Chapter Twenty Six: Sex and the Civil War

The sound of running water woke me. A glance at the clock on the nightstand told me it was four thirty five in the morning and through the slats in the blinds I could see that it was already fully light. The water made me realise that I urgently needed the bathroom.

I got up, wrapped my robe round myself and wandered into the toilet, still half asleep. I did what I needed to, washed my hands, wandered out again, caught a glance at the shower and stopped dead in my tracks. I wasn't entirely sure what the seven wonders of the world were, but my boyfriend's ass must surely be one of them. Daniel was rinsing off and I watched mesmerised as water cascaded over the contours of his body. He shut the water off, slicked his hair back and wrapped a towel around his waist.

"I didn't mean to wake you." He said, grabbing another towel and stepping out of the shower.

"I needed the bathroom." I drawled. He came close and my happy, relaxed, state was accentuated by the sight of his body and getting a lungful of his scent. I ran my hands over his chest and I could see that this might quickly become one of my favourite past-times. It took me a second to realise what was odd. "You're warm!" I exclaimed. He looked a little nervous. "What's the matter?"

"I've come straight from a hunt and warmed up as much as I can. I'm hoping that this might… help." My thoughts about what that might help with sent my heartbeat into overdrive. I knew the difficulty that caused him, so I tried to breathe more slowly and calm myself. It didn't help and neither did Daniel untying my robe and pushing it from my shoulders. A bubble of shocked laughter escaped my lips as he scooped me up. The next thing I knew I was being lowered gently back onto the bed. He kissed me and I responded to the chemicals his lips sent though me, grabbing handfuls of his damp hair and trying to pull his face closer to mine. I tried to encourage him by pulling him on top of me but there was no way, I couldn't move him. I broke off the kiss to gasp for air and he moved back enough for me to seize the opportunity to pull off my top. But I caught my elbow on his chest, so any feeling of growing intimacy was ruined by me clasping my elbow and massaging it better.

My last intimate encounter with a vampire was not something I'd wanted at all. I hadn't responded to Keeley's advances the way I wanted to respond to Daniel's. This was completely the opposite. I wanted to be touched by him, I wanted to be loved by him and I hoped more than anything that he wanted that too.

"I haven't done this in a while," he said softly. "This might not be the most elegant of attempts."

"I don't care." I stroked his face. It was still as hard as diamonds, but diamonds that had been warmed by the sun.

He rolled back and pulled me on top of him. I sat up and closed my eyes as warm, solid hands that I'd been so eager to have touching me explored my breasts and stomach. He reached up and pulled me back down, guiding my mouth back to his and topping me up with another hit of vampire narcotic. I lay along his chest, feeling his body grow in warmth with mine. His hands ran the length of my back and where my shorts started, his hand slipped beneath the waistband. I tried to push them down. Daniel caught on to what I was attempting to do, took hold of them and ripped them clean off. My eyes flew open in shock as I heard the fabric tear.

"Oops." He said; a look of amusement in his eyes. "I'll buy you a new pair."

Having my clothes ripped off only served to intensify my desire and I kissed him as hard as I could. The towel was still around his hips. As I tried to tug that off I noticed that my efforts weren't being helped by me sitting on it. And he was the one apologising for being out of practice! The TV-fed image of how sex with a vampire should be - all perfectly co-ordinated heaving bodies - and the reality of us two being every bit as clumsy as new couples usually are, made me laugh. It broke the mood but Daniel didn't seem to mind.

He cupped my face in his hands. "What are you laughing at?"

"Us, being out of practice. I'm trying to get your towel off and there's no way to do it seductively."

"We can always start again. We have all day."

I sat up and he placed his hands under my breasts, running his thumbs back and forth underneath them. It was a very simple thing but his fingers felt so good! I wondered if the strange substance was present in the rest of him too. I cast my eyes over his chest as he lay on the bed beneath me and followed my eyes with my fingers, feeling his smoothness and solidity. He was glorious and he was mine!

