Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight.

I woke up panting.

I was gripped with panic again though I had no idea why. I never did. It was just something that happened. My thoughts raced, my heart pounded. I felt dizzy, as though I couldn't grasp my bearings on what was reality. It was the worst feeling, the same feeling I had lived with for most of my life. When I was little, I used to sit in bed at night and think about everything. About how I would die one day, how I was growing ever older, how maybe I would never do anything great, never fall in love or go on an adventure. I would sit with bleary eyes, staring at the ceiling, but I never cried. Anxiety was too numbing to allow that. So, I lived my life on this precipice, always waiting with baited breath to go tumbling over the edge.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to breath. I found my hand slipping over the side of the bed in search of my bag, but I didn't find it. Instead, I found the warmth of another person.

My eyes shot open, my breath catching. But, this time, when I shot up in bed, I was met by Edward's arms. He pulled me to him, still half-asleep, and kissed along my jaw, up to my nose and then my forehead. I worked to steady my breathing. I had forgotten that I'd stayed the night with him. It all seemed so surreal.

I laid there in his arms for a while as he fell back to sleep, his breath returning to its even pattern, his heart beating steadily against my hand. Our clothes were discarded on the floor at the end of the bed, our bare skin pressed flush with one another. I watched him, the way his lips parted slightly every time he inhaled, the way his Adam's apple quivered when he swallowed, the way his eyelashes fluttered ever so slightly. I noticed a slight five-o'clock shadow developing in little auburn tufts against his pale skin.

He was beautiful.

I was absolutely terrified.

I felt my breathing speeding up again and quickly slipped out of Edward's grip, making my way quickly to the kitchen where I had left my bag near the front door. Shuffling through the plethora of random shit I had stocked in there, I frantically emptied my bottle of Valium into my palm and counted out my new, higher dosage. I had never felt this way before. After swallowing my pills dry, I plopped down on the cold linoleum, still completely naked, and sighed, looking up at Edward's motionless form. My chest felt tight. I was almost nauseous, but not quite. My hands were shaking. I was scared. What had I done? What did this mean? I didn't know how to feel—not about the sex or the man, or the fact that I had become entirely absorbed by him.

For a moment, I considered getting dressed and leaving before he awoke. I didn't have any classes today so there was no reason for me to stay. I could go home, go back to my normal life and forget all about the ridiculously frightening emotion that was settling in my chest. Before all this had happened, my life had been so safe, so predictable. I had a routine and realistic expectations for my life. But, since I had met Edward, everything had been on tilt. Every day had become an opportunity for a new interaction between us and I knew it wouldn't end if I stayed.

This brought me to an entirely new line of questioning.

What if all of this, everything that I had with him, ended?

Logic told me that none of this could end well. I had jumped into bed with the first man I had ever met with whom I shared the kind of sexual tension I had always believed was a complete fantasy. I had never believed someone could make me feel so needy and desperate, but Edward did. If and when it was all over, how would I move on from that?

"Bella?" I heard him mumbled in his pillow, his voice deep and gravelly.

I jumped up quickly, scampering to where my clothes were splayed in a messy, inside out pile on the dingy beige carpet.

"Are you leaving?"

When I looked up, halfway through the process of pulling my tights back on, I was met with concerned eyes. Edward looked almost hurt and the sight crushed me.

"Um...I..." I didn't know what to say. How could I explain to him that my system of self-preservation had reached DEFCON 1 and that I had been planning to flee the premises before things got any more serious?

"Do you have somewhere you need to be? I can walk you if you want?"

I paused, trying to figure out what I should say. It was impossible to think about leaving when he looked at me that way. As if he would do just about anything to spend a few extra minutes together. How could I say no to him? How could I give that up?

"No. I don't have anywhere to be. I thought you might be busy today and I don't want to be a burden. Plus, I'm sure my mom is probably wondering where I am." I was only partially a lie. I wasn't sure that Edward wanted me to stay, but I was sure Renee hadn't noticed my absence. She never noticed anything.

