted.
But what was the fallout of that? Nothing. I marveled for a moment that I didn't feel the least bit out of control, the way I had in the past. I wasn't tense with either the want to lunge forward or the need to leave the store immediately. My muscles were fairly relaxed, all things considered, the amount of venom in my mouth…manageable. The thoughts that had crossed my mind were uncomfortable insofar as they were disloyal to Bella, but I didn't feel like my monster was about to burst out of me. That realization left me feeling disoriented.
"Are you all right?" Nina asked, her brows pulling together in concern. Shit, he looks like he's going to faint.
Was it the games? The uncomfortably honest conversations? Had they somehow done the opposite of what I had dreaded? Instead of bringing him to the surface, letting him off the chain, had playing games with my monster, releasing him in controlled circumstances with a script to follow, actually managed to tame him a modicum? To take away some of his power? Was this what Alice had meant when she implied that I had made progress in some kind of therapeutic sense?
I was standing under fluorescent lights in front of a desk belonging to an innocent human woman. I thought she was sexy. I wanted her blood. But I wasn't tempted beyond acknowledging those facts. Instead, I was dizzy with a kind of giddy relief I had never felt before in my entire existence as a vampire. I'm not afraid of what I might do, I realized. I'm not afraid of me.
A bemused laugh burst from my chest. "Yeah, I am," I reassured Nina. I swallowed and repeated with a heartfelt sincerity that surprised me, "I really am."
It took a few more exchanges before she fully believed me. We both relaxed and I found myself in easy conversation with this stranger. No, that wasn't an adequate descriptor—I was flirting. Sometimes I did that, but it was always a calculated move to get something I wanted or to quiet someone's suspicions, without anything actually there on my side. That wasn't what I was doing right now. I was flirting just because I wanted to, because it was fun and I was riding an emotional high.
And that was how Rose found me. What. The. Fuck…? "Edward, what the hell are you doing?"
Nina's eyes darted to my sister and back to me. She looked like she had swallowed her tongue. I knew my expression was just as guilty.
I heard a clatter on the desk as the poor woman knocked over a cup full of pens scrambling to get me my invoice. She had just noticed my wedding ring and was now making inferences as to the nature of my relationship with Rosalie. I did not correct her. After all, the base assumption was correct: I was married. She stammered through the end of our transaction.
As we walked out of the store and to her car, Rose stared at me like I was a stranger, a pod person. She thought it, too. After we settled in the car, after it rumbled to life and she turned on the wipers, after she shut off the music, Rosalie looked at me squarely. "What was that?"
I shrugged, at a loss myself.
Her jaw clenched in annoyance and she snatched the invoice from me. "Did you at least order everything on my list?"
"Of course," I answered, offended.
Rose was satisfied that everything she requested had been ordered, but she was still irritated with me over my disrespectful behavior.
Disrespectful? That word wracked me. Is that what it was? It hadn't felt like it in the moment—I had thought it was just some easy conversation, a little banter. Nothing remotely romantic or sexual had been alluded to. I hadn't made any advances or even implied that I might.
"Do you think I crossed a line?"
"That's relative," Rose said wryly, and turned the invoice toward me. "She gave you her employee discount, so it's not all bad."
Rosalie was trying to play it off like it wasn't a big deal, but that was a wasted effort because I could see her thoughts and knew that she was incensed on Bella's behalf. That left me with something to ruminate over as we left the city limits.
Thirty miles out, she broke the silence. "No."
"No?"
"No, you didn't cross a line. I know you and I'm sure it was an innocent conversation," she said curtly.
She believed what she said, only…she was having a hard time because she couldn't shake the idea of how she would have felt had it been Emmett instead of me.
Rosalie sighed and rubbed her face with her free hand. "What is with you lately?"
She had noticed all kinds of behavior from me over recent months that she had tagged as unexpected. And there was something underneath, something discomforting, even upsetting, that had come up in a conversation she'd had weeks ago with Emmett.
Mating bites.
"He told you?"
She glanced my direction sharply and then away, eyes fixed on the road in front of her. She didn't pretend not to know what I had seen in her thoughts. "He tells me everything."
Naturally, and it had been ridiculous of me not to have just assumed. Maybe I had thought this would be different because of how much he and I both knew the idea would turn her stomach.
"You haven't done it yet," she observed. "Does that mean you changed your mind? Em thought you might."
"No, I haven't changed my mind." I let loose a deep breath. "Bella felt strongly that if we were going to exchange bites, we should talk though it, more than once, and make absolutely certain it was right for both of us first."