He cooled off fairly rapidly and suggested that I join him in the shower where he could warm up again. I'd never been in a shower that seemed to have been designed specifically for things showers weren't usually designed for. I stood on the ledge that ran around the base of it. It put me at exactly the right height for us to kiss easily underneath the fierce stream of water. My hands ranged over him. His skin was as slick as wet glass and I found it hard to keep my hands from doing anything other than obeying gravity and slipping down to his bottom. This, I decided, was no hardship. Under his hands and his kisses I was becoming increasingly aroused. I was oblivious to what he was, I was simply with a man who was making me feel loved in a way no man had ever done before. I responded to the desire building within me and grabbed at his hips, making no secret of what I wanted, neither in my body language or the gasps of pleasure I was voicing. And then suddenly he was gone and I slumped to the floor of the shower panting. I couldn't see anything in the steamy cubicle, so I shut the water off and grabbed a towel from the stack on the far side. I stepped out and the difference in temperature made my skin raise goose bumps. He was nowhere in the bathroom. I went through to the bedroom and Alice was there.

"That was close!" She said holding her hand to her midriff and looking wild-eyed with shock.

"He nearly bit me?"

"He nearly killed you."

"Oh." My hair was dripping onto the carpet. Alice flitted for another towel and patted it gently dry.

"Did you know you have two scents?"

"No."

"There's the scent of your blood and the scent of you." When you become a vampire you lose your blood scent and your intrinsic scent is heightened and becomes how we identify one another. To be around you he focusses on your intrinsic scent and he was doing really well. But then you stepped it up a gear and there was no way he could ignore the call of your blood."

"Where is he?"

"He's in the kitchen." I moved to go to him, but Alice stopped me. "I'll send him back. Look, what you're attempting is tough, even for vampires like Edward who'd been on animal blood for over eighty years. Daniel's only a year into this. I know how you're feeling, but if you want to try and make this work, you're going to have to rein it in. Relax, be very calm and work with him to discover the point at which he's comfortable. Beyond that," Alice looked at me gravely. "You won't survive."

Alice left and I sat down on the bed, thinking about what she'd just said. There were boundaries, I could see that. This wasn't going to be easy but I wasn't going to quit. We'd work at it, we'd find the point where we could be intimate and me still be safe; or as safe as you could be when the love of your life was a vampire.

There was a movement at the corner of my eye and he was suddenly standing there. He knelt down in front of me.

"I'm sorry. Seems like I'm saying that a lot recently."

"We're both new to this; you need to show me where the boundary is." He nodded imperceptibly. I held his face in my hands and lifted it so that he was looking at me. "If most of that was the right side of the line, then I'm not going to feel deprived." I'd been very close to my own tipping point. "Alice explained about my two scents. You learn something every day huh?" I smiled encouragingly and stroked his hair.

"As long as I focus on your intrinsic sent I'm fine. But when you got aroused..." He trailed off.

"I know. Alice told me to relax."

"And the stronger and faster your heart beats, the more it pulls me in" I could see he was growing in anxiety.

I stood up and held out my hand. "Let's go back to bed."

We lay back down and started from first principles. Talking, looking, kissing and touching one another. There were no heaving bodies; there was only tenderness, intimacy and discovering how each other responded. Fighting against the drug in his lips was my own battle, but one I was willing to take on if it meant that I could spend hours doing this; and we did spend hours at it.

"What scent do I have?" I asked. His right index finger was circling my nipple. He smiled and kissed it. He inhaled deeply.

"Scents are complex and like perfumes they have notes. Sometimes the floral notes are the strongest, sometimes the spice, the wood or the citrus. Everyone has a unique scent. Will for instance is almost exclusively woody. More specifically, his scent is raindrops on ferns. Carlisle's scent is mainly spice. Bella is strongly floral, freesias and roses. Edward is oranges and sunlight. Ness is supposed to smell of apple blossom and pear trees; but she eats so much chocolate that she mostly gives off cacao." He smiled.

I thought of what I consumed a lot of. "Do I smell of coffee beans?"

He laughed. "No. I don't think I've ever met anyone whose scent more perfectly matches them. Your scent is night jasmine and moonflowers."

"Really?" I thrilled.

"Yes, really. You smell of the night. It's beautiful, it's the scent I love the most in the world. "So what scent do I have to you?" He smiled.

I blushed and instantly covered my cheeks with my hands. But this time Daniel didn't move away. "Are you OK?" I asked, concerned.

