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Chapter 6: The Two Edwards

EPOV

After Bella took my blood and was able to hear me, she told me about the two Edwards. Oh, they were both me alright.

There was the one who couldn't believe that he had lucked upon such a wonderful being after all of those lonely years on this earth. She was a good and kind person who never intentionally hurt anyone's feelings. She was fiercely loyal and devoted to her three closest girlfriends and her parents, checking in with them all weekly. She was sweet and funny. She was smart. She was beautiful. The Edward who loved Bella for all of these traits first wanted to keep her safe so that she'd be with him forever.

The other Edward was the horny 17-year old who lusted after and couldn't get enough of his fiancé. He wanted to please her, to feel her warmth on his cool body. He wanted to possess her, to take her and claim her as his. To touch her, taste her and make her moan. That Edward wanted her forever as well, but he was imagining having a playmate for eternity.

And therein lay the problem. Because while both Edwards played well with Bella, they didn't always play well together.

Caring Edward cherished her, was desperate to give her anything she wanted, and knew that he needed to let her get her rest. Horny Edward wanted to give her something as well, but it generally centered around sex in some way; he wanted her to come out and play… all of the time. And Horny Edward dominated most of the time, ever since she took our blood.

Not surprisingly, both Edwards liked to take her blood… we were both vampires, after all, but we had different perspectives even on this matter. Caring Edward liked to hold her in his arms, to caress her cheek, to hug her small body close to his and kiss her tenderly on the neck before taking a taste. He liked to see her face, to look her in the eyes before and after the bite.

Horny Edward liked to bite her in an entirely different spot… the spot where he most loved to be. Yeah, he enjoyed getting hand and blowjobs, and of course he really liked getting laid. But Horny Edward loved going down on her, lavishing attention on that warm, wet sweet spot. His lustful nature was completely propelled by the scent of her arousal emanating from that area, enhanced by the taste of the blood from the vein in her thigh just below this sweet spot. This Edward liked to look in her eyes as well during and after the bite... it's just that her eyes were a bit farther away.

And because the two Edwards were so focused on different aspects of loving Bella, we somehow missed out on the impact of the changes in her and the effect they were having on the one whole Edward. So, as a result, both of these Edwards together nearly killed her.

In retrospect, the problem appears to have started as soon as we discovered that she could hear me. After I gave her my blood. Her hormonal changes surrounding the pregnancy didn't help, and it was even worse after she moved in with me. I was wrong about my house – now our house – meeting the invitation criteria. And I was sadly mistaken about her energy, her control and its effect on me.

Hindsight is 20-20.... and at the time, I was completely blind.

~#~

By all outside appearances, Bella did remarkably well after the miscarriage. Obviously, she took it like the Vulcan that she was, showing little emotion outside of her hormonal imbalances. At night, however, she was more agitated than usual and so I probed her mind to see how she was truly doing.

Bella was torn with the loss. She had been very nervous about the idea of being pregnant and being a mother. She wasn't enjoying being sick; the blood helped her with her cravings, but she felt a little 'off' an hour or two later, although she couldn't quite pinpoint how. She wasn't relishing the hormonal shifts that had already started. She dreaded the way her body was going to change and was already changing. And she really was not looking forward to having strangers touch her belly and was worried that anyone who tried might very well draw back a bloody stump.

On the other hand, she loved the idea that it was my child… and was extremely regretful that she would not be able to see a little mixture of us both in the baby. She blamed the miscarriage on the fact that she was so torn about the pregnancy. She thought that it wouldn't have happened if she had been 100% behind it from the get-go. In fact, she was completely convinced that she had made her body abort the baby.

I tried to console her in her sleep and told her the same while she was awake… that nothing was her fault. And I did my best to convince her that all things being equal, based on what we learned from Laurent, I wanted her forever and would take that over her having my child and losing her any day.

Our inner dialogue stopped as her energy level evened out, occasionally rising to two. I encouraged her to go back to Karate to make herself feel better. She decided to attend classes, but did not want to go back to weapons training sessions due to her memories of James.

