*A/N: Two jobs, school, & my story do not play nice, but I am doing my best to keep going at it. I hope the next few chapters more than makes up for recent lapses in-between my chapter postings.

Chapter Summary: Bella's heart is undecided as other emotions creep in while she and Jacob enjoy each other's company, but their seemingly long friendship status is not set in stone. Jacob pushes very little against the now failing resistance of Bella. Bella soon sees evidence of how her body reacts to Jacob and about the imprint bond, still unbeknownst to her. Can she figure it out on her own finally or are her feelings about Edward still keeping her from seeing the truth?

*Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight. But who cares-I've got Jacob and TL all to myself. Those are wonderful terms I could live with. :-) Couldn't you?

Chapter XXI Title: 'Coming to Terms,' by Carolina Liar

"You are going to love the new house, Bella!" was an understatement. As my mother gushed about the new home and how much fun it would be now that her daughter came to visit her I was actually quite astonished by the curb appeal. On the cul de sac, the bi-level ranch style home had four bedrooms, three and ½ baths, a backyard with pool and backed into the woods. The deck was out back and the balcony facing the front provided modest shade for the three car driveway and garage. All Jacob could do was say, "Wow" and all I wanted to do was beam. I was a girl of modest taste, but my Mom and Phil had truly outdone themselves with making their home their own.

We walked into the loft ceiling living room and my eyes had to take several seconds to adjust to all the incoming light. Phil stated that he had to go out to practice and Renee stayed to give us a short tour of the kitchen and the rest of the house. Jacob was holding a cold-cut ham sandwich as Renee talked and walked, trying to contain her excitement.

"Okay, you guys can fight over which bedroom you two want to share. I couldn't care less."

My foot stopped mid-stride. "Mom, Jacob and I don't—"

"What? Sleep together? Of course not. Not under Charlie's roof, I bet. He's so old fashioned."

Jacob laughed while sputtering bits of sandwich over the floor, with his cheeks redder than I had ever seen them before.

"No. Mom, you don't get it; Jacob and I are really just friends. We don't sleep together at all."

"Fine, dear. That is fine. Then you two can sleep separately. I do not care one way or the other. Just be safe about it. Condoms are in this bathroom and there are some extra in my night stand if you need. Bella, are you on—"

"MOM!"

Jacob dropped the suitcases and the sandwich. He held his stomach and his laughter turned uproarious. "This is too much! You guys are killing me!"

My anger started to fade as I glanced at my mother's innocent face and my best friend's mirth. I was still embarrassed, but at least my mother was comfortable with broaching the subject of me being an adult. Jacob was just being an ass.

I stuttered though I had begun to chuckle a little as well. "Fine, Mom. Okay. Yeah, we got where the 'stuff' is. Thanks a lot."

Renee was happy once more and started talking about the house again. Jacob put his arm around me and whispered, "Don't worry about it. We'll use up a whole box and make water balloons to throw around in the pool when they are not looking. Make 'em think we're sexually depraved by going through the box so fast."

I slapped his chest and pulled back a red stinging palm. At least it wasn't granite.

Renee looked at us for the rest of the afternoon, content on watching Jacob play with my hair or nuzzle my neck. Even her eyes widened as Jacob turned my wrist upright and kissed it affectionately.

Jacob, however, was not completely to blame.

I made everyone pasta for a light late lunch after Jacob's stomach had started to growl a mere hour after his huge sandwich (he even ate what had dropped on the floor during his laughing earlier) and fed him what was left in the serving bowl after everyone was done eating. His hand clasped around my upper arm as I held the bowl and fork to his mouth and I sometimes stabbed him with the fork on purpose when he would lick the fork in an obnoxious way.

"That's it!" I threw the fork in the almost empty bowl. "Feed yourself. I'm going to my mother."

Jacob whined and reached for me while I shook myself free. I ruffled his hair and moved my chair closer to my mother. She smiled as Jacob shrugged and ate what was left in the bowel and then left to see if there was anything left in the kitchen.

Renee stretched her neck to see that he had indeed disappeared into the kitchen and looked at me. She ushered me over to the couch halfway through the dining area and the living room. "Now that we have a few minutes, I wanted to talk to you."

I looked skeptical. I knew Jacob's ears could hear everything that we said, but my mom didn't know that. I shook my head, but she continued anyway.

"Charlie was right. Jacob seems like a really nice guy and so good looking. Bella, he is such a great friend to you. So attentive. So responsive. And to be so young…"

I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could. She couldn't know that Jacob was only technically sixteen with the body of a twenty-five year old. What a gift to be a werewolf, to never be able to age until he stopped phasing on a continuous basis. Everyone was blessed with being stuck at the age they were except for me and it was beginning to annoy me. Jacob and Edward had both been right; I was obsessed with age.

"Yeah, he is a good buddy to me," I swallowed.

"Bella, you and he really do look rather good together. Take it from me; that boy seems to see you as more than a friend—"

"I'm not ready. I mean Edward…not enough time has passed for me to think about someone else like that, yet." My eyes begged for her to drop the subject. I hated that Jacob could hear us. I knew that he could. I couldn't even hear him moving stuff around in the kitchen anymore.