"Yes, why do you ask?"

"You didn't move back."

"Coping with a blush is… easy now I know I can do it."

"Practice makes perfect?"

He smiled. "Yes. Anyway, I know why you blushed; I know what you've been doing."

"Calvin Klein Eternity for men?" I'd assumed it came out of a bottle, I had no idea that this glorious scent came from him.

"You'd done well to get that close. So which bits are you picking out that are me?"

"I don't know." I stroked his neck. "I didn't know there'd be a test."

"Go on, smell, what do you get?"

I leaned into his neck and inhaled. I closed my eyes, tried to concentrate and pick out individual notes. I shook my head. "I don't know."

"Breathe in again with your mouth open. Taste the scent as you would a wine."

"I'm scent tasting now? You're a bottle of wine?"

"Let's not do the bottle of wine analogy, that's not helpful."

"Can I be a nice chianti? I have some fava beans at home." I giggled, parodying the film line.

Suddenly he was on top of me; his hands interlaced with mine and pinned down either side of my head. He'd forced my legs apart and was kneeling between them. I was powerless to hit or kick and if he wanted me to keep calm there was absolutely no way I was going to manage to do that, my heart was racing. I was panic-eyed as I stared up into his dangerous gold ones. He planted a kiss on my forehead, moving slowly down, kissing my nose, my lips and my chin. But he didn't stop he kept going and kissed down my throat. His lips moved across to where my carotid artery was frantically forcing blood and adrenaline into my brain. He held me in a state of abject fear for what felt like forever, before releasing me and gathering me to him in an embrace. He let me rest back on the pillows. My eyes were anxious, his were regretful.

"I so very nearly killed you earlier." He said softly. "And had it not been for Bella's bravery before that, you could've been in the throes of conversion right now. Doing that to you wasn't a smart thing and I'm sorry for scaring you. But I don't want to you to underestimate the risk of this. It may be fun to joke, but if anything happened and I killed you, then I'd be the vampire version of Dan and for all eternity. Please let me keep you safe and please let me focus on the moonflowers and night jasmine, rather than the Chianti, which I'm trying so very hard not to think about." He wiped away the tear that had blossomed in my eye. "I love you so much, but my reality isn't your reality, so I need to respect the points beyond which I can't go." He sighed. "Sorry, I fucked up a beautiful moment there."

I placed my hand on his cheek. "I'm sorry too. They make this look easier in Vampire Nights."

"Yeah. TV has a lot to answer for."

"How did Jess and Will manage?"

"Will's been on animal blood for well over fifteen years. I've managed a year."

"Do you think you should ask?"

"That would be an awkward conversation. Asking for sex tips isn't something that comes easy to guys; vampire or human."

I kissed his cheek. On the night stand my phone beeped with an incoming text message. It was the alert I'd set up for my new family, for messages that should not be read if I was in public. I ignored it.

"You should get that. It might be Esmé, it's approaching lunchtime."

I grabbed the phone, read the message and creased up in laughter. I turned the screen to Daniel. He read it and chuckled.

"Thanks Edward!" He called.

"He's only trying to help."

"I know but… jees." He was silent for a good few seconds.

"So, are you going to try it?"

"I don't know. What do you think?"

"I'm on the pill and have been for years."

"It's not that I'm worried about. Doing it that way doesn't seem fair to you."

"You know when we were in the shower earlier? You got me so close that if we work on that, then maybe that's how it has to be for me, until you feel stronger. I'm willing to give it a go if you are."

"OK." He said. "Relax."

That had taken time to achieve. Now he was lying on top of me and I'd wrapped my legs around him but we weren't looking at one another. However, it was impossible to not think about what he was about to attempt. But if this was to work, I needed to be as calm and unengaged with the whole process as it was possible for me to be. This was going to be an exercise in how calm I could keep myself.

"Look at the ceiling." He said.

"There's nothing to look at, it's perfectly smooth." My body rocked along with his chuckle.

"Where are the cracks in the ceiling when you need them? Think about grading. I know how much you love grading." I groaned. "That's it, you dropped three beats."

"Jess gave me her last paper. I should read that."

