Hope you like this latest installment
In one day my wife had completed her transformation into a vampire, met our daughter, then subsequently tried to kill the werewolf that had imprinted on said daughter, joined me in a hunt where I witnessed a mountain lion tear her clothes to shreds and now we were walking through the woods to our new home.
I had never felt more content.
In all the time that I had known and loved Bella I had thought of nothing but keeping her safe and human, of prolonging her life and preserving her soul. A vampire's afterlife is unclear, at best, and I thought only to spare her that uncertainty. To spare the tumult of not knowing what lay beyond this long and thirsty life. Every time I was too weak to stay away from her, every time I held her close when I should have been running away for her own protection I berated myself horribly. My own terrible weakness made me feel more wretched than anything else ever could.
But tonight, as we walked the last few steps to our cottage in the woods with Alice perched on Bella's back, covering her eyes to preserve the surprise, I couldn't find the guilt. My wife was a vampire. She was an undead creature like myself, cursed to an existence where she must feed on blood and live a life of subterfuge and it was entirely because of me. I should have been wallowing in a sea of guilt so deep and endless that I never saw the light of day again, but all I could feel was joy. I refused to beat myself up over the selfishness of this fact, at least not tonight.
As we stopped in front of the cottage and Alice jumped down from Bella's back to reveal our home I vowed that tonight would be filled with only joy. Bella was transformed and there was nothing that could ever be done to change it. As much as it wasn't the way I had wanted her life to end, I would accept it for the gift that it was. After experiencing the mind numbing terror of watching her nearly die before my very eyes and then burn in unknown anguish as my venom coursed through her I simply could do nothing but be thankful to have her back. We had eternity now and I would appreciate every last second of it.
"What do you think?"
Alice's voice roused me from my reverie and my attention turned to the scene in front me. Bella stood before our tiny cottage in the woods, her mouth agape, as Alice stared at her, trying to read her expression. I listened to my sister's thoughts whir as she desperately searched for a vision that would tell her what Bella's opinion of the cottage was going to be just moment's ahead of this one. The lack of vision that I was reading in her mind coupled with Bella's stunned stare led me to the conclusion that shock was keeping Bella from being able to form any kind of opinion at all, which frustrated Alice to no end.
"Esme thought we might like a place of our own for a while, but she didn't want us too far away," I explained. "And she loves any excuse to renovate. This little place has been crumbling away out here for at least a hundred years."
Bella's continued silence began to unnerve Alice but I no longer rued my inability to read her mind, as I knew her well enough to understand its meaning. She was shocked, awed and totally overwhelmed with the gift. Alice and Esme would be so pleased.
"You're giving me a house for my birthday?" I could hear the incredulous gratitude in her whisper and squeezed her hand just a bit tighter.
"Us," I corrected. "And it's no more than a cottage. I think the word house implies more legroom."
"No knocking my house."
Alice's thoughts erupted in excitement as she correctly interpreted the enjoyment in Bella's tone. She was eagerly anticipating running back to tell Esme all about how much Bella loved her gift and picturing our mother's pleased expression at the news as she exclaimed, "I can't wait to tell Esme!"
Confusion knit Bella's perfect features and she tore her face away from the tiny stone edifice to look at Alice. "Why didn't she come?"
An awkward discomfort stole over Alice as she began to explain, rather ham handedly, that the family didn't want her to feel pressured to like her gift so they stayed away for the unveiling. I made no effort to lend a helping hand, rather enjoying Alice's prickly attempts to keep the fact that we were intended to spend this night alone together from Bella as to not embarrass her.
A small smile threatened the corner of my mouth as Alice bid a hasty goodbye and took off blithely into the woods. For a wise old vampire who had been alive quite long enough to learn aplomb in delicate situations she sure did get, might I say, squirmy when it came to uncomfortable subjects. I was entertained beyond explanation.
Bella looked up at me in confusion as we heard Alice's delicate footfalls disappear quickly back toward the larger house my family shared. "That was weird, am I really that bad? They didn't have to stay away. Now I feel guilty. I didn't even thank her right. We should go back, tell Esme-"
"Bella, don't be silly. No one thinks you're that unreasonable."
