I do not in any way, shape or form own twilight or these characters

BPOV

Chapter 10

Fighting words

That first night in the cabin was a little different because although I loved it, everything about it, it hadn't quite sunk in that this was home for now, I felt like I was on some luxurious vacation someplace far away. I almost expected Charlie to walk in from work and ask me how my day was, or to hear Emmett's booming laughter as he made some crass joke at Edward's expense. But none of that happened; it was just Edward and I, alone, in our house. We sat quietly in the living room together watching TV, his arm around me. We had decided that we wouldn't attempt any type of unpacking until tomorrow, that tonight we would just be still. I called Charlie as soon as I had gotten over my shock to let him know we had arrived safely. I talked to him for about half an hour, giving him the rundown of the house we were staying in, I gave him no implication that it belonged to Edward, and told him that I had met one of Edward's cousins at the airport. Charlie sounded very happy for me, but I could detect a hint of sadness in his tone. I called Renee after that and talked to her for an hour or so and Edward called Carlisle and Esme.

By ten I was starting to get sleepy, I nodded off a few times and the third time I felt my head fall and hit Edward roughly in the shoulder he said, "Maybe you should get some sleep."

"No, no, I'm fine." I mumbled, shutting my eyes again.

"Bella, you're not fooling anyone here."

"Yeah, you're probably right." I stood up and stretched, as I did, my shirt lifted up a little exposing my navel; I caught Edward staring at my skin. I immediately dropped my arms down. "I should go to bed." I yawned, I couldn't believe how much I'd been sleeping these past few weeks. "Are you coming too?" I asked hopefully.

"Bella, I can't sleep, remember?"

"Of course I remember, I just wasn't sure if you were going to join me." I said defensively.

"Of course I'll join you." He said tenderly "Go do all of your human stuff and I'll be up in a minute." He said with a crooked grin.

I smiled back at him and headed upstairs to shower and get ready for bed. The master bathroom was huge with a pulsating shower head that felt wonderful against my sore neck and shoulders. Spending all that time on a plane and sleeping on a couch the night before had really done a number on me. I stayed in the shower longer than I usually did taking in all of the comfort from the hot steam and the perfume from my shampoo. My mind began to wander; I wondered if Edward had to shower? Probably not, since he didn't sweat and smelled wonderful all the time. I wondered if he did anyways because it felt good. It was all so strange to me I wondered how normal he really was day to day. I only saw the finished product when I was with him. Did he have to shave? I didn't think so, but who knows? I thought back to my Anne Rice novels that I had read in middle school, whenever a vampire cut their hair in those books, it would grow back the next day. I shook my head, those were just fictional works that had no basis with the real world and Edward was certainly very real. My heart beat faster when I thought back to my shower question, what if he did shower and what if I walked in on him one day…my heart skipped a beat and I got light headed. I really needed to get my hormones under control. I shook my head to get the image of Edward's chiseled, alabaster, wet body that I had conjured up out of my mind. I couldn't think about him like that, he'd probably be pretty cross with me if he knew all of the impure thoughts I had about what we could do together if the chance ever permitted itself, which I knew it never would. Might as well stop torturing myself. I shut off the water abruptly and got out of the shower and dried off. I reached into my carryon bag looking for pajamas and found the t-shirt Edward had bought me. I smiled to myself at how cute I thought it all was, impure thoughts gone. I threw on the shirt and reached into the bag to look for some bottoms and found the satin boy shorts, impure thoughts back. Frustrated, I angrily shoved the underwear back into the bag and found a pair of cotton red boxer shorts, I put those on instead. I combed out the snarls in my wet hair and brushed my teeth, I flossed and rinsed with mouthwash, hit the light and padded down the short hallway into the bedroom.

Edward was lying on the bed with his hands folded behind his head looking up at the ceiling. "That was quite the long shower miss." He purred rolling onto his side to face me. In doing so, the sleeve on his tightly fitted black t-shirt rolled up exposing his bicep. My mouth suddenly became very dry, what was my problem tonight?

"I, um, was thinking about some things and lost track of time." I croaked.

