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Chapter 17
Emotional Chaos
Edward
Bella was completely relaxed and looked extremely happy and in an easy manner as she squatted next to me on the passenger seat.
The radio was playing 'Walking on Sunshine' (she had gotten stuck on Katrina & The Waves – Walking on Sunshine) on an oldies station during her search. Her bare feet she had pulled humming on the cushion, her knees bobbed in time to it and now and then even a quiet "… Ohohoh ..." slipped out of her.
Inside me it looked completely different.
The most different and most absurd emotions seethed in me. Again and again I looked at her extensively from the side, whereby my heart rose every time with love and joy. In addition, the incredulous bewilderment spread in me that this wonderful creature here with me was really and truly my fiancée. And knowing that I alone was responsible for her elation made another damn good feeling creep up inside me, and I couldn't remember the last time I felt it myself.
It was frequently present in Carlisle's and especially Esmé's thoughts. Whenever one of their children had achieved something special ... But these were typical parental emotions. It was more like Emmett when he once actually managed to beat me at wrestling. Or when Rosalie had managed - even before all the car manufacturers - to get 400 horsepower out of an engine and the vehicle had even subsequently survived the first test drive!
Yes, I was proud - we were still a long way from our goal, but I had really outgrown myself last night. Never would I have thought I could muster the self-control and really push her that far.
Some reproaches were seething up inside me, of course, because there were a few moments of which I had only stored pure perception in my memory. Her intoxicating scent - my personal aphrodisiac, which had intensified immeasurably with her rising arousal ... in my nose, on my tongue, in my lungs - until it filled me completely. In that respect, it had been a mistake not to hold my breath. But the constant burning in my throat had also always been an anchor for my mind to resist the blood pulsing ever faster and more tantalizingly. The way her tender and so incredibly soft body lay beneath me. In addition, her warmth, which flowed through me more and more, until I had the feeling to glow myself. Everything far from conscious control.
It had been truly borderline - and I hadn't had twelve attempts like Rose to test whether or not she would come through it unscathed ...
I couldn't say which night had demanded more strength, discipline, and overcoming from me ... The last or the first night in her room, in which I had watched her while sitting in the rocking chair and desperately tried to get used to her smell - or even our very first biology lesson together ... in which I had almost attacked her and at the same time wanted to make the whole class including the teacher harmless.
She really deserved a reward - if only because of her patience with me. So I had spent the whole afternoon of yesterday thinking of what I was willing to give her. In the end, such clothed lovemaking – 'dry-humping' ... as Emmett would say - had seemed the most innocuous to me. It left many variations open and I wouldn't really have to take it a step further, such as confronting myself with her bare skin ...
I thought. I had enough theories in my newly sorted drawer - but the hardcore reality looked - respectively smelled above all - sounded and felt nevertheless a lot more overwhelming. Vampire sensitivity had really been no advantage for me in this case ...
At the beginning I had still tried to distract at least my hearing from her pulsating singing blood and focused it purposefully outward. But right in front of the house, under a bush, a pair of hedgehogs had been busy. Again and again it amazed me how such a small animal was capable of such loud snorting and groaning. When a rutting neighbour came home who had been getting horny at work with the new issue of Playboy and was now attacking his TV-watching wife, I preferred to retreat again. I did not want to follow this bizarre spectacle of advanced married life, in which he had only the plump silicone breasts of some blonde nude model in front of his eyes and she focused on the young actor from the film.
However, when Bella suddenly smelled of adrenaline, moved under me and her undisguised blood smell catapulted me almost unchecked from sex drive into hunting mode, I was in my right mind again.
This reaction of my intense love for her, which had now apparently already become a reflex, calmed and strengthened me immensely. I actually managed for the first time not to flee immediately. I did not want to just leave her behind again, disappointing her wishes – and me too. Because slowly my male pride began to stir and kick me in the butt … I didn't need to present any more embarrassments for Emmett's entertainment.
The corrosive flames in my chest gave me the support and assurance of being able to comply with the unambiguous request of her hips, and quickly made the flaring concern of having hurt her fade away.
If only I had known what was in store for me.
At first, it had been exceedingly liberating to be able to give in to the eager urging of my own loins. In addition, there was the satisfaction of feeling that I was able to apply the necessary, abstractly logged handles and movements quite skillfully ... Or at least achieve the desired effect. Absolutely controlled, dosing my strength, holding my breath, and thinking only of her, I had driven her to orgasm.
