Edward's POV

I held Bella's hand all the way up to my room. It was the first time she'd have seen it since the night of her birthday party, just before I'd lied to her face and left her in the forest. I had no idea what the memories that room held would do the fragile grasp she had on her emotions right now. I did know that whatever happened, I wasn't going anywhere.

Never again.

Pausing with my hand on the door knob, I looked over at her, wanting to make sure this was what she wanted. At her nod, I turned the knob and opened the bedroom door, revealing a sparsely furnished, but clean room. I realized immediately that Alice must have cleaned away the dust and opened the windows to air out the musty smell, as she had for the rest of the house.

"It...feels so empty," Bella said in a hushed voice. "No music, nothing on the walls or shelves."

She was right. It felt empty, except for...

"The couch," I said, pulling her over to it after gently closing the door behind us. "That's the only thing left. Everything else got packed."

"That's right," she murmured. "No bed."

"No..." I said, drawing the word out. "I've never needed one...before."

We settled onto the black leather couch, which faced the wall of windows.

"It's so beautiful out there," Bella said as she looked out into the sunlight. "I never... I mean, I knew it was pretty, with all the trees and stuff, but..."

"It's different now," I finished for her. "Yes."

She was settled against my side, turned sideways on the couch and tucked under my arms. Her fingers were lightly running over my arm, down to my hand, and around each digit before making their way back up to my elbow. It was like flames licking at my skin with every touch.

We were quiet a while, just listening to the quiet chatter of my family downstairs and the birds and other animals outside.

"What do you want for the future?" Bella asked suddenly. She was careful to keep her voice even and calm, but I could sense the underlying tension in not only her words, but her body, as she stilled and stiffened beside me. "Sorry, sorry," she huffed with a shake of her head and a nervous laugh. "I told myself now wasn't the time for that discussion. It just...came out. You don't have to answer."

I took a minute to answer, knowing from her reaction to her own blurted-out question just how important this was to Bella. "The easy answer to that," I started slowly, "is I want to be wherever you are, love. I meant it when I said I was never leaving you again. It was the biggest mistake in my long existence when I left you before. I don't plan on making that same mistake again." Reaching over, I held her hand as surely as she held my heart and met her gaze with my own. "Until you send me away, my place is right beside you."

For a brief moment, a flash of pure love shone in her eyes, but then her vision clouded and she pulled pulled away.

"A-And the hard answer?" she asked, her voice shaky. "What if... God, what if Alice is right and I d-don't have to l-leave Lizzie?"

I scooped Bella up and pulled her onto my lap so she was straddling me, holding her face gently, but firmly in the palms of my hands. My thumbs caressed her cheeks, moving slowly, as if I were wiping away non-existent tears.

"Then I'll be there however you want me to be for Elizabeth, for as long as you allow," I said firmly.

She lowered her eyes, looking anywhere but at me, as she whispered, "You won't c-care that she's...that her father was a r-ra—"

I shook my head, interrupting her before she could force out that ugly word. "Bella, she's your daughter. Yours," I said firmly. "I already love her because of that. Who the donor was is of no consequence to me. If you'll allow it, I will be the best father your precious little girl could have."

With that declaration, Bella threw herself forward, pressing her lips to mine before I could make a sound. Her fingers tangled in the hair at the base of my neck, and she pressed her chest to mine, whimpering as her tongue darted out to trace my lips.

It took me less than a second to catch up, and I opened my mouth, allowing her entrance. As our tongues began to dance, I slipped my hands up the back of her shirt, desperate to feel her skin. The moment I touched her, she whimpered and rolled her hips above me, brushing her center against my erection through my jeans.

"Oh, God," she moaned softly into my mouth, repeating the motion with her hips.

"Bella," I murmured, echoing her moan.

"Take it off," she gasped, moving one hand to her shirt. "I want to feel you."

Her voice was begging, pleading. I knew there was no way I could resist her, so I pulled her away from me, silencing her with a quick kiss when she began to protest.

My hands went to the hem of her shirt, and I pulled it up and over her head in one smooth motion. She wasn't wearing a bra, so her breasts—just the perfect size for my hands—were immediately on display. Her nipples were a beautiful dusky pink, not too big, and just begging to be touched...licked.

With one more look at a nearly panting Bella, I slid my hands up her sides and around her front, cupping her breasts and feeling the weight of them in my palms.

"I've never..." I started, embarrassed to admit that this was the first time I'd touched a woman's breasts before.

Looking at me with so much want and need in her eyes that it nearly made me come right that moment, Bella moved her hands to mine and slowly...achingly slowly...squeezed, until I was massaging her flesh gently. Then, with a whimper, she closed our thumbs and forefingers around her nipples, showing me how to roll them between my fingers.

When I tried it on my own, she whimpered and rolled her hips again, pulling a groan from both of us.

She gripped my shirt and tugged. "More, Edward!" she pleaded, throwing the tattered remains of my shirt to the floor.

Looking at the pale skin of her throat, leading to the smooth, plump flesh of her chest, hardened me even more. I thrust my hips up as my lips descended, intent on kissing every inch of that creamy skin.

Just before I reached the peak of her breast, there was a pounding on the door to the bedroom, and my sister's mental and verbal voice finally penetrated the "Bella haze" I was engulfed in.

Edward Anthony Masen Cullen! Stop right now! If you go any further, Bella's not going to react well!

She immediately showed a flash of Bella having a panic attack—no, worse than a panic attack. She pushed herself off me, crying and shaking, sounding absolutely terrified, and jumped out the window, running off into the forest toward Forks.

"Break it up, you two," Alice called out teasingly for Bella's benefit. "At this rate, I'm gonna have to go shopping before tomorrow!"