"That's a great idea!" He said and before I knew it Jess's paper was in my hand and Daniel was lying between my legs again. I secured mine back around him.

I opened it. "Oh great, yet more stuff Will and Jasper clearly re-wrote for her. I should re-grade all her…Oh!" He was in me and the shock of how different he felt took my breath away.

"Concentrate on the paper." His voice was ragged and I prayed he was focussing on the flowers and not the wine. "Stephanie read!" he urged. But I couldn't get my heart to even start to calm down. He slid out of me.

"I'm sorry! It's so intense." I gasped, almost tearful. "You feel so different."

"It feels different for me too." He held me close again. There wasn't much warmth left in his body and the chill of him made me shiver. "We should try again another day."

"No." I said softly and kissed him. "One more try."

As I relaxed on the bed attempting to calm my heart, he took another shower. He'd come to the conclusion that I needed to aim for boredom; although it was nigh-on impossible to be bored about making love to Daniel when all I wanted to do was get excited and give everything I had to it. I reached for Jess's paper and he wandered back over to bed from the shower. "This looks suitably boring; by the time I get to paragraph four I'll be virtually asleep."

He smiled and doing nothing to arouse me settled himself between my legs again and I wrapped mine around his hips. I kept reading, concentrating on Jess's words.

"Read it out loud this time." He said, "We can be bored together."

I chuckled and started to read. "Power was one of the causes of the tension between the two sides. By 1850, only a third of the US population lived in the South and more states were becoming non-slave states. The South was losing its power in the government and no longer had an effective voice. After Abraham… Oh my God!" I exclaimed. He was in me again and it was no less shocking than the first time.

"Keep reading!" He urged.

"Um…" I tried to focus. "Abraham Lincoln, a republican who was… oh! Determined to keep slavery from spreading, was… ah! Elected, South… Carolina seceded from… ouch! the Union. The rest of the South foll.. aaah! followed. The tension between the two ow! ow! Sides… grew and …Jesus! a little miscommunication… oh! sparked the …. Oh my…" It was no good I couldn't go on. I hurled the paper aside, threw my arms around him, ducked my head down against his chest and held on as if my life depended on it – which in many ways it probably did.

It was shocking. If I ever forgot for one second that my boyfriend was not human, this would be the reminder. I kept my face firmly pressed to his shoulder, well away from his mouth and hands which from the sound of it were tearing chunks out of the head board and mattress. How I could ever expect to share in this experience I didn't know. This was primal. Now I understood why Jess had landed in hospital. His chest pinned me down, but with the ferocity at which he was working I could already feel it was causing friction burns on my back. A sudden pop and a sharp pain in my chest told me that a rib had gone; but I didn't dare cry out, in case I did something that was fatal to me. I clung on, prayed for deliverance and wondered what on earth had ever given me the idea that I could cope with this?

It ended in tearing violence with splinters of wood from the headboard, feathers from the pillows and wadding from the mattress raining down by the side of me. But at the end Daniel was quiet and still and I was in shock.

There were low voices. Daniel withdrew from me, grabbed a blanket from further down the bed and gently wrapped me up in it.

"Carlisle's going to check you over." He said gently. "Once again, I'm sorry."

Carlisle taped up my broken rib. That and the friction burn on my back were my only injuries; everything else was right where it should be - apart from my naiveté which I'd left stuck to the mattress. I could of course expect to be sore internally for a few days. Carlisle wanted to do a pregnancy test too, just to make sure. Of course he knew what we'd been doing and how I'd gotten injured, but he was so reassuring and understanding, that I began to see the benefits of Doctors having over three hundred years practice at getting their bedside manner right.

"Do you want to see Daniel?" He asked when he'd finished.

"Of course."

"He will understand if you don't."

"I do."

Carlisle left the room and Daniel entered it. As he approached I held out my hand. "Don't say 'I'm sorry'." I said. "You've already said that."

"What can I say?"

I looked at him; there was deep anguish in his eyes. "You can tell me that you love me."

"That's a given."

"I still want to hear it."

"I love you."

"Again."

There was a tiny smile at the corner of his mouth. "I love you."

"Again."

"I love you!"

"That's better. And again."