Rose nodded without looking at me, grudgingly respecting that. But she felt so lost on this. She didn't understand at all.
"She was right. It was good that we took that approach. Otherwise I might have just done it because it was important to her, without really looking at myself and what I want," I continued. "Because we've taken time, I…well, I know it's not just about making her happy. It will make me happy, too."
She shook her head as if to clear it, but her thoughts whirled regardless. "I thought I understood you," she muttered. I thought you understood me.
For all our many, many differences, in this, the way we felt about our vampirism, Rosalie had believed we were the same. Kindred. It was a reasonable conclusion—I had believed it, too. For a long time. The idea that I had wandered afield and come to a decision she couldn't relate to was disturbing to her.
"It's not…." I tried to explain. "The way I feel about what we are hasn't changed, not really. It's more about…the way I feel about what I am with Bella. With her, it's different. I'm different—what she sees in me, what she brings out in me. I want to honor that."
She softened, and for a moment that confused me, because in her thoughts, she still did not understand. But then she stated her reason. "I don't get it," she said bluntly. "It's horrifying. It's disgusting. You're twisted and gross. But you seem happy."
I swallowed. "I am happy."
"I'm glad." I could see that the sentiment was genuine. She was repulsed by what Bella and I were planning, and she felt a degree of betrayal by me, abandonment even. But she cared about me and did want me to be happy.
We drove the rest of the way in silence.
The clouds broke and the sun was shining by the time we arrived home. Rose and I spent the afternoon working on Alice's car, taking things as far as we could until the shipment arrived from Germany. I felt antsy the entire time, wishing that I could go find Bella and talk to her about my experience, but I held to my promise to Rose. It gave me time to think about what I would say, and as I did, an idea presented itself to me. A way to kill multiple birds with one stone and push myself forward into territory I had been too apprehensive to enter.
As evening arrived, Bella found me.
"Were you guys able to fix Alice's car?" she asked, greeting me with a kiss.
"No," Rosalie's clipped response carried from across the garage.
Bella's lips turned down. "That's too bad."
Looking at her lovely open face, eyes light with her good mood, I found myself blurting. "I flirted with the woman at the service desk when we went for parts."
She blinked at me, taking a moment to register my non sequitur.
"He did," Rose corroborated my confession, approaching from behind and packing her ratchet set into her standing tool box. "It was weird."
Bella's eyes widened as she took in my expression. And then she burst into giggles.
Idiots. Rose rolled her eyes and continued her clean up efforts.
I wasn't sure whether I should be offended that laughter was my wife's response to my hitting on another woman. Regardless, I needed to talk to her. Setting my jaw, I took her hand and pulled her along behind me, out of the garage. We passed through the big house where Esme and Carlisle were finger painting with Renesmee on a drop cloth in the living room. Carlisle looked up and almost invited us to join, but I inclined my head toward the front door while I towed Bella along with purpose, and he nodded his understanding.
I led Bella down the steps and into the yard, all the way to the porch swing Esme had hung between two trees a few acres away. When we stopped, Bella preemptively kissed my cheek.
"I'm sorry," she said, misapprehending my reason for seeking privacy. "It's not funny."
I raised a brow at her and teased, "Oh, it isn't, is it?"
She raised her shoulders, abashed. "Don't think I'm not aware you could cheat on me with anyone in the world you wanted, if you decided to. I don't like the idea of you flirting with someone else. It was just the look on your face. It was like you were going to tell me you accidentally ran over my dog or something."
I didn't like her talking that way. "I would never cheat on you, Bella."
She smiled. "I know."
For what it was worth, she sounded as though she believed that. I inhaled deeply. "I'm not annoyed that you laughed."
Bella snorted.
"I'll never do it again."
She shifted uncomfortably. "Edward, I don't mind if you flirt with other women sometimes as long as there's no intention behind it, and I don't have to watch."
"I only liked her because she reminded me of you on one of your chaotic human mornings. She spilled her coffee and ruined her shirt. It was a stressful morning for her and she was embarrassed that I saw her clumsiness. I didn't want anything from her. I only wanted to make her feel better."
Bella's expression softened in surprise, becoming almost tender.
"It's just…." How could I explain this to her? "It was a big deal."
Bella's brows pulled together and alarm crept into her features for the first time. I led her to sit with me on the swing, but I wasn't able to remain still for long. As I attempted to describe my morning in a way that she would understand, I found myself rising to my feet, and then pacing.
I didn't want it to come off like I was trying to make excuses for my behavior, but I needed her to know about how my monster just sat quietly and how unprecedented that was. I'm not sure how many times I started and stopped, how long I rambled while Bella listened patiently, but I finally ran dry. And then I was standing in front of her, fists buried in my jacket pockets, head drooped, hoping she got it.
