A/N: Sorry, I'm late. It was Eid festivities going around in here. So consider this chapter your Eid pressie. :)

Chapter-23: Realization

BPOV

A soft sigh escaped me as soon as the house came into view. I wasn't ready to let go yet. His hand was off the steering wheel and cupping my face before I could blink. "Hey, what is it?" he asked, holding my chin in between his fingers.

"Nothing," I replied.

"That sigh didn't sound like nothing," he countered. I averted my eyes to avoid giving myself up. He pulled on the handbrake and turned his body to face me, still holding my face. "Tell me," he said.

I couldn't resist it anymore. I peeked up from beneath my eyelashes and met his startlingly vibrant green eyes. As soon as our eyes locked, the words came tumbling out of my mouth. "Don't go."

His breathing stopped and his eyebrows pulled together. "What do you mean?"

Shamelessly, I confessed the feelings I had been trying to ignore every day when he dropped me back home for the last week. "Can you stay a little while longer? I don't …" I squeezed my eyes shut and took in a deep breath before continuing. "I miss you when you're not with me and I don't like it."

Two seconds. For two whole seconds he remained absolutely motionless, simply staring at me like I'd grown another head on my shoulder. When I couldn't take the staring match anymore, I blinked and he was gone. Before I could panic, however, he was back … at my car door, wrenching it open and pulling me out of the car and into his arms.

Cradling me to his chest, he buried his face in my hair and inhaled as if trying to breathe me in. "I won't go," he said into my hair. "I'm not going to leave your side unless you order me away, Bella."

I pulled back to look at his face and let my arms drape around his shoulders. "When I'm with you, I feel like I must be dreaming, and a part of me worries that one day I'll wake up from the dream and you'll be gone."

He started shaking his head even before I had finished talking. "Bella, how many times do I have to tell you? I can't stay away from you. If I was a drug junkie, you'd be like the next hit of heroine for me. You make me feel … everything, Bella. Please tell me you understand that."

"I do," I whispered into his neck. I felt his arms tighten around me as he used his leg to close the car door before carrying me to my front porch. He waited patiently while I opened the door and then carried me inside.

Once we're in the living room and out of the darkness of the night, I felt self-consciousness creep up to me and said quietly, "You can let me go now."

"Mmm …" he hummed in my ear and smiled at me. "I could, but I don't want to. I want to spend the whole night with my girl in my arms."

"Your girl?" I asked, raising a questioning eyebrow at him.

He didn't even flinch at my scrutiny. Instead, he nodded, the smile still adorning his handsome face. "My girl," he repeated. "Only mine."

I felt heat rushing to my face just at the sound of voice claiming me as his. He leaned down and kissed my cheek. "I love the way you blush at my words," he murmured in my ear. "Tell me I'm the only one to make you feel like this, Bella."

"Only you," I replied before kissing the corner of his mouth. Working my body out of his arms and down on the floor, I said, "I uh … I need a few human minutes."

He nodded, kissing my lips and then said, "Hurry back, baby."

It wasn't until I was halfway down the hallway to my bathroom when I realized that even though I had thought that term of endearment cheesy before, now, coming from Edward, it sounded … sexy.

EPOV

I wouldn't even try and pretend that the look and stench of Bella's dinner was remotely appealing to me, but watching her eat that God-awful-smelling food she called 'pasta' was excruciating. I would've even tried to avoid looking at the stuff she called food, but the sight of her lips wrapping around a spoon as she ate sent shivers down my spine … shivers that left me craving her.

Having known her hesitance when she kissed me, I had gathered that she was still probably untouched, and that's what stopped me from calming down the beast within me by claiming its mate. With her, I'd have to savor every moment, I told myself. So I kept my body strictly angled away from her as we sat in front of the television and talked.

We talked a lot that night, and I got to find out so many secrets about her. I'd admit that if it was any other female, the information would've been totally pointless to me, but because it was her, it all mattered because she fucking mattered.

As I sat on her couch with her head resting on my shoulders and her eyes shut, I couldn't help but wonder how on earth she could even allow my shadow to fall on her. As if she could hear my thoughts for a change, her hand tightened where she had my shirt held in a fist. Realizing that the position she was sleeping in might give her a painful neck the next morning, I decided to take her to her bed. So without waking her up, I stood up with her held in my arms and carried her toward the direction of her bedroom.

Carefully so as not to disturb her, I laid her down on her bed and started to move away from her, finally resigning to leaving her to get a good night's sleep. Before I could move more than two steps, however, I felt her hand wrap around my wrist and squeeze. "Where do you think you're going?"

The sound of her sleep-laden voice made me smile as I allowed her to pull me back to her. "I thought you were sleeping," I said.

She shook her head quickly. "If you're a dream I get to have with my eyes open, I don't want to sleep … not if it means that you'll leave."

Her admission made me stop in mid-stride. "You want me to stay with you?"

Biting her lip, she nodded, her eyes looking at anywhere but me. "Just stay, please? We don't have to do anything."