Within a few weeks she started to be able to hear me again. I tried to keep my thoughts relatively tame, allowing her to set the pace until she felt completely normal again.

In the meantime, it was such bliss having her around all of the time. Now that we were sharing the house together, it felt like we were married already. Her clothes hung in my closets. Her family pictures mingled with mine. Someone actually used the kitchen on a regular basis. We cleared out shelf space so that she could continue building up her movie collection. She got rid of almost everything except her sofa, which we moved into the study until the back room renovations were completed.

While our connection was down, I was even more aware of my longing for her. At night I'd listen to her heart beat as it tapped out a rhythm in my head, keeping pace with one singular repeating thought; Mine, Mine, Mine. I think that once she was in the house, my subconscious began thinking of her as a possession. After losing the baby, Bella's hormones were fluctuating wildly as her body adapted to her pre-baby state. But as her hormones adjusted, it magnified the call to her.

Of course, she had noticed this before I did, pointing out that I'd often claimed her in my thoughts… long before I figured out that my blood in her system, my scent mingling with hers, did call to me. Even my family noticed the change in her scent before I did. She now smelled even better than before. I had always wanted her, but now I was being sucked in. She was a true vampire magnet and I was the one who was being drawn to her. Her blood, my blood, our blood together was calling to me… telling me that it wanted to be with me.

That last evening started out quite happily... and it may be that was the reason for what happened. Bella had been making use of her vacation time by taking advantage of Chicago's fantastic theater offerings. She found a show that one of her B'school classmates had told her about called "Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind"... yes, that was the name of the show. It was supposed to be hilarious; the cast members performed a series of 30 plays in 60 minutes. These plays were mini-skits and the audience randomly shouted out numbers for the cast to perform the next skit… so the cast was never able to just memorize the plays in an exact order. Moreover, the cast wrote a new set of skits for the next weekend's performances based on the roll of the die, so between 2-12 new skits were written and rehearsed for each week's shows, and if the cast managed to get through all 30 plays in the allotted 60 minutes, they bought pizza for the entire audience.

We went to the Sunday 7 p.m. show and it was as funny as her classmate had described. I don't know if I'd seen Bella laugh as much as she did during this show. She held my hand and kept squeezing it excitedly, looking over at me in amazement when they ran through a particularly funny skit and moved on to the next one. My little Vulcan friend had disappeared for the night and it was a joy to see. Caring Edward was thrilled to see her finally healing again.

Her happiness was almost as intoxicating as her anger. In truth, I wasn't sure that I'd ever seen her in this state. Happiness for humans manifested itself in so many different ways and for Bella this was even truer. Our first night together in the cabin was amazing and she was very content as I held her in my arms. When she found out that I wanted her forever, she was glowing. When she discovered that she could hear me, she enjoyed herself by being naughty and teasing me. Every time I made her climax and/or bit her, she obviously was in a physical state of euphoria. But after the show, I saw something else. It was as if a veil had been lifted from her normally serious demeanor and a giggly childlike playfulness and sense of fun came out. She was allowing herself to let go.

So, naturally, Horny Edward came out to play. I began by fondling her in the car, one hand on the steering wheel and the other down her pants, giddily watching her get off as we made our way back home. And I guess it had an effect on her because I had barely parked the car in our driveway when she surprised me by leaning over, unbuckling my belt, unzipping my pants and wrapping her mouth around my very hard erection. All I could think in that first instance was that if this is what she got like when she was relaxed and laughing and happy, I was going to try to talk her out of going to work at all and I was definitely going to get tickets to The Second City show for every night for the rest of our lives.

Holy shit, you've been holding back on me, Bella! And as her hands and mouth worked over me, I didn't keep it to myself. "Jesus…fuck me…" I groaned as I felt the pressure building inside me. This made her laugh a little and the sensation of her vibrations around me sent me over the edge as I came. There wasn't a drop on me as she sat up in her seat and wiped her mouth. And she started laughing again when she looked at me.

