~/\~

My memories of what just happened were haunting.

His answers permeated my mind.

Thoughts of him, of who he was, wouldn't cease.

And as I lay in my bed with the chill of the night air around me,

My body found rest, but my mind…my mind did not.

~x~

~x~

~x~

Chapter 3

It's interesting when you think about dreams. The things that we think about when our minds are completely relaxed. The places we go when there is nothing there to influence us…nothing but the ideas and thoughts and life experiences of our own psyche.

I have strange dreams.

Like, really fucking bizarre dreams. The kind of dreams where Mickey Mouse is in your bedroom and he's having tea with the Mad Hatter. Sometimes they're completely random and funny, usually because I drank too much or didn't get enough sleep the night before. But then there are other times when darkness and pain fill my dreams – dreams of trying to open the door – and I just can't.

Not even in my own imagination.

This dream was different.

I was having the most amazing dream.

I was having the most amazing and almost erotic dream.

Strong arms were holding me as the whispering of cool air sent tingles across my skin. It was the feeling of affection…of safety and comfort blended with something…something else. I pressed myself in closer to the soothing source. Everything about it felt warm except it wasn't. My body felt soft and relaxed, yet as I attempted to move closer still, I found that what was making me warm was actually cold – what felt so yielding was actually firm.

"Bella." My name was a wisp of nothing as it blew across my face.

The same strong arms pulled me closer, tighter. And I loved the feeling of being held in the embrace – though unfamiliar – it was entirely right. I had never felt anything like it. I had never experienced the feeling of that much security. Well, never in my adult life.

It had to be a dream.

It had to be a dream because I could feel him, but I couldn't see him. His fragrance surrounded me. He smelled like the beach in La Push during winter…fresh and clean and cold, with hints of earth and a subtle smokiness that was reminiscent of a bonfire. No matter what I did, no matter how much I focused – he was completely obscured in my mind's eye. I couldn't see…I could only feel. And he felt – fuck, he felt so good.

I needed to see…needed to know who was making me feel this way.

I focused as hard as I could on the feeling that surrounded me. The arms, the hands, the breath…the voice. All of it was wonderful. All of it was the absolute most wonderful, fucking thing I had ever experienced.

And then it happened.

My eyes opened and I could see him.

It was dark, but I could still make out his features in the soft light of the room. His face was beautiful. The sharp and angled line of his jaw. The full and perfect pout of his lips that were opened slightly. His skin was pale…even in the darkness. I couldn't tell the exact color of his hair in the raven cloak of night, but I could see the beautiful mess that it was on his head, right down to the strands that were hanging over his eyes. And when my eyes met his, I gasped because even though I couldn't see their color – I could see that they were piercing and swirling with emotion. He was – he was beautiful. In fact, he was the most beautiful man I had ever, ever seen.

Yeah, this was a really good fucking dream.

He stayed completely still and it wasn't until I realized that he wasn't moving that I saw he looked stricken…terrified. And I couldn't ascertain why he would be scared. I wasn't scared and I was in bed with a ghost…a really fucking beautiful ghost, but a ghost nonetheless. The whole thing seemed surreal. Nothing as beautiful as him could ever exist in reality. It had to be a dream…just unlike any other dream I'd ever had.

"You're him, aren't you?" I whispered, not knowing why, but knowing that he was. It made sense that I would dream of him – his thoughts had been the focal point of my mind as I'd drifted to sleep. "Why are you afraid?"

He looked at me – still saying nothing. He wasn't even breathing, but I could still see the look on his face – still feel the tension in his cold body. His temperature registered somewhere in my sleeping mind, but he would have been cold. He wasn't really there.

"Don't be afraid," I whispered again, bringing my hand up to stroke his rigid jaw. "Please, don't. There's no reason to be afraid, Edward."