In the silence, her hand extended toward me. I took it and she pulled me forward, back onto the swing and into her arms.
"I'm so glad," she whispered into my hair. "All I've ever wanted for you is, you know, just this...you being more comfortable with who you are. For you to trust the good in you more."
I lifted my head and sought her lips, smothering her, "Edward, I love you." My Bella understood. I felt less like a monster today than I had in years—maybe ever. My arms twined around her body and I pulled her close. So close, I lifted her onto my lap, sighing involuntarily with contentment.
We rocked in the swing for a time while the sun set, listening to the crickets and the breeze rustling through the landscape around us.
"It's probably time to think about heading back in," Bella mumbled, head resting on my shoulder.
I straightened slightly. "Soon. I'd like to discuss something with you first, if that is all right?"
Bella's breath caught, but she nodded. I think she was picking up on the tension in me.
I braced myself before I began. "A few weeks ago, on my birthday, after you helped me…." I almost said 'masturbate,' but the truth was, that didn't quite feel accurate. Or at least, it seemed incomplete as a descriptor, especially given what we had been doing since. For my further development, Bella had given me a mandate to jerk off at least three times a week. If I didn't do it by myself, she made me do it for her, sometimes while she watched across the room, sometimes over her naked body. More than once it had devolved into a game, or even just frantic fucking. I cleared my throat and brought my thoughts back on track. "After we both enjoyed me pressing my teeth into your skin, I finally told you that I wanted mating bites, not just to please you. For me, too."
"I remember," she said, fingering the collar of my shirt. "But you weren't ready. You said you thought it would be a while."
"I've been thinking today that maybe I'm more ready than I thought. If...if letting my monster out here and there to play with you isn't making me more dangerous to humans...if it's actually helping me keep him contained when it matters, then I might be ready."
The air was charged between us. I felt Bella's body tremble with anticipation in my arms.
"Now?" she breathed, infusing the word with such longing, such hope, and I was sorely tempted.
I shifted beneath her, adjusting the angle of my rapidly growing erection. "If you want. But I was actually thinking…." I paused, unsure. Would she think my idea was too sentimental? "It's almost August, and I thought we might do it on our anniversary. That way our human wedding and our vampire mating would be on the same day."
Bella lifted her head from my shoulder and her eyes were bright. She gazed at me intently for a prolonged moment, then her lips attacked mine with fervor, and before I knew it, my clothes were coming off of my body.
"Edward, I need you."
For a moment, I wasn't sure if she meant that she couldn't wait for her bite, so I clarified.
"No," she said with exasperation. "Not that. I like your idea, but I need you inside me. Now."
That cleared things up.
The swing proved too unstable to withstand the kind of energy Bella was throwing into our love making at the moment, so I lowered us both to the grass and, within seconds, was entering her from behind.
As I thrust, I continued my proposal. "We should do it in our meadow."
Bella groaned, her pussy gripping me tight. "Oh, yes. Yes, that's perfect."
"And I should give you your last fantasy as part of it."
There, she stopped. Reaching back to grip my hip, she halted my movement as well and looked over her shoulder at me. "What?"
I tried to explain my reasoning. "Well, that's what this is, isn't it? You want to marry the monster, to belong to him. That was the point of your fantasy, right? That I would lead you away into my world and then just take you as mine? Although, in this case I will come away as yours, too. I always would have anyway, but your bite will make it clear to the world."
She stared. Maybe I had it wrong?
I felt awkward trying to explain my reasoning, and, if I was honest, I was still a little disconcerted by how attracted Bella was to my monster. Saying the words out loud impressed me with the correctness of them, but I still didn't completely love that Bella wanted to belong to all of me, even my darkest and worst parts. That she wanted to wear his teeth on her skin.
Bella leaned forward and straightened up. I winced as I slipped out of her, my cock instantly homesick for her wet heat.
"What's wrong?" I asked as she turned around so that she was facing me.
"Nothing." She pressed her hand against my chest until I changed my position from kneeling to sitting in the grass. She efficiently discarded her underwear, which I had just pushed aside, and crawled into my lap, her knees on either side of my hips. "I just needed to kiss you while we make love. Your lips were too far away."
She illustrated her purpose by lowering herself down onto my erection and slipping her tongue into my mouth. I groaned at the dual pleasure. Bella wove her fingers in my hair and rocked in my lap.
"I love you, Edward," she moaned.
"So you like my idea?" I panted between kisses.
