Hello, everyone!

I loved your reactions after last week's chapter, it was a delight to go through all the reviews. I didn't get to respond to everyone yet, but I am getting there ;).

Thank you all for taking the time to share your thoughts, it means a lot, and huge thanks to CoppertopJ for being an amazing beta!

Bella was having a bad dream.

I knew it because her breathing pattern had changed.

I couldn't see her face, as it was still buried in my chest, where she fell asleep crying. The night was unnervingly calm all around us, save for the suddenly shallow breaths she was taking. It had been a little longer than three hours since she dozed off, and midnight was getting closer and closer.

Throughout these hours, she remained still in my arms, never once moving. It had been too long since I was last able to hold her like this, so I had been reveling in this wonder while she was sleeping soundly, knowing it would not last. She felt so small and frangible against the firmness of my body, which made me all the more willing to keep her protected at all costs. Protected from the creatures that were awake late at night, protected from every soft gust of wind, protected from my desires.

But there was no protection in her dreams—that was the one place where I could not simply reach out and snatch her away.

So I listened anxiously, wishing to gain access to her mind.

It didn't take long for her hitched breaths to turn into ragged words.

"Not again…" she groaned. "No… not again…please… no."

A sense of panic started to spread through my limbs, hot and fierce. My fingers tangled in Bella's locks, as I tried to pull her away tenderly, to glance at her face.

"No… no… not again… no," she repeated, growing more restless in my embrace.

"Bella?" I whispered, unsure of the gentlest way to wake her up.

"Please, don't… not again…"

I managed to separate our bodies to an extent—enough to see her face again. Whatever she was dreaming of, it was causing her to frown intensely. Uncertain of my next steps, I tried to smooth out the dimple between her eyebrows, only to discover that it didn't work.

"Bella." My voice was firmer this time. She twitched, so I insisted. "Bella, wake up."

Her eyelids trembled, struggling between worlds, then finally opened. For several seconds, I recognized the sequence of emotions dancing in them: fear, confusion, and—the strangest of them all—relief.

"You're here."

"I'm here," I assured her.

"And… you haven't left."

"Of course I haven't." I brushed off a stray strand of hair that had fallen on her face, allowing my palm to overstay its welcome on her cheek. "You can go back to sleep now."

She leaned into my touch, her eyes wide and pleading. "Edward?"

"Yes?"

"Don't leave."

"I told you, I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."

"No… no, I mean don't leave. Ever."

There was an intensity in her tone that had not been there half a minute ago, which made me understand the weight of that last word in a different way.

The weight of what she was really asking.

My voice was defeated when I talked; I could already feel the incoming argument bubbling and I was convinced that neither of us was ready for it. "Bella… you know I can't do that."

"I need you here."

"No, you don't. You've got Jacob."

"Would you stop bringing him up already?"

"He is your fiancé."

"I know exactly what he is," she grumbled.

"Then this conversation is entirely pointless. And as far as I'm concerned, it's also over."

"The conversation is over because you say so?" She yanked herself away from my touch, raising on one elbow. And for the first time in a long time, I saw the wrong kind of fire dancing in her eyes. "Because that's how things go in your world, don't they? You make the decisions, no one else. Just as long as you're happy. Screw what anyone else might feel or want, right?"

"You don't know a single thing. If my decisions involved my potential happiness, my life would look a hell of a lot different right now."

Bella shook her head and she appeared to be considerably more awake now than she had been one minute ago.

"Believe me, you wouldn't know happiness if it hit you in the face, Edward."

My eyes narrowed upon hearing her spirited remark. The questions she uttered to me right before falling asleep came back to spite me. "At least I don't have to ask anyone whether I'm happy when I am perfectly capable of realizing on my own that I am not," I snapped back.

Bella squinted at me in return, but she didn't seem surprised that I chose such a dirty way to fight back. "Oh, no, I'd say you are pretty content with yourself."

"Do you think I'm content with myself? Bella, I've been alive for a century and I can tell you one thing for certain: I've never been more miserable in my entire life than I am right now. I've never wished for perdition the way that I've been wishing for it since our paths diverged. If there was a way for all these decades I've lived through to alter my brain in some capacity, at least there would be oblivion. The sweet bliss of lunacy that comes with old age and all that. But no, I am cursed to an existence of desolation, of never moving on, of—"

"You chose that damn curse! You chose it, no one else." She didn't understand. She didn't understand at all. Was it really all in vain? The pain, the break-up, the failed attempt to be friends and nothing more? It had to be since all of these things only contributed to carving a deeper wound in both of us. "You don't get to complain. I never had a choice, but you did and—"

"For God's sake, I made that choice for you!" My voice raised one octave and I instantly regretted it, but it was too late to take back my outburst.