"I love you. Look, where's this going?" He laughed.

"Well, hopefully all the way to an altar, but it's not a leap year so I can't ask you."

The statue was back again. "After what I did?"

"Yes."

"But I hurt you."

"Not intentionally. You made love to me."

"I attacked you."

"No, you attacked a bed, I'm a little shocked but mostly fine. How are you?"

"The same," he looked embarrassed. If he could blush I'm sure would be doing. He dropped his voice. "Things don't respond like they used to."

"Oh?"

He sat down next to me. "You know they give you the zero to sixty speeds of cars?"

"Yes."

"Well, just for comparison; as a human, say you'd do zero to sixty in 10 seconds. OK?"

"Yes."

"Now? That was zero to sixty in zero point three of a second. It was just there and I didn't know how to control it. But I've spoken to Will and he says it gets easier the… more you do it. So I hope I'll be better… next time. If you want there to be a next time, that is?"

I smiled. "Of course I do. But not for a few weeks OK?" I pointed to my chest. "Another broken rib."

Daniel lifted me down off the examination table and hand in hand we walked slowly back into the kitchen area. To the right, some of them were in the pool and I tried not to stare as the sunlight refracted in rainbows off their skin and onto the walls of the courtyard. At the table, Charlie, Heather, Jake, Ness and Dan were sat eating lunch. Jane was sat next to Dan and she was gazing at him like some love-struck ninth grader. She'd changed her clothes. Gone was the business suit and in its place a strappy summer dress. Her facial expression had changed too and she looked again like the happy, bouncy Jane that I'd met back at the viewpoint all those months ago. Dan too had changed. He was still desperately thin and paler than any human should be, but he was wearing a smile and one that I'd seen before. It was the smile he'd had on his face at the end of last year when they'd recently married. It was also the smile I now understood of a human whose system was coursing with vampire lip narcotic. I sat down and Dan rolled a tube of the lip balm across to me.

"I borrowed yours. Forgot to bring mine with me." He said. I noticed then that his lips had an amusing purple tinge. I smiled; so it wasn't just us girls who had difficulties kissing their vampire other halves.

Just then there was a flash of light outside, followed by stunned silence from the people around the pool.

Charlie however, didn't miss a beat. "Think your Dad's here." He said to Heather.

"It's very quiet out there," She replied. "I hope nobody's too stunned. He does make a bit of an entrance."

I looked outside and took in the jaw-dropping sight of an angel, his wings wholly unfurled and possibly eight, maybe nine feet across at their maximum. Alice and Rose were stroking them. I chuckled at the expression on Alice's face.

"No, Alice has got wing envy." I said.

"He's something isn't he?" Said Heather smiling broadly.

"Yes." I said, somewhat awed; as like umbrellas, Kael's wings retracted into his body.

"I'm glad he's come over." Said Ness, "He can give his side of the story."

"Oh yes," I said "I still need to tell Jess what's been going on."

"After lunch." Said Jake biting into a turkey drumstick. "Eat." He pointed to the food.

"You've got to keep your strength up if you want to hang around with this lot." Dan grinned at me.

"Yes, about that." Jane reached across for the plate of pizza. "Eat more." She dropped two slices onto her husband's plate.

"I've got enough."

"You need to eat more."

"I'm doing the best I can. What's this obsession with getting me to stuff my face?"

"You're too thin."

"Yeah well, I lost my appetite."

Jane whispered something in his ear, to which Dan's eyes popped open and he turned scarlet. Daniel tried hard not to laugh and failed.

"Thanks for the tip." Jane said to Ness.

"You're welcome." Replied Ness.

"Will somebody please tell me what's going on?" Said Charlie.

"Keeping your man well fed has benefits in the bedroom." Said Jake nonchalantly. "Why do you think I eat like a horse?"

"I thought it was because of all phasing into a wolf and running around you do?"

"Well some of it, yes. But there's more than one animal in our bedroom and she takes some keeping up with." Jake grinned.

"I really don't need to know that."

"But I thought you were the world expert on Ness, Charlie?" There was a ripple of laughter around the table at Charlie's discomfiture. "Anyway, eat up; we have a story to tell."

"I've lost my appetite." Sighed Charlie.