My mother got the hint and looked at me thoughtfully. "Well, that's settled then. I hope you two continue to be friends."

"We will." I was sure of that now. I would have staked my life on it. It seemed unkind to not have Jacob in my life anymore. Even when I had been made at him I had missed him and it had been such a selfless act for him to remain in his wolf-form for so many weeks just to make me more comfortable.

Renee rubbed my hand. "That's good."

"Hey, I'm back. I ate all your mayo. Sorry." Jacob announced as he dropped on the couch next to me, laid his head in my lap, and began to eat more pasta. My arm strayed from under him to play with his hair and the top of his head. Renee and I continued to talk as if he wasn't hanging on our every word.

That same night...

"You sure you guys don't want anything while I go out to the store and then pick up Phil from night practice? I'll be gone for a couple of hours. Sure you don't want to come?" Renee called out while half behind the front door.

I shook my head and Jacob mimicked me while bouncing his knees against mine on the couch. I hit him with a pillow; his knees were hard. "No thanks, Mom. Nothing at all. We're going to watch a movie or something. Maybe walk around the state park or hit Beacon Hills Harbor like you mentioned earlier or something."

"Well don't go without Jacob, Bella," Renee warned. "Charlie told me about all the mishaps you got into."

"Not all, I hope."

Jacob laughed and threw the pillow back at me. "I'll be the best watchdog ever." I giggled at the inside joke and Renee turned to leave.

I got up and walked over to the kitchen counter for junk food. Jacob reeled off directions on how to make a simple bag of popcorn for kicks. As if I would succeed in burning down my mother's home while making food; cooking was not my flaw.

Jacob's warm breath in my ear jump-started my heart. "Popcorn?"

"Check."

"Remote?"

"Check."

"Body oil?"

I looked up from the counter at Jacob before he laughed and backed away.

"Teasing, Bells. I am only teasing."

"It's not too late to kick you out, Jacob. I'll make you run home in your wolf form from here."

"I'm the big bad wolf. I'll just nab little Red Riding Hood and make off with her Ferrari."

I stared at him. "She didn't have a Ferrari."

"She does in my story."

I chuckled. "Then I'll just send you to bed and not to my bed either. I don't care what my mother thinks about us."

"I couldn't take your snoring anyway."

My hands raised to my face. "I snore?'

"No," Jacob admitted. "You breathe heavy though. And you talk in your sleep. A lot."

"Shut up. What do I say?" I flushed with embarrassment for the 100th time that hour.

"Oh the usual: 'Jacob, my love.' 'Jacob, my darling.' 'Jacob, don't leave me.' That kind of thing," he laughed.

I joined in his laughter as I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around his neck. "You'll never leave me, right Jacob?"

"Never." He sounded certain.

"Even if a vampire comes back to suck my blood?" I raised my hands to make "air quotations" in the air, knowing now that vampires do indeed suck your blood.

Jacob scoffed. "I'll kill every last bloodsucker to protect you, Bells. And that includes that thing I fought in Seattle too."

"What was that thing anyway? Do you guys still not know?"

He shook his head.

"When that thing was over me," I began, "I was so calm and submissive. It was like I was ready to die. I was really ready and perfectly comfortable with dying."

"You won't die. Not from that. You're going to die of old age with me."

"You know, I was willing to die for Edward. I wanted to be with him and his family forever. It was the only way I could have continued to exist with them and for everything to still be okay. I wouldn't have to worry about them wanting to kill me. I wouldn't have to have Edward be so careful around me. It would have been easy for us to be together. Like breathing."

Jacob sighed uncomfortably. "That's just it, Bella; you wouldn't have been breathing. You would no longer have been human and we would be enemies, natural enemies. I would have had to hate you. I would have not had a choice."

"You could never hate me, Jacob."

"Not willingly." He glanced down, looking afraid to speak. Jacob's eyes grew unexpectedly hard and dark as he fingered my arm, directly over my vampire scar; one of the few reminders of the world Edward had forced me to forget, but even Edward hadn't been able to take the painful memory of James away.

Edward's ability to suck the venom back out of my blood had been another gift to me, though I hadn't seen it as such at the time; but it had to be a gift. I hadn't been turned that night at the ballet studio, and for once, I was a little grateful. It allowed me to see Jacob for the person that he was; for the special friendship that we shared with each other. Jacob's warm fingers passed over the crescent shaped scar, his eyes blessing and cursing the spot. He had been gazing at it for so long that I had started to feel self-conscious, when he quickly, but gently pulled my arm closer to his neck. Jacob's quiet examination of my arm seemed forgotten. "Never become like them, Bella. Just don't do it. If something happened to you, I would lose my mind. You mean so much to me." He hugged me suddenly, burying his head in my hair. I could hear and feel him inhale while trembling. "You will never be one of them, Bella. I won't let you."

I said nothing. His fingers trailed my lukewarm skin and his lips quivered against my collarbone. I only closed my eyes and touched the back of his neck. I couldn't believe how warm he was getting and how much he seemed to be affecting me. My breathing quickened as I listened to his calm heartbeat, while mine had become more erratic and feverish. His hair moved across my chin as he lifted his head to look at me.

