Epilogue 2: Red

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Carlisle

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It was surprisingly hard to go back to class and even harder to sit through a three-hour seminar, harder still when the seminar was on the Spanish Flu. I remembered it. I didn't need to be told what was done wrong or right. I had lived those mistakes and witnessed the problems. I read every article I could get my hands on about it and nothing said in this particular lecture was going to impress me. The world wasn't prepared for another outbreak of that scale and it could have been much worse. What needed to change was at a managerial level that hardly anyone in the large lecture hall would be able to influence much less achieve. Worse still. It was my first lecture after returning from our honeymoon. Esme had gone to her school the afternoon of our return and when she got home happily joined my discussion with Edward of the books he'd read in our absence. Soon after that I'd left for the lecture I was currently enduring with her list kiss still burning on my lips. It was a constant distraction as the lecture droned on about atrocities in the abstract.

Yes, it was much easier to think about Esme and going home to her arms than the hundreds of dead and dying my immortal memory preserved. It was easier to think of how Esme smelled and tasted and the way she licked her lips, tongue flowing across the silky pink of her orifice. It had hardly been a day since our last desperate lovemaking on the couch of the little cottage before we finally left, one last moment alone that had made us late returning to Rochester.

In all honesty that was my fault. We had been dressing to leave and she'd rummaged around in her suitcase before pulling out a light pink dress. I saw the neatly folded clothes flop back in their ordered stack and a flash of white. Curiously I reached across the trunk by the railing and dug into her suitcase.

"Carlisle?" She looked at me curiously. I fished out the white dress, a soft cotton simple one she had made back in Ashland. She had sewn a complicated pattern of ruffles on the bottom and celebrated her success with fine motor control. The day she wore it was the first day I could really call her eyes tawny instead of umber. I held the white dress out to her and she raised one delicate eyebrow and smirked.

"Are you telling me how to dress now?"

"Only asking, beloved." I assured her, "I would never presume to tell you about fashion."

"Well in that case," she said and dropped the pink dress back into her suitcase. Many people would have said we were too pale to wear white but something about the way it looks with her hair and the shade of her lips was gorgeous to me. The setting sun, coming in the front window of the cabin caught her as we left and I'd been powerless in the face of so much beauty. There couldn't be anything more beautiful than her face in rapturous passion throwing rainbows, white dress falling off her shoulders, her hair lit up honey gold and her eyes dark with desire I was so happily sating. I wondered if she would wear white more often if I told her how much I loved it on her.

Around me people started getting up and I shook my head out of thoughts of Esme's lips and sunlight rainbows off her skin. I could finally go home!

Edward would probably be there though, I told myself as I drove. I tried not to groan. When I reached home he was leaving out the front door and held his hand out to me. His expression was resigned overtop the smile he was trying to hide. Catching that last thought he gave up and grinned.

"Keys, old man. I'm giving you space and you're giving me the car."

Please, don't break it, I thought to him and he chuckled.

"Don't break any furniture," he replied and accepted the keys. I rolled my eyes.

Thank you, son, I replied.

"Thanks for waiting until I'm out of earshot," he shot back with a meaningful look.

I'll do my best, but no promises, I chuckled, opening the door in time to catch my beautiful wife in my arms. She clung to me enthusiastically and kissed me passionately on the doorstep.

"I missed you," she gasped between breathless kisses.

"You have no idea," I groaned. I knew she could feel just how much I wanted her already through my pants and her thin dress. "Perhaps we should take this inside?" I suggested and she nodded vigorously.

"I think Edward might be mad at me. I really tried to control my thoughts," she said walking backward through the house and leading me by my hands. I left my bag, hat, coat, and shoes in a trail from the door.

"I don't' envy you the challenge," I moaned as she kissed me in the door of our bedroom, standing up on her tiptoes. Esme's nimble hands undid my tie and let it slide to the floor. I reached up and pulled out the tie holding back her hair. She danced out of my arms before I could get a hold on her body, leaving me with just the ribbon.

I noticed her feet and legs were bare and I sighed as I stepped into her embrace just beside the bed. She was quick to remove my shirt and belt, but I took a little longer with the buttons of her dress. I could feel bare skin all the way down her back. I was willing to bet she wasn't wearing anything underneath the dress and it made me shiver with longing.

I slipped the dress off her shoulders and yes she was gloriously naked beneath it. I pushed her gently back and she fell willingly onto the colorful sheets. Her pale skin was white against the vivid red color of the silky material. Her hair fanned out, looking pale against the rich color. I tried not to remember how the color darkened as it soaked up bright red blood or rivers of her liquid life running from the punctured skin where bone jutted out unnaturally.

I crawled onto the bed above her bending down to kiss her neck, loosing myself in the tempting smell of her immortal body, and she gasped, hand roaming over my bare chest, leaving trails of tingling electricity instead of hot fire.

I leaned back to look into her eyes. They shone murky dull gold from thirst and desire, too close to the color of the burgundy duvet. I tried not to remember what her eyes had looked like the first night of her life, as red as the blood dried on her pale skin and staining her dress. I tried not to see her horrified face pulling away from a man's neck, lips brilliant red, the color of the bed sheets and her eyes glowing crimson. I sucked in a breath and gulped. Esme froze underneath me and her face turned to confusion.

"Carlisle?" she asked me in a whisper. "What's wrong? D-did I do—"

"No," I was quick to cut her off, "no, Darling it's not that. It's…"

"What?" She pulled her arms in over her chest and it hurt to see her so self conscious with me.

"It's the color," I sighed. "It's… It reminds me of too many painful things."

She turned to look at the sheets beside her head, her neck bared to me and I held in a groan of desire. I loved when she submitted to me this way, opening herself up to my passion but even then the red was distracting. She plucked at it and frowned.

"I've seen you covered in red before, Love," I explained, not trying to keep the shame out of my voice, "and… it was one of the worst nights of my life even if it did mean I could keep you at my side forever… it… was not a pleasant experience."

"Oh," She said, eyes full of understanding. "Irina said there were other sheets in the closet. I'll change them quickly," She offered.

I sighed and rolled off of her, loath to let her move away from me but knowing that I would be distracted if I didn't. I watched her as she left the room, taking in the sight of her graceful walk with nothing to hinder my eyes. She returned and saw me staring.

"Like what you see?" She asked me coyly and I let out a long breath.

"You know I do," I replied while she stripped the bed. I loved the new angles it gave me to look at her and marveled at how comfortable she was to be exposed around me. She kept looking up at me curiously while she changed the sheets. I gathered myself enough to help her and I threw the red ones into the closet unceremoniously. Tanya did love theatrics but did get carried away sometimes. I shook my head at the thought. When I looked back at the bed, finally made up in white, she was lying on her side, one hand on her hip and her head propped up with he other. She looked languidly casual and the soft smile on her lips was not seductive or purposefully alluring only kind. Still the image of her there waiting for me was enough to make me dizzy with need.

"Do you still want to do this?" She asked.

My answer was little more than a growl. I was with her in a flash, rolling over with her in my arms until she was on top of me.

"I'll take that as a yes," She replied, sitting up on top of my hips and her hands running down my chest to the button of my pants. I loved when she submitted to me but right at that moment I wanted this beautiful woman to take me. I wanted to be hers, what ever it was that she needed. She was the one person who had woken up my lonely heart and she had owned it ever since. I was hers as much as she was mine and she deserved to know that and claim it.

"Yes, Beloved, always, please always," I said to her. She smiled with dark eyes.

"Always," she whispered back.

Author's Note: Another Epilogue. There are a few more. Leave me a review if you're interested. -Ember