A/N: After the way I left Leah (and everyone else) hanging at the end of Chapter 10, the last thing you probably want to read is a long note from me. So a shout out to my bodacious betas, MunkeeRajah and Evelyn, and on with the story.

Chapter 11 – Heaven's in Here

Leah POV

I could have quibbled.

Even as Nahuel's mouth devoured my resistance, even as desire swamped my senses—I had it in me to point out that I'd never really promised him sex. As every nerve ending fired simultaneously with the sheer, raw need to merge my body with his, a caustic little voice at the base of my brain stem shrilled that I'd made no such pledge, that I was under no obligation to let him fuck me.

I acknowledged that voice: Yes, I'm a bitch. But I'm not a stupid bitch.

I wanted him, and I was done fighting this. What he was doing with his hands and mouth made it difficult to remember why I'd ever thought I needed to hold him off in the first place.

With the five functioning brain cells I had left, I reasoned that maybe Jake was right. Maybe I could be enough to hold Nahuel here. After all, he'd risked his own life, overcome his fear of everything connected to his father, to rescue me from the newborn's claws. He must feel something, right?

I could tell the exact moment Nahuel realized he'd won. He shivered against me, and I could feel his angry tension slough away with the tremor. His hands stilled, his lips left mine and he pulled back just far enough to allow me to refocus on his eyes. They were dark, hungry and triumphant. His sensual lips curled into a knowing smile.

I snaked my hands into his hair and tried to draw his mouth back to mine, but he resisted, watching me, as if waiting to see what I would do next. I settled for lapping up the drops of water clinging to his jawline, working my way down his neck. I bore down on his thigh, craving more of the delicious friction. Now that I'd made my choice, I couldn't get close enough, fast enough.

I was twisting like a contortionist, trying to lick his chest while still pressing as much of my naked skin against his as possible. I gave up my hold on his head and fumbled at the waistband of his jeans. He chuckled—a throaty, smug sound—and his long fingers wrapped around mine, stilling my hands.

"Patience, ñi piuque," he laughed, nuzzling the top of my head. "I have no intention of taking you quickly against the shower wall like an impatient adolescent."

With that vampire speed that I always somehow under-estimated, he turned off the water, drew my legs around his waist, and had us out of the shower and down the hallway before I could get my arms around his neck to hold on. I heard my bedroom door slam shut behind us just before he dropped me, soaking wet, onto my bed.

Dazed, I sat up, wiping water from my eyes and wondering why the hell he wasn't already on top of me.

He laughed again at my dazed expression. His eyes never left my face as his hands moved to the waistband of his jeans. The slow, descending whisper of that zipper was hypnotic. I knew from experience that getting out of wet denim was not easy, but like everything else he did, Nahuel made it look graceful and sexy as hell. I watched his jeans slither down his long, muscular legs, pooling at his feet. His sopping boxers quickly followed with a soft splat on the wooden floor. My eyes traveled back up his body, snagging when they reached crotch level. I drew a low, appreciative gasp through my teeth.

Wow. Clearly, I was not the only one eager for this.

I didn't even realize I was climbing off the bed and reaching for him until Nahuel held up a hand. "Patience," he repeated, stepping slowly away from the puddle of wet denim. "You have kept me waiting a very long time. I intend to take my time enjoying you." His words sent a wave of joint-loosening desire through my body, and I sank back on the bed, my knees too weak to stand.

He stalked forward, stopping when his legs brushed the side of the bed. Slowly, like the predatory cat he was named for, he climbed onto the bed. He crawled over me, and I fell back, the heat of his body pressing me down onto the mattress as surely as if he'd put his hands on me.

That snotty little mind-voice spoke up again and popped out of my mouth before I could silence it. "Not that long. Barely a week."

He paused above me, something I couldn't quite identify flickering briefly in the depths of his golden brown eyes. Hazily, I tried to put a name to that ghost of emotion, but it was almost impossible to think of anything beyond the electricity crackling in the air between us. It seemed like that flicker could be important.