"Well, Ms. Swan, that's going to be difficult, I'm afraid," I replied channeling my old world mannerisms to make her smile. "I can't be trusted to keep my hands to myself when I'm in close proximity to you."

Her response was so softly spoken that I'd have missed it if I didn't have my vampire hearing to aid me. But of course I heard her murmur. "Maybe I don't want you to."

That was all it took to break my resolution and make me walk right back to her side. I knelt beside her on her bed and reached for her face. Slowly letting my thumb trace her lips, I asked her, "What do you want, Bella? Tell me, baby."

My words seemed to make her forget all about sleeping as she sat up facing me and looking directly into my eyes, she said, "Kiss me."

Because I was a smart fucker, I didn't need to be told twice. The moment after the words left her lips, mine covered hers. The next thing I knew, I was sitting on her bed with her straddling my hips making things pretty hard for me.

I let one of my hands slip into her hair and used it to cup the back of her neck, holding her face to mine as I kissed her. The sensation created by her hot breath landing on my ice-cold face was like the purest form of torture … or so I thought … until she sat down on my lap.

Fuck!

Suddenly a thought struck me, and pulling my lips away from hers, I asked her, "Has anyone kissed you before me, Bella?"

A momentary haze of confusion lined her eyes before she nodded, reaching for me as she did so. "A couple of boys back at the Home," she replied, her voice breathless from my kisses. She threaded her fingers through the hairs at the nape of my neck and pulled slightly to make me meet her eyes before continuing. "There were only two boys. They were all strictly first base though. No one could ever come close to you, Edward."

I must admit while that thought was comforting, an irrational bout of jealousy gripped me at the thought of anyone else even daring to look at her. She's mine, damn it!

Unable to resist the way her slightly parted lips were brushing against mine, I kissed her again. Then I let my lips trail down her cheekbone to her chin and then down her neck. When my lips reached the pulse point on her neck, I whispered against her skin, "I'm gonna make you forget them, Bella."

"Who?"

"Those fucking nobodies who dared to smile at you," I clarified, still peppering her neck with small kisses. "Anyone who has ever tried to flirt with you. I'd have preferred to make them seize to exist myself, but because you've asked me to stop doing anything like that, I'm going to have to work on you."

She let me push her down to her bed and looked up at me from her pillow, question and amusement dancing in her eyes. "Work on me? What will that entitle?"

I shrugged. "Merely kissing you until all you sense, all you think and all you can feel is me," I replied as I lowered my body on hers, keeping my weight off of her using my forearms but bringing my face down so close that we were breathing the same air.

Her eyes widened slightly before her breathing increased. I frowned at the frantic sound of her beating heart. However, before I could voice my question, she wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me down for a kiss. "I'm already yours, Edward. I don't even remember those guys' names."

"Good," I responded, letting my hands fall from her face and skim down her sides before resting on her hips. "Let's keep it that way." She grinned and lifted her head up, silently asking me for a kiss.

And I obliged her.

~*~*~*RoALS*~*~*~

We kissed for what felt like hours before I felt her body relaxing in my arms. When she started getting drowsy, I found myself lying flat on my back beside her with her head resting in the crook of my neck. I moved to put her head back on her pillow when she frowned in her sleep. "No!" she mumbled, bunching up my shirt in her fist and laying her head down on my chest.

Wondering whether she had woken up or not, I looked down only to find her still fast asleep with a smile on her face. That look on her face made me smile back as I allowed my hand to slowly run up and down her back.

The knowledge that this extraordinary creature was happy and in my arms gave me a heady feeling … like I would do anything to keep her there. Just as the thought came to me, realization hit me. I was giving up my way of life for her. I was willing to keep working with Carlisle just so I could be closer to her. I was ready to even spend time with my family just for her.

All of these made one thing glaringly obvious. What everyone else had been saying wasn't the truth. I wasn't falling in love with Bella Swan. No, I was already in love with her.

I reached out to move a lock of hair that had fallen in front of her face. A soft sigh escaped her lips as she burrowed closer to me. And then in the faintest of voice, she said, "Edward, I love you."

Gasping at her words, I looked down only to find her eyes still tightly shut as she slept on. She talks in her sleep, I remembered her mentioning it to me sometime during the night. A part of me was excited to hear what else she might have to say. But another, much bigger part was reveling in her whispered subconscious confession.

For the first time since I had been turned, I felt true fear grip me—not because I was afraid of anyone, but because of the pain caused by the mere thought of what I would do if Bella left me.

I had known that being a mated vampire changed us, but the changes her love brought into me were so monumental that for the rest of the night I lied down with her in my arms and pleaded to whatever force had brought us together to keep us this way … forever.

A/N: So … thoughts? Share them with me and leave a review.

Thanks for reading.

Song rec for this chapter: Kiss Me by Ed Sheeran.

There's not going to be an update next Friday because I have something different coming your way that day. Keep an eye out for another new adventure from me. ;)

Until we meet again.

Take care.

Ann