Author's Note: Sorry that this is later than I wanted. The flu or a really bad cold has been going around my house. Three of my four children have had it, and worse, my husband has been home with it for the last two and a half days. I also got it a few days ago, and it's hard to think on decongestants.
Chapter 12 – Confessions
Carlisle continued to comfort me for several minutes, and I was happy to let him. After all that Edward had done to me, I honestly wondered if I would ever be able to feel this way about someone, but I absolutely did. Despite the fact that I had been broken horribly, it surprised me to realize that I was capable of this kind of love, but I was. I was in love with Carlisle Cullen, and though he hadn't said it to me (probably because he was worried that it might scare me away), his actions had shown me that he deeply loved me as well. I wasn't quite ready to say the words aloud, but I knew that I truly did love him.
I was alerted to Edward's presence by Carlisle suddenly stiffening beneath me. I knew that Carlisle had figured out that Edward had done something to me. It only made sense that he was angry with Edward. Maybe he would be okay once he saw that I had already forgiven him.
"Edward," Carlisle greeted him stiffly.
"Bella, are you okay?" Edward asked, not even acknowledging Carlisle as far as I could tell.
"Just a little scared." I admitted.
"Have you taken any Ativan?" He worried.
"No, I'll be fine." I told him, though I don't think he believed me. I'm not sure Carlisle believed me either. "If I still need it later, I will take it.
"I really think you should take it now." Edward insisted.
"If I take it now, I might not be able to get through what I need to say." I explained.
"Bella, you're clearly been through a lot tonight, you should take the medicine. Right now." His voice became slightly demanding.
Carlisle shifted under me and threw Edward an annoyed look. He was becoming exasperated by Edward's attempts to bend me to his will.
"Drop it, Edward." Carlisle told him in a low, firm voice.
Edward huffed, looking like a spoiled brat that for once didn't get his way. "Fine."
I eyed him nervously until he finally relaxed his face and smiled encouragingly at me.
"So… about the dark." I shook at the memory, and looked up at Carlisle. "First of all, let me say that Edward has nothing to do with the reason I'm scared of the dark."
"But honestly, I made it worse." He admitted.
"Yes, but I thought that I should start with why it started." I told him.
"If you wish," Edward nodded his acquiescence, "though, I don't believe it will accomplish what you intend."
Apparently, Edward knew that this confession was going to seriously piss Carlisle off, and he didn't believe that my explanation would make any difference at all. That made me nervous, though it shouldn't have. Even though Edward had hurt me deeply, I still didn't want Carlisle to be harsh with Edward. But that alone was not my reason for wanting to tell Carlisle the whole story. I simply wished for him to know.
I looked back and forth between Carlisle and Edward. "Please let me get through this."
They both nodded.
I took a steadying breath before I began, "When I was three, my mom decided that she wanted to take me out of regular day care, because our neighbor, Delia had heard that money was tight. She offered to watch me for half the price. That probably should have been a warning flag, but my mother is a trusting person.
"Delia wasn't a very good babysitter. She actually didn't like kids at all and didn't want to be bothered, but she did need the money, so she pretended to like me when my mom was around. When we were alone, she was horrible. She didn't want me messing with her stuff, but she didn't want to actually stop watching her soap operas to supervise me, so she… um… she sh-shut me in a small trunk for most of the day." My voice was shaking. I was barely holding it together. Even talking about this was hard for me. Even though I was so little when it happened, I had concrete memories of it. I could remember feelings, sights, sounds, and even the smell of everything that happened to me.
I always had the ability to bury the emotions associated with the terrible things that had happened to me, but they tended to resurface when I least wanted to feel them.
"Every day, I was in that little box, crying softly until she felt like letting me to give me a tiny bit of food and water, and then again to go home. If I made too much noise, she took me out and tied me up and gagged me and put me back in. If I had an accident, I got left in those clothes all day until about ten minutes before my mom got there. If she had to clean out the box because of me, the next day, she didn't feed me or sometimes did even worse things to me." I sobbed. Carlisle's comforting touch became more stressed.
"Bella told me this shortly after we started dating." Edward took over for me. "When I asked her why she still used a nightlight, she reluctantly told me this story." Edward took a deep breath. "I…"
"You tortured her with that information?" Carlisle was truly shocked. I'm not sure what he was thinking happened, but this wasn't it.
