35
She was killing him! Even when the mating bond wasn't making her randy (did women get randy? Was there another term? God he wished he had paid a little more attention!) she was so beautiful and sweet that he was always experiencing a low level of arousal, which suddenly would flare up. As a distraction he had suggested a walk along the beach and had taken her to the waterfall. As he stepped out into the direct sunlight the beams of light reflected off his granite-like skin shone onto her pale human body, making it seem as if she too were a vampire. She was so beautiful it almost hurt him to look at her! She had touched him, running her fingers over his skin and sending electric shocks all through his body, only a very stern internal monologue stopped him grabbing her and making love to her at that point. He knew damn well that if he had he could not have been gentle with her as she needed, she looked too much like a vampire and he would have been totally unable to rein in his inner animal.
Then, for no apparent reason, she started to cry. She didn't seem sad, in fact she seemed rather happy, but tears streamed down her cheeks and scalded his thumbs as he brushed them away. He held her in his arms, feeling his arousal grow and become more… 'pressing'. If things didn't progress soon he would have to resort to masturbation. It wasn't as if he thought it was evil or wrong, as he had been taught when he was human. It was that he had just never seen the need before. Even Tanya's overt sexuality hadn't affected him. Esme had been careful with her thoughts but it was obvious at times she had believed he was gay and at others she had worried that Carlisle had changed him at too young an age. He wasn't an Immortal Child though, he was capable of learning, and controlling himself. In fact, he believed, Jane and Alec were a couple of years younger than him when they were changed.
He had never felt anything lacking in his life, though he had envied his family and their bonds he had never CRAVED a mate as such. Often he had wished for a connection as close, but in a way he had thought he had had a connection like that with Carlisle at one point. He almost laughed to himself as he thought that. He just hadn't known what he was missing. You would think someone who could read minds would have more of a clue what was going on around him, but he hadn't. His internal musing was interrupted as he felt Bella slump against him, he tightened his grip and cursed himself, it was obvious that the travel and time difference had caught up with her, he reminded himself that it hadn't been that long since the accident. The skull fractures had only just started healing, really she should not be so far from a hospital, but Carlisle had assured him that he could manage if anything went awry. He always made sure that she protected her head when asleep and awake, trying to ensure that nothing set her healing back, but the fact that she was still healing meant her body could not cope as well as normal and he knew to expect her to be more tired than usual, as well as have the occasional headache.
He carried her into the house and to the bedroom he had picked for them to use, the pure white of the bedding and the muted white of the walls seemed fitting for his Bella, his mate, his love, and her untarnished purity. But as he allowed her to pull him down into the bed, purity was the last thing on his mind.
"I love you," she lay on her side almost covering his body with hers again. She seemed to like that position. His mind sank into the gutter as the word position echoed in his brain and every dirty thought Emmett had ever had in his presence came to the fore. "Do you have to hunt?" she asked, his eyes had to be reflecting how he was feeling, she knew as well as he did that he hunted just before they left Forks.
"No, not for another day or so," he almost didn't recognise his own voice, the erection in his pants was now almost painful and if he didn't relieve it or quell it, it would probably tear through the material! He remembered a particularly embarrassing incident with Emmett and a pair of thin cotton shorts and Rose in a bikini. The scent of Bella grew thicker, her heart rate increased and her temperature rose, the tingle in his body as the bond amplified the feeling of her pressed against him, the hard buds of her nipples scraped against his chest through the thin clothing she wore to cover herself and it made it imperative that he move. He jumped out of the bed and headed into the lounge. "I'll be right back." He told her as he left, knowing he was risking hurting her feelings. He paced the room, trying to force his body to do as he wanted through sheer force of will. He was on his 73rd lap of the room a minute later when Bella's breathing changed and she fell into a deep sleep.
