A/N: Thanks so much for your lovely thoughts, guys! Yes, this will be extremely different from AoI, LOL.

Remember, this will post every day through Valentine's Day!

Betad by the lovely Michelle Renker Rhodes.

Most characters belong to S. Meyer. The rest is all mine.

Part 2 – Payback's a bitch, Love

EPOV

Bella and I stand side by side on the Eclipse's debarkation platform, thanking those closest and dearest to us for joining us on this morning's private cruise. When we boarded this a.m., the skies above us were deep blue, and the waters below were crystalline. I was Edward Masen: single, marine biologist, deep diver and catamaran tour owner/operator. My girl was Bella Swan: single, investment manager (just for a handful of family and friends), deep diver and catamaran tour owner/operator.

Now, we're Mr. and Mrs. Masen.

Holy shit, I'm married.

To Bella.

To the sexiest, hottest, funniest, smartest and sweetest woman God has ever put on this planet.

The wide grin I wear as I bid farewell and thanks to those deemed worthy to join us on this most important of days is only a modest clue to what she means to me.

"Now, I'm not asking you guys to call me every day or anything," Alice, one of Bella's best friends snickers as she mimics Bella's pain-in-the-ass mother, "but call me. Guys, your honeymoon is going to be the most romantic trip ever, and I need to live vicariously through you!"

"Hey, hey, hey," Jasper, her husband, moans at her side. "Are you trying to say our real life isn't romantic enough for you?"

Alice crooks a brow his way while balancing their sleeping eighteen-month-old daughter in her arms. "Jasper, honey, I love you with all my heart, but when was the last time you took me quick and hard in the middle of the Caribbean waters?"

He stares back blankly.

"I rest my case," she says.

We all laugh.

Bella hugs Alice and Baby Daisy tightly. "Thank you so much for coming, Ally. I know it couldn't have been easy with the baby and all."

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world." Alice pulls away and grins at my wife. "Last time, at The Wedding That Wasn't, I predicted that on your honeymoon, you'd get fucked within an inch of your life."

"Uh, that wasn't really a honeymoon," Bella says.

"But I was right about the rest, wasn't I? Same prediction now, BB." Alice chuckles, and with a wink and a hug for me, she starts walking down the platform. "Call me with the deets!" she calls out. "I'll be waiting with bated breath! No, seriously, I will."

While Bella shakes her head, smiling, my hand creeps past her hip down to the round swell of her ass, which I caress smoothly through the silk of her dress. I swear to God, my wife has got the best ass in creation.

"Edward, what are you doing?" she whispers out of one side of her mouth as her brother and sister-in-law make their way towards us.

"What, are you the only one allowed to get your rocks off in public?"

"I didn't actually get my rocks off!" she half whispers, half chuckles, squirming while my middle finger skims the valley between her plump cheeks. Through the flimsy material of her dress, I can get in pretty deep, ghosting and almost feeling the soft skin there. Bella draws in a few uneven breaths.

"Edward…God…Edward, stop, Emmett is coming this way!"

I move in quickly and breathe into her ear, "Payback's a bitch, Love. That's alright, tonight you're going to give me that ass and much more."

Her breath hitches, and her head whips sideways, big brown eyes meeting mine. I smirk at her, pinching an ass cheek before returning my hand to the curve of her hip.

She gives a startled little jump, but she has no time to make a retort before Rose - Bella's other BFF, and Emmett - Bella's brother are before us.

During the twice-yearly visits that Bella and I take up north to visit her people, Emmett, Jasper and I have become good friends. Both couples have come down a few times to hang with us as well. But I'm always particularly grateful for Emmett's jokes and easy-going presence whenever we're all together, especially when their mother starts with her bullshit – which can be pretty often.

"Edward, my man!" Emmett picks me up in a bear hug that manages to squeeze most of the air out of my lungs. Now, I'm no small man - six foot two and in some good fucking shape if I do say so myself. But Bella's brother is six foot five and built like a Schwarzenegger of the eighties. When he finally sets me down, it takes me a few seconds to swallow some air back into my lungs. All the while, he stands there chuckling heartily.

"Now you take care of my little sister, or I'll be chartering one of your competitors here to chase you all through those Caribbean waters!"