A gust of his breath blew across my face and I marveled at how something that felt so arctic could warm me so completely. I brought my thumb down to stroke the silk steel of his bottom lip. He whimpered and that sound – just that sound – made me feel things I'd never felt. Longing and need and desire and lust. The texture of his lip was unlike anything I'd ever felt before…different from anything I could have imagined. I was captivated by the feeling of his lip, but that was nothing compared to the overwhelming sensation of his tongue slipping out and licking my thumb before he closed his lips around the tip.

My eyes dragged back to his and they were still scared – still scared and unmoving, but entirely dark and clouded with desire. My entire body flushed from the need I saw that mirrored my own – my heart hurt from the fear that I didn't want to see there. The fear that I didn't understand.

"Please," I whispered again. "Please don't be afraid."

I pulled my thumb from his mouth, surprisingly delighted by the way that it tingled as the night air touched the moist skin. I traced it down to the cleft in his chin before cupping his face with my fingers.

"Bella," he murmured, his voice rasping. My entire body shivered at the sound of my name from his voice. No one – not anyone – had ever said my name with such tenderness. "You don't know…you don't…you don't want…"

"Shhh…" I whispered. "You don't know…you don't know what I want."

It seemed strange, even in my dream state, that he would question me. And I wondered if that wasn't just me questioning myself – my need – my own desire to be with him there like that. But I didn't understand it. He was desirable. He was, quite literally, the man that my dreams were made of. Even though I'd never seen him and he was a product of my imagination – there was still something about him that seemed so real…so exactly made just for me.

I never wanted to wake up.

I brought my other hand up to his face, stroking his jaw with my fingers, running my thumb along the line of his eyebrow. His eyes closed and I don't know where the courage came from, but I gently pressed my lips to the delicate lids that looked lavender in the moonlight.

"Wh-what do you want?" he asked softly, though I could hear the underlying tension in his voice. "What are you doing to me?"

I pulled back, our eyes lining up and I looked at him, wanted him…even if I didn't know why I did or where he came from.

"What do you want me to do to you?" I asked, my voice thick and possessing a rare confidence and filled with so much desire that I barely recognized it. "Why are you here?"

"I…I-I don't know…" he whispered. His eyes were wild with an emotion that I couldn't place. "I shouldn't have…I mean….I-I shouldn't be…fuck," he growled – he actually growled – before a look of horror followed immediately by remorse covered his still-exquisite features.

I should have been scared, but there was no fear in me. Somewhere in the hazy and still-sleeping part of my mind, I knew that I wanted this…that this felt right even though not a single part of it was sane.

"It's okay, Edward," I told him. "It is…Edward, isn't it?"

His eyes were intense as he looked at me and it didn't escape me that even though he seemed nervous – more nervous than a figment of my imagination should be – he never once let go of me. He continued holding onto me so gently; it was almost as if he was afraid that he would hurt me. But something told me that he wouldn't. I don't know what it was…I couldn't explain it. But honestly, there wasn't much that I could explain from the events of the night. Both, before I went to sleep…and after.

"How do you know who I am?" he asked softly. "What…I mean, how…how do you know me?"

I turned his words over in my mind and I wondered if I really knew the answer. I didn't. I didn't know how I knew it was him.

"I just…Edward, I just…I just do."

There was a relief in his expression, but it was combined with a pain I still couldn't identify. When he'd spoken to me on the porch, he told me he wasn't in pain. He'd said no. So, I pressed him further.

"How could I hear your thoughts?" I asked. "How were you speaking to me through the board? And if you're…dead…" I said, the word difficult to articulate for reasons I didn't have the time to explore. "If you're dead, why…why are you here with me? Why me?"

My hands were still on his face. His skin was so smooth…so, so soft. But there was something different about it, too. It felt different than my flesh – different, yet somehow, it still felt the same. And he was cold, but it was a different kind of cold. It was the kind of cold that left a white, tingling burn underneath my fingers that were still touching his face. The kind of burn that made me want to further explore the rest of his skin.

