Bella Pov

Bella did her best not to make the bathroom floor slippery as she used it, but her bathing suit was dripping a little. She took her time in the bathroom as she considered the mess she was in, rather than the one she was making. That story, it was going to keep coming up until they got it. Or perhaps they'd all turn into detectives, like Rosalie had, that would really suck. Even if Bella had to tell the story, she had wished there was a way to leave the Bella/Edward romance out of it. In her mind she'd tried to come up with a way to edit that out, but it wasn't really possible and now that was the only thing anyone knew.

It took effort to not try to plan what she was going to do, and part of her wanted to just call Alice and tell her to get out of the house and away from Edward in case she failed to keep control of her thoughts and made a decision. Instead Bella ran her hand through her hair a few times, straightening it out as best she could since it was wet.

When she opened the bathroom door she glanced back out at the hot tub and noticed that Rosalie and Emmett were talking and looked somewhat serious as they did it. She took in the way Emmett reached out and caressed Rosalie's hair and had to pull her eyes away. She might not be pretending not to notice they were vampires anymore, but she could pretend not to notice they were talking about something serious. Bella spent far longer than normal pondering what glass she wanted, pulling ice out of the freeze, and she spent just about as long as she could picking between the three juices that they'd bought for her. It was getting a little cold as the warmth of the hot tub started to abandon her body.

A glance out the window caught her vampires kissing softly and Emmett was then holding Rosalie tightly. Bella started to take a few sips of her juice while she stood in the kitchenette, waiting until it looked like it wasn't going to interrupt anything if she went outside.

Emmett yell out, "What are you squeezing the juice yourself?" She rolled her eyes. He could see she was done pouring just like she could see he was done holding Rosalie tightly, though the blonde vampire was nicely tucked under his arm.

Bella noticed it was even colder outside now that she'd cooled off from the hot tub. "Get in here, I can see goosebumps." Rosalie spoke up, her voice commanding and Bella was more than grateful to step back into the hot tub. She set her glass within reach and ducked down into the warm water with a happy sigh.

"You guys need to buy a hot tub." Bella told them. It made sense, they liked them, had the money and more than enough space at their house.

"We did." Rosalie nibbled on her lower lip. Bella found her eyes traveling to Rose's lips without her permission, that little nibble on lip move was new, "It broke." Emmett chuckled and Bella blushed a little as she caught on to what they were doing when they broke it.

"Shame." Bella muttered and then stared out over the dark ocean, as she struggled to not imagine how it might have broken. "Even when I can't really see it the ocean is beautiful." Bella said as she took in the darkness with the highlights of reflected light.

"I know. Someday we should take you to Isle Esme, it's a place Carlisle bought for Esme. It's a tropical island, and the only beach I can lay out on in the sun." Rosalie told her and Bella smiled at the thought. It had sounded beautiful in the books, and the thought of seeing Rose in the sun was very tempting. If it made Edward look beautiful in the books, it would be a religious experience with Rosalie.

"I'd be up for that." She turned back to look at her vampires and wondered at Emmett's smug little smile.

"Have you ever been to a tropical place?" Rosalie asked and Bella frowned as she considered how little she really had done in her last life.

"No, never." Bella sighed. "I never went anywhere."

"We'll fix that." Rosalie gave her a small smile with that promise.

"Truth or Dare? Anyone up for that?" Emmett asked and his smile made Bella cautious.

"I can't compete with you two." She told him quickly, but he leaned forward.

"I think we can keep the dares to something you can do too. Come on, it's dark and we're in a hot tub. Doesn't that give you any ideas?" His teasing was far too sexual and Bella blushed.

"Emmett!" Rosalie's tone was scolding and commanding. Bella knew there was more said, but it was so fast and so quiet she didn't catch any of it. What she did get was that Emmett was in trouble, and that somehow, based on Rose's body language, she felt guilty about it. Bella felt awkward even being in the hot tub as the quiet conversation went on for what felt like a while, but could probably be timed to less than a minute. Bella decided in that less than a minute that she might try and go to bed early if it looked like Emmett and Rosalie needed time to talk for much longer.

"So, you have any more of those Anita Blake books?" Rosalie spoke while leaning back, making an apparent effort to relax again.

