sorry no updates so far today, but here it is! i got distracted with Skyward Sword...but here it is. :D i really love this chapter. a lot. :D

oh, thanks for reviewing. it really does keep me pumped. :) if you want more, i want another review. it can just be simply, "awesome," and i'm good. i just want one. then you'll get the next chapter. :D

ONE MORE THING. both chapter songs? i HIGHLY recommend them. they are a-MAYZE-zing. :D

25. Heartbeat: The Fray
26. Comatose: Skillet

I continued gazing up at the diamonds in the sky, twinkling with more intensity than I had ever seen them.

Edward wasn't looking up at the sky, though, but his gaze was locked on me. With one arm hooked under my neck, he had his body turned towards me—as well as keeping it really close to me too, close enough that I could feel his breath tickling my neck. While I was content with watching the stars for the moment, he was content with watching me and playing with my hair.

Finally, though, I met his gaze with a brilliant smile. "What?"

He gave me a gentle smile back, a tender smile. "Mayze, I've been away from you for so long, I honestly think I could just stare at your face for all of eternity."

I pursed my lips. "That depends."

"On?"

I shrugged. "When I get old and die, how do you plan to stare at my face for all of eternity?"

That shocked him, to the point that happy glow seemed to dim in his eyes. A new emotion—fear, it seemed—replaced it.

"Mayze . . . ."

I sat up and grunted, my fingers curling around the soft, huge, fuzzy blanket underneath us. "Are you serious, Edward?"

"What?" he asked softly, sitting up too so he could continue to look at me fully at the same level I was. "Mayze, what do you want from me?"

"Run your fingers through my hair," I pleaded. "For once, just once, feel exactly what I feel. Believe what I believe, and for once, just once, understand. I want you to tell me you want to keep me here with you, forever. I'm sure Emmett has told you what he said, and Carlisle, too. Either one of those options are, well, possible. I could go to either of them right now, and they would change me. But, I don't want them to do it. I want you to make the decision to change me. I want you to be okay with it. I want you to choose to keep me here. I want you to be the one to seal the deal."

He looked torn now as he gazed down at me. "Mayze, you have to know I want to keep you here forever."

"I don't."

He let out a humorless laugh. "And here I thought I got the point that I love you across rather clearly."

I shrugged. "Doesn't mean you want me around forever."

"It does, actually," he disagreed. "Mayze, it's not that I don't want you here. There are so many things to becoming a vampire that you just can't comprehend. I love you so much that I can't bear to let that happen to you, much less be the one to make it happen. You suffer through a pain so immense that you just . . . words can't describe it. And, let's not even get to the fact that you lose your soul and become eternally damned."

I rolled my eyes. "You have a soul, Edward. We've talked about this before."

"Well, you're wrong," he said decisively, holding his chin up evenly as he looked me in the eye to say it. He said it with an odd confidence—rather annoying.

"You are," I said simply. "If you didn't have a soul, you wouldn't be able to love me. So, tell me you truthfully love me and have no soul. Without a soul, you can't exist. You can't love with the kind of love we share; the kind of love I share with any of your family. I'm telling you, Edward. You have a soul."

For a long while, an eternity it seemed—no pun intended—he stared down at me with joyous eyes, as if he was thinking over what I said intently. In the background, due to his silence, I heard Façade by Disturbed playing on the radio he had set up to make our time here that much better.

The delight in his eyes was mixed with other emotions from time to time, but when he finally spoke again, there was nothing but pure bliss.

"You just . . . Mayze, I'm not sure just how you did it, but you made me believe, for the first time since I even became a vampire, that I have a soul."

I beamed up at him. "So, you'll change me?"

He laughed blissfully and looked straight in front of him, propping back on his hands a little. "Calm down, Mayze. I have to talk to Carlisle first, make sure he thinks I can do it."

I smirked at him. "Jasper wins."

He gazed over at me now, eyes narrowing a little—only playfully, of course, but he made me laugh anyways. "You know about that?"

"He told me the other day," I said honestly, now smirking at him. "He told me when we were discussing how I have to become a vampire."

His eyebrows furrowed. "Mayze, you don't have to become a vampire."

I shook my head. "No, Edward, I actually do. When Dusk bit me, she injected venom into my nerves. The same thing happened to Laurent, and he said that the venom slowly spreads. Then, I'll eventually get to a point where I can't feel anything at all, and I either have to be changed or live the rest of my life neither human nor vampire, and I'd completely numb."

He rolled his eyes but gave me my favorite smile, making my heart race in my chest. "You would make sure Jasper wins."

"I wanted you to say you wanted to keep me," I admitted, shrugging. "It makes me feel better about it."

He leaned over and softly kissed me, his fingers coming up to rest along my jawbone. It was a sweet kiss, full of more love than any kiss yet.

Of course, since I'm me, I made sure it got turned into much, much more. After a few seconds of kissing him like that, I turned it into a heated, passionate, intimate kiss, one that had him on his back and me straddling him.

It was just a human reaction, to rub my tongue across his bottom lip. When I did this, I stiffened in his arms, ready for him to stop the kiss and make us both calm down. It was always pushing him a little too far when I did that.

Instead, though, he opened his mouth and used his own tongue to pull mine in, taking me by complete surprise. I went with it, though, because I wanted this, so badly.

After a good while, I was about to die if I didn't get air. Breathing through my nose only did so much for panting lungs. So, unfortunately, I had to pull away from him. But, when I pulled away, he started kissing my jawbone, where he made a trail of kisses down to my neck.

I felt him sucking on my neck again, and I giggled. It felt good, so I struggled to sound threatening. "Edward, if you give me another hicky . . . ."

He grinned against my skin, his cool breath tickling my skin all over again. "I think I just might."