He sat heavily on the sofa and put his head in his hands. It was getting stronger. The house was too warm for Bella and she needed him to be in contact to cool down. He knew she wouldn't sleep well unless he was there, but in Forks he had been relatively in control, here he could feel it slipping. His usual coping mechanisms weren't helping, because when Bella was close by he couldn't think straight to use them. The electric tingle every time they touched should have been so common now that he was used to it, but it seemed the voltage was increasing. It was getting worse not better! Even when she had stroked his arm with her fingertips his nerves… or whatever the vampires had that did the job of nerves… felt like lightning was running up and down his whole body, not just his arm. And her smell! He groaned, a slight noise told him that if he continued to sit as he was that his pants would have to be thrown away. The added pressure of his position and his newly returned arousal was splitting the seams.
He jumped to his feet. His phone pinged with an incoming text, Alice, of course. 'Distract yourself! NOW!' she said, he realised that he was at the bedroom door. He had headed there without even thinking about it. She looked so peaceful in the bed, the fan stirred the air but it was still much too warm. 'Esme has ordered an Air Conditioning unit. Gustavo will be at the house tomorrow to fit it.' Well great, however that didn't help him today! 'Duh, why don't you cook Bella something nice for dinner. You never did take her out on that date.' He frowned, 'The disgusting smell will help with your control. Every time it feels like it is getting out of hand (so to speak) think of the food.' He nodded and smiled. Thank God for Alice. He really regretted the way he had acted when she had joined the family. If it wasn't for her he would probably have killed Bella on their first meeting. 'You're welcome. I want it in Yellow!' he had no idea what he was going to buy her, but he knew she would give him enough hints until he got it. He did know it would be expensive, unnecessary and she could get it herself any time.
He headed into the well stocked and fully functional kitchen. Bella liked chicken didn't she? He seemed to remember her smelling of it several times. He flicked through the cookbooks that had sat on the work surface for the last 50 or so years without once being opened and found a recipe for Southern Fried Chicken. Hmm, he could do that!
Gustavo arrived as promised the next morning, Kaure came with him and she glared at him when he introduced Bella to the pair. As Gustavo was busy fitting the AC unit to the bedroom, Kaure moved around doing touches of housework. She put the sheets in the washing machine and cleaned down the kitchen, even though it wasn't at all necessary. Her internal monologue was dark and worried about Bella's safety, being alone with the Libishomen, but she knew they had been on the island a couple of days and it was obvious that Bella hadn't been harmed. Well not yet, but if she continued to walk around in the short shorts and halter-neck top that she wore that morning, he wouldn't promise that she would remain so! He had never seen as much of her skin as he could now except when she was ill and then he had been too distracted to actually look closely. The fine lines of old scars on her legs and knees reminded him of how clumsy she was, but it was the pale flesh of her upper thighs and the strip of skin above the waistband of her shorts that he could not keep his eyes off of.
She was definitely trying to kill him! She had blushed and giggled as he groaned at the sight of her and had to adjust himself immediately as she came in for breakfast. But she was right, it was much too warm for her to dress any other way. She even threatened to wear a bikini. He had gone for a run around the island when she mentioned it. No matter how foul the food smelled he could not get the thought of that much skin out of his head. He circled the island four times before he returned, and he only came back because he heard the motor boat approaching the island. Bella was just finishing her bowl of cereal when he walked in. The couple were only behind him by a minute. Though Kaure thought she knew what they were (and she was correct) the Cullen's made a point never to be seen by the humans in direct sunlight and confirm it once and for all.
"I will be back at the end of the week. Mrs. Cullen… I beg your pardon… Mrs. Esme Cullen has ordered a larger unit for the house, but she thought that Mrs. Bella would need something sooner." Gustavo twisted his hat nervously in his fingers. No matter how many times he dealt with the family his fight or flight response kicked in and it was always a struggle for him to face them.
"That will be fine, thank you." Edward told him. Kaure mumbled under her breath a warning that Mrs. Bella had better be alive and undamaged when they returned or she would bring matches. He growled at her, a sub audible sound that penetrated the air and made the couple even more nervous.
"What's wrong?" Bella took his hand and he relaxed.
"Nothing, love," he said. "Gustavo was just saying he will be back with a full house AC later."