"Yes," Edward closed his eyes, nodded, and swallowed hard, "it started after I had to dazzle her into looking happy that I had tricked her into going to prom with me. She still looked fairly annoyed with me at different times, and I had to dazzle her several times to keep her under control. I decided to employ a different method of dominating her.
"I spent the next sunny day soundproofing her closet." Edward deeply sighed. "I waited until she disagreed with me and I locked her in the closet all night."
Of course, while I was in the closet, I couldn't think of anything but getting out of there, but now that I know that vampires could hear through soundproofing, I realized that Charlie wouldn't be able to hear my screams through the soundproofing, but Edward would have still been able to.
"She had such low self esteem," Edward continued, "that it wasn't hard to convince her that she deserved to be punished. She screamed and pounded for most of the night. When I finally let her out, she was completely compliant. In fact, every time she did anything against my wishes, she spent time in the closet."
"But she's still a virgin." Carlisle was confused. He obviously said more to Edward with his mind than he said out loud, but I followed his logic here. I would have offered Edward anything he wanted to let me out of the closet, including my virginity. Why hadn't Edward taken that as an opportunity to sleep with me?
"She offered. In fact, she promised she would do anything I wanted if I would let her out." Edward shook his head, disgusted with himself. "I started to… in fact, I feel awful about how far I let it go and for so much more, but the fear in her eyes made me feel like I would be raping her, and even though I had descended pretty far, I at least had the sense to stop myself before I could violate her. Later, as you already know, I tried to dazzle her into bed with me, and I found that I couldn't do that either."
"I can't believe that you would play on her fears like that." Carlisle was clearly shocked and appalled by Edward's actions
"I know, Carlisle." Edward agreed remorsefully. "And I'm truly sorry, Bella."
"I've already forgiven you." I reminded Edward.
"I really don't understand how." Edward admitted sadly. "Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to confess, Bella. I really appreciate it."
Edward looked like he was getting ready to leave, but I wanted to be completely honest with Carlisle. I wanted to tell him every fear that I had, but Edward thought that we were finished. I suspected he had done many little things to me, things that he thought I didn't know about. He always underestimated my intelligence.
"You wanted to confess." I told him waiting for him to continue. "I want Carlisle to know everything."
Edward didn't look very happy that I had given him permission to continue. Maybe once he had seen how upset Carlisle had become, he may have changed his mind and wished to leave it there. The other option is that he only wanted to confess the obvious and had no desire to let anyone know the things he thought I hadn't figured out, but I wanted to share everything with Carlisle, and if Edward wasn't going to tell, then I was.
I watched him for a few moments and decided that he indeed didn't want to divulge any new information to me. I took a deep breath before continuing.
"Edward added a shut-off valve so that he could turn off the shower after Charlie left." I told Carlisle, after I decided that Edward wasn't going to be mature about this.
"How did you know?" He asked me, completely shocked that I would have been able to figure that out.
"The plumbing is in the basement, genius." I rolled my eyes at him. "I'm pretty familiar with how the basement looks, since I spend a lot of time sculpting down there. I noticed a new section of pipes that I hadn't seen before, and I opened the valve. Amazingly, the shower started working normally when it was open. I shut it back off every day when I had finished so that you wouldn't know that I had figured it out."
"I understand that Edward was being petty, but why would he even bother installing plumbing just to inconvenience you?" Carlisle asked.
"I'm afraid of taking a bath." I sighed admitting my second biggest fear. "Delia liked to punish me by holding my head under ice cold water until I blacked out."
"Edward!" Carlisle scolded sharply. Edward winced.
"Please tell me that you didn't hold her head underwater." Carlisle didn't sound hopeful.
"Once I did," Edward looked ashamed of what he had done, "and on other occasions, I used her fear of drowning to get what I wanted."
Carlisle was becoming very angry with Edward, and he hadn't even told the whole story yet. I opened my mouth to remind them both once again that Edward was already forgiven, but Edward surprised me by continuing before I got the chance.
"Once, while we were walking near the shore, she refused to look at me so that I could dazzle her. I dragged her into the water and pulled her under repeatedly until she gasped out that she would be a 'good girl'." Edward admitted abashedly. "I'm so sorry, Bella, that was incredibly wrong of me."