I slowly lowered my hands, moving them around to Bella's lower back and pulling her against my chest before dropping a kiss to her shoulder.

"Sorry, love," I murmured. "Thank you, Alice."

Bella groaned, shaking her head. "She saw everything, didn't she?"

I chuckled. "She did."

I was debating whether or not to tell Bella about Alice's vision, when Alice thought to me again.

Yes, you should, she said in her head. She needs to know just as much as you do about that. If she finds out later that you knew, she won't like it.

I wondered for a moment if she'd seen a vision of that, too.

No. I just know Bella. Tell her, Edward. You guys need to talk about it.

I cleared my throat and pulled back, picking her shirt up from the floor and tugging it over her head. "Love," I said softly, "we need to talk."

Bella stiffened and tried to scramble off my lap, but my arms locked around her, holding her in place. As a newborn, she was prone to overreaction, and I knew I needed to explain before she became even more upset.

"Alice...had a vision, Bella," I said, so quiet that no one downstairs couldn't hear.

She stopped struggling and chewed on her lower lip for a second, before asking, "Of?"

I explained about the vision of Bella's reaction had we gone any further, and with every word, Bella's face fell even more. By the end, she'd curled up on my lap and was still.

"Am I ever going to be back to normal?" she asked quietly. "I mean, it's been almost a year. I shouldn't have that reaction still."

I stroked the skin of her arm softly, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "It's been almost a year, but...this is the first time you've been...intimate since, correct?"

She nodded, burrowing her face in my bare chest. "He...was my first and only."

I felt a rush of hatred toward the animal who'd taken her virginity and her sense of well-being, and my desire for revenge started rising in my veins as quickly as my venom. But I couldn't think about that now. I had far more important things to deal with.

Calming myself, I continued to stroke her skin delicately, tenderly.

"Combine that with the stress of everything happening right now and the worry over Lizzie, and..." I let my voice trail off as I kissed the top of her head again. "Give it time, love. There's no rush."

Bella nodded again, sighing. "Thanks, Alice," she murmured just loud enough for my sister to hear her, holding me tight as she tried to relax.

We sat together in my room for hours, only speaking every few minutes. Bella explained how she'd caught her foot on the floorboard in her room, which had come loose again, when she was about four months pregnant. She must have seen my disgust at myself that I hadn't secured it better, because she'd assured me that she hadn't fallen. She'd also said that she'd never been more glad to be clumsy, because it had given her a piece of me back when she'd desperately needed it. I'd had no response to that, other than to hold her closer.

Most of the day after the wolves left was spent just like that—Bella on my lap, the two of us staring out into the woods, worrying, wondering... Neither of us was sure of the future at the moment. It all depended on what Tanya and Kate found in Romania and how Bella handled the next few visits to Charlie's house.

At one point, Carlisle had come into the room and updated us on that situation.

~*~FC~*~

"Come in, Carlisle," I said softly before he could knock.

Bella curled up more on my lap and looked up as Carlisle came in and stood just inside the door.

"Hi, Bella," he said softly, smiling at her. "How are you, sweetheart?"

She shrugged. "I'm okay."

"Is there news?" I asked him, unable to get a clear reading on his thoughts.

He nodded slowly. "Eleazar was able to get in touch with Tanya. She and Kate are on their way to Romania now."

Seeing the apprehension in his eyes, I said, "Tanya and Kate... Not Irina?"

"No," he answered. "Irina is...upset right now that her mate was killed."

"Her mate?" Bella asked, sitting up a bit.

I frowned, hating to bring all of this up, but I knew it was unavoidable. "Laurent."

"Laurent was Irina's mate?" Bella asked, sitting all the way up then. "I mean, I knew he'd gone up there, but I guess I didn't realize he and Irina had become a couple. But...he..." She shook her head, like she was trying to process the new information.

"Yes, well, Irina claims he was her mate—even if he left and took up with Victoria again. She refused to go to Romania," Carlisle explained.

It was then he let some of his thoughts slip. Eleazar had told him Irina had said some some rather unpleasant things about Bella and that it would be a cold day in hell before she went out of her way to help the woman who had gotten her mate killed—and by extension, us.

I growled softly at her audacity.

"What?" Bella asked, looking over at me nervously.

Carlisle looked apologetic as he told her the things Eleazar had relayed to him.

"And now she's angry at your family?" Bella frowned. "I'm so sorry," she said softly, looking down at her lap. "I don't mean to get in the middle of everyone like that."

~*~FC~*~

Bella was feeling extremely guilty, even though we'd both told her repeatedly that it wasn't her fault—that it was no one's fault but Laurent's. I hoped that over time, she would realize we'd only spoken the truth.

The sun had set and the stars were out the next time our little bubble of peace and alone time was interrupted.

"Bella?" Esme said softly, poking her head in. "Alice said now would be a good time to go to Charlie's, if you'd like. I would like to go, if you're all right with that."

Bella looked up and smiled at the woman who'd become like a second mother to her before—and who hoped to fill that position again.

"Of course, Esme," she said with a smile. "I would like that."

Esme took a step into the room and held out a T-shirt. "Alice said you needed this, Edward," she told me with a knowing look.

Bella looked like she wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out, and I knew if she'd been human still, her face would've been a lovely shade of pink.

"Thanks," I told Esme, squeezing Bella's waist. "We'll meet you all downstairs."

Esme smiled and closed the door behind her as she left the room.

"Ready, love?" I asked, kissing her temple softly.

She nodded and slid off my lap, straightening her clothes as I pulled on the new T-shirt. Once I was dressed, she took my hand, and together, we walked down the stairs to meet the group going with us to Charlie's.