"I never asked you to make choices for me."

I took a deep breath, this time making an actual effort to regulate my anger. "Of course you didn't, because you valued damnation more than you valued your soul. So between the two of us, someone had to be the sensible one."

"Do you even understand how fucked up that line of thinking is?"

"Quite frankly, I don't even understand why we're fighting at all."

"We're fighting because you're doing everything in your power to ruin this again."

"What is this? What is there to ruin? Our lives are set, Bella. We are where we should be."

"But I'm not," she retorted. "And I don't think you are either."

I sighed, desperate to get her to see things my way. "Listen to me. There is a reason why you and Jacob are together." Those words were hell, but I didn't stop. "He can never hurt you in the ways that I can."

"There is only one way in which you can hurt me—and that is by leaving again."

I shook my head in denial. "You know I can't stay."

"Please? For me?"

It was a crime to refuse Bella when my entire being was ready to do anything for her. To stay, to wait, to burn, to kill—truly, there were no earthly limits to what I was willing to do and endure if it meant keeping her happy. But keeping her happy also meant sacrificing the selfish part of me that wanted to never leave and keep her forever, because if I stayed, there was nothing but darkness ahead for her.

I had committed this crime once. I could do it again.

It was the only sensible thing I could do, even if it meant breaking my heart all over again.

"No," I said, managing to keep my voice firm through the avalanche of pain in my chest. "This is over."

There was no warning—that was simply the breaking point for her.

Before I got to gaze in the depths of her eyes, trying to guess how long the new wound would last, she rose from her spot on the blanket. She wobbled on her feet and scoured the darkness impatiently, as the daisies I had placed in her hair earlier fell on the blanket. Without thinking twice, I mirrored her decision, standing up and ready to stabilize her if she needed my help, but somehow, she had been faster—she was already walking away, stomping over the grass aimlessly.

I was by her side in no time.

"Bella, where are you going?"

"Home," she answered. "Where else?"

"It's the middle of the night."

"And?"

"At least let me take you back. You don't know the path down the mountain and it's too dark for your eyes."

"No, thanks, I'll manage."

Right as she refused, I heard the loud snapping of a twig under her foot. She flinched, clearly surprised, but didn't stop.

"Please, be reasonable and let me help you."

"I don't want your help, Edward. I just want to get out of here."

Soon enough, we were at the very edge of the meadow, right where the forest line began. If it had been too dark for human eyes before, there was no hope beyond that line.

So of course Bella crossed it.

I followed her in this nonsensical quest, not even entertaining the thought of letting her wander off alone. With no light to guide her eyes, every step was a hazard.

"Come on, you need to stop."

"I don't need to do anything. And neither do you, because apparently we're done."

She kept on walking blindly, evidently unaware of the dangers hiding in the night. I kept up with her, wanting very much to sweep her off her feet and run down the mountain, back to safety, with her. Alas, I had a bit more sense than that, so I tried to simply kick away the obstacles ahead of us before she could stumble upon them.

"Bella, you're not getting anywhere like this," I said. "Let me grab your things and get you home safely, at least."

"I don't want that." Her arms reached forward, checking for unforeseen hindrances. She seemed to involuntarily push away the twigs of a young sapling.

I let out a disheartened sigh, dying to find the right way to convince her to see things my way. The right way. "Look, I know you're upset with me, but that's not a reason to endanger yourself so stupidly." Bella didn't even try to glance my way, so I knew I had to fight harder—hard enough to stomp on my selfish needs. "If you'll let me take you back home, I won't be bothering you again. Ever."

"Because that worked out so well the last time, right?" The sarcasm in her voice was dry and bitter, no trace of the usual playfulness that came with it. It cut right through my pitiful attempts to reason with her because it made me realize that she was right. I had already promised to her to never interfere with her life, only to break that oath when my self-interest overrode my virtuous intentions. Why would she believe me now? What had I done to get her to trust that I meant what I said this time?

How could I even trust myself to follow through, when the temptation of remaining close—just an intrusive parasite in Bella's life—was so irresistible? And it was so easy to find excuses too… the weeks spent in Forks were direct proof of that. Each day had brought a new justification to linger, each week a new delusion to feed on, while clarity never came.