"Charlie would . . . ." I frowned. "Not care. And who gives a shit what everyone else thinks?"

"Exactly," he breathed before sitting up and adjusting me to where I was sitting in his lap and looking directly at him. "I love you, Mayze."

I kissed his nose softly and smiled. "I love you too, Edward."

"Can I ask you a question?" he asked curiously, giving me that damned smile with a slight hint of nervousness added to it. It confused me, but I smiled and nodded anyways. He, before going on, kissed me tenderly for a few second—to calm himself. But, after that, he went on. "I love you, Mayzie, as I've already said quite literally sixty times today. You deserve to know, though, and I want to make sure you do."

"I do," I said honestly, laughing a little.

He was quiet for a minute. Instead of talking, he waited until the song changed to Where Is My Head by Hey Monday. "Do you want to dance?"

Before I could answer, he had us both on our feet. I was planning on saying, "Sure," because I would fly to the moon with him. But, he must've known that was what I was gonna say, so he just got right to it.

It didn't work to well, because it wasn't exactly a slow song, so we gave up about the middle of the first chorus. But, right as I started to sit down, he took my hand in his, palm to palm with his right hand covering up his other hand and mine.

I gazed up at him. "Yes, darling?"

He smiled, and before I could ask, he slowly got down on one knee, making me gasp in surprise. "Now, I know you're all anti-weddings and everything, but, Mayze, we're going to live forever together. I've agreed to change you myself, against my better judgment. All I ask for return is your hand in marriage. Elizabeth Malia Swan, I love you with all of my being, more than words could even begin to almost come close to somewhat slightly describing just an ounce of how much I love you. It's just . . . a love like no other. The point is, I do love you, and I will never leave you again. Will you marry me?"

I laughed softly, not really humorously. It was just odd to me. Earlier today, at school, he had told me it wasn't an engagement ring yet, and I had totally missed that. But, instead of making it super mushy and gross, I simply said, "Yes."

He opened the box to reveal a beautiful ring, beyond what I could even imagine. It had a gold band, and it was rather simple until it got to the stone. It was an oval shape, and it consisted of a bunch of little circles that made the oval.

After he slipped it on the appropriate finger, he was then standing up again, hugging me tightly against him. A happy sound—not exactly a squeal—escaped from my lips as he spun me in the air, the brightest smile I had ever seen plastered on his lips.

Just when I think his smiles can't get any brighter, they do.

When he put me down, he was kissing me again with more intensity than ever. It took me off guard, but I went along with it. We sat back down without bothering to separate. Within just a second of sitting down, I was on my back, and he was on top of me with his hard member pressing against my thigh.

It's odd to me how whenever I'm horny myself, I notice that he is too.

Well, I guess it's not really odd . . . .

It didn't even cross my mind when we both took my dress and his shirt off, along with all of my accessories. Until he moved to unhitch the hooks on my black, strapless bra, I wasn't even aware I was half naked.

I slipped out from under him as fast as I possibly could, a move that surprised him completely. Honestly, what I think surprised him the most was the sudden change of things, and then, the fact that I was getting out of something I had asked for struck him as odd too.

He looked up at me, confused since he was over the shock. "Mayze, I don't understand. This is what you wanted."

"Yes," I agreed quickly, nodding rigidly. "But, I just . . . ." I bit my lip. "I want to wait until we're married, Edward, because I want the honeymoon to be extra special."

He let out a scoff but smiled up at me almost as quickly as the sound had come out. "Just when I decide I can possibly do this without killing you, you would go and change your mind."

I sat back down beside him with a smile. "Then there shouldn't be any problems on the honeymoon."

He took my hands in his, kissing each of my fingers tenderly with great affection. "Mayze, you don't have to rush the wedding. We can wait a few years."

"I don't want to," I demanded, frowning. "I want to get married while I'm still human so I'll be able to experience that. And, I don't know how long I have until I have to be changed, so we really don't have much time."

He laughed. "Alright, Mayze. How does next week sound? Ooh. We could go to Vegas."

My lips pursed together. "Hmm. Tempting, but I think I'm gonna stick with the beginning of June, right after school gets out. That way, everyone has plenty of time to get everything ready, and then, we can plan to change me when we get back from the honeymoon."

His bottom lip poked out. "Mayzie, I honestly don't know if I can resist you that long." Then, his eyes drifted back down to my half naked body, which was pressed tightly against his. "Especially if this is a commonly reoccurring thing."

I laughed and pulled his lips to mine for a second. "I'm sorry. You're just so irresistible. I can't help it. But, for me, can you try?"

"Of course."

"We'll make a deal," I said simply, intertwining our fingers together. "When you absolutely cannot stand it anymore and you just need me beyond what I can even comprehend, fine."

"Mayze, I'm not going to force my needs onto you if you don't want to do it too," he whispered, almost inaudibly. With that statement, he had to look away from me, and I knew why.

He was trying to hide his pain from the whole event that did happen to me, something he inwardly blamed himself for letting happen. He was comparing himself to the sick bastard that left me stranded in the woods to die after brutally torturing and raping me.

Edward was nothing like Blade, and the two situations were nothing alike.

I pulled his face back around so that he was looking at me, eye-to-eye. "Edward Anthony Masen-Cullen, I want you too—need you even. But, I'm just a simple human. I can't even imagine how hard it is for you to resist me. I mean, I'm having enough trouble as it is, so I can't imagine how hard it is for you. The point is, I don't know how hard it is for you, so I can't just say no, because I'm not the one making the decisions. We make them together, and love requires sacrifices. That's a sacrifice I will gladly make if necessary. Just promise me that you'll go as long as you can possibly bear."

"I promise, Mayze."