"Yes, it's perfect. Now concentrate on coming inside me. I need it."
My cock throbbed at her words, and I shifted my focus.
Ultimately, I gave her two orgasms before I filled her with my seed. We ended up circling around to our cottage to clean up before braving the big house. Bella beamed at me all night, and I felt both warm with happiness and a weight of pressure that she was so enthusiastic about my proposal.
In the intervening weeks, sex with Bella was exuberant. The way she looked at me half the time was downright soppy and Emmett teased us both about it, but I found it hard to care. I had one or two moments of doubt—our anniversary plans went against everything I had cultivated in myself for almost a hundred years—but Bella's unadulterated happiness was easy reassurance that I was doing the right thing.
Without knowing what we had planned, my parents offered us Isle Esme again. Bella and I talked it over and decided to take them up on the offer. We booked our tickets for a week-long stay in Brazil, leaving the night of the thirteenth. We would spend the day in our meadow and fly out after dark. Ness would spend the weekdays at the big house and the weekend with Charlie.
As the time ticked closer, I found myself alternating between nerves and anticipation. I detected some of the same in Bella, but, as ever, she was the less conflicted of the two of us. I trusted in her certainty and took strength from it.
The morning of August thirteenth, my Volvo was packed with our luggage. We said our farewells and promised Renesmee that we would call her as soon as we were settled on Isle Esme. Bella kept going back for more hugs and I understood the feeling. We had never been away from our daughter for so long before.
Some of my family were confused as to why we hadn't flown out sooner and wondered what we could possibly be doing on a sunny day like this before our flight. But none of them asked. Nosy little Alice was an exception, of course, and her knowing smile tipped off Jasper and Rose.
I resented her keeping such a close watch on us, but I also took reassurance from the fact that she seemed relaxed and happy for us. Her visions must be indicating that things would go well.
Before we left, I brought Bella back to the cottage and surprised her with our old clothes, the ones we had worn on our first trip to the meadow. Well, almost. I had found Bella's in her old things from her dad's house, but my pants from that day had been carelessly removed from the rotation by Alice at some point. They were probably on a rack in a Goodwill somewhere. I found a similar pair and doubted Bella would notice. As I suspected, what she cared about, what she remembered most, was the unbuttoned shirt. I did have that.
She bit her lip when I emerged fully in costume, eyes hungrily wandering my chest. "You have no idea how the sight of you in that shirt haunted me."
I glanced downward at my exposed chest. I understood a little better how Bella could look at my skin without being repulsed now that she was a vampire, too. Her turning hadn't lessened her beauty for me one iota. But part of me still marveled at how she could have found me, in all my unnaturalness, appealing in the first place. "Really?"
She nodded, ogling me. "It made my knees weak then, and it makes my knees weak now."
I grinned. "Shall I carry you then? Up the mountain to your second marriage bed?"
Bella laughed, but said, "Yes, please," and climbed onto my back when I presented it to her.
She nuzzled into my neck and kissed my ear as I wove through the trees and the landscape flew by. It was a five minute run, several miles, to our meadow and I wasn't taking the most direct route. I skirted around so that we could approach from the same direction as we did that day.
My stomach became more unsettled the closer we got. It was an odd kind of stage fright. I knew Bella wouldn't be repulsed by my monster when I let him out. That wasn't the issue. But it still felt wrong, loosening my control on purpose.
I came to a stop at the midway point of a trail too subtle for human eyes, a path I had led her down many a time. We were surrounded by trees on all sides, the air still damp with the last of the morning fog.
She attempted to hop down from my back but her foot caught and she stumbled. Thoroughly alarmed, I reached out to steady her. It had been such a long time since she had lost her balance that I hadn't been expecting it. I felt her unsteadiness as my hand squeezed her shoulder. She was taut with tension and having trouble making eye contact.
"Are you all right?" I asked, concerned.
She nodded, biting her lip and giving me a bashful smile. "I told you my knees were trembling."
I studied her. Was that really all?
"Edward," she looked up at me from under her eyelashes, "we've been walking for so long. Are we almost there?"
I inhaled. Were we starting? And, wait. Had she pretended to stumble? Was she playing human for me?
It was shocking how quickly I switched from apprehensive to turned on.
"Not much further." My voice had dropped low.
Bella shivered. "What will you do with me when we get there?"
I shut out all my last niggling doubts and released my monster. "Whatever I want."
She gasped and backed herself against a mossy tree trunk. I pursued and leaned over her.
"Do you want to leave?" I asked neutrally.
Bella blinked up at me and shook her head. Was her acting better than usual, or was she actually nervous?