Frighteningly, I started to understand how complex the curse of loving her beyond any hope or reason was. I could leave—again and again and again—but I would always find a reason to return.

Unbeknownst to her, the unbreakable mate bond we shared would get her to still feel drawn to me, regardless of how many times I broke her heart.

Scared of all the new implications of this realization, I abandoned my manners and grabbed Bella's wrists, getting her to forcefully stop. I felt her risible resistance under my palms, but I ignored it—just like I ignored the short gasp that broke out of her chest.

If she had not been able to see what my staying meant for her, she surely would now.

"What do you want to hear, Bella?" I asked, fully at my wit's end. "Do you want me to stay with you until the day you die? Because I'd be damned if that isn't what I want." She didn't even blink when I asked her this. Her eyes glimmered with an indecipherable emotion. "But you will grow tired of me. It is natural to want more. And I can try to hang around while you continue to grow and have a family of your own, but can you? Because after these past few weeks, the answer is pretty damn clear to me."

"Stop that."

"No, I'm not stopping, because I need you to understand precisely what you would be signing up for if I stayed." She took a meek step back, towards a tree she didn't even know was there. In response, I took one step forward, facing the infernal blaze of her scent and daring to imagine a lifetime of breathing it in. It was masochism of the highest order—the kind of masochism I would be willing to tolerate in the name of love. I imagined Bella decades from now, with her features weighed down by the passing of time. Still as beautiful as ever. Still as much of a walking temptation as she had always been. What would I be to her, after so many years? Not a friend. Not a foe. Not a lover. Nothing.

Bella's lower lip trembled, as if she could see the depressing scenario in my head too.

"What kind of life will that be?" I kept on, really forcing myself to imagine the corrupt dynamic of our relationship if I didn't leave. I could see us falling deeper and deeper into sin, where even the fragile limits we had now would be a joke. I didn't like that image—particularly what it could mean for the integrity of Bella's soul if an afterlife actually existed. "Playing pretend during the day, sneaking around at night with me? Is that what you want?"

"No!"

"Raising kids with Jacob when the sun is up, then guilty sex with me when they're all asleep?"

"Stop!"

I didn't stop. I couldn't. "Just endlessly chasing illusions with me when the night falls. For the rest of your life. Is that really what you're dreaming of? "

"I don't want any of that, I want to be like you!" she erupted. My hold on her lessened, as my worst nightmare took the shape of her words. This was not part of the miserable future I had envisioned. This was worse. "That way, I can be with you today, tomorrow, and for the rest of eternity." So much worse for her… "No sneaking around." No. Impossible, as long as the cost was her soul. I had decided long ago to never make that trade—it was the very basis of why I slaughtered our relationship and left it for dead. "Just you and me, as it should be. As it should have always been."

Bella stared at me with an intensity that petrified me. She didn't have to say anything else, because, for the first time ever, I felt like I could almost read her mind—as clear as a glass, I could see not only that she meant every word, but also that this conviction was hardly new. She had been carrying it around, hiding it, pretending it wasn't there. Finding acceptable ways to move away from it. Convincing herself that it worked.

It was now that I realized that her suffering had been far greater than I ever dared to envision. I had had it so easy, in comparison—I never had to pretend that my will to live was still there. I never had to force myself out of the comatose state I had entered after leaving Forks. I had the luxury to drown and never swim to the surface just because the world expected me to.

She, on the other hand, had no choice but to revive.

I finally let go of her wrists, feeling tremendously powerless all of a sudden. "God, Bella…" I whispered. "You can't ask that of me."

"But I am. Because that's what I want."

She searched for me in the darkness, until her hands found mine. I didn't fight it, I just allowed the touch to happen. Our fingers interlaced carefully and our palms pressed together—a feeling so divine I felt ready to die.

"It's not what I want for you."

"But why don't I get a say in this, Edward? It should be my choice."

"Because you're only seeing the very surface of things," I told her, feeling emboldened by the way her warmth coursed through me. "When I came back… I didn't do it with the aim to cause a stir in your life, I swear. But it happened anyway and I am sorry. I'm so sorry I let things get so out of control, we never should have reached this point again."