For the first time since he'd interrupted my shower, he avoided meeting my eyes. "You are wrong. I have waited more than a hundred years for you."

He caught my gasp with his lips, consuming my questions before I could give them voice, stripping me of any thoughts other than the desire to feel him inside me. I writhed beneath him, sure this luscious heat would burn me to ash if he wasted too much time with foreplay.

For days he'd been teasing me with tantalizing touches, copping a feel every chance he got. Now that I was giving him full access, he was progressing frustratingly, torturously slow. His tongue wove lazy, exploratory swirls around mine. Poised above me on his hands and knees, he held his body inches from mine, but even that wasn't close enough for me. When he pulled his mouth from mine and began scattering silky kisses down my throat, I groaned and clutched at his shoulders. I was so crazed to touch him I didn't know where to put my hands first.

His breast-fondling session this morning had been one of the most erotic experiences of my life, but the sensation of his lips and tongue on my breast, well that was just life-altering. A low rumble vibrated against my skin as he drew my nipple into his mouth.

Is he … purring?

Nahuel shifted his weight to the side and lowered himself to the mattress, aligning his body beside mine, giving his hands and lips better access. Vamp-boy was apparently a sexual multi-tasker, because as his tongue caressed my nipple, his hand moved south. Feather-light, he traced a twisting path down my abdomen, circling my navel before flattening his broad palm just above the low hairline.

I was panting now, digging my fingers into his tautly muscled shoulders, anticipation singing through my veins. His lips left my nipple with a soft sucking sound and he laid his head on my stomach, watching the movement of his own hand as he continued his explorations.

When one long finger slid into my slick folds, my eyes rolled back into my head and I moaned my encouragement. He paused and withdrew his finger. What? Nonononono! Put it back!

My head snapped up and my eyes opened to find him studying the wetness on his finger. I propped myself up on my elbows as his questioning eyes found mine.

"You are wet." It was somewhere between a question and a statement. An improbable mixture of wonder and hunger saturated his voice.

I was confused. A bizarre, unbelievable thought occurred to me, and I wanted to discount it. He was a hundred-fifty years old and beautiful beyond belief. Surely, there was no way I was right, but his bafflement forced the words out of me. "Have you never … done this … before?"

Chagrin swarmed over his perfect features, and if his coffee-and-cream skin tone would have allowed it, I was sure he would have blushed. "Many, many times," he replied too quickly. I arched an eyebrow at him and waited one beat. Two. Three.

"With female vampires," he continued, looking away from my eyes. "I have never been with a human woman before."

I'd seen him enraged, terrified, despondent, aroused and even playful, but I'd not seen Nahuel embarrassed until this moment. Though my body still burned with lust, that damned psychic cable was tugging plaintively, demanding that I ease his discomfort.

"That's okay," I told him, trying to give him my best sexy-but-reassuring smile. "We're even; I've never been with a half-vampire before."

A boyish grin broke across his flawless face and my heart soared. I gestured toward his damp fingers. "This is normal, you know. It's just my body's reaction to yours. Is this alright?" Hoping he wouldn't find my humanness disgusting.

He dropped his head back to my stomach, laughing, burrowing his nose against my abdomen. "It is very alright. I am not ignorant of normal human physiology. I have just never experienced it first-hand before. I did not realize it would be so very … arousing."

His fingers returned to their exploration, and in seconds he had my body straining and humming again. Passion apparently hadn't completely overwhelmed his curiosity yet. He repositioned himself so that he lay between my spread legs, bringing his eyes level with his fascinating discovery. His hot hands gently pressed my thighs apart. I was totally exposed, on display for his probing, and I probably should have been at least a little annoyed at being treated like a science experiment during such an intimate moment. But everything he did felt erotic to me. Everything about Nahuel drew me in.

With one hand he gently massaged my trembling thigh. The fingers of his other hand were now coated with my moisture. Part of me wanted to just give myself over to the sensations those clever fingers were creating, to let my eyes clench shut and my head fall back. But if I did that, I would miss watching the play of awe and lust on his beautiful face. It was a sight I wanted to savor and remember for the rest of my life.