Bella tugged his hand and pulled him away so the couple couldn't hear them, she didn't know they didn't speak English, "Why are they bringing a bigger unit?" she asked, peeking around him to make sure they weren't listening.
"Bella, you can't be fastened in the bedroom all the time," he objected and then groaned at the thought, Bella smiled wickedly at him and bit her lip, it was obvious to him that they both felt the arousal and the bond tingle over and through them as her eyes dilated and her scent thickened in the air again.
"But I'm going to be a vampire soon, I won't need air conditioning then, it's just a waste of money!" He gave her a mock glare and she threw her hands up in exasperation.
"Your comfort is worth any price. If it takes a $1,000,000 to make you comfortable for one extra minute it will be money well spent." He kissed her softly.
Kaure gasped and that killed the arousal he was feeling. {DEATH! Demon! Leave her alone!} Edward glared at her again over his shoulder.
Bella laughed and buried her face in his shirt so she couldn't see the housekeeper. She probably thought the woman was objecting to the PDA.
Gustavo, with the instincts of an animal in peril, seemed to sense that his wife was in danger and he hurried her out with hardly a goodbye.
"I think we shocked them," Bella laughed. He didn't bother to correct her, she was so beautiful when she laughed and from what he gathered from his family, it was very rare that she had had occasion to do so. He swung her into his arms.
"So, Mrs. Cullen," he paused, relishing the way her heart gave an extra beat every time he called her that, "What would you like to do with the rest of the day?"
"How about a game of Chess?" she asked him.
"Chess?" he hadn't known she played.
"I'm not very good at it, but it's something we can do in the bedroom without getting into trouble." He agreed and got one of the sets and a small table while she went into the room. He took a little longer than he should have as she gave a contented sigh when she moved into the cool room, sighs like that were dangerous! He remembered a particularly nasty memory to kill his thoughts. Emmett in a cowboy outfit… well chaps and a hat anyway. Rose had shared the visual with him once as punishment for something. It worked well and by the time Bella was settled on the armchair at her side of the bed he was fit to join her. No he wasn't! Everything he thought of had some sort of sexual connotation nowadays! He detoured slightly and grabbed a jug of ice cold lemonade from the fridge and took it into the bedroom too, it smelled rather bad to him, but not disgusting.
Several games of chess later and he had to agree, she wasn't very good at it. He had explained to her the games Emmett and Jasper played with 16 boards in a 4x4 grid, and she had laughed at just the thought. She had seen him and Alice play once, Alice had moved a pawn, Edward had countered, they had stared at the board for 2 minutes and Alice had knocked over her king. At least when the others played they actually played! In fact a game could last up to 4 hours, which was amazing considering how fast they could move when they wanted to.
"Backgammon?" she asked. He nodded and turned the board over. As he set up the stones Bella looked at the intricately carved chess pieces.
"Where did these come from?" she asked.
"Jasper made them." He told her.
"Made them?" she looked even closer at the figures. He picked up a pawn in each colour and gave them to her. "Oh, they are soldiers!" she noted. The white pieces wore confederate uniforms, the black union.
"The ranked pieces are the leaders of the army. There is another set with American and English soldiers from the war of independence, one with Britain and the Kaisers army, one with the Allies and the Nazis, and even one with the Romans and the Carthaginians! He carved them all himself." She looked closer at them.
"What are they made out of?" she asked.
"The black are ebony." He told her, she picked up a white piece again and raised an eyebrow.
"Ivory." She gasped, shocked.
"Before you go crazy, they were made quite some time ago, long before anyone thought anything bad about using ivory, in fact they were still making piano keys out of it when Jasper made most of these sets." She had to remember that the Cullen's, though seemingly modern, were from different ages than her. When Carlisle was young, men could be tortured on the rack and burnt at the stake for nothing more than speaking out against the king!
Bella frowned but she nodded and carefully put the chess piece down. She unconsciously wiped her hands as if to remove the taint of decades dead elephants. He hoped she wouldn't ask what the Backgammon stones were made of. She didn't. She did give them a suspicious look for a few seconds and then seemed to shrug it off.