"It was inevitable…"

"No, it could have been avoided so easily," I countered, even if my arguments were now pointless, as I was only stating the obvious. "If I had stayed in my lane, your life could have been so much simpler… so much better…"

"Simpler? Sure, but I don't know about it being better. Jacob and I… he's…" Bella hesitated, clearly at war with herself. "The only reason he and I are together is because I was left with no other choice. There was no one left for me. You were gone, my parents were gone, there was only loneliness. Everywhere I looked, just… absolutely nothing and no one. I mean… I wanted you to come back, but you never did. And… I don't know, I owed it to him. I had to fall in love with him, after how he saved me from myself, right?"

I shook my head, not knowing what to make of her loaded confession. "Did you fall in love?"

Her eyes trailed downwards, to where our hands were touching, and I wondered if she could discern the contrast between us, so visible to me even in the darkest night—my skin too white, too unyielding, too glacial… her skin the perfect opposite of that. Another disparity between us. Another reason to be the man that I should be and allow her life to unfold without me. "I wanted to believe that I did. I think I almost convinced myself that I did when I accepted his proposal. "

I breathed her in—that sweet smell that would never bring me peace—and tasted embers on my tongue.

"But when I saw you again," she continued—still not looking at me—her voice now shaking, "my life started to look like a joke. Like a bad parody of what it should actually look like. I didn't want to accept this new feeling, but it was there, haunting me. Haunting me every time you found your way back to me. Every time we talked. Every time we assured ourselves that we were friends. God, and when I fell asleep… I could not escape the hold of your presence, not even in my dreams. And it haunted me—you haunted me—until I realized that I could no longer take it. I wanted a piece of you—any piece you were willing to give me, really—just to indulge myself, since you were leaving anyway. And to remind myself that I was once so close to having everything."

I listened to her pained words, feeling my insides burn the longer she went on. It was such a tragic thing to hear her describe what I never allowed us to have as everything. There was no grandiosity in immortality. No profound beauty to fill all the pitfalls that Bella couldn't even see. The only good thing about it was the fact that it provided me with the chance to fall in love—but even this benefit faded when I considered how my falling in love led to breaking apart the life of the woman I loved.

"Having everything was never in the cards for us," I whispered, daring to hold her hands tighter. I felt so close to her. So close, yet worlds away. "And don't get me wrong, you are meant to have it all and more, just not with me."

"But you are my idea of everything."

"You'll grow out of it," I uttered through clenched teeth, although I wasn't sure of what I was saying, not at all. I had made the mistake of believing that Bella could forget me once. With that knowledge having taken root in my conscience, I was no longer certain that oblivion was an option for her.

Her eyes moved up, finally meeting mine again. I didn't know how much of my features she could distinguish, but it didn't matter now. What mattered was the look of pure betrayal on her face. It was something that had not been there one minute ago, but now it was unmissable. "You're being cruel, Edward," she accused.

"How am I cruel?"

"Because I am trying—I am holding on for dear life—to be what you need me to be, and all you do is push me away every chance you get. Just like you did the first time around. But it's never enough for you, is it? I'm never enough."

I stared at her, crushed to see her deformed perspective. She wasn't just enough for me. She was more. She was my every longing, my every need, my own form of oxygen. No one else had ever come close. No one ever would. "Bella, you don't have to try to be anything for me," I said, releasing her hands, only for my palms to reach upwards and cup her cheeks. They felt so soft—too soft, like they could burst if I wasn't careful. "Don't you see? That's precisely the tragedy—you are what I need, regardless of what happens, regardless of what you do. That was never a point of contention. Making you believe that you are not everything to me was the biggest lie I had ever told, because you are. You have always been and you will always be. The problem is that it doesn't go both ways. It can't, because there are only so many ways that fate can bend in our favour before I ruin everything and hurt you." As I spoke, I could vividly imagine all the things that could go wrong, just like I could remember all the things that did go wrong, all because I wasn't the safe creature that she needed me to be. "I can't tell you how sorry I am for reopening all these old wounds for both of us out of pure selfishness, but—"

"Well, at least you've got one thing right," she cut me off, frowning. "You are selfish."

I felt my insides churning with a new kind of agony. As much as I had fought for her to understand the simple truth of my self-serving actions, I was not prepared for the inevitable moment of being called out on them. And it hurt. God, how it hurt to see her finally understand.

"You can't just expect to walk back into my life without breaking my heart all over again," she continued, her anger slowly dissolving into tears. "You can't expect me to ever get over you! You knew what you were doing when you came back… and you knew what you were doing every night in that forest." Forlorn as ever, I started to wipe away the stream of tears with my fingers, but it was useless. They kept coming and coming, never-ending, and I suddenly realized I had lost count of how many times I had been the cause behind her crying in the past month. I could no longer see the boundary between Bella's anger and her misery; at this point, the two emotions were so entwined I could not find a difference between them. "You just had to prove to me that you own me, didn't you? You didn't even have to touch me for me to cry out your name and ask you for more."

