He was feeling her hair beneath his hands, knowing its softness, the flickers of chestnut dark in the moonlight. Her lips were rich beneath his, but not pliant. No, they were stiff and angry. Braced.
He hadn't known a kiss like that with her.
Ever.
The flesh of her arms was tight with resistance, and he could feel the angry push of her hands on his chest.
A twist of guilt overrode all sensations of pleasure, seeing what Jacob's memory had shown him.
Then Edward flinched, feeling the next, and definitely not pleasant sensation Jacob had remembered.
It served the dog right.
He allowed himself a small chuckle, before he let the guilt claw back into its rightful place.
Guilt and anxiety had become his closest friends, of late. Their company left much to be desired. Anxiety was the most possessive of his new friends, keeping him well stewed in worry, and wondering for her well being.
Jacob's thoughts had brought no comfort on those fronts.
Werewolves. She was spending her time with werewolves.
At least she wasn't entertaining Jacob Black as anything more than a friend.
This too offered little consolation. They were as dangerous as always, and the discrete flashes Alice had shown him confirmed this. Bella's back, snaked with bruises, and her arm gripped with a ghostly purple hand print.
His guilt dug its fingers in to his midsection, squeezing and scraping.
If he hadn't messed things up so spectacularly, he would still be there to at least keep her safe.
If.
If only.
His indiscretions were laid out before him in a perfect litany.
He'd left her, and left her to suffer horrifically, in mortal danger, and then returned when she came to save him, only to fail her again. He could barely find a front on which he'd done right by her.
There was one, though, and to this he clung stubbornly: he'd made sure she remained human.
This he could do. Keep her from the clutch of a living death. Give her the chance to feel the joys of life.
Even if it meant she felt them without him.
For now.
Even if it was Jacob Black she was sharing them with? A small voice asked.
Not going to happen, he told himself. It hadn't while he was gone, and it wasn't now.
But the images of her back and arm surfaced again, making him shiver with suppressed rage. If he listened closely enough to his feelings, he knew it was just guilt, festering.
His fault.
He reviewed, again, his plans for the summer. She wouldn't see him, or feel his presence. She would be safe. That was just a given. But he would respect her wish for distance. Human minds were mutable things. By the fall, she might be ready to talk again, to entertain less space, or even give up on this charade altogether.
Maybe.
Or not, that small voice suggested.
If she was happy, this would sustain him. If she could taste what it was to be human on her own, to grow, to mature, to realize just what it was she was so currently eager to throw away, maybe she would see sense.
Maybe.
Disclaimer: S. Meyer owns Twilight. No copyright infringement intended.