He rested his chin on his right arm and examined me closely, saying nothing, his honey colored eyes gazed at me intently through his thick black eyelashes. His bronze highlighted hair looked like it had been recently regelled and pointed out in all directions messily. My god he was so beautiful.

"Nice t-shirt" he teased, "looks like it's missing something though." His eyes gestured at my bottoms.

"Oh yeah, well, those must be packed away in one of my other suitcases." I said tensely as I walked over to the opposite side of the bed.

He rolled back onto his back and folded his hands across his stomach "Am I making you nervous?" he asked, amused

"Are you trying to?" I retorted

"Not particularly."

"Then no." I crawled into bed and curled up beside him, resting my head on his chest

"What do you do at night?" I asked suddenly

"What do you mean?" He asked me dreamily

"I mean, if you were at home right now, in Forks and not with me, what would you be doing right now?"

"Right now?" He rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, looking as if he were trying to come up with a good answer. "Right now, I would probably be reading, or playing music, or playing chess with Alice or talking to Carlisle."

"All night?" I inquired

"Until the others went to bed."

"What do you mean until the others went to bed? They can all sleep?"

He chuckled a little, "not exactly. How do I put this?" he said uneasily, "until the others went to bed…with each other." He added in at the end.

"All night?" I asked in disbelief.

"Well, I'm not really sure what goes on. I don't ask for any details clearly, I suppose if they wanted to…they could do that all night, but I'm not sure that they do. I just know that at a certain time in the evening, everyone starts going to bed and after awhile, I'm the only one left. That's usually the time when I would go and watch you sleep."

"That sounds, really sad to me."

Edward shrugged his shoulders, unaffected. "It is what it is. Why do you think I'm the best musician in the family? Or why I've seen so many movies and am so well read? In the past several years, I've had a lot of time on my hands."

I giggled a little at the idea of a house full of amorous vampires and the mental picture of Edward trying to read while all of the paintings were getting shaken off his bedroom wall. The giggling turned into a full blown guffaw at his expense as I tried to explain the mental image I had of the Cullen household after hours. I was relieved when he joined in on the laughing.

"I'm so glad that you find my life more amusing than I do." He said smiling as he roughed up my hair with his hand. He let his hand stay in my tangled locks for a minute and then brought it down and around my chin. He tilted my face up to his and kissed me long and soft. His fingers knotted around my hair as he became more intense, sitting up a little now. I couldn't take this anymore, I had just gotten my feet back on the ground, and here he was getting me all worked up again. I couldn't believe the words that came out of my mouth next.

"Stop." I said softly, pushing him back a little. "You may be able to control yourself, but I can't, so to avoid any problems, I think we should stop." I said it in such a calm and matter of fact manner that it startled me. Edward looked hurt, but obediently settled back to where he had been laying and folded his arms behind his head.

"That's fine." He said quietly

"I'm sorry Edward." I pleaded

"Have I done something wrong?" He asked confused.

"No, no, of course not. You do everything very, very well, too well. You know how to push all of my buttons; mentally, emotionally…"

"Physically?"

"Definitely physically, and I am having a very difficult time handling it." I chose my words very carefully and slowly.

"Why?" he asked

"Because I don't want you to stop and I know that you feel as if you have to, and I don't want you to…" I was trying to phrase this as diplomatically as possible.

"This is posing a problem isn't it?"

"Well quite frankly, YES." My voice sounding more irritated than I meant it to "it's a big problem as a matter of fact." A year and a half's worth of pent up sexual frustration making itself very evident.

He sat upright in the enormous black and red bed now, looking like he was trying to piece together what I had just said. I watched him carefully and I knew he couldn't do it, he couldn't understand my frustration, or could he?

"Explain please." Two words that usually meant that Edward was getting irritated

"Explain what?!" I exploded, "I am an eighteen-year-old girl with a steady, gorgeous, strangely seductive boyfriend. My hormones are going haywire, we just moved in together and we can't even enjoy our privacy because you have some kind of complex about getting physical with me! What do I need to explain about that scenario?" I was sitting cross legged on the bed facing him and he looked like he was falling apart.