I couldn't explain it. And I found that I really didn't want to. I didn't need a rationalization because I knew…there was nothing rational about it. What my dream lacked in lucidity, it made up for with what appeared to be the culmination of everything I'd never allowed myself to dream about before.

"I don't know," he finally offered quietly. His voice was smoother and softer than the sheets that wrapped around me. "I just know," his eyes looked directly into mine. "I just know that you…you are, Bella. You…you're different."

There was a sincerity and vulnerability in his voice that begged for me to comfort him. But a fear lingered in his eyes that told me that he was frightened of what he was silently asking for. Ignoring his confliction, I cupped his face, bringing both of my thumbs to the dip in the center of his top lip. And I traced the sloping lines before settling and pressing them into the bottom.

"How am I different?" I asked.

I could feel him breathing as the air pulled through my thumbs. His breath was sharp, but his eyes had softened.

"You just are," he said, his lips moving against the pads of my thumbs and I briefly wondered what it would be like to feel them move against me…my lips…my body. "I don't think…I just can't explain it."

"You're different, too, you know," I whispered, unconsciously moving closer to his face.

"I know," he agreed and there was so much sadness in those two words that I just couldn't help myself.

I just couldn't.

I removed my fingers, my eyes never leaving his and I pushed back every single reason not to – because the reasons didn't matter – and I kissed him. At first my lips were gentle as I pressed then sucked his bottom lip. I ignored the way his body tensed and the way his lip felt so cold inside my mouth. I wanted to close my eyes, but his eyes were still open and I didn't want to break the connection that we had. I moved to his top lip and then tentatively, my tongue slipped out, sliding across his skin.

His eyes were terrified and I wondered if I should stop, but I couldn't. Something told me that he needed this even more than me. And there wasn't a single molecular part of my being that wasn't screaming for this to happen…for this to continue. He groaned into my mouth – a sound so erotic and deep, it nearly crippled me. And then it happened. I could feel the moment that he gave into the kiss and I felt his lips move against mine.

Softly.

Searching.

Ghosting.

His kiss was nothing more than a phantom of what I wanted it to be. A shadowy replica of what I could feel he was capable of, but then…even then, it was the most passionate, most intoxicating thing I'd ever felt.

He moved his hand from where he was holding me at my hip, mimicking me and cupping my face. Pulling back, he searched my face and eyes. My heart was pounding in my chest and I wondered if he could feel the throbbing beat. I wondered if I could feel his.

"I can't give you what you need," he said, his rasping voice as tormented as his eyes. "I can't be…the person…that you deserve."

"Please don't," I whispered. "Please don't make assumptions about me when you don't know who I am…or what I deserve."

"You don't know…" he started. "What I am…what this means."

"I don't," I agreed. "But I know that you found me…talked to me…came to me…to my bed."

"I…I shouldn't have."

My whole body stilled at his words and in my sleeping state, I had a chilling moment of lucidity. Even in my dreams – even in this illusion of my own imagination – I was the undesirable one. I wasn't enough to make him stay.

He would leave.

They always left.

My dreams were no exception.

"You shouldn't be here?" I asked, repeating his words back to him. "You…you don't want me?"

Embarrassed, I pushed myself up, pressing against his chest until I was on my knees, resting on my heels. He followed quickly behind me and it wasn't until he gasped, that I realized the blanket and sheet that had covered me had fallen to my lap, exposing me from the waist up. One of the benefits of living alone was having the freedom and privacy to sleep in as much or as little as you wanted. I chose to sleep in nothing and now…now my previous embarrassment had elevated to full-blown mortification.

I reached down to grab the covers and pull them up, when his trembling, but strong hands stopped me. His eyes were hungry as he looked at me and I felt my entire body flush as I warmed from his apparent desire.

Did he want me?

The same way that I wanted him?

"You…you think that I don't want you?" he asked, his voice huskier than before. The sound of it wrapping around me like raw silk. "How could…you are…fuck, Bella."