I couldn't acknowledge his apology because he said 'good girl.' I started shaking uncontrollably. Carlisle held me more tightly. The whole good girl, bad girl label thing, especially when he said it made me relive a little bit of the terror Edward left me in while we were dating.
"Edward, that's…" Carlisle was clearly at a loss for words over the shame he felt at Edward's actions, but he was confused about something. "And to top all of it off, you told Alice not to search Bella's future during your private time. Isn't that what Alice told me? I thought it was just because you didn't want us to know that you were manipulating her. This is so much worse than that, Edward."
"I actually think he wanted me to believe that you all already knew about it and wouldn't help me." I explained. "He wanted me to have no one to turn to."
Edward hung his head, ashamed that I had correctly guessed what was going on. "Both reasons." He admitted.
"I didn't know, Bella." Carlisle promised me. "I would have stopped him if I had known."
"I know." I assured him.
"Is there anything else you need to tell me?" Carlisle asked Edward.
Edward seemed to be debating whether or not to say anything further. I wasn't sure if he was more afraid of my reactions or Carlisle's. I knew that he didn't want to disappoint Carlisle any more than he already had, but honestly, I didn't think that was possible short of him actually murdering someone.
"After you left me, did you keep replacing the bulbs in my nightlight with burned out bulbs?" I asked, guessing the answer.
"Sort of." He admitted, ashamed. Carlisle growled.
"Where did you get all of the burned out bulbs?" I wondered.
"I just kept barely unscrewing them until they didn't light." He admitted.
"And you put a snake in my room when you weren't supposed to be near my house." I whispered.
"You knew that was me?" He seemed genuinely surprised that I had figured out what he had done. Like I said, he constantly believed that I was unintelligent.
"Mmhmm." I nodded, and Carlisle growled slightly.
"You're afraid of snakes as well?" Carlisle was barely controlling his anger towards Edward.
"Yes, that was another one of Delia's punishments for me. She tied me to the crib that she had and let garter snakes crawl all over me." I shook with fear. I was barely controlling myself. I was probably going to need an Ativan soon.
"And you put a snake in her bedroom because?" Carlisle glared at Edward.
"I could see she was over me. I was angry that she wasn't still broken." Edward lowered his head in shame, finally admitting the real reason he left me. "I left her because I felt if I broke her enough, I would finally crack that impenetrable shield around her mind or I emotionally cripple her enough that she would be happy to have sex with me. I thought that an intimate connection might give me some insight into her mind."
"It wasn't because you couldn't believe that an insignificant human could ever say no to you?" I wondered.
"Actually," Edward looked away, unable to meet my gaze, "no one, human or vampire has ever declined me when I propositioned them. I needed you to say yes to me. I had never even had to dazzle anyone into sex until I met you."
"And your ego was so big that you couldn't handle that she didn't want you?" Carlisle could hardly believe what he was hearing.
"Yes." Edward admitted.
"And when you saw that you were no longer the center of her universe, you tried once again to break her by putting a snake in her bedroom?" He pressed.
"Yes." Edward repeated.
"How did you even get to her house while we were watching you so closely?" Carlisle's voice was extremely strained.
"I hired a less than upstanding individual to do it for me." He admitted. "I texted him so that none of you would know what I was doing. Since I could see exactly what Alice was watching for, I knew how to get around her gift."
"I can't even look at you right now, Edward." Carlisle's voice shook with anger and disappointment. He closed his eyes to avoid seeing him. "Please leave. I will talk to you later."
"I truly am sorry, Carlisle." Edward's voice was full of regret. "I hope that one day, you will be able to forgive me." Edward watched Carlisle carefully but found nothing but anger.
"Don't tell the others." I begged him. "I don't want them to know."
"Of course," Edward assured me at the same time Carlisle said, "I promise."
Edward excused himself to allow Carlisle and me to talk.
"Carlisle, please remember, I have known for a long time just how awful Edward was to me, and I've accepted it as part of my life, and moved on." I tried to remind him.
"I know, Bella, and I will forgive him, but I just need some time to deal with it." Carlisle told me.
"What are you going to do to him?" I asked nervously.
"Do to him? I don't understand." Carlisle furrowed his brow in confusion.