She was a lot better at backgammon than she was at chess. He had to teach her how to use the gambling die, and he was thrilled when she doubled him to 16 when the stakes were $100 a point and she left him with 11 stones on the board.
The next game she lost on 8, refusing to double, with only 3 stones left and then won on 8 with him trapped in a backgammon, giving her $2400. He laughed as he showed her the total he had written on a pad of paper, knowing she would object if he just told her the amount at the end of the afternoon.
All in all they had a great and relatively stress free day playing the games, when Bella went to sleep he left her a note and slipped out to the mainland. Hopefully he could find game within the distance the bond allowed.
'North west, 1.5 miles inland, herd of Red Brocket just starting to graze near a melon field,' he headed where he was directed. The nocturnal animals were rather small and very slow moving compared to other deer he had hunted, but they were close and he was able to get his fill and return to Bella without any sign of pain from the bond.
She had once heard a story about a Chinese Emperor who had lost his throne by betting on a game of backgammon. She didn't know if it was true but looking at the pad of paper that Edward had been writing on, she could believe it.
She had started playing the game on the school computer. It was more interesting than minefield and easier to learn than chess (which she tried to learn first). She had learnt that it had a higher luck factor, because of the dice, that didn't negate the skill as much as give a more even playing field.
She had never used the gambling die, she had never really understood about 'beavers' and 'racoons', but Edward had explained it all quite simply. When she lost $200 on the first game she almost panicked but he had persuaded her to try again and he had kept a careful tally, on her orders, checking with her every game that he had written it down correctly and added it up right. She wouldn't have put it past him to 'forget' to add up what she owed but insist on what she won being paid.
She needn't have bothered, luck was on her side. If the dice had rolled evenly she would not have won as much but she rolled doubles a lot more than he did. So much was her luck that she started to get suspicious and started covering the dice as they rolled to make sure he wasn't tampering with them.
At dinner she kept picking up the pad and checking over and over. She had never had more than a few hundred in her life and suddenly over the course of 5 hours she had won $7,400! What was she thinking of in the first place agreeing to stakes of $100 a point?
She decided to forget all about the bets and hope (futilely she knew) that Edward would forget as well.
When she woke Edward was laid by her side, at least she wasn't draped over him like a blanket this time, the cool air the AC filled the room with meant she didn't have to use him as her private ice-block. She noticed his eyes were a light gold again. He must have hunted in the night, she didn't remember any pain or bad dreams, so she guessed he had found game close enough that the bond didn't activate. She breathed a sigh of relief. If it got worse while they were on the island she would offer to travel to the mainland and stay in one of the little villages so that he had more range to hunt in, but to be honest she would rather stay on the island if she could. Though he seemed eager to take her places when they arrived, she was certain that they wouldn't leave the island unless it was an emergency. She would much rather stay secluded with him than be in the busy city they had passed through on their way there.
After breakfast she changed into her bikini, cursing Alice when she realised that it wasn't the one she had picked. Hers had at least covered her! She blushed violently as she looked in the full length mirror and noticed she had to shave before she could leave the bathroom with this scrap of material on! Alice had packed several razors, a jar of wax and some strips and instructions and an epilator. Not a chance! She took the razor and started the shower. After carefully checking and rechecking she decided to just shave everything. Anything she left behind would show as soon as the white bikini got wet anyway.
She had never shaved anything other than her legs and armpits before and felt very uncomfortable doing it. It took her ages to get smooth, every time she checked her skin felt stubbly and uncomfortable. But she persevered and eventually was happy. She exited the shower, and slathered waterproof sun cream on everything she could reach. When she was satisfied she put on the bikini and threw the floral cover-up on over the top, she slipped a pair of sandals onto her feet, the big floppy straw hat on her head and put her iPod, that Edward had bought her at the airport, her book, and her sunglasses into her tote bag with a couple of towels and the bottle of sun cream and went to find her husband.