EPOV

Bella leaned against my shoulder, and her eyes stared dreamily out the small airplane window as we left the clouds and entered sunshine. I didn't have to be able to read her mind to know what the sunshine made her think about: Phoenix, Arizona – where she'd grown up, and Jacksonville, Florida – where her mother, Renée, and her husband, Phil, were.

Mind-reading. I was glad that we'd left the crowded airport behind – the thoughts that some males were thinking of when they neared Bella…well, for that matter, females, when they were close to me, too…they were very disturbing.

I reached over to touch her face. It was so much easier, I reflected, when she was changed. I didn't have to watch my actions every time I touched her face like that, every time I kissed her. I didn't have to worry about purely unintentional acts of affection that could kill her immediately.

She seemed to snap out of her reverie, and she turned to face me with a small smile on her face. I lifted her face to mine with one finger. She seemed to be concentrating very hard, and I knew what was coming.

I love you, Edward.

I had gotten one of the rare glimpses of her thoughts when she had pushed away her mental shield. She hid her thoughts from me most of the time unless she wanted to say something to me – silently. I pushed my lips against hers, so that she was leaning back against the side of the airplane and I was pushing up against her. I leaned back, so as not to destroy the framework of the plane, and returned to my seat. Luckily, the plane wasn't too full, so no one witnessed our public display of affection.

"I know," I whispered back, too softly for human ears to hear.

She wrapped her arms around my neck. I grinned and pulled her lips to mine again. I parted my lips and ran my tongue around her lips. She sighed in pleasure and pulled away reluctantly when we both heard a stewardess coming down the aisle.

On the airplane it was easier to not eat and not attract attention. The stewardesses' thoughts, however, made me slightly uncomfortable. Every time we went out in public, I would have to hold Bella tighter, to let everyone know that she was mine, and I was hers.

"It's going to be a long night," she whispered under her breath. We were good at these quiet conversations; our lips would barely seem to move, and the words that came out were too soft for anyone to hear but us.

I smiled, caressing her cheek with one hand. "Oh, well," I said. "We can always just make out after everyone's asleep."

She chuckled and leaned back against her seat.

It was a long plane ride, but it was comfortable, and all the more bearable with my angel with me. The next day would be our anniversary; I tried to think of something special for that. For the time being, my mind was preoccupied with when we'd finally be at Isle Esme again, and how different it would be from the last time we were there.

For most of the ride, we were quiet, except for a few "silent" conversations. We would usually stay still, apart from the few times our need became unbearable and we would lock our mouths together. Otherwise, we just remained in our permanent, unbroken embrace.

At night, we had some more freedom with each other. It seemed ridiculous to go about our usual night routine on the plane, where a human could have a bad dream, wake up, and see us…so we settled for heavy kissing.

Kissing Bella was an experience I relished. To feel her lips moving steadily in rhythm with mine, to feel her fingers lock into my hair, to feel my own hands moving up to knot themselves in her hair, the lightheadedness….

We were perhaps as close to our…routine as we could have been. For the most part, our hands stayed like that; a few times, however, our craving for each other would take over, and at times like those, all we could do was keep quiet, and hope that the humans didn't wake up.

At daybreak, we reluctantly released each other once more and took up our sleeping pretense again. We didn't "wake" until nine a.m. The plane was due to land in Rio de Janeiro at any moment; the ride was smoother and quicker than I'd expected.

When the flight was over and the plane had stopped, Bella reached for my hand and our fingers twined together as the passengers walked out. I carried both our bags with no effort at all, and we exited the plane.

We'd already bought a boat down here; our family owned it, but because we very rarely came down here, it was usually used as a rental boat for other humans. I took Bella's hand tightly and pulled her down into the boat, and we left the waking city of Rio behind us.