Slowly, he slid one long finger fully inside me. I was no virgin, but there'd been no one since Sam. Body parts that had been dormant for six years were leaping to life, and the delicious stretching felt as new and intoxicating as my first time. When my inner muscles spasmed around his finger, his breathing faltered. He lowered his face toward the spot where his fingers were working their magic and inhaled deeply. He muttered something I couldn't understand, then pinned me with his heated gaze.

"I will never tire of that fragrance, not if I spend a hundred years savoring it," he whispered. "I wonder … do you taste as good?"

He dipped his lips to kiss me intimately, his tongue replacing his fingers. Sam and I had been together two years, and this was something he'd never expressed any desire for. He'd done it once or twice, but it had always felt like something he was doing as a favor to me, rather than an act we could both enjoy. Nahuel delved between my thighs enthusiastically, lapping and sucking like a starving man who'd just been served a four-course gourmet meal.

With just a few strokes of his tongue across my sensitized flesh, the coil of tension that had been slowly winding tighter and tighter contracted once, twice and then snapped. Pleasure blazed outward from the point where his lips moved on me, burning through every nerve ending, consuming coherent thought, blasting my awareness into the stratosphere. As if from a great distance, I heard my own voice shouting my delirium.

Slowly, drifting like smoke above embers, I returned to consciousness. You would think after such a mind-shattering orgasm, I'd be exhausted, or at the very least satisfied. But my need for Nahuel was simply too intense to be quelled so quickly and easily. I wasn't content, wasn't done—not even close. When the pleasure receded, it left behind an overwhelming physical and emotional craving to feel him inside me.

Nahuel was still resting between my thighs, stroking my quivering flesh tenderly, cautiously, obviously waiting to see how quickly I'd recover so he could begin again. I thrust my hands between my thighs, sank my fingers into his hair and pulled. Startled, he raised his head and met my eyes.

What he saw there must have pleased him, because he pushed my legs farther apart and levered himself up to kneel between them. He bent at the waist to capture my lips again; the rapture of his mouth on mine instantly reignited the fire in my body. He draped my legs over his thighs and the tip of his erection finally nudged against me.

At last!

But vamp-boy wasn't done driving me mad. I wanted him to plunge into me, to fuck me hard and fast. Instead, he seemed determined to draw things out. He pushed forward oh-so-slowly, barely stretching me before withdrawing for a heartbeat, only to resume his excruciatingly slow invasion.

I'm not a patient woman, and Nahuel was making me crazy. Frustration bowed my back, forcing my pelvis against his, and arching my body off the bed. Still he held back, barely penetrating me. I felt frenzied with desire so intense it was almost painful. I clutched at his hard thighs and groaned. "Christ, baby. You're killing me."

And that fast, he was gone, off the bed and across the room, slamming his back against my bedroom door.

I flopped on my bed like a turtle flipped on its back, desperate and powerless, feeling fatally foolish.

I didn't know how long it took my mind to wade through the haze of desire that had consumed my senses. Was it seconds, minutes or more? I only knew it had been late afternoon when Nahuel broke the bathroom door, and when I surfaced to find him gone from my body, twilight had shrouded the room.

I sat up, searching the darkened room for my imprint. He was crouched with his back pressed against the door, knees drawn up, head buried in his arms, fists clenched tight—the same heart-breaking posture I'd found him in when he'd fled to La Push and decided his death was the best solution to all our problems. The last remnants of heated passion evaporated from my body at the sight. My heart still hammered heavily, but now it was struggling against the build-up of ice that had settled around it.

Five days ago, I might have been able to walk away from him. I'd almost done it, when I thought he'd gone to the beach to get away from me because he despised me so much. But that was five days ago, more than enough time for the imprinting bond to grow even stronger, even more impossible to ignore. Nothing anyone—not even Nahuel himself—could have done or said would have forced me away from him now.

