*BPOV*

"What is that?" I asked as Edward pulled something that looked like a misshapen Storm Trooper helmet out of his pack.

"It's a snorkel," he said as if it were obvious.

"Snorkels are little plastic tubes with mouthpieces. That is not a snorkel," I argued as he fit the full-face mask over my head and turned me around to adjust the straps behind my head.

"What can I say? Recreational water sports have come a long way in recent years," he mused, a smile in his voice. "How's that feel?" He turned me back around to face him.

My breath caught in my throat. He was startlingly beautiful, sparkling like diamonds in the sun, like something out of a dream.

"Fine. Tight," I finally answered. Behind the plastic of the mask, my voice sounded far away to my ears.

"But not too tight?" Edward tried to slide the mask around my face, but it didn't budge. He removed his hand, seeming satisfied.

We were standing on the bank of what looked like a calm, mossy green river that carved through the lush tropical landscape of Isle Esme.

"The dolphins are just over there in that cove," he pointed to a smaller tributary that fed into a larger canal.

"You aren't coming?" I felt the anxious creases form on my brow.

He raised his hand to touch me, but then let it drop. I guessed he wanted to touch my face, to soothe the worry there, but was impeded by the mask.

"Dolphins don't like my kind much," he said with a small regretful smile. "I won't take my eyes off you. I can be there in under five seconds if you get into any trouble. You'll be fine." He sounded like he was reassuring himself more than me.

Under five seconds? My jaw fell open, judging the distance—at least 100 meters out. Would I ever get used to his breathtaking speed? Not in this lifetime, I wagered.

"Ok…" I said doubtfully. "One last thing... How will I know how deep I can swim if I can't see the air tube?" I asked, remembering the times I'd played around with a standard snorkel as a kid and choked on mouthfuls of water when the top of the tube became submerged.

Edward's smile was patient. "You can swim as deep as you like. The air intake valve on this bad boy won't take on water like you're probably remembering the old ones did," he lightly tapped the plastic face shield as if he were slapping the roof of a car he was trying to sell me.

He wound his arms around my waist and pulled me in close, grinning before he kissed the plastic directly over my mouth. I was amazed that he hadn't even left a smudge. Oh right, no body oils.

Edward watched me with an amused look on his face as I considered that. "Something you want to ask me, Mrs. Cullen?" He quirked an eyebrow.

"Do you not leave fingerprints either?" I asked, accusation in my tone.

Edward grinned widely, always eager to show off his tricks. He momentarily palmed my face shield, then removed his hand, leaving the plastic crystal clear and smudge-free.

"Being human sucks," I grumbled, pulling away from him and trudging toward the water.

"Not as much as being a vampire," he laughed, flashing his razor-sharp teeth. I rolled my eyes at his bad joke.

The water wasn't as cold as it looked. Under the hot sun, it felt nice against the overheated skin of my legs.

I could feel the smooth river stones under the thin soles of my water shoes, but I couldn't see them, because the water clouded with sand and sediment with every step I took.

I took my time, wading out. When I was up to my knees, I heard him call out, "Oh, and love?" His hands were cupped around his mouth. I rolled my eyes again. He was barely 15 yards away; my hearing wasn't that bad.

"That bikini should be illegal!" he smirked.

I blushed at the compliment. I had half a mind to untie the spaghetti strings at my neck and hips and throw the scanty triangles of lycra at him. But I seriously doubted my ability to throw it that far in the slight breeze, and I really didn't want to run home naked.

However, knowing Edward, if my swimsuit were lost or damaged, he'd give me his clothes, and then he'd be naked. That was a much better proposition. Even so, I decided to behave. For once.

Up to my waist now in the water, I glided in the rest of the way, feeling goosebumps stippling every inch of my skin with the chill. I broke into a loose interpretation of a crawl stroke, kicking my legs lazily behind me.

I let my mind go blank as I enjoyed the weightless feeling of being in the water, my hair fanning out behind me. I tested out the snorkel, cautiously putting my face in the water, halfway expecting the mask to start filling with water, or at least fog up; it did neither.

I bobbed along the surface, paddling my feet behind me. I couldn't see very far beneath me as the water was cloudy with stirred up mud and natural debris. I took a deep breath and dove under the surface, following the scurrying webbed feet of a river turtle who rushed to evade me.

I swam underwater for as long as my lungs would allow, breeching only enough for my mask to allow me to breathe again before diving under again, running my fingers along the silt and stone lining the river bottom.

When I surfaced, I could feel Edward's eyes on me. From this distance, his form was smaller than I'd expected it to be, though not hard to find, glittering as he was. He waved and called out.

"Almost there!" His voice was barely audible over the trickling of the gentle current, swallowed up by the distance between us. He pointed to just beyond the sandbar I was coming up on.