"Bella…"

"No, you're kidding yourself if you even think about contradicting me! You knew what you were doing." Did I know? Was I ever fully aware that my return would lead to such a monumental mess? I shook my head back and forth, denying her accusations, but also wondering if there was any truth to them. "You knew that whether I'm married or not is not an issue, because, at the end of the day, I belong to you. My heart belongs to you."

"No… you are not mine," I countered weakly, no longer sure of anything. I was only sure of my love for her—the last standing remnant of my sanity. Everything else was dust in the wind.

"You don't get to decide that, I do," she said, her eyes piercing in the dark. I couldn't remember if I had ever seen her look as determined as she looked now. Her hands grabbed my shirt, pulling at the fabric, getting me to take another step towards her. I did, obliterating the last bit of distance between us. She allowed her back to rest against the tree behind her and I pressed myself against her, feverishly seeking her warmth and realizing that I was still not nearly as close as I wanted. I wanted to wrap myself around her every limb, around her heart, around her mind, like wisteria wrapping itself around its favourite tree and never letting go. "And I don't belong to Jake, nor any other man. For so many years, I felt like I didn't even belong to myself, like I was just… just some useless piece of a puzzle that no one cared about to even glance at twice. It felt like there was no place for me in this world. You have no idea how that crushed me."

I didn't know how to react. It seemed like such a cruel joke from whatever divinity was out there to convince a woman who was so beautiful inside and out that she was anything but an angel on earth.

"You are not useless," I stated what was already obvious to me, but seemingly not to her. "Don't ever say that."

"Not saying it doesn't make it any less true. It's how I felt. My heart never had a home, it never belonged." Her eyes never left mine, subjugating me with their unspeakable force. "But it does belong to you. I've grown so tired of pretending that it doesn't."

An alien gaiety touched my synapses, galvanizing them. Charging them with a longing so intense that I felt ready to go off. Greedily, my brain consumed Bella's sentences and turned them into something I had not dared to feel in ages.

Something that felt an awful lot like hope.

The taste of it was sweet and comforting, lulling me into a sense of mental peace that seemed too good to be true. I fought to get back to the surface, where some of my last noble thoughts still struggled to survive. But those thoughts were decrepit and so encumbered by everything that transpired in the past month that they could barely continue their existence without decaying completely, all the way to their root.

And in this moment that was half dream and half nightmare, Bella was bent on not letting go of me. Of us.

"I don't know if you realize this," she continued pleading, "but every cell of my body and every particle of my soul is yours and it will continue to be like this until I am dead in the ground. Maybe even after, if an afterlife exists." With our bodies pressed together as they were, the mental image of a non-breathing Bella was a debilitating punishment. "And what then? What would have been the point, if I am doomed to perish anyway? If neither you nor I can be happy, what is the point of everything? What will come of our lives?"

Sobs interrupted her questions, leaving me plenty of time to conclude that I had no answers for her. There was no explanation for why fate decided to let our paths merge, even though my nature was in complete dissonance with hers. It simply weaved this web of impossible dilemmas for us, where no answer was right and no solution was perfect.

Here, in kismet's grace, mercy from the gods above was barely a dream.

"Just… why can't you love me?" she sighed in the end, her nails leaving marks in my shirt from how deep they buried themselves into the fabric. "It's all I've ever wanted."

My jaw dropped and for several seconds I found myself unable to utter a sound. Led by instincts, my hands strayed away from her face and tangled in her hair, bringing her head to rest on my chest. Her fragrance washed over me—lavender blooming in inferno—but I didn't mind the heat it brought. To my senses, this was the scent of being home.

And if she hadn't comprehended the depths of my feelings for her by now, she was about to.

"Oh, Bella… my Bella…" I whispered in her hair, feeling her tears dampening my shirt. "I am so in love with you it wrecks me. If you want the whole truth, I am nothing without you. Just a shell of a man. I had never brought a more horrendous lie into this world than the one I told you when I left." Her heartbeat thrashed and echoed into the vast hollowness of my chest as if it was trying to get my heart to pump again. I could almost feel it—the iced tissues, slowly melting. The dormant veins, straining to breathe with life again. "There is nothing and no one for me in this world worth living for if you're not in it. Hell, being without you nearly killed me completely. It would have killed me if I were cut from the same cloth as you. But I'm not and I can't drag you back into a world that's not yours. A world that will steal your soul and condemn it to damnation. It'll dim your light forever."