Reaching out a trembling hand, he ran his finger along the length of my side, curving slightly along the slope of my stomach. His finger left a trail of fire and ice in its path and every nerve ending in my body was alive and deliciously on edge. No one…no fucking one had ever made me feel like this. This – this was what I never thought existed. This was the reason that Jacob – even though I loved him – would never be enough.

He watched his icy hand as it touched my fevered skin and I brought my own hand to his chin, pushing up and forcing him to meet my eyes.

"Do you?" I asked, pleaded really, desperate to know. "Want me, I mean? Do you, Edward?"

He looked at me, his head tilting sideways as if he were trying to puzzle me out…as if I were the mystery. There was nothing remotely mysterious about the way that I was open and unclothed…yet there he was gazing at me as if I were the one that was that was shrouded by a veil.

I wasn't hiding from him.

I wasn't even hiding from myself.

With no uttered words and no other indication, I felt both of his chilled hands against my sides, my skin. His eyes never left mine. Open palms that were steely, yet with softer skin that I had ever found on any other man – not that there had been so many to touch me this intimately. He pushed them up and I could feel them shaking, trembling. I barely felt them at the underside of my breasts before I felt him cup them wholly. Tearing my eyes away from him, I looked down as he seized and fondled them, feeling their fullness and weight.

My breasts had never looked so beautiful.

"Does this feel like I don't want you?" he rasped.

"No," I whispered, panting from the accelerated beat of my heart. He'd literally left me breathless. "No, it doesn't."

And then his lips were crushed to mine and I felt the full weight of my breasts fall as his hand found purchase in my hair. And the moment that he kissed me, I closed my eyes – the feeling of his lips against mine causing the colors of every single autumn twilight to explode behind my lids.

It was beautiful.

He was beautiful.

And I…I felt beautiful for having experienced it.

His tongue slipped in my mouth – almost carefully – and laved against my own. He tasted unlike anything I could have ever expected to imagine…like sweet tea with mint, all cold and satisfying. And fuck, I was so thirsty. I drank him, breathed him until I was gasping for actual air. I had to pull back and his mouth pressed against my neck. Our bodies trembling with so much desire, I almost expected him to bite me…but he didn't. He kissed and licked me softly.

"Your taste, Bella," he murmured against the shell of my ear. "It fucking kills me. I've never…it's never…"

"Me either," I agreed, my voice breathy and low. "I…I want this, Edward. So much."

He moaned and I could feel the reverberation of it like thunder in his chest. He lowered his head as he kissed this skin of my neck, his tongue pausing and pressing over the dip in the hollow of my throat.

"Fuck," he hissed, and I could feel the force of his breath against my skin.

He murmured something about his name that I couldn't understand, and pulled my hands back to his face, silently beseeching him to look at me. When he did, his eyes were wild.

"What did you say?" I whispered. "I couldn't…I mean, I didn't understand you."

He stared at me, bringing his fingers to my lips, touching and tracing like I'd done to him before.

"You mouth is so beautiful," he told me softly, but there was an edge to his voice that tore into the velvet texture. "It's just…just the sound…I-I've never…say it again."

"What?" I asked, willing to do anything…say anything.

"Say my name," he said. "Say my name again and…and tell me that you want me."

"Edward," I said softly, looking in his eyes, not thinking about why he wanted me to say it. "Edward," I said again, deeper and more assured than before. "I want you…I do…I want you."

He breathed in deeply through his nose as if he were smelling the air around us. His hands moved to my bare shoulders, casing me to shiver from the contact.

"I want you, Edward."

Lifting up on my knees again, I felt more confident and possessed more grace than I was accustomed to – the understanding that this was all a dream, making me bolder, surer. Edward's hands slid down to my hips and rested on the swell of flesh as he looked up at me. I watched as he slowly looked down, taking in every inch, every curve of my body that was now fully exposed to him.

"Edward," I said it again ignoring the confliction I saw in his eyes. "I want you."

"You don't know what this means," he told me, his voice so thick and jagged, it almost sounded broken.