"What's so funny?" I asked, shaking my head to come down from the clouds.

"Somehow, I don't think Jesus is going to fuck you," she said. And then she clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide and her cheeks turning pink. Oops, did I just think that? Did I just say that out loud?

My mouth dropped open. Bella didn't say things like that... I guessed that real time off suited her. "Oh, you little witch!" I said, grabbing her out of her seat and pulling her on top of me.

Her eyes were still big as she sat on my lap. "Oh my God, Edward, look at the effect you're having on me. I'm blowing you in a car and then blaspheming! Holy cow, I'm turning into you! What are you doing to me?"

I looked at her and smirked. Nothing now, but just wait until I get you inside. I started to open the car door so that I could carry her into the house but she stopped me.

"Yo, Cullen! Um, you might want to zip up or you're going to be flat on your chest with your pants at your ankles and your butt hanging out for all the neighbors to see. And this is a respectable neighborhood, boy. I don't want to see property values going down due to vampire ass exposure." Then she burst out laughing as she scrambled off of me and ran out the car door to the house.

I zipped up, unbuckled the seatbelt and beat her to the door. Picking her up, I mentally unlocked the door and got us inside. Ghosting us upstairs, I stopped at the top of the landing and decided to slow down the pace. She was smelling sooo good and I knew that I'd need a taste before the evening was through.

"Do you need a human moment?" I asked, my mouth against hers.

"Um, yeah," she said breathlessly. "Probably a good idea…"

"Okay, don't be too long," I said smirking, "or I'll come in there looking for you."

"Promises, promises..." she said grinning as she closed the bathroom door.

About five minutes later, Bella came in wearing her towel. I looked at her, surprised at her missing pajamas and she just shrugged. "I figure I'm going to end up like this anyway so I might as well save you some effort." She dropped the towel, crawled into bed and I pulled her into my arms. Her body was warm from the shower and her blood heated. Our scent was magnified and every part of her was calling to me.

And so it began… the beginning of the end. I softly nuzzled her neck while my hands found and lightly caressed her breasts. She reached for my briefs and helped pull them off of me. Then I slowly pushed her left shoulder down so that she was flat on her back looking up at me. My mouth made its way down her body, stopping to suck on her nipples, letting my tongue play in her belly button. Her energy had escalated above her threshold again by the time I settled in between her legs. The vein in her upper thigh was calling me. And so I moved my hand to finish what my mouth had started while I parted her legs a little more, put her right leg over my shoulder and then bit into her right thigh. You're mine, Bella.

Perhaps it was the fact that it had been so long since I took her blood, but the taste was better than I remembered! She moaned as I drank deeply and she rocked against my hand. Edward, I didn't know it was that time of the month.

And then I just wanted to be on top of her, inside of her. As I kissed and licked and sucked my way up her body, I took in her movements as the drug-like love bite took over. Her eyes were open as her head swiveled on the pillow, and her lips parted slightly as she inhaled sharply and exhaled in short breaths. Her hands opened and closed, her back arched and her hips were moving slowly back and forth, almost as if she were doing a sensual belly dance. And that dance was beckoning to me. I lowered my body down on hers and thrust myself inside while I bit down on her neck. Mine. Mine. Mine.

Her body shook in ecstasy and she gasped. Two bites, Edward? Ohhh.

And then I heard nothing but the rushing of her blood in my ears and I felt the warmth pouring down my throat. It called to me. It belonged to me. It wanted to be inside of me. It felt glorious.

And swirling around it all, at last I heard one small whisper that shook me for a fraction of a second after she climaxed again. Edward, are you going to stop? Was I supposed to ask?

Why no. I had no intention of stopping, evidently.

My phone rang, breaking my concentration for another brief moment. But the blood said 'no… there is still more and we want to be with you.' I wasn't close to being finished.

And then from below, I heard the Batphone connection come on. Carlisle's voice came from the study. "Edward? Edward, are you there? Son, come back! Remember who you are! Remember who she is!"