"Some kind of complex? Do you have any conception of the very real reasoning behind that 'complex' Bella?" He snapped at me.

"Edward, that's fine, you're not ready, and that's fine. I'll wait. I'll wait until we're both humans, I'll wait until we're both vampires, I don't care, but in the meantime…"

"In the meantime what?" He asked coldly, he was standing now, the bed was between us

"Let me show you something," I crawled across the bed at him and knelt in front of him in all of his infuriated glory. "Give me your hand." I held my hand out to him, he hesitated, but then gave in. I took his cold, pale hand in mine, which trembled now and slowly pulled it toward me. I pressed it firmly against my chest. "Just listen" he watched me intently. My heart beat steady and strong we were still for a minute. "Now touch my face." I ordered. Slowly, with his other hand he reached toward me like he had done a hundred million times before, he laid the back of his hand against my hot face and caressed my cheek softly. My heart beat faster. "Touch my neck." I whispered, he obliged, I held his opposite hand hard against my heart. I could feel my heart starting to race, I felt my cheeks flush ever so slightly, and my breathing became louder. He looked like he was starting to understand my angst. "Now quick, just stop touching me." I held his hand still against my chest while he dropped the other hand away. My heart slowed and became arrhythmic for a minute.

"Do you see now? Do you see what happens whenever you touch me and then stop?" I asked, my voice becoming fierce again "I'm going to require a cardiologist before I'm thirty if you keep this up." I wasn't trying to be funny.

"What do you want from me?" he asked quietly, he sounded tired, he was making his hands into fists by his sides

"I want you to stop giving me mixed signals."

He gave a short, bitter laugh and said, "I thought that my intentions on how far this could go were made very clear right at the start."

"They were once, but I'm not so sure lately." I muttered angrily.

"What?!" He opened his fists and started pacing around the bedroom; Edward was starting to lose his composure, something I had rarely seen him do in front of me before.

I climbed off the bed and followed him, he looked like a caged animal trying to relieve its' anxiety, trying to find a way out. "Come on Edward! You haven't noticed how different everything is lately?! You're pushier, you're touching my stomach and staring at me, and grabbing my butt in public, buying me underwear, and let's not forget the king sized bed in this red and black bedroom!"

He glared at me, his amber eyes darkening like he was about to protest, but he said nothing and so I kept running my mouth.

"RED Edward, red?! Red the color of passion, of blood, of the womb, it's symbolism in its simplest form! Not to mention the wrought iron bed?! Anyone whoever saw 9 ½ weeks or body of evidence or any other soft porn knows that a bed like that is just used as a prop for other things! Everything about this bedroom screams have sex with me Bella!"

He stood now with one arm crossed across his chest and the other covering his mouth like he was going to get sick any second. His eyes locked on mine the whole time, boring a hole through me, eyes that were filled with horror and rage.

I walked past him, flinging my hair to one side purposely so he could smell me as I stormed by. I sat back down on the bed with my back to him. I picked up my rant where I had left off since he wasn't speaking at all.

"But I can't, Edward, because everything has to be on your terms or not at all. I don't know what to do anymore; I don't know how to respond to you. I know how I want to, but every time I do, I feel like a child getting their hand slapped away when they touch something they shouldn't. I know that you're trying to be strong, and test the waters to see what you can handle, but I know what you can't handle, at least for awhile. But for you to give me the slightest indication that you can over and over again, it's just…it's just cruel." And I was finished. I had said what I needed to say, I wondered if he still were in the room, I couldn't hear anything. At this point, I would probably be relieved if he weren't present for that last part.

"Cruel?" his sharp voice broke the silence. He had heard me after all. "You're calling that cruel?" within a second he was in front of me, his fierce, beautiful face only inches from mine, he took my chin in his hand and stared into my eyes, "you want to know what's cruel Bella?" his voice was a harsh whisper, "How about for starters, the sound of your pelvis breaking as I climb on top of you, or what about your bleeding, mangled, wrist that I accidently tear open with my mouth." He let go of my chin and walked away from me. "Try explaining that one to Charlie, or Carlisle, or Angela."

He turned back and saw the look of uneasiness that must have been creeping across my face. "Sickening isn't it?" he said flatly.