"Are you sure?" My tone was conversational, but firm. "I'm going to ravish you."
She visibly swallowed. "I'm a virgin."
"I know."
"Will you be gentle?"
I studied her, and then I lied because it was the answer I knew she wanted for this fantasy. "No."
She whimpered and I wasn't even touching her. "Will you bite me?"
"Yes."
"Will you drink my blood?"
"Yes."
"Make me like you?"
I reached out and caressed her cheek. Her lips parted as she leaned into my touch. "If you want to go, I will let you. But, Bella love, if you stay, you're mine."
"I'm yours." She said it like a promise.
Gritting my teeth, I fought my tender impulses, how badly I wanted to kiss her. I continued the game. "Then strip."
Bella's eyes widened, a reaction I could tell was rooted equally in lust and shock. I was improvising a little, following the spirit of the script rather than the letter of it at this point. Surprising her was fun, and she was enjoying this. A lot.
I slipped my hand under her layered sweater and button-down shirt, then up inside the cup of her bra. I tweaked her nipple and enjoyed the way her whole body trembled. Leaning closer, my lips right beside her ear, I said, "If you're mine, then you strip for me. Right now."
Her sharp moan startled nearby birds.
Redirecting the hand under her bra cup down her body, I slipped beneath the waistband of her jeans, into her panties. Her head fell back against the tree trunk when I slid two fingers into her gushing-wet pussy.
"Fuck, Edward!" Her arms wrapped around my neck and she pulled me into a kiss with all her vampire strength. It was my turn to be caught off guard—I hadn't been expecting that.
"Bella—"
"I know," she groaned as she clung to me. "I know. I shouldn't break character. But this is so hot." She squirmed against my fingers, pushing them deeper, rocking her pelvis against my palm. "This is so hot and I'm so close."
I disentangled myself and pinned her against the tree with one hand—the other still had fingers inside her. "Behave, human Bella," I growled.
She bit her lip and gazed up at me with mischief and adoration. I fought the urge to laugh and won, but my lips twitched. This wasn't the time to tell her, but I actually thought it was cute that she sometimes had a hard time sticking to the premise of our games.
I kissed the bridge of her nose as loving Edward, then tried to get myself back into the mindset of the monster. It was easier than I would have thought, and under any other circumstance that would have terrified me.
My voice as dark as I could make it, I said, "Are you going to strip, Bella? Or do I need to rip your clothes off you?"
Bella's eyes closed and her body quaked. I felt her pussy clench down on my fingers and realized that she was coming. Reacting instinctively, I pressed the heel of my palm down on her clit to make it better for her.
She cried out. "Ughn, oh Edward!"
I waited until she had ridden the pleasure through, enjoying the aftershock pulses of her pussy on my fingers. Then I withdrew my hand from her jeans. She moaned at the loss.
"Very well then," I said with finality. My hands fisted handfuls of her sweater and yanked. The yarn snapped and unraveled, parting jaggedly down the middle. I tore her shirt and jeans to shreds. I ruined what I knew to be one of her precious few remaining bras, and her underwear snapped into three pieces. While I worked, she toed off her shoes and pushed her socks off with her toes.
This had always been part of the plan, a key element of the game. Who knew that Bella's tireless crusade against my clothes had belied a desire for me to do the same to hers? And in this case, a little rip or tear here or there wouldn't cut it. She wanted the clothes to be unwearable, to be trapped naked in the middle of the forest with my monster.
And so she was: stripped bare before me, cowering against the tree trunk. Panting. Nipples tight and hard. Slit flushed with recent orgasm and slick with arousal.
For a moment, I just stared in awe. My Bella was the sexiest creature on the planet, and sometimes that fact was overwhelming.
"I'm ready," she whispered. "Make me yours."
It was tempting just to fuck her there and then, against the tree, but we were coming to the point where the stakes were higher than that. This was more than a game.
I discarded my own clothing before I lifted her into my arms and carried her like a bride forward down the path and into the meadow. My bride, for the second time. My dead heart swelled at the notion. She was choosing forever with me, again.
We passed from the canopy of the trees and into the sunlight. She glowed and glimmered in my arms, so beautiful my chest hurt. I laid her down on a bed of grass and ferns, kissing her lips.
"I'm going to take you, Bella."
She nodded. "Take me."
I did, but my way. I knew Bella expected me to just enter her and rut, but that wasn't enough for me. Not even as the monster. I realized, as she was spread out before me, that even the vampire in me wanted her in a bone deep way that could only be satisfied by inspiring devotion, not mere submission. So, I ate her pussy until I had her babbling about how much she loved me.