"For his punishment." I elaborated. "He told me that he isn't happy being so undisciplined. I think that maybe you need to step more into a fatherly role with him.
"Bella, I have never once punished any of them. We are all adults, or at least I thought we were." He shook his head in disgust at Edward's behavior. He seemed to briefly consider something before moving on. "Most of the time, when one of us makes a mistake, we genuinely feel contrite, and no punishment is necessary. Sometimes, when one of us slips and refuses to acknowledge it, we might confine them until they are under control, but that is only for protection, not punishment. And if one of them doesn't like the way I choose to live, they are free to leave, but I will always accept them back if they change their mind."
"I'm not sure Edward really is an adult, though. He doesn't really act like a responsible adult." I observed.
"I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure that would benefit anyone right now." He told me. "Unless… you still feel wronged and want me to avenge you."
"No, like I said, I have forgiven him." I reminded him. "This isn't about me. It's about Edward. I know that both you and he see your relationship as father/son, but I think he needs you to be less of a mentor and more of a disciplinarian."
"I appreciate your position on the matter, but for right now, I am going to respect him as an adult and trust that he will correct himself." Carlisle told me. "He's already trying though I'm not sure he's quite trying hard enough."
I sighed, knowing that I was not going to sway Carlisle in this. "Though I'm not sure that trying alone will be enough, I respect your position." I told him, though I wished that he would have changed his mind. "I just hope that you will consider disciplining him in the future should he become controlling or abusive again."
"I will consider punishing him if he proves it to be necessary, but I will never physically or emotionally abuse you the way Edward did." Carlisle told me solemnly, and I believed him. He had been completely furious with Edward, but he never tried to hurt him. That alone did a great deal to relieve some of my anxiety about becoming closer with him.
"I have a few more questions for you, if you don't mind." He checked with me, and I nodded. "How often did he lock you in the closet?"
"Maybe once or twice a week." I told him. "After he broke up with me, I realized that he made things up to have an excuse to terrorize me."
"Such as…" He prompted.
"If I tripped in the hallway, if I got less than a ninety-five on a test even if he had kept me from studying; sometimes it was for even more trivial things like biting my nails, or smiling at another guy," I told him.
"So you basically had to walk on eggshells around him for fear that you would be harshly punished?" He asked me.
"That's what he wanted, but I am rather stubborn." I winced remembering what happened when I deliberately defied Edward. "When I was particularly willful, he would drag me by the hair to the closet before locking me in."
"I'm so sorry." He hugged me more tightly. "I wish I would have known so that I could have stopped him."
"Even if I had known that you would have helped me, I wouldn't have asked. At the time, I thought that I was happy. I didn't even realize how much he controlled me until after he left. I must sound like an idiot, not realizing that it was wrong of him to lock me in the closet." I laughed mirthlessly. "But once he did leave, after I started to get over him, I was able to take a good long look at the person I had become, and I didn't like what I saw."
"The change in Edward must have come on so slowly that you didn't notice it had happened." Carlisle reasoned.
"That's what I decided as well." I agreed. "I wish I could have seen that I needed help, though."
"It breaks my heart that I didn't know." His voice was full of regret. "I would have stopped him."
"When I told you that I thought he was stalking me, you did stop him." I reminded him of when he took Edward away from my house.
"I'm so glad you called me that day." He admitted. "Even though you were afraid of Edward's voyeurism, you still gave me hope that you could possibly someday…"
"Want to be more than friends?" I offered.
"Yes." He smiled at me.
"But still you waited a long time to ask me on a date." I wondered why.
"Because of my fear of rejection." He admitted. "And because Edward told me that he wanted a chance to win your heart."
Yeah, that wasn't going to happen.
"Why did you change your mind?" I was curious.
"Every time I thought about asking you out, all of my old insecurities reared their ugly heads. Jasper sensed my internal struggle and told me to go for it.
"I asked him how you felt about me, and Edward, and he told me that you had forgiven Edward, but your feelings were nothing more than friendly. He told me that your feelings for me were amorous." He looked like he could have blushed at admitting that to me.
"I wasn't going to ask you out on a real date, but at Christmas, you were flirty with me and politely friendly to Edward. The thing that finally convinced me was when you yelled at Edward for implying that I wasn't special. I almost chickened out during the actual date, though. When I picked you up, you were very distant." He laughed at the memory.