"Then what-"
"Alone time is their other gift. Alice was trying to be subtle about it." Then, at just the verbalization of the fact that we were expected to be alone tonight, a thirst flared in me that had nothing to do with feeding. It hit me so forcefully and so suddenly, filled me with such primal need that I suddenly had to concentrate on keeping my breathing even.
"Oh." I could see in the change of her expression, in the sound of that softly uttered word that she had caught on to the underlying meaning behind my words and the look in her eyes said she felt as I did at this moment.
As she gazed at me with naked want on her face I had to will my own emotions firmly back under control. We were in the middle of the woods, mere steps from the threshold of our own home and we needed to get into the privacy of those walls.
Now.
Taking her by the hand I pulled her forward, sure that she hadn't missed my urgency. "Let me show you what they've done."
We approached the door and I gave her the key. She turned it in the lock, as naturally as if she were still human, and I found myself awed by her all over again. My memories of being a newborn were a bit jumbled for the simple fact that my thoughts in those first hours and days were jumbled. All I could truly remember after the blinding pain had been thirst. Searing, all consuming thirst. But Bella's personality was utterly unchanged. I was perplexed by it, but much like my selfish abandonment of my guilt, I also couldn't find any emotion to pin to this development but happiness. I got to have my Bella sooner than should have ever been possible. Why was I being granted such gifts?
"You're such a natural at this, Bella; I forget how very strange this all must be for you. I wish I could hear it."
She got the door open and between my frustration at my deafness to her mind and the growing feelings of longing for her in my body I snatched her up in my arms, needing to do something physical to ease my torment.
It didn't help.
"Hey!" She shouted playfully at me, caught unaware by having been suddenly swept off her feet.
"Thresholds are part of my job description," Could she hear the torture in my voice? Her body fit perfectly against mine as she relaxed in my arms and as I began to enter the house she brushed against me with my movements, ever so slightly, but enough to fan the flames of my desire ever higher. I needed to keep it together, to be a gentleman. Ravishing her right here in the doorway was no way to treat the love of my life and the mother of my child on her first day as a newborn vampire.
Trying to hold my tone in check and buy a few minutes to compose myself I spoke calmly, "But I'm curious. Tell me what you're thinking about right now."
I walked her around the house so she could get a good look at everything and in my haze I had to admit that Esme had outdone herself. This was exactly the type of place I knew Bella would choose if she had any home on earth from which to select. It was homey and comfortable, complete with a low flickering fire in the corner fireplace that cast the entire stone room in a romantic glow. Its presence only heightened the feelings inside me to stop right where I was and make passionate love to my wife this instant. I had felt many new things as a result of my relationship with the woman in my arms now, and when it came to love and desire, I thought I'd felt them all. Even after the magical time we'd spent on our honeymoon, this feeling was just a bit different and I was trying to work it out in my head.
I chatted with her idly as I tried to discern what this emotion was that I couldn't name.
"We're lucky Esme thought to add an extra room. No one was planning for Ness-Renesmee."
"Not you too." The disgust in her voice was understandable; I knew she hated the nickname that was beginning to stick for our daughter. I was so wrapped up in trying to identify this new feeling that I hadn't been thinking clearly and let it slip.
On the island, the first time we'd made love, I'd been a ball of nerves and anticipation. I'd desired her, but I'd also been terrified for I knew that very desire could hurt her terribly. Then, as we'd developed a more comfortable rhythm I'd begun to feel more relaxed with our lovemaking. I knew I could stay in control, and part of my mind was always vigilantly focused on that, but the feelings of desire and craving that would start low in my belly became familiar and welcome.
"Sorry, love. I hear it in their thoughts all the time, you know. It's rubbing off on me."
She made a resigned expression and I began to walk her toward the bedroom with promises of showing her the closet that Alice had designed with painstaking care.
When I opened the door to the master suite, the enormous bed with it's gauzy canopy and reminiscence of our honeymoon bed staring us in the face, the feelings in my body that had been raging since Alice left us hit me with such staggering strength that it would have made my knees weak were they capable of doing such a thing and all at once I knew what to call this sensation.
Lust.