"Oh..." was all he said. We sat there, eyes locked, for a moment before I finally found my voice.

"Do you want me to stay?" It came out much smaller than I would have liked. Why was I suddenly so intimidated by him?

He looked at me as ifI was crazy, running a hand nervously through his disheveled hair. "Bella, I always want you to stay."

I sighed, more than a little relieved. I slipped my tights back down my leg and crawled up on the bed, plopping down next to him. In all honesty, I was still pretty tired, and now that my meds we kicking in, the irrational anxiety that had been choking me a few moments before seemed to be fading. Maybe it was just psychological, or maybe it was the way Edward treated me. I had never had someone care about me like that. No one ever wondered where I was or when I was coming back. Alice and Rose checked in to make sure I was alive, but that was the extent of it. Edward didn't just want to know about me; he wanted me to be with him, wanted me to give him my time, wanted to give me his. It wasn't because he felt he needed to, not because he was worried about me or because he felt obligated. He liked being with me.

It was mind-blowing.

"Maybe you should call your mom," He mumbled into my hair, wrapping his arms around me again and pulling me into his body. I slipped my legs under the covers and closed my eyes for a moment before responding.

"Renee won't care. I was actually more concerned about wearing out my welcome."

Edward laughed hard, squeezing me slightly and kissing the skin along my hairline. "That's ridiculous, Bella. I've been trying to lure you into my bed for months now. I'm not in any hurry to get you out of it."

I stuck my tongue out at him, wondering for a moment if I had given in too easily. Regardless, it was too late now.

"Renee?" he asked, seemingly suddenly curious. Maybe he thought he had missed something.

"Yeah. That's my mom. Good ol' Renee."

"Ah, cool. I wish my parents let me call them by their first names," he chuckled lightheartedly, but I didn't. There was nothing funny about my relationship with my mother.

"I guess." I agreed halfheartedly. It wasn't very convincing.

"Do you guys not get along or something?"

"Huh." There was no humor in my voice. "We aren't exactly soulmates."

Edward nodded, running his fingers lightly over the skin of my arm, leaving goosebumps in their wake. I loved it when he touched me and I hated that the sensation was being tainted with talk of my mother ilty that I had no idea where she was or what she was doing. We each lived our own separate lives. That was how it was and I had never much questioned it. But what if Bree felt the same way I did? It was somethand her many shortcomings.

"What about your dad?" Edward wondered and I shivered, more from the way his hands grazed my sides than from the actual inquiry itself.

"Uh...he died when I was little. It's just my mom and me...and my little sister."

"Oh," he replied again, not pushing me any farther.

I decided to let him in. I couldn't tell him everything, but I could tell him some things. It was now or never.

"My mom drinks a lot. She has some health problems...like serious ones. I don't think she's handled any of it well...not my dad or her sickness. Bree and I have basically been on our own."

I felt bad that I wasn't closer to my sister. I felt guing I worried about almost every day.

Edward was silent for a moment while he let it all sink in. I felt him tense under me, his chest muscles—the same muscles I had watched flex and twitch as he came undone inside of me—tensed under my hands. "That's why you don't drink?" he asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. I try to stay away from it. I don't like what alcohol does to people. I've seen it with my mom. She's not Renee when she's drunk. She's this other person, especially lately; she's that other person all the time. Actually, I'd never ever drank before recently. It just always seemed so scary to me...like I was gonna turn into Mr. Hyde or something."

Edward nodded tightly, and for a moment, I wondered what was wrong. When I glanced upwards to meet his gaze, he was looking at me, his eyes burning with some emotion I couldn't quite place.

"I'm...I'm really sorry, Bella."

He looked absolutely broken.

"It's okay," I assured him, my hand coming up to cup his cheek. Should he have felt guilty? Maybe a little. But not for causing me to drink. That had been my own decision. The only thing Edward had failed at doing was communicating with me.