"Did you mean what you said to your Mom?"

I blinked several times. "What? What did I say?"

"About us always being friends?"

I felt a rush of relief. I wasn't sure what answer I would have been able to give if Jacob had asked me to be more than just friends. Jacob was truly too remarkable for me to grasp in its entirety just yet, but he had abruptly become more than just a friend for me. I was now picturing myself with him and with no one else but him. I didn't even want to see a world without him, least of all without him being my friend.

I nodded in answer to his question.

His breathing became even easier. "Good. I would hate to have to phase to wolf form every time you got mad at me," he joked.

"Remember; I did like you better as a dog."

"I don't think my kisses were the same."

I shrugged. "They both had their shares of pros and cons."

"Ouch. I'm that bad of a kisser?" Jacob feigned a hurt expression.

I shrugged again.

Jacob smiled, his lips quickly pecking mine at first and then he kissed me again, holding onto my upper lip. My coherency ceased as his soft tongue rubbed my top lip, outlining each groove and bump. Jacob touched the side of my face, feeling more confident when I didn't push him or his kiss away. His curve-lipped smirk searched to include my bottom lip into his "drawing" pattern as I gasped openly into his mouth. I subconsciously crossed my legs in front of me and his other hand draped carelessly over my thigh as he purposely controlled our breathing during this unexpected episode of bliss. I began to groan in annoyance when he pulled away slowly.

"I missed the way you tasted, Bells," he quietly confessed.

I blushed at the compliment and he kissed the side of my face before he sat back in the couch. "What do you want to watch? I'm kind of in a horror mood. How about the 'Wolf Man?' I love how Hollywood keeps fuckin' up the image of werewolves."

I looked at him in shock. I just wasn't sure if it was more from him cursing or from his easy slip back into normalcy after our kiss. But to be on the safe side, I kept my mouth and eyes closed during the movie anyway.

My eyes weighed down with exhaustion after Renee and Phil got home with the groceries one and a half movies later. Jacob carried all twenty-four bags from the car in one trip. I had to smack him when neither Renee nor Phil was looking and reminded him that they did not know about him being "abnormal." He grinned, gave me his signature line "Sure, sure" and his trademark smile. I allowed my eyes to glance over his entire body and began to feel conflicted. I imagined the way he would feel against me. His chest, his shoulders, his fingertips, and his tongue sent me into a frenzy that I wasn't sure how to control. My excitement at seeing him swing the bags and food over his shoulders to place in the higher cabinets became more noticeable (and embarrassing) when Jacob suddenly sniffed and turned to me.

"Bella, you okay?"

Nodding was my only retort.

"I think Bella is just tired. She had a long day. Right, honey?" My mom placed her hands on shoulders and shook me awake from my small daydream of Jacob kissing me again on the couch.

I could not leap into my bed fast enough after the groceries were packed and I said my goodnights' to my mother, Phil, and Jacob. Oh God, Jacob. I wore a long shirt and panties as my skin felt the soft sheet of 800 count Egyptian cotton against my skin and I began to sigh and moan my favorite name in whole world. I imagined Jacob watching me at the very moment I placed my hand in my bra over my left breast and my other hand down my panties. I was already wet from the anticipation of seeing him smile and his sienna burnt eyes turning toward me in hunger. He wanted me. He needed me. He was only waiting to feel me. He was waiting for me to say the word and admit it freely without shame, worry, or hindrance. No drama from an ex vampire boyfriend. No fear of intimacy from a family friend. No Victoria or Laurent to crash our party suddenly when we were so entwined with each other and only each other.

His name could not be uttered enough from my lips. Jacob's touch would not be removed from my skin. I felt his arms around me, imagined being in them for as long as I dared, for as long as I would not burn. He embodied all the things that I had ever wanted to be and feel with Edward and more and the best part was this: I didn't have to wonder what it would have been like. I didn't have to completely imagine what it would feel like to want him the same way he wanted me. For him to not be afraid to touch me for fear of breaking me, killing me, or maiming me. Oh sure, there were risks involved. Of course he was still a werewolf. But he was mine and he wanted me. I knew he did. And I wanted him. I began to throb and hurt from the intensity as I continued to slip my finger in and out of my womanly folds and rub my nipples as if the very air I breathed would soon be gone with not a moment to spare.

My face burned with frequent colors as I convulsed while underneath the quilt. Tears stung my eyes as my release only added to my fears as well as desire to be with my best friend, to hold him and have him whenever I pleased. Let him hold me, period, lacking repercussions of what the end result would be. I felt time alter without my permission as my hand covered my face and I cried angry sobs into the pillow. I didn't have Edward anymore and I couldn't hurt my best friend by using him as I would indeed have ended up doing. No, not Jacob. Had I not been so selfish, I would have seen the effect of the hurt of my inability to choose one life over the other.

I wasn't meant for anybody.

*A/N: Thanks for reviewing, of course! I will be posting again later this week just in time for Halloween. Hoo-ray!

Plus this chapter was short. My characters are getting antsy and are ruining my six hours of sleep in between work shifts.