Pure, unadulterated, primitive lust. I wanted Bella so badly in that moment that I stood rooted to the spot, transfixed by the bed, unable to so much as take a step toward it. I'd loved her, wanted her, needed her and longed for her. I'd known the wish to become one with her and touch her the way a husband touches his wife. But this was a force all its own. This, I instinctively knew, was the feeling that came over a person when their perfect mate was ready and willing in their arms. When the woman you craved more than any other was so close that all you had to do was reach out and take her, like plucking an apple from a tree. It was so intense, so carnal, that I feared I would go mad if I didn't succumb to it soon.
"Oh." She whispered as her gaze, like mine, landed on the bed. The smoky undertones of her voice curled through me, telling me that her thoughts and my own were once again perfectly in synch.
I could will my voice to go only barely above a whisper. "I know."
I made mention again of viewing the closet while the animal side of my brain snarled at me to end my gentleman's charade and satisfy its appetite. Bella turned slowly to look at me with the most heart stopping expression on her face that, had I not already been dead to begin with, would surely have put me in mortal peril.
"We're going to tell Alice that I ran right to the clothes," she raised her hand to thread her fingers through my hair and draw my head down until my face was a hair's breadth away from hers. I had to fight not to growl, my longing for her reaching a painful height.
"We're going to tell her I spent hours in there playing dress-up," I could feel her breath against my skin, see her gaze dropping seductively to my mouth. "We're going to lie."
The monster inside me, the one I'd tamed and beaten back since she walked into that biology class, burst free and consumed me.
After all this time, I gladly let it.
With the groan that I'd been biting back I crushed my mouth to hers and sank to my knees. I had never felt so free in all my life. I no longer had to hold myself back, to keep myself under such tight control that my needs could only be expressed with the softest of kisses and the gentlest of caresses. Now I could love her with every ounce of my being and I intended to, oh how I intended to.
I lowered her to the ground and she pulled me down with her, her hands clawing at my clothes. I mirrored her actions and tore the already ravaged dress that had taunted me all day with its poor excuse for coverage from her body. I just couldn't get to her bare flesh fast enough. In so many ways, this was like our first time all over again and I longed to rediscover her.
My shirt seemed to disintegrate beneath her fingers and she wasted no time in running her hands up and down my chest. She wasn't being gentle but the increased pressure beneath her now exceedingly strong hands wasn't painful. Quite the contrary, it felt utterly incredible. After a lifetime of solitude I was always awed by the sensations that were aroused in me when Bella would touch me and this was no exception. Her hands held their own against me and instead of feeling soft and cautious they felt like the hands of someone enjoying the flesh of their lover. I thrilled at being that lover.
Her hands lowered to the waistline of my pants and I took the opportunity to roll us until she sat atop me. The suddenness of my movement distracted her and she lowered her head to take my mouth as I took my turn running my hands over her perfect body.
She felt so good. Not needing to be gentle was intoxicating and though I had no desire to be any less than the considerate and attentive lover that was part of who I was I was so enraptured with her body that I couldn't stop moving my hands over it. Every inch of her was as I had remembered, except she was no longer breakable. Every curve, every sinew was just as it had been but now when I ran my fingers over her collarbone I needn't worry that I would break it. When I stroked her shoulders, bruising would never haunt me again and when I reared up to take her face in my hands so I could kiss her with every bit of myself I was utterly unconcerned that I would harm her in any way.
Finally, after a hundred years plus a handful more I was kissing the love of my life and holding nothing back. I'd never known it to be possible in all of my vampire existence for my mind to go utterly blank except for the single task at hand but that was exactly where I was. Every nerve, every cell, every fiber of me was concentrated into that kiss.
I felt Bella go momentarily limp in the wake of it and I was, in that one moment, convinced that I had a soul for it sang out praises to the universe. Some things wouldn't change and her response to me was still as pure and disarming as always. I was entirely unworthy of having something this wonderful and I had to beat back a sudden sense of foreboding that told me I couldn't possible have this much perfection without having to give something up for it in return.
I had to stifle a laugh as she became impatient with the continued presence of my pants and tore them from my body in a fierce display of both newborn strength and temper. Moving with much more coordination than I was used to her being capable, she simultaneously pushed me back onto my back and then rolled us so that she was beneath me again.