"No, it's not. I handled everything between us terribly. I think I was so worried about messing this...whatever it is that he have...I was so worried I would mess it up that I said just about the most stupid shit ever and I hurt you and I didn't mean to do that, Bella. I really didn't."

I nodded. "I know that, Edward. I'm a big girl. The things I do don't have anything to do with you."

Again, Edward was silent.

"But...what if I wanted the things you do to have things to do with me?"

It was such a convoluted sentence, it made me laugh: loudly and uncontrollably.

"Oh, my God, Edward. You're impossible."

"Must you be so coy?" he raised a brow at me and I did the same in return. Edward was hoping to drag some sort of information out of me regarding my feelings for him, but I was resolved to keep my mouth shut. It was all too sudden, too impulsive...too scary.

"Yes, I must."

"Fine," he huffed, making me smile. "But, I'll have you know I have a plan to break you down. It's already in motion. And, since I'm apparently quite sexually irresistible, I'm fairly confident it's going to work."

I shoved him playfully in the arm. "You're such a ridiculous person."

"Yeah, but you love it."

As soon as the word fell from his lips, I froze and so did he. Edward hadn't been expecting it any more than I had, from what I could tell, and it made both of us uncomfortable. What did I say to that? That I did love it? Love him? Because I knew that I very well might. It was the way he smiled, the way he talked, the jokes he told me, the way nothing I said ever seemed to phase him. He was ready for anything. He forgave me. He asked me to forgive him. He was incredible, like no one I had ever met in my entire life.

I admired him. I wanted to be like him. I wanted him.

Did I love him?

Oh, God, what if I was in love with him?

I felt his lips on my cheek, trailing down towards my mouth. When our lips met, I felt the heat rising to my face. The things he did to me... Now that we had been so intimate, now that I knew what it was like to be with him, I couldn't get the image out of my mind. Everything he did, every touch in between, was suddenly overtly sexual. When he looked at me, all I could think about was the way he looked at me when we were making love, (if that's what you wanted to call it). The way his eyebrows scrunched together in concentration, the sounds he made, the way his lips parted slightly as he huffed out laboured breaths. I wanted to do it over and over again. I wanted him to destroy me, lock me up in his apartment and have his wicked way with me. It was all fine by me, because, if I was being honest with myself, there was no part of Edward that I didn't want.

When he rolled me onto my back and pushed inside of me, I lost track of all rational thought.

This was everything.

This was what being alive was like.

I had never felt it until now, never lived it until now. My entire life, I had spent my time wondering why I felt so empty but, at that moment, I knew. I had been waiting for this, waiting for him.

"Oh, Edward. Oh, God..." It was all too much.

"I love this, Bella. I love...ugh..."

I nodded, unable to speak anymore. He thrust into me, faster and faster until I was crying out, probably embarrassing myself, but I didn't care. Let the neighbors hear me. It didn't matter. I wanted this, all of it.

When it was over, Edward held me and told me that he'd thought a lot about what it would be like to be with me since we'd met at the beginning of the semester. I'd laughed and asked him if it had been all that he'd dreamed of.

"More, actually...since I never really thought it was going to happen...at least, not after that first night in the library."

"Hm." I agreed, remembering what he had said to me.

"Quoting 'The Bad Touch' may have been a mistake on my part."

"Ha! You think?"

"Maybe," he told me, grinning like a little kid. We stared at each other, but it wasn't awkward. In fact, I didn't want to look away. I felt so connected to him; as if I could say anything at this moment. I was comfortable: an emotion that usually eluded me. "I guess I made all the right mistakes, though, right?"

I cocked my head to the side in question. "How so?"

"I got the girl in the end, didn't I?" Edward was so sure of himself.

"What makes you think that?"

He didn't say anything, just pressed his lips firmly to mine. I felt his erection against my thigh, and groaning against his mouth, my hands moved up to grip at the little tufts of hair at the nape of his neck.

"You see?" he said, smiling at me. "The lady has been conquered."

And was I ever conquered.