"Then I yelled at you and hurt your feelings." I reminded him.
"Did you?" He teased. "I only remember that you held my hand."
"That was my favorite part, too." I admitted, though it reminded me of the immense pain he felt when he thought that I had rejected him.
"I also remember you being in unbearable pain five times that day." He told me sadly.
"I remember you comforting me every single time." I smiled at him, trying to figure out how to ask him to kiss me.
"I just hate that you've been through so much pain, and now you have the unfortunate ability to absorb other pain as well." He told me sadly.
"I wish you would let me take away your pain." I longed to touch him and absorb all of the hurt he was feeling over the confessions that Edward and I had made.
"Absolutely not." He narrowed his eyes at me.
"I didn't think so." I looked down into my lap. "I just hate that you have to feel like this because of me."
"Don't think about it that way, Bella." He raised my chin up so that I looked into his eyes. "The things that happened to you made me sad, yes, but you have made me very happy."
"Really?" I blushed, desperately wanting him to kiss me, and with my chin in his hand, I thought that he was going to, but he just sighed and looked away."
"Let me get you that sample of Ativan." Carlisle offered politely, but firmly, and effectively killing the moment. I knew that his offer wasn't so much a request as an insistence. Of course, I knew that I was free to decline because Carlisle would never again make a decision for me again.
"Okay." I agreed, though I wasn't sure that I would need it. I only agreed because I thought that I might have nightmare from fully facing what had happened for the first time.
Instead of putting me down so that I could walk upstairs, he scooped me up into his arms and carried me bridal style up to his study. As he walked, I tried to work up the courage to ask him to kiss me, but I was very nervous about it. He was exceptionally understanding when I told him all of the things I was afraid of. He never once judged me or even looked at me like I was crazy. I looked deeply into his eyes as he slowly walked up the stairs. He was walking slow even for a human. I kind of wondered why he was going this slowly.
He sat me down on his couch while he found the medicine.
"Do you know your dosage?" He asked.
"4 milligrams," I told him.
He gave me the medicine and carried me to my bedroom.
"There's one more thing I'm kind of scared about." I bit my lower lip and hesitantly looked in his eyes.
"You can tell me anything, Bella." He stroked my cheek affectionately.
"I… um… I'm a bit worried about… my… inexperience." I half stammered, half mumbled. Carlisle had to have been with at least a couple of women seeing that he was over three hundred years old. I was afraid that I could never measure up.
"I'm a little nervous about my inexperience as well." Carlisle admitted, shocking me.
"You've never…?" I wondered out loud.
Carlisle shook his head, and looked a little embarrassed to admit it to me. "With my upbringing and the time I came from, I always knew that I would wait until marriage."
"So… you and Esme never, you know, before she figured out that she doesn't like men?" I had always assumed that it took her awhile to figure out her sexual orientation. At the time they were married, I'm not even sure she would have heard of lesbians.
"While it's true that she didn't figure out that she's gay until we'd been married for about two years, I still couldn't hurt her like that. We never progressed further than chaste kissing. She was so afraid. Every time I pressed even a little further, she would tremble in terror." He shuddered at the memory. "She never told me to stop, but I could tell how frightened she was. Did you know that she assumed that I would just force her anyway? She pretended to want intimacy because she thought I would rough her up more if she didn't comply."
"Do you think that Edward didn't, force himself on me, because you didn't to Esme?" I wondered, yawning.
"Hmmm… It's possible." Carlisle said thoughtfully.
I felt slightly loopy from the medicine, like I knew I would.
"You're so amazing, Carlisle." I whispered to him, inching closer.
He gazed at me, leaning toward me. He took a ragged breath, and kissed the top of my head. I sighed in frustration.
"You'd better get some sleep, Bella." He brought my hand up to his cheek and leaned into it. "Good night, my darling."
As Carlisle left the room, I couldn't help but smile groggily at the door, cherishing the fact that he had just called me his darling.
I was getting pretty drowsy but I was still aware enough to know what I needed to do. I took a page out of Edward's book and started to text Alice, but of course, she texted me before I was finished with the first word.
Carlisle will not make the first move. He's too afraid of being rejected, but he does want to kiss you.