I was starting to get uncomfortable, I had never been afraid of Edward, but I was feeling it a little now. He wasn't acting like my Edward, he was channeling something else. I protectively wrapped my arms around my stomach and waist. Immediately I saw his anger soften slightly, when he noticed my reaction but then I saw it flare up again.

"Do you have any idea how it feels to have your stomach grind so fiercely that it causes you to double over in pain? Or to feel like your head is going to split in half and blind you? That's what happens to me if I try to go too far with you. That's my body telling me that if I don't stop I'm going to hurt you." He sat down on the bed beside me, "And this happens all of the time." There was a sharp desperation to his tone, " I'm not talking about when we first started spending time together, no, I'm talking about yesterday, last week, a month ago, hours ago, it never goes away." His voice got more anxious with each word.

"You're not going to hurt me." I said staring at my lap and shaking my head, but I didn't sound as confident as I wanted to, I just sounded like I was trying to convince myself that he wouldn't.

"Bella," he said sternly "as long as we are two different kinds of beings, this can never happen."

"That is unless," he started, I became hopeful and he saw that in my expression and his face immediately became dark and bitter again, "Unless the sound of bones breaking and flesh tearing gets you off." He lay down on the bed again and said with a shadowy smirk "in which case, we could go at it right now."

I was disgusted. Disgusted by his crass remark and his sudden temperament change, I wasn't going to sit here and listen to this any longer. I rose slowly from the bed and gave his a look of utter disdain.

"What's the matter? Hop on." He said glancing at his lap, smirk still intact.

I slowly walked away from the bed toward the door, eyes locked on him. Edward sat up slowly and his smirk faded, his mouth became a straight line and his eyes shone fiercely, "Didn't think so."

Tears welled up in my eyes, I held my ground and blinked them away, "I'm going downstairs."

Edward's face became soft and concerned, I knew he was regretting what he had just said and I didn't care.

"Don't follow me." I whispered harshly. I turned my back on him and headed downstairs, shutting the door behind me.

As soon as I shut the door, I regretted every word I had said. I shouldn't have started a fight with the most important person in my life over something so trivial. Especially knowing how difficult it was for him and that he was only trying to protect me. How petty I was and how mature he was. I felt awful, but in my defense, he said some pretty upsetting things to me too. I decided to sleep on it. When I got to the living room, everything was dark. Not yet familiar with my new surroundings, I felt around blindly on the wall until I found the switch plate and snapped it on. Even though it was August, there was a chill in the air; I scanned the room until I found what I was looking for, a fleece blanket. I grabbed it, made a mental note of where I was in the room and shut off the light again and I stumbled over to the couch.

Night number two sleeping on a couch, I was so exhausted, but my adrenaline was pumping from our heated discussion. I tried to close my eyes and fall asleep, his words echoed in my head and I tried to forget them. The house was silent, I couldn't hear Edward pacing any longer, and I wondered what he was doing. Now that I was alone, I let my tears fall endlessly all over my t-shirt. So much had happened today in a matter of hours and I needed to break down and have a good cry, it got to the point where I didn't know what I was crying about anymore. What had done it? My leaving Charlie? Homesickness? Meeting Tanya? Being given a house and a new car? Or my fight with Edward? I still didn't know, eventually, I just gave in and fell asleep.

"Bella?" an angel's voice whispered. I was dreaming, I had to be, there was no way he had forgiven me.

"Edward," I answered back to the dream, "Edward, don't leave."

"I'm right here, love." Then I felt a cool hand brush my cheek and I knew I wasn't dreaming.

"Edward?" I opened my eyes and he was kneeling beside the couch in fresh clothes.

"Bella, I'm so sorry. Are you very angry with me?" His face was very serious.

"Angry, no I'm, wait what?" I answered perplexed, roughly pushing back my knotted hair.

"Are you very angry with me?" he repeated

"No, of course I'm not 'very angry' with you." I was just starting to wake up now and comprehend what he was saying. "If anything you should be angry with me, I had no right, to attack you like that."