Carefully, because my legs felt buttery and limp, I climbed off the bed and took a tentative step toward him. The room wasn't large; it took just two more steps to reach his side. I knelt beside him, just as I'd done at La Push. This time, however, I wasn't sure if I should try jolting him with the electrical charge that touching him would surely create.

Instead, I called his name, softly, the way one would speak to a frightened child. "Nahuel?" He didn't respond. I tried again.

"Nahuel, look at me. What just happened here?"

He didn't raise his head, but I knew he heard me; a massive tremor rippled through his clenched body. "Leave me, Leah. Please."

Were we back to him trying to push me away? Oh no, I don't think so, vamp-boy. We've come too far to go back now.

"Nahuel, look at me right now," I said, determinedly. Instead of touching his shoulder, this time I pried the fingers of one hand open and twined my own around them. Once again, that powerful charge sparked his response, and he lifted his head from his arms. My heart seized painfully at the haunted misery etched on his beautiful face. He pulled his hand from mine.

"Leave me," he said again, a little more forcefully this time.

"I can't leave," I replied. When he continued to stare at me silently, I plunged on. "You're sitting in front of the door."

Confusion edged out the misery for a moment, then, as understanding crept behind it, Nahuel shifted slightly, sliding a few feet away from the door. "You can go now," he said, looking away from me, his tone rife with resignation.

I didn't hesitate. "I still can't go."

"Why not?" Now he was starting to get annoyed, and it slipped into his voice.

Good. I can work with annoyed. That's a hell of a lot better than defeated.

"You're still in my way, Nahuel," I replied, crawling on my hands and knees to close the distance he'd put between us. "You're always in my way and you always will be, no matter where or how far you go. And if you try to get out of my way, I'm just going to find you and put you back there. You're not going to get away from me, so you might as well stop trying to run and start talking instead." I sat down beside him, and took his hand again. This time he allowed me to keep it.

He stared at our meshed fingers. "I have brought nothing but danger and chaos to your life. Why do you endure me?" he whispered.

How to answer that? How could I tell him that he'd totally devastated the apathetic status quo I'd been living with for the past six years? That he'd completely wiped out the complacent security I'd enjoyed for so long? And how could I make him understand that every minute of madness was totally worth it because it was a minute spent with him, a minute in which I felt whole—something I'd never dreamed I would feel again?

I couldn't say any of those things, not yet, not even after what we'd nearly done together in this room. So instead, I answered his question with my own.

"What happened, Nahuel? You can tell me. Nothing you can say will make me walk out that door, so you might as well just talk about it."

He still couldn't look at me. His free hand rose to scrub at his face, and his graceful fingers settled over his eyes. He was hiding from me, and I didn't think he would answer my question. But after a moment, I heard his voice, low and rasping.

"It was what you said. It reminded me that no matter how much I wish otherwise, I am a monster, a monster that could easily kill you."

It was my turn to be confused. "I don't understand. What did I say?"

He dropped his hand and finally looked at me. Misery and unshed tears swam in his bottomless eyes. "You called me 'baby,' and you said I was killing you."

Anger whipped through my brain. Oh you have GOT to be kidding me. Of all the stupid-ass things to be upset about.

Then, just as quickly, the need to comfort pushed the annoyance aside. "It's just an expression. You were frustrating the hell out of me because I wanted you to go faster, but you weren't hurting me at all."

"Leah, the very act of intercourse with me could hurt you," he said, his tone overly patient, the kind of patience you'd use when trying to explain to a small child or the village idiot why playing with matches and gasoline wouldn't be a good idea. "There is a reason why I have never been with a human woman before. I never wanted to be like my father. I never wanted to risk impregnating a human woman."

Baby … killing me ….

If I could have bent my leg far enough to kick my own ass, I would have booted myself to La Push and back. My mind was spinning in circles, trying to zero in on what I could possibly say or do to fix this for him, but he was still talking.

"Avoiding entanglements with human women was never a problem before," he said, lowering his eyes again. "I never encountered one I could not stay away from, until I met you. I do not understand why it is so, but I cannot stay away from you."