My entire being connected to that voice…because I understood broken far more than anyone could ever imagine. I recognized and grasped onto it for everything that it was. I was broken…had been broken for so long. But there in front of him, bare and unguarded, I could find no shame or inhibition to hide behind. And for the first time – in such a long time – I knew what it was like to feel whole.

Even if it was just an illusion.

"You don't know what you're saying…what it is that you're asking for," he continued. "You need to know…"

"Shhh…" I hushed him by kissing his lips, unwilling to listen to another reason not to do this. "I understand, Edward…and I want you."

Sliding my hands down my body, I placed them over his, linking our fingers together. Without another word and just the connection we had with our eyes, I pulled his hands up, gliding them over my skin and helping him to explore me. His hands trembled under mine, causing my stomach to flutter. His touch alone was enough to ignite the forgotten desire within me. And the fact that he seemed so nervous and careful made me feel like the flame beguiling the moth.

I had never been the fire.

And yet with him, I burned.

I wanted to kiss him again, to taste his sweet tongue, to suck in his cool breath, but I sensed that he needed to do this slowly. And so I allowed him to continue his exploration with my need growing with every touch…my desire building with every caress.

It wasn't until he reached my breasts again, that I felt him grow more assertive. Taking my hands from his, I placed them on his shoulders. We broke eye contact for the first time as both of us looked down and watched as he gently, but deliberately touched and massaged them. His thumbs flicked over my nipples and I heard myself gasp as he slowly and painstakingly lowered his head and brought the flesh into his mouth.

His mouth on my skin was the only thing that could have surpassed his touch. And once I felt it…I knew that I would never – not ever – get enough. The sensation was beyond sublime. I expected to find humid and sultry heat as he sucked my textured peak, but instead I was seduced by the tingling, wet cold of his tongue that flicked and licked and made me cry out.

It was everything…and not enough.

I wanted to feel his tongue everywhere.

His eyes shot to mine at the sound of my cry.

"Are you alright," he whispered, his concern evident in his voice. "Did I hurt you?"

"Are you kidding?" I responded breathlessly. "That was…you are…fuck, that was amazing."

He reached out and pulled me flush against him, holding me in his arms. The moment was tender, intimate. I kissed his neck softly causing him to moan.

"You don't know what you do to me," he whispered against my hair. "I shouldn't be here…shouldn't want this…but Bella, I do."

I wrapped my arms around him tighter, willing his anxiety to go away.

"I want you," he whispered again.

Pulling back, he looked at me once more before scooping me up in his arms with such ease that it should have startled me…but it didn't. I felt nothing but secure in his presence. He laid me down on the bed and looked over me…my entire body flushing under his stare. When he reached my eyes, I saw that his were darker than the night that still shrouded us.

"There are things you should know," he murmured, hovering over my face. "Things I should tell you, but I can't."

"I knew everything I needed to know," I told him. "The moment I felt your arms around me."

"That's not true," he rasped. "I don't want to hurt you, but I can't stay away."

~x~

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"Then don't."

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A/N

Reviews are love.

Please leave me some.

The response to this story has been overwhelming. I am fail at review replies, but I promise, I am trying to do better. You guys are the reason I do this. Thank you for all of your encouragement and support.

As always, love and thanks to Marvar, my beta and the Chandler to my Monica. Thank you for being wonderful and god-like in your amazingness. Thank you for answering random questions via text message at all hours of the day and night. And thank you for making me smile and laugh on a daily basis. I love you so hard!

Thank you to Caren for pre-reading and literally making this chapter so much better. Thank you for your time…and most of all, your honesty.

Thanks to rainamd for prereading this in waves as the words come to me. You are awesome! Enjoy your vacation.

Thank you to RoseArcadia for making the blinkie for this story and for posting a lovely and squee-inducing review for it on her blog. You are supremely talented and I am so grateful that you offered to do it. You can find the link to her blog on my Author's page.