"No, you guys have read everything I have." Bella shook her head. "She'll write more, she never stops, but we have to wait for them now."

"Alice told us it was the zombies and the werecreatures you focused on, but you were just pretending not to notice the vampires in the stories, weren't you?" Rosalie asked her.

"Really, you pretended to not even notice fictional vampires?" Emmett asked before Bella could answer.

"It seemed safer to seem oblivious than appear to have an unhealthy obsession with vampires. Oblivious gets a few odd looks, but if I acted like I read those books all the time it would make you all a nervous wreck." Bella explained. "I read some vampire stories, I don't hunt them all down, and I read a lot of other things, but I do read them."

"They are full of bullshit." Emmett pointed out.

"Sure, but even full of bullshit, you can't say Anita Blake was boring." Bella grinned, she knew they'd all been reading her books. She'd caught them all at different times, even Esme had one of the books in her car when she came to get Bella for their trip to the Home Show last weekend.

"You told Alice you liked the succubus aspect." Rosalie spoke up. "Did you know succubi are real? They are female vampires with a slight variation in their makeup."

"Really?" Bella was a bit surprised, this hadn't really come up in the books at all.

"We have family of a sort, and three of them are succubi." Rosalie told her and Emmett was just stretching out and listening. "It's so rare, but they were all turned by the same woman, and it's something passed down by females. It takes an inclination towards that in the human being turned, and in the vampire turning them, so I'd guess there are less than twenty succubi in the world today, because the odds aren't favoring that at all. I only know about the three for sure."

"And yes, what you assume about succubi are right." Emmett smirked. "They got to have it."

"That's pretty interesting, but why are you telling me?" Bella asked them both.

"You said you didn't know what being a vampire meant." Rosalie spoke slowly, it looked a bit painful for her actually. "You should at least know. After knowing vampires exist, there is no point in hiding the details." Rosalie told her and shared a look with Emmett as she did it. "It isn't a life for everyone, there are drawbacks that I never would have agreed to if I'd had a choice, but Emmett reminded me that what I saw as the biggest drawbacks aren't things you are even concerned about."

"Are you offering?" Bella was stunned and she couldn't imagine how different this was then she'd expected. In the story, that Bella never got Rosalie's blessing, but then that girl never even asked a single hard question, and never got any answers. How could she make a decision when Edward worked so hard to keep her ignorant? Edward even managed to keep this Bella ignorant of so much, because they never talked about anything really, truly, important like this.

Rosalie sighed. "I can't say I'd do it if you asked. I don't know if I could. It's so hard for me Bella, so very hard to imagine doing that to someone who isn't dying, someone who has options. On top of that, I've never tasted human blood, I don't know if that helps or hurts my ability to turn anyone. That said, I can live with telling you more of what being a vampire means, I'd be so selfish to deny you that."

"Thank you." Bella spoke softly, and tried to ignore the sting in her eyes as she also tried to control herself from moving across the hot tub to hug Rosalie. Bella had no idea if she wanted to be a vampire, it was very likely she'd decide she wouldn't want it, but Rosalie was the last vampire, other than Edward, that she thought would even offer this much.

Before it was time for her to go to bed Bella learned some interesting facts she'd never heard before. Animal drinking vampires hunted about once every other week, if they made sure to hunt well when they did it. Human drinkers could go longer, but almost never did. Human blood made them stronger, but animal blood made the Cullens more able to live like a family and to blend in a bit so they could have a house and not be nomadic. Rosalie and Emmett confirmed that the venom burned their throats when they got hungry, that it was painful when that happened, and it happened more often than Bella knew. Bella's scent was a lot stronger and better than the other humans and being around her was harder, but they still wanted her around in spite of that. They told her not to worry about it, and that it was getting easier with time. Bella learned more in a half hour conversation just about their diet and things related to it than she had in four books.

…

Emmett Pov

Bella was showering again, a brief rinse off before getting ready to sleep and Emmett was still sitting in the hot tub, watching Rosalie stare into the cabin, toward the closed bathroom door. "I'm not going to sleep with her tonight Emmett, I can see you thinking about it." He wasn't sure how she 'saw' that when she wasn't looking away from the bathroom. "Small steps, time for you to change your mind." Rosalie looked over at him and he didn't like the pain in her eyes.