On the one hand, I had to smile about her effort to be quiet, but on the other hand I was very grateful to her for it. Because if the mating sounds of a hedgehog already threw me off track, I didn't want to know what would have happened if she had continued to moan in my ear. The one time had already been enough. When she finally, out of sheer amazement at the independent uninhibited reactions of her body, had also bumped her forehead against my nose, I had to stifle an unmanly giggle. Afterwards she lay in my arm, panting and exhausted, and fell asleep as quickly as never before.
And I ... I made the mistake of inhaling.
In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined that her smell could have increased in intensity and seductive attraction. Her sweat-covered and afterglowing skin, together with the cocktail of hormones in her blood and the spilled attractants of her arousal, made me feel almost dizzy - me, a vampire - and increased the unpleasant throbbing in my pants almost to unbearable levels.
The first reflex was to immediately hold my breath again and try to ignore the raging emotions. Once again, I lay frozen on the bed with a peacefully slumbering Bella in my arms, fighting the superhuman needs within me.
But the memory of what I had just experienced and witnessed was just too fresh, and the urge to rub myself against her sleeping body like a pervert was becoming more and more insuppressible. The desire felt so wrong ...
That's when she shivered and I noticed her goosebumps, which strengthened my conscience immensely in the intention to detach myself from her and wrap her in her warm blanket. So it came about that I lay next to her and finally the masochistic part in me won out, which urged me to harden myself, to get used to it, in order to be able to give her the greatest possible security in the future.
The idea was perhaps logically quite sensible, but the devastating side effect was that my great enemy did not calm down at all and increasingly painfully demanded attention. Even Seth's abstract sweaty feet had no chance against the emotional inferno and the resulting flood of images in me, so that I finally took a hand to myself and poured myself in a striking brevity growling into my boxer shorts.
It seemed to me like a defeat. Although physically relieved - but not really satisfied. I couldn't help but see it as weakness, or comprehend the attitude of my brothers - and most men - was impossible for me. Self-control was everything to me. Even more so since Bella's life depended on it - especially in sexual interaction. How soberingly easy it would be for me to squeeze off her air or a crucial main artery in a careless moment, to inflict internal injuries by an unconsciously too forceful movement, or to wreck her pelvis - or worse - her spine by an uncontrolled, too strong thrust. Her body was simply far too delicate and fragile in contrast to my irrational hardness and strength. All of this only made it harder for me to draw that fine dividing line as to which impulses I could safely follow. If that would ever change. After our first time, perhaps? Provided I really should manage to get that far - successfully, of course.
At that moment, Bella pulled my hand to her lips with a radiant smile and instantly the doubts that were once again bubbling up were displaced by my new self-confidence. I had no choice but to reciprocate her expression of love, whereupon she leaned against my shoulder and placed our entwined fingers on her thigh.
I knew again for what I was enduring it all - my life, my universe, my Bella.
And quiet hope prevailed for the rest of the hour-long drive to our destination.
The Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort was located in a spacious clearing of a sweeping valley that stretched deep into the mountains of the Olympic National Park.
Surrounded by the typical, dark green wooded mountain slopes, the facility awaited us on a well-kept lawn.
Not too far away, I heard the roar of waterfalls, the gurgle of hot springs and numerous streams.
At the edge, discreetly spaced, were the wooden bungalows that could be rented as vacation accommodation.
Somewhat in the background, but easily accessible from all sides, stood a larger flat log house in traditional country style, the architecture of which was certainly debatable. It housed not only an inn, which was open to the public, but also the reception area, where you had to pay an entrance fee and received a key bracelet in return.
In a park-like central location, with many trees and shrubs in between, the swimming pools were visible.
Two large ones with cool water to be able to properly swim lanes, from which a chlorine smell - almost imperceptible to humans - flowed towards me and bit my nose.
But after the fateful scents of the previous night, this distraction was most welcome to me.
As well as five round pools of various sizes, from which the warm thermal water rose clouds of steam of varying density.
Tucked away a bit on the outskirts, near the main building, was a series of lockers, single locker rooms and larger cubicles ...
And an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach set out to give me an explanation as to why Alice had already packed everything for us this morning, without even giving us the chance to put on our swimsuits underneath ...
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