It was strange, feeling so attuned with my monster, wanting the same thing as him. Had he always wanted Bella's love? No, I remembered that well. Her blood was more than enough for him for a long time. But at some point, she had made him want more. It wasn't romantic—there was a desperate, nasty edge to his desire. He wanted to possess her, clutch her covetously close, so that she would never ever leave him. He wanted to mark her skin with his teeth all over. He wanted her devoted to indulging his every petulant emotional need and perverse sexual whim. He was my id and my most selfish heart of hearts.
And he…I wished in this moment that she still had blood to drink.
He was me. And she loved me anyway.
I kissed my way up her body, pressed and pinned her thighs as open as they would go, and thrust into her. I did it hard, in one stroke. It would have been brutal if she hadn't been so ready for me.
"Edward," she clutched at me as I took her roughly. "My Edward."
She kissed my bicep, my shoulder. My neck.
"Edward," she panted. "Can I do it?"
I slowed. "What?"
She looked shy, but eager. Her finger traced the hollow at the base of my neck. "Can I bite you?"
I froze, hesitating. But then I looked at my sweet wife, the open, clear, unconditional love in her eyes, and answered without reservation. "Yes." If I knew anything in this world, it was that I belonged to her.
Her lips broke into a smile and she kissed me. When she pulled back, she studied the stretch of skin she would mark. "I don't know if there is supposed to be anything more to this than just the bite, but…I wanted to say that I know exactly how fortunate I am. You are the most wonderful person I have ever met, and it still seems crazy to me that you chose me, that you waited for me without knowing I existed." She cupped the side of my face, her golden eyes earnest. "I love you, all of you, as you are. I will follow you anywhere. I'll be your friend, your ally—stand with you no matter what the world throws at us. I'll always give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the best of your intentions. I'll be yours, always."
Vows. She was reciting vows.
As her words washed over me, the gravity of what we were doing dawned. I had been so fixated on the bite, the perversity of it, that I hadn't given the commitment part equal weight. After all, to my mind, we were already married and this was just a twisted sex thing. I'd had trouble seeing it as anything else, and when the idea had whittled away at me until I caved, it had been the kink of it that drew me. I wanted to bite Bella while I fucked her, and that was why I agreed. Bella's words reminded me that this was more than that.
And they touched me, burrowing deep and bringing me a sense of safety and peace. They were kind and thoughtful. She loved me. So much. It staggered me how much.
Her touch guided me and she rolled us onto my back. I remained inside of her while she straddled me, and we were rocking, moving together more as one than two. She brushed my skin with kisses and my arms came up around her, wanting to feel more of her skin against mine.
"Edward?" The sun lit her hair like a halo. "I'll try not to bite you too hard. Use the safe word if you need me to stop."
I nodded, bracing myself and trying not to think about how much this would hurt. She bent over my neck. I felt the brush of her lips, then her teeth as she carefully positioned her bite so that the collars of most shirts would hide it. When her teeth sank into my flesh, it was somehow more painful than I had been dreading. It took every bit of self-discipline I had not to cry out. I didn't want her to pull back before her venom had a chance to settle into the wound, giving the scar definition, and worried she would stop too soon if I voiced my agony.
But then, over the course of a mere second, something happened. The pain didn't go away, but something rose to meet it. A strange sense of satisfaction and belonging, a wholeness I didn't know I was capable of feeling. I thrust up into Bella, groaning at the sensation, my fingernails digging into the flesh of her thighs. She actually snarled against my flesh and humped back. It was…shatteringly intimate.
She released me from the bite, reeling backward, gasping and whimpering. Catching her wild eyes, my hands immediately sought her cheeks, becoming gentle on the turn of a dime.
"Bella," I said. "Bella love, are you okay?" My new bite burned sharply as I moved, but I ignored that.
She nodded, but it took a few minutes for her to calm down and gather herself.
"It was…it was just more intense than I was expecting," she admitted shakily. Her eye fixed on my neck, where I knew my bite was now glittering in the sunlight. "Does it still hurt?" she asked, brow furrowed with concern.
I tested by moving my arm again, and there was only the faintest ache. I shook my head. "We heal fast."
She bowed over me and kissed the wound. "I'm sorry. It felt like I went too hard."
"You didn't," I said immediately.
Bella sighed and settled her weight against my chest. "I've never bitten a neck before. That wasn't on an animal, I mean. It was…I didn't want to stop."
I stroked her bare back comfortingly. "I know."
"Are you sure I didn't hurt you? You can tell me."
