Wow big responses to the last few chapters. Thanks for all your thoughts guys! If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask, I will answer your review. :)

Bella stared up at Edward as he placed the shirt back in her hands. In that moment, she recalled every time a man had been with her. Never once had they turned her down. Bella knew she was beautiful, she knew that men lusted for her body and here Edward was standing before her, telling her that while he did want her, now wasn't the right time.

But she had to learn to trust him.

Bella had never trusted anyone.

She looked down, felt the fabric of his shirt that he'd passed her in his hand.

She swallowed and took a step back. She felt foolish.

"I'm sorry…" she murmured. She turned away, fumbled with the opening of the shirt and pulled it back over her head. She glanced toward the window, she could see the horizon was slowly lighting, turning pink and yellow.

Edward shook his head, watching as the material slid back over her satin skin and hid her body from his eyes. He stepped forward, his touch light on her waist as he turned her to look at him. "Don't be sorry." His voice was soft. "I care about you Bella. And I do want you." His arms went around her and he pulled her close into his embrace.

He heard her stifled gasp as her body brushed against his hard arousal. The corner of his mouth lifted in a smile as he brushed her hair back from her face. "You have no idea how crazy you drive me. How much I want you. How much I've always wanted you."

Bella wanted nothing more than to attach herself to Edward. The words he was saying nearly causing her eyes to well up with tears once again. Edward wanted her?

This bit of information was so surreal, Bella couldn't quite wrap her head around it. They'd always had an interesting relationship, the pair of them. Bella had always assumed that Edward found her annoying and that he couldn't stand her. She knew that he found her attractive. Most men did! But Edward had always been so standoffish; she'd always assumed that he didn't want anything to do with her. How wrong she must have been.

His lips brushed her forehead. And unlike the hot seductive words that fell from Edward's mouth, his kiss was gentle as he pressed his lips to her skin. "I think you should get some sleep. It's been a long day. You're welcome to stay here if you're afraid of waking up the girls." He offered as he took a step back. "I'll be outside."

"Wait!" She called out to him as he began to leave. She didn't want him to go.

"We… We don't have to do anything but… Could you stay? Here? With me?" Her voice faltered as though she realized what she was asking and that he very well might just turn her down.

"I don't want to be alone," she admitted after a long beat.

Edward hesitated, stopped in his tracks by her small-voiced request. He had thought it better if he just crashed on the sofa outside. It would ensure that he at least kept his hands to himself and off of Bella.

She had no idea how inviting she looked wearing his football shirt like that. It stirred things up in him. But when she said things like that… how could Edward possibly turn her down?

"Okay," he said finally. He moved to the large bed, helping Bella under the covers. He paused, his fingers stilling in their automatic habit of unbuttoning his shirt. He'd never been in this sort of situation before. If there was a half-clothed girl in his bed, taking his shirt off was practically a guarantee. "Sorry. Would you mind if…?" he gestured to his shirt.

She smiled. "I don't mind." Edward's hands continued to unbutton his shirt and she couldn't help but look at him. The tanned skin, the hard muscles that flexed as he pulled the shirt off of him and tossed it to the side. And the black ink of his tattoos.

Bella hadn't even known that Edward had tattoos, she realized that she'd never before seen him naked. The thought startled her.

As Edward climbed into bed, Bella shifted so that she was facing him.

"You know..." she murmured after he'd gotten himself comfortable. "It's kind of funny. You've seen me naked so many times, and yet this is the first I've ever seen you..." Her hand reached out to brush against the black ink of a tattoo that graced his arm. "I didn't know you had these..."

Edward closed his eyes briefly; enjoying the feel of Bella's finger gently brushing against the outline of the Celtic tattoo inked high on his arm.

"It's just the one." He murmured. "I got it a few years back with Emmett and Jasper. The patterns are somewhat similar."

Bella smiled at the mention of Jasper and Emmett having matching tattoos. She loved how close the three men were, to the point that they'd all gotten so drunk that they'd decided that getting tattoos together was a good idea. But it suited them.

He shifted; the muscles in his arm flexing as he pointed to the Celtic knot in the center of the design. "I had my mother's name added on later when I was a little less… well, drunk." The corner of his mouth lifted up in a small smile. In tiny black script, the letters 'Esme' were inked into a corner of the design. Unless you were looking for it, the addition blended in fairly well with the rest of the pattern. "She passed away when I was still in school." Edward said quietly in a sudden show of honesty.

Bella's smile faltered at the mention of his mother and her fingers traced the initials that she could only barely make out in the darkened room. It was beginning to get lighter and lighter outside.

There was a pause. "What about you?" he teased. "No tattoos?"

Her eyes lifted to meet his and she shifted around in bed, pulling her hair back she twisted her body so that Edward would be able to see her tattoo. "I've got these music notes, behind my ear… It's the start of one of my favourite songs."

A long pause stretched out between them. They were lying so close to one another, in the silence that filled the room Bella could hear his breaths. "I'm sorry about your mum," Bella whispered at last.

"I still miss her." He reached out to cover her small hand with his much larger one, rubbing the back of it with the pad of his thumb as he smiled a little wistfully.

"My parents died too… When I was very little."

His brows pulled together as he watched Bella's face. While he continued to miss and mourn for his mother who had passed away far too soon from cancer, he had been able to safely say he had a mother for almost all of his childhood – a mother he could still remember who loved him very much. Edward couldn't imagine what it must have been like for Bella to grow up with no parents at all.

"Who took care of you? After they were gone? You don't have any siblings right?" He searched his mind trying to recall if she had ever said she did. But if he wasn't mistaken, Bella was an only child.

"I was put into foster care," Bella revealed. "I didn't have any family. At least, none that came forward for me... I think I have an uncle that lives in Argentina or something..." Bella recalled the day that she'd found out about her parents.

She'd been in school, in class at the time; the teacher had been sitting with her helping her to write her own name when the principal of the school had come to her classroom door to call her out. She had sat Bella down and had eventually given her the news. Her parents had passed away; a truck had hit the side of their car. Her mother had still been alive when they'd taken her to the hospital but had died not too long after.

"My father had died upon impact."

Living in foster care was a hell in itself. She never belonged. She never felt a parent's love again.

"I left my foster parent's home when I was seventeen."

Edward's eyes softened as Bella revealed this to him. It was the more vulnerable part of her that he'd never seen before then, probably because she had always tried to keep it hidden from him and everyone else.

"I didn't know," he said quietly as he watched her. "You moved here then? How did you meet Rosalie? And when..." he hesitated,

"When did you start working at Indulgences?"

Bella's eyes drifted closed. Edward's arms came around her to hold her closer to his body, she breathed in the scent of him, feeling comforted by his nearness. She spoke with her eyes closed.

"I moved here after I left home and I met Rosalie in my second year of university. I'd already started working at Indulgences. She doesn't know it but she helped me get out of there more than anyone."

Edward's fingers were stroking her hair. The soothing, comforting feeling and this talk about her past reminded her of how her own mother used to do something similar before she died.

No sooner had he opened his mouth to continue this gentle train of thought did he realize that Bella had fallen asleep. He leant over to brush back the loose strands of hair that fell across her face and counted the rhythmic rise and fall of each breath she took.

Edward paused to adjust the covers neatly over them and brushed back her hair, relishing the feel of her warm body held against his as he thought that in many ways, falling asleep together with Bella now was a lot more intimate than having sex.

"Good night, Bella." He murmured, pressing his lips to the back of her head. And then as the faintest rays of light came slipping in through the crack in the curtain, Edward too drifted off to sleep.

Deep breaths! Phew. Lots of information. But then she fell asleep before we could find out anymore... Damn her.