"I've been attacked worse before." He smiled feebly, "You were only telling me how you felt, and I reacted poorly to it. I'm very sorry."

"I'm sorry too." I said meekly.

"We forgive each other then?"

"I forgave you the second I walked out of that bedroom."

He smiled a little more reassured, "you look like you had a terrible night." He said lightly touching my swollen, tear stained face.

"You look like you had a pretty rough night yourself." I said briefly touching the dark purple circles around his eyes. He looked away, seemingly embarrassed.

"I'm going to have to hunt soon, it's been a few days now, and all the stress of moving, it's taken a lot of my energy."

"Me too." I agreed quietly.

"Bella, you're right, lately I have been putting you in a lot of awkward situations. I'm going to stop that." He paused and a coy smile crossed his face, "Well, not stop, I'll just try to do it less."

He raised his left palm up and placed his right hand over his heart and said theatrically, "Please accept my humblest of apologies. I am sorry that my supernatural sex appeal is too much for your human heart to take, I will try to control myself and behave more like a gentleman henceforth."

It was then I knew that our fight was over. I smirked at him and said, "Well, I wouldn't go that far, I'll take whatever I can get."

He frowned at me and said, "You'll take gentlemanly behavior only for now."

"Yes sir." I moped, putting it on a little thick.

"Good." He said taking my hand in both of his and kissing the top of it. "So, I am going to fix you something to eat and then you can go off and do your human thing, I'll go off and do my vampire thing and then we can get started unpacking. Is that alright?"

"Sounds like a perfect day to me." I said sleepily, I stretched and my shirt went up a little, exposing my skin, I caught Edward looking again and smiled to myself. He quickly got up and headed to the kitchen to get breakfast going.

I followed him and sat down one of the cushy kitchen chairs, he had already poured me a glass of juice. "What did you end up doing last night, you know, after I left?" I sipped my juice carefully

"I went for a walk." He said placing a bowl of cereal in front of me. I heard a popping noise and saw that he had made me toast too, whole grain, and he was spreading peanut butter on the two slices. He placed that in front of me and I looked at him quizzically. "Protein," he added with a grin.

"I didn't hear you leave," I said taking a bite of the toast.

"Bella, come on" he said in an obvious tone, of course I didn't hear him. "Besides I left via the bedroom window."

"Why? We do have doors, two or three of them in fact." I said sarcastically

"I didn't want to disturb you." I shrugged my shoulders and started on my cereal. "How did you sleep last night?"

"Not very well." I said miserably

"Tonight you should definitely sleep in a bed, whichever one you choose, I'll stay with you, if you want. I won't try anything, I promise." He reassured me.

"I am going to sleep in a bed tonight. I'm going to sleep in our bed, and you will be beside me and you will try something. I wouldn't want it any other way. End of story." I stated matter of factly finishing the last of my cereal.

"Okay…" he said slowly, "but what about the screaming red comforter, and the black wrought iron bed and all that business? I don't want to upset you again."

"Edward please," I said rolling my eyes. "The bedroom is beautiful, I love that you designed it, I was just having trouble with a lot of things yesterday and unfortunately you got the backlash of it. It was petty and childish of me to argue with you about something so insignificant. I should be making you breakfast and begging for your forgiveness."

He smiled and, "oh, Bella," he took my hand gently and looked up me and sighed, "I don't think you're fast enough to catch me a snow leopard."

I giggled and slapped him on the shoulder, "you're so gross." He started laughing and dropped his head down against my hand.

"Alright," he stood up and grabbed my empty dishes and brought them to the sink, "I'll do those later." He took a sweatshirt off a hook on the wall, "I need to go out for a little while, I'll be back soon."

"Okay." I said adoringly. He came over to me, kissed my forehead and left. I got up from the kitchen table and washed my dishes.

Edward wasn't gone for more than an hour or so, in the meantime I had gotten dressed and had started pulling some of my suitcases from the garage. When he returned the purple circles that had been around his eyes were gone and his irises were a warm liquid amber color. We spent the day unpacking and organizing everything we had brought from home, which was mostly clothing, books, and CDs; a fairly accurate depiction of what mattered most to two teenagers starting college