I smiled and reclined on the bed and quickly fell asleep. When I woke the next day, I smelled a delicious breakfast wafting up from downstairs. I ran to the bathroom and brushed my teeth and ran a brush through my hair to get the tangles out before seeing Carlisle. I started to head down the stairs, but Carlisle appeared by my side and scooped me up to carry me downstairs.
When he sat me down at the table, I noticed that he had made my favorite breakfast, French toast with bacon. I hadn't had this for so long. I usually didn't keep bacon in the house because I was worried about Charlie's cholesterol, and the French toast took me too long to make in the mornings for just me. I was very excited to have this wonderful looking breakfast.
He watched me, very curiously while I ate.
"So, what would you like to do today?" He asked me while cleaning the kitchen.
Make out with you. I thought and blushed. "Umm… I don't know."
"I was thinking about taking you to the Tacoma Art Museum, if you would like to go." He looked hopefully at me. "If you don't want to go, that's fine with me. I wouldn't want you to think that the only places I ever took you were museums."
"No, no, that sounds wonderful." I told him enthusiastically. "My mom hardly ever took me because she got bored easily, and I never mention it to Charlie because I really couldn't see him in a museum."
"And Edward never took you did he?" Carlisle asked sadly.
"Can we not make this," I motioned between the two of us, "about Edward? That relationship is over. I want to focus on ours."
"I'm sorry, my darling." He told me remorsefully. "I understand."
"Don't." I got up from the table and walked over to him. "I'm not upset with you. I would just rather move forward than keep looking backwards. Speaking of moving forward…" I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him closer to me. That's not exactly true. I couldn't have pulled him anywhere. He allowed me to pull him closer to me.
"Carlisle," I looked up into his eyes and waited until he looked back at me, "last night, you… you did everything I hoped you would do. I was scared to death in the bathroom, and you only comforted me, you didn't ask anything of me in return. I know you didn't ask me to share all of the stuff with Edward, but I'm so glad that I trusted you. You didn't belittle me or reject me, and you completely kept your temper in check with him. I have no more reservations about trusting you."
The smile that he gave me in response warmed my heart. He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear and cupped my cheek. I could tell that he was hoping that I was ready to kiss him, and today, I would not disappoint him.
I stood on my toes hoping to be able to reach him, but I needed help. Carlisle was enough taller than me that he had to bend down to accommodate me, and he did so, but like Alice had told me, he would not make the first move. I gently pressed my lips to his as I ran my fingers through his hair. It didn't take long for him to respond, and he did so eagerly. His lips moved in perfect harmony with mine.
I moved in, wanting to be closer to him, and since he could tell that I was becoming uncomfortable on my toes, he lifted me so that I could sit on the counter. I sat on the very edge so that I could touch as much of my body to his as possible. He kissed his way over to my ear and suckled it while I caught my breath, but soon, I was urging him back toward my mouth. This time, I opened my mouth slightly and licked his lower lip, begging for entrance, and to my great surprise, he met my tongue with his own. I assumed that he didn't want me to cut my tongue on his razor sharp teeth because he pushed his tongue into my mouth instead. I had never been kissed this way before, and it was wonderful. Carlisle was literally the best thing I had ever tasted. I wanted this kiss to never end. I explored his tongue with mine and caressed it as I wrapped my legs around his waist, tightly.
I had never felt this much passion before, and I couldn't get enough of it. I eagerly responded to his ardor and hungrily kissed him until I could no longer breathe. The moment Carlisle sensed that I needed to break away, he retreated enough to rest his forehead against mine.
"Thank you for trusting me," he breathed, "that was amazing."
"Yeah," I nodded, unable to say more.
Once my heart had slowed to a reasonable pace, Carlisle helped me down off the counter. I went upstairs, showered and got ready for my second date with Carlisle. After I dried off, I texted Alice.
Help!
She texted back immediately. Your closet, near the front, white dress with a red peony print, red sweater, and red ballet flats.
I looked and saw it. It was really cute. Thanks!
As soon as I was dressed, I put some gel in my hair and dried it so that it was wavy. I usually brushed the waves out, but today, I let it stay more natural. I put on light eye makeup and some clear lip gloss, not wanting to get lipstick all over him when we kissed again, which would hopefully happen over and over again.