"Oh, it hurt," I stated plainly. "A lot. But it also…." How could I articulate an experience I hadn't even begun to process? "It felt right." That seemed both simplistic and accurate. The pain had felt right, as in correct and fair, like a tithe I was paying for the betterment of my soul. The privilege of getting to wear Bella's bite should have a price.
"You didn't come," she observed.
No, I hadn't. The moment had been too otherwise intense for my body to respond with any kind of release. Though, I was still hard, still snuggly sheathed inside her.
"I did," she admitted in the smallest of voices.
My arms tightened around her and my lips split into a grin. "I'm glad."
"Will it feel that way for you?" Bella asked hesitantly. "Like you want to sink your teeth deeper and deeper into me and never release?"
Undoubtedly, and I admitted it to her.
If her caught breath and pulsing pussy were any indication, she liked that idea very much.
She lifted her torso slightly and one of her hands snaked around to sweep her loose hair off of her neck, baring it to me. "Do it, Edward. Please—I can't wait anymore."
But for a moment I was frozen, ashamed at the stark difference between her bite and mine. Bella had prepared vows. Her teeth entering my body had been an act of intimacy and romance. My bite couldn't help but seem tainted by comparison.
My hand caressed her face. "Bella?"
She met my eyes.
I didn't have anything planned, so I would just have to speak honestly and hope it was enough. "All I've ever wanted is for my presence to be a place where you are safe and cared for. I strive to be for you what you are for me. I can't promise I'll always succeed, but can promise I'll always try. Every day for as long as we have, even if that is forever, I will always try."
I drew in a shaky breath, raised onto my elbow, and kissed her tenderly. Pressing my forehead to hers, I whispered, "I love you."
She said it back.
"I'll stop if you say the word," I swore.
Bella nodded her acknowledgment and I settled into her neck, surrounded by her scent. Home.
Her skin trembled under my lips and I was shaking too, with need, with the gravity of this moment. And then I satisfied my deepest, most shameful desire, the one I had kept chained and buried from the moment I laid eyes on her. I bit my Bella's neck, hard, teeth sinking almost to the gum.
She screamed, and it didn't solely sound like pleasure, but she did not push me away and she did not use the safe word. I was relieved because, despite my promise, I was unsure I would have been able to stop. It was primal satisfaction on a scale that astounded me. I thought I knew what it was to think of Bella as mine—but I had no idea.
The taste of her venom bathed my tongue and I could almost convince myself it was her sweet, perfect blood.
My arms locked around her waist and held her to me like a vice. I came in her with a feral snarl, and just kept going. Feverishly, brutally, I thrust and pounded up into her pussy, which was a sopping, convulsing mess. It was a few minutes before I recognized that Bella was experiencing rolling orgasms, like the day under the piano. That realization spurred me on, made me go even harder.
Bella's cries were all ecstasy now, with yeses and Edwards shouted to the trees. I felt the searing sting of her fingernails clawing trenches into my arms and chest. She wrung pleasure from my cock, brutalizing it with the strength of her grip, until it was too much. I came until it hurt, until my body had nothing left to give. And then I wrenched my mouth from her skin.
She came one more time, and I groaned in pain as her pussy clamped down again on my tender cock.
We both lay in an entwined heap, whimpering sobs and panting from the intensity of it all. I had to pull out of her, because any stimulation at all was too much. Neither of us could speak.
The sun traveled across the sky as we held each other in silence. Bella's body was shaky, skittish, and made noises that told me she would be crying if it were possible. I didn't panic because I understood. I felt the same way.
"That was beautiful," she said finally.
I swallowed and held her tight.
Bella found my lips and began kissing me, comforting me. She did not regret marrying the monster.
At long last, I sat up and surveyed the damage. Her claw marks on my skin had already healed without leaving a trace and I barely spared them a thought. But her neck…. I needed to see.
She sat up, too, and moved her hair out of the way as though she instinctively understood what I was searching for. The scar on her neck was deep, deeper than mine, I would wager anything. Each tooth clearly defined—due to the sheer length of time my bite had lasted, her skin must have saturated with my venom. Every drop of it would have felt like flames.
"How badly did I hurt you?" I was unable to keep from asking, even though I knew what it was to be on the receiving end. Faced with the actual mark, guilt began to rise in me.
But she smiled. "Enough." She brushed my disheveled hair from my eyes. "It was more pain than I thought I would want, sexually. But it made my orgasms so good, and I felt so close to you."
I looked away, back to the bite. I raised my hand and traced the lines of it reverently. I still couldn't believe that she had let me do this. That she had wanted me to, and that she didn't regret it after the fact.