That's when I saw the group of protruding dorsal fins cutting a wide figure-eight through the smooth surface of the water. Except, the fins were more of a knobby hump than the sleek blade-like shape you'd come to expect from a bottlenose dolphin.

One of the porpoises turned on his side, slapping the water with his pectoral fin as if waving hello. I could see the smooth side of its body gleaming in the sunlight.

"Well, I'll be! They really are pink!" I said to myself, awed.

I cautiously swam closer, not wanting to spook them. Edward had assured me they weren't dangerous to humans, merely curious and sometimes playful.

As I drew nearer, the fins disappeared underwater and I worried I'd scared them away, until seconds later when they reappeared just feet away, circling me. There were four of them. Three of them were a silvery gray color, and the slightly larger pink one I'd spotted before.

Edward had told me earlier that the pink dolphins were male, and he was the boldest one. I laughed as his long, skinny beak animatedly splashed the water in front of me.

Charmed, I greeted them in a friendly tone. "Well, hello there!" He swam closer, clicking and trilling. I cautiously held up a land, letting him approach if we wanted, but trying to keep a respectful distance. The dolphin knew no such boundaries.

An excited gasp escaped my lips as I felt his smooth, rubbery hide slide frictionlessly against the skin of my thigh as he swam past.

Then I let out a little shriek of surprise when I felt the nudge of another beak press against the bottom of my foot, pushing me through the water a few feet. I laughed and splashed and enjoyed the majesty of these rare, exotic creatures.

Petting the flank of my new friend, I looked into his beady little eye, the only one that was visible with him floating on his side the way he was.

"You seem pretty magical, too. Are you going to shapeshift into a tribe of Amazons when I turn around?" I mused, only half-joking.

*EPOV*

"You're just full of good ideas today, aren't you Edward?" I muttered to myself sarcastically as I paced back and forth on the grassy riverbank. It was harder than it should've been, letting Bella swim off alone.

I felt utterly hamstrung not being able to pick up her scent or hear her heart beating under the water. I could only rely on my eyes, and I could only see her as long as she stayed afloat.

3.45 seconds, I calculated. That's all it would take me to get to her. Let her enjoy the animals while she still can.

I smiled then, delighting at the sound of her endless giggles as she splashed around with the friendly beasts. Watching her enjoy herself, even from afar, had been worth the anxiety.

But, by God, I must remember to never let Alice pack Bella's swim attire for any trip that wasn't a secluded private island!

Bella, almost completely bare save for her most intimate places, was a sight to behold. I hadn't wanted to let her out of the house dressed as she was.

However, after my eyeballs receded back into their sockets, I bit my tongue and told her she looked beautiful, relieved that, at least for now, she was for my eyes only.

It wasn't that I didn't think she looked beautiful; she was always beautiful. Though, much like my human counterparts, many of my sensibilities were frozen in the era that I was raised.

It goes without saying, in 1918, the common prostitute would have clutched her pearls at what Bella was wearing.

Of course, I'd had decades to watch fashion trends evolve and...diminish, in the case of ladies' swimwear.

In this instance, I was left mystified by the female brain. Young women wore attention-getting swimsuits that left them feeling self-conscious and vulnerable, ostensibly to attract a suitor, but then were furious and indignant when they attracted the wrong sort of suitor.

The feminists among them insisted that what they wore wasn't for any man's benefit—and sometimes that was true, but humans couldn't fight their biological imperatives any better than vampires could.

I laughed out loud, remembering the time Bella had asked me if there were gay vampires.

"Indeed. Your human sexuality stays with you after you are turned. You remember Jane's brother, Alec?"

"I rather wish I didn't," she'd said with a frown.

I raised my eyebrows suggestively.

"Alec? Really?!" she crowed. And then her face smoothed out. "I mean, good for him. I support that. Just not his chosen...profession," she made a disgusted face.

I smiled at her sympathetically. "I can understand why you have such an unfavorable opinion of the Volturi, Bella, but they aren't inherently bad. It's their job to make sure we follow the rules and don't risk exposure.

"And, truth be told, I broke the rules. I got too close to you. And I broke the rules again when I...went to Italy."

Bella cringed at the memory.

"You know, that never made sense to me…" her brow furrowed, deep in thought.

"What didn't?"

"If your kind is at the top of the food chain, why do you even care if humans know what you are? I mean...you could take over, enslave humans, and farm them for their blood. How could they stop you?"

I couldn't help but notice how she talked about humans as if she wasn't one of them.

I'd stared at her from across her small kitchen table. "Did you just propose world domination...over a bowl of Cocoa Puffs?" I asked with an exaggerated look of horror.

"Kinda, yeah," she laughed, shrugging.

"You're definitely not the first to propose that. But I guess you could say...most vampires enjoy the hunt too much and prefer their humans to be...free-range," I smiled wryly.

She calmly accepted that with a nod, munching noisily on her incredibly unappealing breakfast.