"But my soul is perfectly safe in your world," she asserted. "It always has been. Don't you get it? The nature of what you are doesn't determine whether you have a soul or not. And you are proof of that, because you do, Edward. You do have a soul, and it's the most beautiful thing to ever exist in this world. Would you care so deeply about everything if you didn't?"

Bella made an effort to wrap her arms around my shoulders, ignoring my rigidity. It appeared that she too was looking to find a way to get closer still, even though our bodies were already tightly pressed against each other. Aiming to help her, I lifted her head from my chest and pulled her face closer towards mine, so that we could at least breathe each other in.

Each inhale was sublime. Painful. Delicious. Narcotic.

Each exhale was torture. No more thirst, no more Bella in my lungs.

"Answer me," she implored.

What she didn't know was that I was still all out of answers. What was there to say when, for the first time in over nine decades of being a blood-hungry creature, I was actually trying to consider the possibility of not being a monster to my core? That possibility seemed as soothing as it was insane.

"I don't know," I admitted.

She didn't capitulate. "Would everything hurt the way that it does?"

I tried to ponder over that inquiry, challenging myself to think about the actual markers of having a soul—a musing I had not had in ages. Long before Bella was even born, I had convinced myself that the biblical definitions of good and evil were the best way to separate the soulless beings from the rest, as there was no way that a beast condemned to eternal night could also access the quintessence of humanity.

It was a strange feeling to witness the very base of that belief shake. Because my beliefs had always made sense to me. It was black and white, with no shade of grey to disturb the balance. Surely, feelings alone couldn't guarantee the existence of a soul… right? It had to be more complex than that.

Knowing that Bella was waiting for an answer, I gathered myself.

"I'm… really not sure," I confessed again, conflicted.

"Would you have kept me alive for so long?"

Good Lord, she was so close I could taste her when she talked. Her full lips trembled appetizingly in the wake of her query, getting my attention. I missed the feeling of their downiness conceding defeat under my mouth.

I couldn't remember the argument she was trying to make, but I could remember the response dancing on my tongue. "Keeping you alive is my purpose."

Bella suspired and buried her face in my neck. Without warning, her lips pressed against my skin, moving frantically as she talked. "Then please… please… don't push me away."

Her plea metamorphosed into something else soon enough, as I felt her mouth tremble on the side of my neck, placing scared kisses all over it. I groaned, wanting more than ever to give up the fight. I was so tired. God, so tired of depriving my heart of what it wanted. So tired of denying the obvious.

How was I supposed to live like this for the remaining days of Bella's life?

The bite of tears that couldn't be shed hit the nerves in my eyes, leaving only agony behind.

"I can't…" I whispered, seeing the end of my battles and realizing that I had no idea what awaited beyond their death. Was it salvation? Was it perdition? I didn't know. But what I did know was that the bond I had with the fragile human in my arms was not something I was meant to let go of. She was heaven in the flesh—perhaps the only heaven I would ever know. "Oh, God, I can't…"

"Don't push me away…" Bella repeated. "Because it'll kill me… this time for good."

Using her hair as leverage, I made her face me again, staring her down. "You don't understand." The nighttime flickered in her pupils, dilating them and giving birth to new universes. "I can't push you away anymore. I don't know how I ever managed to, because nothing hurts the way that losing you at my own volition does. I love you more than life itself."

I watched as her mouth fell open—perhaps in shock at my admission, or perhaps in an attempt to say something in return. I couldn't know. And I wouldn't find out either, because I had run out of patience. Of excuses. Of control.

All sensibility lost, I leaned down and my lips found Bella's.

All the time spent depriving myself of this rapture seemed almost insignificant now, in this sacred moment when winter and summer bloomed right where our lips converged. My brain could not even process the pain of my thirst all the way. The taste of our union was the same as it ever was, but somehow so much better than what I remembered. It was the taste of being home. The taste of never having left in the first place. If the apocalypse struck now, I would have died a happy man.

Surrendering to the feeling, I groaned and allowed my mouth to open, seeking the great promise of more. Bella's whimper of delight evanesced when my tongue stroked hers. I was merely testing the waters—trying to peruse her reactions, reminding myself what she enjoyed the most—but I was quickly made aware that she was more than ready to swim. Her tongue slinked underneath mine, mirroring its movements as if it had been primed to do just that.