Something was going on with Carlisle when I met him at the bottom of the stairs. He didn't look upset, but I could tell that he was. I sort of sensed when people were hurting. It drew me to them, to comfort them. I didn't actually feel pain until I touched the person, but I knew that they were in pain.
I stopped on the bottom step, so that Carlisle and I would be roughly the same height, and I tried to kiss him, but he merely walked away from me to the front door and opened it for me.
A very familiar feeling crept into the pit of my stomach, and I didn't like it one bit. It felt like every time Edward pulled away from me. I felt unwanted. I refused to move until I knew what was going on.
"What's wrong?" My voice shook as I spoke.
He stepped back inside and shut the door.
"I'm worried that I may have taken advantage of you." He told me sounding very disappointed in himself.
"Why?"
"I feel that I might have pressured you to kiss me when I touched your face." He explained.
"No, you didn't." I laughed at him. "After Edward left last night, I had been trying to figure out a way to get you to kiss me, and I probably would have done the same this morning, but Alice texted me and told me that I would have to kiss you."
I hoped that Carlisle would be happy, but still, he looked pained, like he was beating himself up mentally.
"I should have restrained myself more, though." He lamented. "It wasn't very gentlemanly of me to lift you onto the counter, and I got rather carried away. I fear that I might not have had your permission to go that far."
"You definitely did." I assured him.
Carlisle didn't quite look convinced. I assumed it was because he thought that I would do anything to make him feel better. For some reason, it suddenly registered that he had chastised himself for not being restrained enough.
"I know that I said that I wanted to make our relationship about us, and to leave Edward out of it, but I feel that I need to tell you something." I told him as tears were gathering in my eyes. "You told me that you only ever had chaste kisses with Esme. Did you know that's all I ever had with Edward as well? Yes, he tried to dazzle me into having sex, but his kisses were basically devoid of emotion.
"Edward controlled all of our affectionate exchanges, and never let me push us beyond simple kissing. Every time I attempted to deepen our kissing, he pulled back. He often made me feel as though I didn't deserve his affection, or that I had to be better to earn it. It made me feel unlovable." I started to cry. "It left me longing for affection, and very rarely getting it.
"I never felt like he wanted me as much as I wanted him. This morning, I had no doubt that you wanted me. Do you know how happy that made me? Edward withheld his affection from me, but you were so free, so passionate. Edward never kissed me with even a tenth of the passion you did this morning. Please don't take that away from me!" I sobbed.
Before I could blink, Carlisle stood in front of me and placed his hands on either side of my head and gently brought his lips to mine.
"I promise…" he kissed me softly, "I will never…" he kissed me again, "withhold…" another kiss, "affection…" another kiss, "from you…" another kiss, "my dear." He ended with a longer kiss.
I wrapped my arms around him and returned the kiss, running my fingers through his thick hair. Soon, his tongue was once again seeking entrance to my mouth, and I happily obliged him, once again stroked his tongue with my own. I finally released him when my lungs were screaming for oxygen.
"I'm sorry that I frightened you, my darling." He told me as he carried me to the car. "I irrationally panicked."
"We're bound to have misunderstandings," I kissed his cheek, "but I wasn't angry with you, and I panicked a bit myself."
"Understandably," he nodded.
"For you as well," I reminded him.
"I think we need to amend the rule you made earlier." He told me as he placed me in his car.
I really wasn't sure where he was going with this.
"We can't pretend that our past relationships never happened." He continued once he was seated. "And we can't pretend that they don't affect us. If you ever need to tell me something, please do, and I will do the same. At the same time, you were right. We can't base our relationship on the avenging or mending the hurts caused by our previous... companions. Agreed?" He smiled at me.
"Agreed." I nodded, smiling in return.
We held hands all the way to the museum. When we arrived, he guided me through the museum with his arm around me and his hand on my hip. He pointed at pieces that he liked and told me about them. Whenever he finished telling me about each piece, I would kiss him, and he eagerly returned every one of them. He was surprisingly free with public affection, and I found myself craving more than I ever thought possible.
After the museum, he took me to a late lunch at a trendy pasta and salad place. I ordered a salad with chicken, and of course, he had nothing. He scooted his chair around so that he could whisper in my ear as I ate.