"Come here," Bella said, and she pulled me close, curled into me and settled with a sigh. She started talking about what she'd like to do once we got to Brazil, luring me into the conversation with her. She spoke about how much she would miss Renesmee and how she wouldn't be surprised if she would end up begging to come home a few days early.
She told me about a shopping trip last night with Alice and Esme where Bella had been made to try on sixty-seven pairs of shoes, only to refuse to buy any of them. Then, a story about a biker she and Jake had met at a midnight diner who was convinced that Dolly the famous cloned sheep was secretly still alive and being held in a top secret military bunker in Calgary. About the ugly necklace consisting entirely of glitter beads Renesmee had made for her. About how she and Rose had gotten Emmett sucked into One Tree Hill and he was now watching it with them in secret.
In other words, she carried me through, brought me back to emotional equilibrium. She even made me laugh.
As the sun moved lower in the sky, signaling the approach of evening, Bella announced that we should head back so that we had enough time to make our flight.
I kissed the top of her head and walked to a cluster of boulders near the north end of the meadow. There I had stashed a change of clothing for Bella last night in secret.
Her mouth parted in an O when I dropped the garments into her lap. "You thought of clothes for me."
I shrugged, grinning. "I couldn't help but think that having a monster rip your clothes off and ravish you in the woods while you get off on the feeling of being naked and helpless is one thing, but having to actually walk back to your cottage five miles away with no way to cover up is another."
She laughed. "Fair point."
I didn't add that I was empathetic due to once or twice having been in a similar situation where Bella ruined my clothes in her eagerness for sex. I ducked back onto the trail to retrieve my own clothing, as well as Bella's socks and shoes, and the tattered pile of her unwearable outfit.
We dressed and headed home to clean up for our flight. There was no way I was wearing this ridiculous shirt on the plane, no matter how much Bella liked it.
Our week on Isle Esme was idyllic and relaxing. Unlike the last time we visited, I wasn't so paranoid about Bella's safety and comfort that I couldn't enjoy myself. I also had the self control not to break the beds, even if Bella and I barely left them. She had talked about wanting to explore the island as a vampire, but mostly we stayed in. That was my fault. The sight of my bite on Bella's neck did things to me. Every time I caught a glimpse of it, I had to have her immediately—a situation not helped by the fact that Bella seemed to enjoy displaying it.
Even after we got home and dressed to meet my family, she chose a sundress with a wide collar. I tensed, almost asking if she would be willing to change. But ultimately, I said nothing. My siblings already knew and my parents would find out eventually.
Esme recovered her from her shock fairly quickly, and even managed not to stare more than was polite. But from Carlisle's mind I heard a reaction that echoed something of Rosalie's. On top of his distaste for the practice generally, it clashed with his conception of me and my values. Particularly, it ran counter in ways he'd believed he and I were aligned. His disapproval bothered me, but not nearly to the degree that I expected. That surprise set me on an even keel and erased my last traces of shame. Occasions where I was so sure of a decision that Carlisle's opinion couldn't sway me were vanishingly rare. This one must be right.
He would come around when he saw how happy we were.
As we settled into the living room with everyone else, Emmett broke the tension by commenting on what everyone else was thinking about. We answered a few prying questions and I even pulled my collar aside to show my own bite, to whoops and jeers. Blessedly, Esme changed the subject and the night continued as it would have normally.
My arm rested around Bella, and I found myself understanding Peter's impulse to lay his hand over his mate's bite. The raised ridges of the scar were inexplicably reassuring to the touch. Bella had chosen to belong to me—to the loving husband, the sexual deviant, and the monster in the dark. All three were tamed, at her feet and utterly devoted to her happiness.
She wore the mark proudly that she was my love, my mate. She was my home.
Author's Note: Whew! I hope I did the mating bites justice after all that build up. I took a little extra time writing more drafts than usual because I wanted it to be everything I was picturing in my head. I will confess I considered waiting to post this chapter till the 13th, for the poetry of it. But only for a second! I couldn't make you guys wait after the chapter was finished.
I was so psyched to write Rosalie's scene. I knew going into this fic that I wanted to give each of the Cullens space to shine, but plans didn't start off concrete for the most part regarding who would turn up where. That wasn't the case with Rose—I always knew I was saving her for the finale and that Edward voicing his acceptance out loud of all this vampire stuff should happen with her. No one else would feel the gravity of that the way she would.
This was going to be the end, but then I went and wrote an epilogue, so that will be coming. It is in the editing process now, so expect it within 1-2 days. Thank you to everyone who is reading and leaving me reviews. I appreciate you all!