With our kiss deepening frighteningly fast, my control started slipping further and further away—and with it, so did my hands. I could no longer keep them in one place for long enough. They just kept descending and exploring, unable to stop. Lower and lower they went, from Bella's hair and onto her beautiful neck. Then trailing downwards, exploring the hollow space of her clavicles. And further down, sizzling with electricity as they grazed the hills of her breasts and the slope of her waist.

"I love you, Edward—only you," she murmured in the short moment that I allowed her time for a repose, using the little reserve of air she had in her lungs to speak. My cells caught on fire upon hearing those simple words, lit up by a sense of hope so pristine that I didn't know how to handle the sentiment.

Bella loves me, I realized to myself, letting the understanding of that truth sink in and take root.

Regardless of the pain I put her through, regardless of how I made her heart bleed, she loved me.

I was overwhelmed by how intense the feelings of reverence and gratitude in the pit of my stomach were. They made me want to be what she needed me to be. But above everything else, they made me want to repent.

"Please forgive me," I begged, even if it wasn't enough—not after the hell I had condemned her to go through when I decided to end it all.

Her breath quivered, but I was too ecstatic to let her talk again—or perhaps too scared to find out if she could ever truly forgive me. I went right back in, hungrier than ever, and Bella reciprocated my enthusiasm. Our mouths were two pieces of the same puzzle, as they worked fervently to caress and devour each other. This kiss was more than a gratifying caprice. For me, at the very least, it was a necessity that surpassed all others in magnitude—right now, not even my thirst could howl as loud as my desire could.

But judging from Bella's reactions, I was not alone in being swallowed whole by the perfection of what was happening. She too was grabbing everything that she could—my hair, my shoulders, my arms, my back—while her heartbeat wreaked havoc in the background of her delirium. At long last, the cruel anticipation of all the nights we spent together hiding and coming apart had a purpose.

As our frenzied kiss stretched, I got bolder with my touches. When my hands traversed her body again, they no longer roamed aimlessly. Their journey came to a halt when I felt the plump flesh of her breasts under my palms. It was disguised by the annoying fabrics of her T-shirt and bra, but that didn't stop me. Stirred as ever, I listened to my instincts as they dictated my actions and I squeezed the beguiling stoutness.

It took me no time at all to discover that all of my past fantasies couldn't have prepared me for the real thing—for how goddamn incredible her breasts felt in the shelter of my hands and how my body instantly demanded to find more points of contact. Using my knee, I pushed her thighs open and quickly moved myself in the space between them. Bella gasped as soon as my erection pushed against her, hard and demanding.

"Forgive me," I repeated, but I was once again too frightened to hear her response, so my lips sealed back around hers, while my hands did the rest of the talking. I just grabbed and grabbed and grabbed, increasingly spurred on by how much she seemed to enjoy it. I could not believe how I had been able to refrain myself from touching her for so long, because now it was obvious to me that exploring her body with my palms and fingers was the single greatest pleasure imaginable.

I couldn't even comprehend the idea of stopping. In fact, now that my wildest dreams were coming true in my arms, my mind was wired to hunt for more. And since I was aware of her heavy breaths and her helpless sighs, it was no secret that Bella wanted more too.

With every reverie we had ever shared with each other acutely clear in my mind, I finally ventured away from the paradise of her lips, seeking more of the promised land. I looked at her, in love with how swollen her lips looked after our kiss, and I knew what I wanted to do next. In my fervour, I wasn't as delicate as I should have been when I took off her shirt, ripping its hem as I pulled it up, but she didn't seem to mind. Her bra had an even more unfortunate fate. While I understood the logistics of unclasping it, I couldn't be bothered to go through with them. Preserving the lacey garment was truly the least of my worries, so I happily ripped it out of my way and threw it on the ground, on top of her T-shirt.

Our gazes sundered when my eyes fell on her partially unclothed form.

The fact that I had seen her like this before made no difference. It might as well have been the first time for me, because the sight of her nipples, sitting all rosy and erect on top of the plump globes of her breasts, got me to lose myself as soon as I realized that I was no longer under the curse of keeping my distance.

There was no warning when I launched. In the back of my mind, I was vaguely mindful of the fact that I could have been more gentle if I made an effort, but I had never anticipated the voraciousness which had been lying dormant in me all these years. With that chaos uncaged, something extraordinary was happening. For the first time in my life, I felt more man than vampire.