"Don't you start with that shit too," I scowl. "Besides, you'd never catch me in one of those rickety pieces of shit. And of course I'll take care of my wife." I wrap a protective arm around Bella's shoulder.

Rose laughs and smacks her husband's tree trunk of an arm. "Emmett, leave Edward alone. He's got enough on his plate with your mother. I can only imagine the grief she's gonna put him through before she lets him sail away with her little girl in tow."

Everyone seems to find Renee's hatred of me humorous.

Rose and Bella hug and exchange a few more words, and then Tanya and her fiancée, Bree, appear.

She's more a sister to me than a cousin, always has been. So I hold her tightly while she wraps her arms around my neck, and when she pulls back, her eyes are glassy.

"Cuz, I can't believe we're standing here. I mean, who would've thought your overly friendly ass" – she makes air quotes – "would've ever settled down?"

"Right?" Bella agrees. "Especially with all the assistance he used to love giving the female passengers who'd accidentally trip," – she makes air quotes as well – "on those invisible obstacles on the platform."

"Oh my God!" Tanya chuckles. "I'd almost forgotten about that!"

Bella and Tanya take a few minutes to relay that particular part of my life to Bree, and then the three of them giggle while I stand there, arms crossed against my chest.

"Alright, alright. Enough laughing at my expense," I say. "And you," I give my wife a piercing look, "are really asking for it today."

"Am I now?" she breathes coyly. "So when are you going to give it to me?"

"Alright, alright," Tanya giggles, "I think it's time we got off this boat before you two go at it like friggin' bunnies, right here in front of everyone." Her expression sobers somewhat. "Seriously though, watching you two over these past few years…it's what renewed my faith in love." She wraps an arm around Bree's waist. "And what gave me the courage to try again."

I hold Bella close to me, and our eyes meet. For a few seconds, we simply hold each other's gaze. Yeah, we're fooling around right now, but we both know how lucky we are to have found each other. I'll even admit that I may owe some of my current state of bliss to The Prick Who Shall Not Be Named for being too fucking stupid to see what he had right in front of him. And I'll definitely always be grateful to my girl – my wife – for giving me a chance despite my once overly friendly tendencies.

Bella reaches out and hugs Tanya, and then Bree.

Seth, Paul, and Jared come next to offer us their congratulations. We quickly discuss some last minute details regarding how they'll run the tours on the Eclipse's brand new sister ship, the Midnight Sun, while Bella and I are away on the Eclipse. When they leave, my mom and dad approach.

Mom smiles through her tears, which Dad assures me means that she's actually ecstatic. She then tells Bella, as she's told her countless times, that she couldn't have wished for a better daughter-in-law. With his arm around my mom's shoulder, Dad agrees.

As usual, Bella is touched by the affection my parents give her whenever we see them. She clings tightly to Esme, and when Esme whispers something in her ear, Bella looks up at her and smiles.

"Soon, I hope, Mom," she answers. "We were only waiting until the actual wedding."

My mom's grin looks as if it might split her face in two.

Finally, she hugs me tightly, and wiping her eyes with my father's handkerchief, they both walk down the platform, arm in arm.

And suddenly, I'm face to face with Renee Swan: Ball-buster of the East Coast. A Spanish guitar plays somewhere in the background while her nostrils flare like a Pamplona bull ready to charge.

All jokes aside, over the past three and a half years of Bella's and my relationship, Renee Swan has made it no secret that she much preferred Bella's previous "secure" life as an investment manager engaged to another investment manager while living only a few miles away from her parents in New York, over her life now, where she's "on a perpetual vacation," as Renee puts it, "making a living in an industry that can go belly-up in an instant regardless of how well it's doing now, so very far away from your family, and in such a small, quirky town."

"What if the tourism industry takes a nosedive?" she asks every. single. time we see her.

Every. Single. Time.

"How will you support yourselves then? And what about any children that may come your way? How do you expect to provide for them if a huge hurricane hits that little town? No one will be taking those quaint little diving excursions then, but people always need an investment manager!"

Now, she stands in front of me, eyes piercing and narrowed, and I steel myself for a variation on her sole theme of conversation when it comes to me.

Her bottom lip quivers. "Welcome to the family, Edward, and…please take care of my little girl."

I'm left with my jaw hanging while she dissolves into tears.