"I won't change my mind Rose. It really is okay. I want you to have her. It'll take up some of our time, and things may change, but we're strong Rose. Our marriage is really strong and I think we can do this." He smiled at her, the most charming smile he could, "But I do think if this works she will have to do her fair share of playing the pack mule when you and Alice go shopping." He knew that wasn't likely at all, he was much larger than Bella, but it did surprise a light laugh out of Rose so it worked.

"She might not even be interested." Rosalie's eyes moved to the cabin windows again, and he could see the tension in her. "I'm married and she knows it Emmett. How can I explain my interest without sounding like a heartless bitch? She loves you, she won't want to hurt you. If she didn't have a problem with it she wouldn't be the woman I think she is."

"If you want I could ask her to date my wife, would that make it easier?" Emmett offered, but he knew he'd have a hard time making Bella believe he wasn't joking if he had to do it.

"No, no," Rosalie sighed heavily. "But I'm sure you'll need to talk to her at some point, I don't want her to think I'm some faithless floozy." Rosalie looked over at him and he could see some determination growing in her eyes. "I'm going to start out really slow with her, I won't even call it dating . I'm going to get to know her in a new way, consider her for more, to make sure this is going to work, because Emmett, this could turn into a disaster if we don't do it right. We could hurt her so badly." Her voice grew quieter. "We could lose her." He could hear the pain that thought gave Rose in the shakiness of her voice and he moved to slid up next to her and wrapped an arm around her. "I'm such a bad wife, you deserve better."

"No, Rosie, you're perfect. Perfect for me and perfect for her." Emmett reassured her again. She'd said this before, earlier tonight. "I'm the one that brought it up Rose, you can't feel guilty when I'm the one that wants to share. I know you will both be happier and that makes me happier. I love her too, you know."

"If you ever plan to change your mind, you need to say it now Emmett." Rosalie spoke softly, her hand gripping his arm. "Because I'm not going to turn her into a little trick on the side that I can drop as soon as you think it isn't fun anymore. Did you even think about that? Once she's in, Emmett, she's there to stay, whether it's for her human life or for longer still. If it works out, if she accepts and it works, you won't have me to yourself anymore, ever."

Rosalie's warning was more than enough of a hint that his Rose was already in love with his Bella Bear. Rose was seeing a long future here. Emmett sighed and leaned down to kiss her forehead softly. He hadn't thought of it in those terms, but he hadn't considered this an experiment either. "When she's yours, when she can finally show you how she feels and she's yours in every way you'd want her, if she ever wanted me would you let her?" He stared into Rose's confused eyes. "Would you deny her anything?" He could see he wasn't clear enough, because Rose still looked lost as to what he was saying. "How could I deny you anything? Loving a woman is different Rose, and I guess you'll see that now. It is so hard to deny the woman you love anything. There may be times when this is inconvenient, and I know some people will think I'm an idiot, a pushover, not a real man, especially when they realize I don't have 'two' women, but that I'm sharing my one. It may be hard at times, but Rosie, I don't think I'll ever regret it. Not as long you both are happy." He caressed her hair and kissed her lips softly. "Get over your guilt Rosie and get to happy. I don't want your guilt."

"You are so good to me, but you have to be sure Emmett, you have to positive." Rosalie pleaded with him and he nodded that he understood and he was. "I'm going to go slow, and I'm going to tell you when it's too late for you to change your mind. If it happens, if you change your mind you have to do it before I tell you it's too late."

"Okay, I promise." He saw nothing less would work to reassure her. He smiled just a little. "So what makes it too late? Making love?"

"I'm not sure I'll be capable of making love to her Emmett, and I'll not rush something that could be too dangerous. No, it will be too late when I can't imagine living without her, that will be too late Emmett." Rosalie told him, her voice deeper and more determined than she'd sounded earlier. Emmett didn't bother making bets as to how long he had to make up his mind now, because he thought he'd have a month or two at most, even with her determined to go slow with Bella, so slow Bella wouldn't even notice it at first.

If anyone could keep it slow it would be Rosalie. Her self control was amazing, and it was because of that he thought it would work. It would all work.