Come back from where? It wasn't adding up. I couldn't think straight. Her blood was warm and soothing and more delicious than before.

Bella's body had stopped moving underneath me. And I was still drinking.

What had she thought? Was I supposed to ask?

And suddenly I awakened from the haze as I pulled away, horrified. OH FUCK! She hadn't asked. And I had had no intention of stopping! I was killing her and the house wasn't a blocking me from hurting her. I was on a path to fully drain her, not turn her. And I still wanted to. There was no protection for her from me… from me! The one who adored her and cherished her.

She was almost one quarter drained. Juice and cookies wouldn't help me out of this nightmare and I wouldn't be able turn her in my state. So once again, there was only one thing to do.

I bit into my forearm and brought the open gash to her mouth. "Bella, love, come back to me! Please, I'm sorry. Drink. Come back! Come back!"

I spilled my dark blood into her throat, willing her to drink. The first few drops started sliding down, making their way into her system. I poured more into her, and minutes later her mouth started moving. Her tongue flicked out to get my blood and then her mouth moved closer to my arm, sucking the blood down her throat.

I could feel her tongue on my skin and it was exciting me. I held my breath and tried to concentrate, letting her take what was needed. Her heart was beating normally again and color was starting to return to her cheeks. Pulling away from her, my wound closed quickly. I went to her drawer and fished out some underwear and a t-shirt and shorts; I carefully dressed her and covered her with the blankets. Then I moved to sit in the chair in the corner to face the truth.

Monster. That is what I was. A fucking monster. A monster for loving her, for wanting her, for taking her blood and wanting it still. Now that she'd given up her apartment, she wasn't safe from me. In the next few days, as my blood worked its way into her system more fully and intermingled with hers, it would start to call me more… and the loosening of her control on her emotional state was the wildcard that sent us spiraling down this path. Her blood was her bond with me. Her blood taken and mine freely given was going to keep her with me. But now there was no place for this to happen safely, and I couldn't trust myself.

I sat for hours trying to figure out a way around what I didn't want to do, but there was no way. If I wanted to keep her safe, I'd have to leave her. My frozen heart was cracking as I accepted the reality.

I packed quickly, grabbing a duffel bag and a handful of clothes. I disconnected and grabbed my laptop from the study and found my passport. I took a moment to write a small note and put it by the bed so that she'd see it.

I needed her to make a clean break. Having her in my house wasn't exactly going to help her with that, but she was strong and independent and she'd manage. I needed her to hate me and move on. Hating me and moving on: both ideas horrified me, but I tried to convince myself that she'd be okay. She was human and she didn't have the true bond that I had as a vampire. The pain that she'd feel wouldn't be one fraction of what I would feel for the rest of my life. I removed the ring from her finger. I took my mother's pendant from her drawer. I didn't dare allow myself even a kiss.

"Goodbye, Bella." I choked out in a whisper. "I'll love you forever." And then I ran out of the house like a coward and got in my car.

My phone started ringing immediately. I couldn't speak to my family; I was mortified at my behavior. They loved Bella too and would try to convince me to stay with her, but she was better than that. She deserved a normal life. Time and time again, I was destined to bring her trouble and pain. Even turning her was a selfish notion that I'd planted in her head; she never would have asked had I not told her my fantasy after Paris.

The phone kept ringing. No. I didn't want to speak with them. I crushed the phone in my hand and tossed the scraps in the back seat. Then I just drove into the night, leaving my heart and soul lying on that bed, never to look back.

A/N: Um, okay, so most of you reviewers weren't upset about the baby thing (thank you) but now... Did anyone pay attention to this story synopsis... Will they make it to the altar???

I said there would be ups and downs in this one... I gave you the ups. And the downs are a-here. And old friends will return.

Thank you to all of you who have put me on story/author alert or put me on your favorite author and/or story list. It has been a nice surprise! I hope that you trust me enough to keep reading... And please leave feedback… it helps!