Charlie strokes her back. "There, there, honey. Edward will take good care of our little girl. There, there."

"Mom…Mom, it's okay," Bella says, yet Renee keeps bawling her eyes out.

And I still have no idea what's going on, so I just stand there, useless, unable to move or speak.

Bella looks at me with an expression that clearly spells out, "Do something now, or there will be NO HONEYMOON!"

Which is obviously unacceptable.

So swallowing thickly, I reach out and take my mother-in-law's hand. "Renee…"

No reaction. The tears keep coming like a damn monsoon. Ah shit.

"Renee, may I please say something?" I ask.

Her tears abruptly cease, and when she looks up at me, she suddenly looks so much like my beautiful, sweet wife that I can't help but feel a tentative thawing towards the cold, She-Demon of the Northeast.

"Renee, I swear to you, I will always take care of Bella, no matter what. Those words I spoke earlier during the ceremony? I meant every single one: through thick and thin, for better or worse, 'til death parts us. And if…if the tourism industry ever does take a nosedive, I'll find another job. I'm only a few credits short of my marine biology degree, and I plan to finish it soon. And…I suppose I could go into research or something if I had to. Work for a zoo. Feed fish to the dolphins and hold up stingrays for a bunch of little snot-nosed kids' amusement while-"

Bella elbows me - hard.

"Oof! What I mean is, I'll do anything I have to do for her. If a huge hurricane hits Key West and completely annihilates it, and Bella wants us to move back to New York, then I'll happily follow her. And if and when we ever have kids, I'll do whatever I have to do to keep them safe, happy and healthy as well. I swear that to you, Renee. Your daughter and any lives we ever create together will always be my number one priority. Always."

Boy, her tears just won't quit. I can see I'm getting nowhere, but I finish up anyway because Bella asked me to, and because today's the first day of our honeymoon and I want my wife nice and happy so that I can make good on that promise to come hard and come a'plenty.

And…and because no matter what, it's all the truth.

Yet after a few minutes, after she's expelled enough tears to keep the entire Floridian manatee population afloat, Renee looks up at me. Her fingers creep towards me and pinch my cheek – hard.

"Ow! What the-"

"Mike was an asshole," she chuckles. "You're a good boy, I do know it. But remember what you just promised: if the tourism industry takes a nosedive or a big hurricane hits Key West, you and Bella are moving back to New York, and she'll go back to managing investments in midtown while you get a job at the Coney Island Aquarium."

And despite the fact that I didn't say that – at all - I just want her the hell off the boat already.

"Sure, Renee," I chuckle. "Sure."

She grins victoriously. If I didn't know better, I'd say I was just hustled by my new mother-in-law. With another chuckle, she reaches into the white, sparkling gift bag she's holding and pulls out two hats, handing one to me and the other to Bella.

"I suppose I should give you both these now."

My hat is a captain's cap - complete with nautical insignia in the middle with gold braiding over the navy blue tongue. Centered over the insignia, in navy blue script lettering is the word "Eclipse." Bella's hat is a regular white baseball cap with "Eclipse" written in the center in the same script lettering, and then the words "First Mate" under that in block-lettering.

"For the Mr. and Mrs. Masen Caribbean Honeymoon Tour," she grins.

Grinning in return, I place my cap on my head. "This is really cool, Renee. Thanks."

"Edward, just call me…Mom," she smiles.

"Thanks…Mom," I smirk.

"Wait, why is he the captain, and I'm only the first mate?" Bella asks, holding up her cap for inspection.

Renee shrugs. "I suppose it was sexist of me. I apologize, sweetie."

I help Bella place her cap on while she frowns and pouts. She looks adorable though, despite the fact that the hat totally doesn't go with the beautiful, white silky slip of a dress she's wearing.

"We can role-play later," I offer in a whisper, "like you wanted to do the first time we…you know…" I wink.

Bella grins wickedly. "Ooh, yeah. That sounds like a delicious idea."

"Alright," Renee huffs. "I really think it's time your father and I get off this boat before you two…burp all over everything!"

A/N: Thoughts?

Coming up…the honeymoon sail away…;)

See you all tomorrow!

Twitter: PattyRosa817

Link to 'Stories by PattyRose' is on my profile page.