Could a human heart soar and shatter at the same time? Mine felt like it was doing exactly that. I totally understood his confusion over a compulsion he couldn't control or explain. It broke my heart that it caused him so much anguish, but it also thrilled me to know he was feeling the pull of the imprinting. Until that moment, I hadn't been sure.

He dropped his head onto his bent knees. "I nearly took you without any precaution," he choked. "I could have … created a monster … murdered you with my passion." Tremors shook his body and he clawed at his own hair again, as he had that night on the beach. "I am no better than my sire."

I didn't think. Just as I'd done that morning behind my father's woodshed, I pushed his arms out of my way and climbed into his lap. Like this morning, there was nothing sexual about this embrace, despite our nudity.

"You are nothing like him, do you hear me? And you don't need to stay away from me, Nahuel," I said, cradling his face in my hands and gently forcing him to meet my eyes. "I understand if you're not ready for this level of intimacy right now. But when you are ready, you need to know that you won't hurt me … that way."

It would be agony to finally speak the truth. Never saying it aloud in so many words had helped me avoid facing the truth for years, had allowed me to lie to myself that maybe what I suspected, wasn't really the truth at all. But Nahuel needed those words right now. There was nothing I wouldn't give him, no matter what it might cost me.

"I can't get pregnant," I said. The words hung in the air between us, then settled on my skin, the pain of their finality seeping through layers of flesh to brand their brutal truth on my bones. Fuck me. The truth really does hurt, doesn't it? "My body doesn't do the things a woman's body has to do for pregnancy to be possible. It's the cost of being a shape-shifter, I guess."

Surprise and relief rippled across his face. I thought I'd done a good job of keeping my tone and expression placid and neutral when I said those agonizing words, but he must have seen something of what I was trying to hide. The relief quickly fell away from his eyes, replaced by something that looked suspiciously like sympathy, and, perversely, a hint of disappointment. He drew me against his chest, wrapping his strong arms around me.

"I am so sorry, ñi piuque," he breathed against my cheek, one hand rubbing tender, comforting circles on my back, while the other stroked my still-damp hair. I realized it wasn't pity he was offering me, but the empathy of one who understood what it meant to be frozen and futureless.

We sat like that for a while, neither of us eager to return to the reality waiting outside my bedroom door. It was fully night now, but the house remained silent. My mother was probably still at the hospital with Charlie, but I wondered where Seth could be this late. I found I couldn't focus on much of anything beyond this peaceful bubble where Nahuel and I were the only two people in the world. I was utterly exhausted by the day's emotional rollercoaster, so tired that I didn't even realize I'd dozed off on his lap until I felt myself being lifted and carried toward the bed.

Damn, he's strong. He lowered me to the bed, tugging the sheet out from under me and gently lofting it over my body. I couldn't force my eyes open, but I clutched at his arm. "Stay with me."

"Gladly," he replied, slipping beneath the sheet. He eased me onto my side and spooned behind me. The comfort of his delicious heat eased away the last of the day's soreness and tension from my muscles. Nothing ever felt warm to me except him. He was more soothing than a hot water bottle, more relaxing than a deep tissue massage.

His arm draped over my waist, pulling me close. He nuzzled through my hair, pressing a light kiss beneath my ear. Sleep was pulling me under fast now, but I thought I heard him whisper something in that strange, erotic language of his.

"Inchepoyeneimi …."

I would have to remember to ask him what that meant, I thought. Then I slipped over the edge into oblivion.

End Note: *Fans self* Whew! I don't know about you folks, but I need a glass of water or a shot of tequila or SOMETHING! Hope this chapter was as good for you all as it was for me.

I'm making a shameless plea here - if you're reading this, please, please, please review, even if it's just to tell me how darned annoying these notes are. You'll help me make my personal goal of getting 100-plus reviews. We're almost there.

Next chapter will be a little slower in coming (pun intended) since I'm going on vacation with the family this weekend. So look for an update later next week. As always, thanks to everyone who's reading, reviewing and following on Twitter.