"Makes sense. Free-range cows and chickens taste better, too."

"You are so absurd, Bella," I'd said with an adoring smile.

Breaking free from my abstraction, I slid my t-shirt over my head and stuffed it in the rucksack I'd hung from a nearby tree.

I sliced into the water, leaving hardly a ripple in my wake. 3.45 seconds later, Bella's pale legs were within reach, kicking in place and the only creature left in the water that I hadn't scared away for half a mile.

When I suddenly emerged from the water, her piercing scream scattered the birds and land animals for twice as far.

"Edward, don't do that!" Bella's pruney hand flew to her thundering heart. Then she slapped her wet hands against my chest with a loud thwap. "I thought you were a crocodile!"

"A sparkling crocodile?" I teased, pulling her close.

She had conveniently rested the snorkel on top of her head. I placed my hands on either side of her face and took advantage of her now unprotected lips. She didn't resist.

When I pulled away, she snorted. "Why not? A sparkling croc would fit right in with the pink dolphins."

I barked out a laugh. Bella had such a wonderful sense of humor. I could banter with her for a lifetime and never get bored, and I planned to do just that.

"Come on, little mermaid. There's something else I want to show you. It's on the way back."

Bella climbed on my back, and I leisurely swam us back to shore at human speed.

Instead of going back the way we'd come, I took a slightly different route, following the river upstream deeper into the heart of the island.

*BPOV*

I heard the deafening roar of the waterfall before I saw it. When Edward had started scaling a sheer cliff face, I'd closed my eyes as an effort to keep from losing my lunch.

Now we were standing at the top of the falls, watching untold millions of gallons of white water churn violently over the rocks before falling some two hundred feet below.

"What's the matter, love? I was under the impression that you rather liked cliff diving," Edward arched an eyebrow, daring me to argue the point.

I wasn't sure that he had ever quite forgiven me for that little stunt, and the look on his face seemed to confirm my suspicions.

I laughed nervously. "You know how effective reverse psychology can be when applied to teenagers," I rambled in explanation. "It seemed like a good idea at the time when my delusions of you were begging me not to. But now that I have the real deal giving me the go-ahead," I gestured to him, "...it's not quite so alluring."

A myriad of emotions flickered across his face. He seemed to settle on amused. Then Edward's lips were at my ear.

"What are you afraid of?" He asked with a dark chuckle sending a chill that had nothing to do with cold rippling down my spine. My eyes flashed intuitively. I knew what he was doing, the little cheater.

"You know...of drowning. Getting torn up by the rocks," I answered in a shaky voice.

He was behind me now. "Would I let you drown?" he crooned, his cool lips lingering at the hollow behind my ear.

I sighed, completely under his spell. "N-no," I stuttered. The icy trail of his lips continued down to the juncture of my shoulder and neck.

"Would I let a rock hurt you?" Edward's wintery hands slid around me, his long fingers splaying over my hips.

.

"No, but-" before I could say another word, he'd spun me around to face him. His face was just inches away now, his eyes were black fire.

His lips came closer to mine, just a hair's breadth away. I felt my lashes brush his cheek as my eyes fluttered closed. "Do you trust me?" There was a slight edge to his voice.

"Mhmm" I nodded infinitesimally.

When his lips finally crashed into mine, I almost didn't notice that he had scooped me up into his arms, wrapping my legs around his hips, forming a protective cage around me with his arms. And with two quick bounds, we were flying. Or falling...something in between.

I yelped into his mouth as the water came rushing up to greet us, but he only held me tighter...kissed me harder. I was barely jarred as Edward's body absorbed the impact of the water below. I expected the water to feel freezing, but several degrees warmer than Edward's body, it could've been a swimming pool.

Edward's legs propelled us to the surface with the power of a nuclear reactor. Less than a second later, I was breathing. I was also topless.

I'd have to remember to thank Alice for packing this particular bikini, I thought, despite all my complaining. I pressed the hardened tips of my breasts against his chest and he hissed as if I'd burned him, but pleasurably, somehow.

"Bella..." the sound of my name was lost between colliding lips.

I could feel his head shaking slightly as he pulled away from me. "Let me take you home. You're freezing."

Ok, so that was actually true.

"Shower with me when we get back?" I asked, looking up at him through my waterlogged lashes.

He pretended to think about it. "Well...Esme has been wanting to remodel the bathroom."

And like the gentleman he was, gave me the shirt from his pack to wear home.

*A/N* Don't mind me, just stretching out the honeymoon fun times before breaking down the next, like, 600 pages of angst heh. I really, really wish BD had gone another way. And I agree with those of you who have suggested it was just way too much Jake. I have no plans to write a Jake POV. The pack just doesn't interest me that much. I will probably need to go off-book to work around that huge chunk of text, and that's just fine with me. :D I hope you've enjoyed this update. Drop me a line and let me know what you think! I love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.