As much as I'd been holding back during our previous time together I was now surprised to realize that she had been too. Every time she'd become too zealous or too fevered in her affections toward me I'd been forced to stop her for fear that I couldn't handle it. Now that fear was out of the equation, she wrapped her legs around my waist and crushed me too her with her arms, her lips going from my mouth to my cheek and then up to my ear where she took the lobe between her teeth and very nearly purred into my ear.
Any self-control that I could claim I still held snapped neatly in half. My hands thrust into her hair and I met her fervor with my own, crushing my mouth to hers and letting my tongue slip inside. I came up for a shaky breath only to begin scattering kisses across her forehead, her eyelids, her lips, then down her neck. She arched up into me, thrusting her breasts into my chest and a tremor of pleasure rocked my body.
Continuing my downward trajectory I kissed her collarbone and then made it to those breasts, taking one nipple into my mouth and teasing it with my teeth. She fisted her hand in my hair and sucked in a sharp breath, spurring me on to give her more, to make her feel as good as I did.
I continued to kiss down, making it to her flat stomach and pressing kisses to her belly button. It was here, in this place but two short days ago, that our baby had been and though the intensity of my desire didn't diminish, I suddenly found my feelings grow tender again. Now both lust and all consuming love were coexisting inside my head and inside my heart and I lifted my gaze to hers.
The red of her newborn eyes was bright and ferocious but the look in them told me that she yearned for me just as she always had. Nothing in them bespoke a need to satiate her thirst for blood or that her thoughts were otherwise occupied by the things that would have been typical for a creature of her age. As they had in her human life, her eyes were only filled with me. I was humbled to my very core and I brought myself back up until we were again face-to-face.
She sensed the change in me and she gazed up into my eyes, waiting.
"How did I get so lucky?" It was a sentiment that had been whirring through my head since she'd opened her eyes and I still didn't have the answer to it. Raising her hands to gently stroke my back she placed the most tender of kisses to my lips and smiled.
" I've asked myself the same question every day."
Overcome, I took her lips again and entered her with one long, slow thrust of my hips. She tightened her arms around me and moaned as I began to move, matching my rhythm perfectly. I found myself whispering disjointed words of love, promises of forever, between kisses as she moved her hands up and down my back, resting them on my hips from time to time.
Before I knew it she flipped us again in a blinding display of speed and I found myself staring up at the most beautiful sight I'd ever encountered. She put her hands on my chest and began to rock her hips, making me tip my head back at the torrent of ecstasy she elicited in doing so. Had I known pleasure until now? Had I ever thought for a moment that I had experienced the pinnacle of physical rapture that this life had to offer?
The sensations building in me were coming close to the breaking point and I knew that I wouldn't be able to take much more or I would go mad. Reaching up between our joined bodies I stroked and caressed her where I knew it would bring her the most pleasure and the growl that came low in her throat told me that I'd found the right place.
Her hips began to gain speed and her wild abandon was so incredibly erotic that I found myself biting my lower lip to try and remain in control. I continued what I was doing with one hand as I lifted the other hand to touch her breast, taking it into my palm and loving how it filled it up.
Her breaths became more erratic, her movements less coordinated when suddenly she found her release without warning. Crying out she shook all around me and I reared up again, gathering her in my arms and allowed myself to let go and follow her into that place of pure and utter bliss that we had known on our island. But this time it was different. This time we were able to get here with our whole selves, no aspect held in reserve.
When we came down to earth we starred, breathless and panting, into each other's eyes and seemed to lose ourselves there. My body felt loose and utterly exquisite, like it did after a very long run but even better.
"I love you Edward. Oh how I love you." She whispered as I continued to stare at her in disbelief at the power of my own feelings.
"I love you Bella. I love you my best friend."
Laying a gentle kiss to her lips I smiled. "Maybe we should try to make it the few feet to the bed?"
She laughed and buried her face into my neck. "If you insist."
I wrapped my arms around her and stood, carrying her over to the mattress and laying her down where I quickly joined her, pulling her back into my arms to minimize any time that I would have to be separated from her. She angled her face up so she could gaze into my eyes again and we lay like that until I stopped counting the time. Just looking at one another other. I shouldn't have been surprised by the fact that new and unforeseen feelings could present themselves to me at the hands of this woman but I was. It seemed like every day I was barraged with a more intense love, a stronger longing, a greater delight than I had known before. Was this the way our eternity would be?
I couldn't wait to find out.