"Have I ever told you how beautiful you are, my darling?" He breathed seductively.
Shivers ran down my spine. I slowly managed to eat another bite of chicken.
"I am so jealous of the fork, right now." His perfect voice flowed softly into my ear.
I swallowed, put the fork down, and kissed him fervently, nibbling and tasting his delectable lower lip.
"Trust me; you taste much better than this salad." I told him once I had released him.
"I would return the sentiment," he nipped at my ear as he whispered, "but of course, that means something entirely different coming from me."
I giggled at him.
He was still teasing me playfully when, to my surprise, Alice, Jasper, Emmett, Rosalie, and Edward filed in and sat next to us.
"Did you have a good morning?" Alice smiled knowingly at me.
I nodded as I blushed and snuggled into Carlisle who kissed me on the cheek.
"I hope so, because you're spending the rest of the day shopping with us!" She cheered.
I gripped Carlisle tightly, unwilling to let him go just yet.
"I'm sure you'll survive without him for a few hours." Edward remarked sarcastically while he rolled his eyes at us.
Of course, I could spend a few hours without Carlisle. I wasn't incapable of being without him, but our physical relationship was so new. It made me a little sad thinking about being away from him right now.
"I'm going shopping with you, my darling." He assured me quietly, but enchantingly. "I'm not ready to be apart from you, yet."
In response I turned to kiss him. He took my face in his hands and slowly explored my mouth with his magical tongue.
"For the love of God, Carlisle!" Edward growled at him, breaking me out of some very naughty thoughts. "Could you please attempt to be more discrete?"
"Perhaps we should modify our behavior a bit when Edward is present?" He suggested disappointedly.
Tears formed in my eyes and threatened to spill over. I focused on the table so that I wasn't meeting anyone's gaze. Edward was now dictating the affection I received from Carlisle? Would I ever be free from his dominion? Did he expect for Carlisle and I to only show affection when he wasn't present? How did I know that Edward wouldn't constantly ensure that he was in our presence?
"Carlisle," Jasper got his attention quietly, "she's scared to death."
"My darling?" He took my chin in his hand and turned it toward himself so that he could look into my eyes.
"Y-y-you p-promised." I barely managed to whisper with a shaky voice as my tears overflowed and spilled down my face.
"Modify our behavior, my dear, not completely forgo affection." He assured me, kissing the tears away from my eyes. "I just thought that we might not flaunt it in front of Edward."
"Edward." Alice threw a nasty look at him. "Don't you dare."
"Excuse me?" Carlisle asked looking back and forth between Alice and Edward.
"I think that Edward is planning on deliberately encroaching on our private time so that we will be forced to be less… physical." I guessed, and Alice nodded.
"Damn it, Edward!" Carlisle's voice became deadly without increasing the volume. "You deprived her of affection when you were dating her! You. Will. Not. Deprive. Her. Of my affection. As well."
Though the tone in Carlisle's voice was something to be truly terrified of, I felt safe in his arms that he wouldn't go back on his promise to be free with affection.
The look on Edward's face was bordering on possessive. He looked like he thought he owned me. Maybe he was hoping that Carlisle and I wouldn't progress to a physical relationship, and then he could win me back. Maybe he just needed more time to accept this. I hoped that was the case.
"How about this," I had a suggestion, "if Edward will promise to allow us some space when we need it, we will keep it chaste while we are with him, at least until after spring break? After that, you're going to have to deal with it."
I didn't really like having to resort to this. I quite enjoyed Carlisle's passionate side.
"Agreed." Carlisle sighed. I could tell that he didn't appreciate this arrangement either, but he was willing to live with it.
"Fine, whatever." Edward rolled his eyes.
"That's not what I asked, Edward." I stared at him. "I asked you to promise. If you don't, I will make no attempt to rein in my desire for Carlisle."
Edward looked up at Carlisle who must have been agreeing with my sentiments mentally because Edward gave him a rebellious look before finally huffing, "I promise."
Ending Note: I changed this chapter quite a bit before I posted it. The original version wasn't quite half as long as this ended up. Edward changed a bit in this chapter as well. I hope that this gives the impression that Edward wants to change, but he isn't quite ready to make all the sacrifices necessary to actually affect the change, and that he isn't over Bella yet either.