Leaning down, my lips started trailing ecstatic circles all over Bella's breasts and I felt her fingers knotting themselves in my hair, pulling so hard I was convinced it would have hurt if I had not been indestructible.

"I can't believe this is happening," she uttered in between two moans.

Willing to prove that what was happening was real, I took her right nipple in my mouth and sucked hard on it, coercing even more blood to rush to the surface and engorge it. It was safe to say that the embers of my thirst were hot and burning, but not enough to ruin everything else. I could live with them, at least for the time being, if they were the sacrifice required to turn my fantasies into something tangible.

Meanwhile, Bella's hips moved again, creating more friction where my cock pressed incessantly between her legs. I grunted in response, my own hips grinding forward—just a promise of my carnal intentions.

It took me many minutes to gather the will to part from her breasts. If I had it my way, I would have required several hours to map out every single inch of this part of her body—and then several days to worship it properly before I was truly ready to unlock a new one. But seeing that her perception of time didn't match mine, I interrupted my pleasurable mission sooner than intended, only to hungrily pursue a new one.

The urgency was building when I began my descent down her body. I kissed and licked my way over her ribcage and her abdomen, going back and forth several times and getting lost in the heat emanating from every pore. It almost felt like Bella's warmth was now mine too, making it more and more difficult to remember where the galaxy of atoms forming her body ended and where mine began.

Her jeans proved to be an obstacle when my kisses finally reached below her navel. I was quick to unzip them and push them off her hips. After I peeled them away and she made a quick step to help me get rid of them completely, I knelt in front of her, to get better access. And just like that, I was right where I was meant to be.

On my knees, ready to venerate her.

I noticed that the black lace of her underwear was a perfect match to the one adorning the bra that was currently resting in the grass, reminding me that Bella truly went above and beyond for my sake—not that my desire required any kind of artifice to go into overdrive. My eyes traveled upwards, taking in every beautiful characteristic of her body until they met hers again. My thoughts collapsed into the chocolate void of her irises. Soon enough, all that was left of those thoughts was a mass of gratitude and penitence.

"Can you ever forgive me, my love?" I murmured, because I was dying to know.

"Edward…"

With ardent hands, I caressed the curvature of her hips, grazing it up and down. Each time, I made the elastic of her underwear slide further down.

"I know I've ruined everything, but I'll do anything it takes for you to trust me again," I promised. "Anything you want." I went back to moving my mouth over her abdomen, only this time I kept my eyes locked on hers—I wanted her to know that I meant every word. "Anything, no questions asked."

I felt her fingers tracing the contour of my jaw, spilling even more heat into my frozen cells.

"I forgive you," she breathed.

I closed my eyes, absorbing her absolution in complete darkness. I wasn't worthy of Bella's clemency—not yet—but she offered it to me nonetheless.

Her heart on a silver platter—only this time I would make sure to protect it for the rest of my days.

A sense of total serendipity started to spread in my limbs, swathing them whole.

"And I trust you, Edward," she added. "With my life."

It was the avowal I needed.

With the echo of Bella's forgiveness still in my ears, I shoved the last remaining piece of fabric on her body down, until it fell at her feet, leaving her bare and exposed and entirely mine for the taking.

My senses short-circuited all at once.

The divine scent hit me like a meteor. It was a scent I was closely familiar with, but somehow it managed to get better and better each time, always teasing me with its increasingly maddening sweetness. I breathed it in, thanking every deity that it existed, as I watched in awe the wonder in front of me.

Bella's pussy was so wet that her juices had dribbled on her thighs, smearing them to perfection. It was the most beautiful testament to how much she wanted me—better than her rapid pulse and her erratic breaths. Better than the way she could not stand still, her entire body trembling in anticipation.

How had I gone a lifetime without this drug?

Carefully, I parted her glistening lips, revealing even more beauty. Pink, delicate, and dripping, there was nothing in this world that could compare to this work of art. To my eyes, it was the ultimate masterpiece, one that made my mouth water heavily, but not with venom. And to be able to touch it so freely, as if it belonged to me as much as it belonged to her…

"You're absolutely perfect," I declared in a trance.

Bella was heaving when my index finger slipped inside her slit, traversing the slick surface and coaxing her clitoris out of its hood. She shook violently when my fingertip went over her most sensitive spot; her hands quickly found their way back into my hair.

"I've dreamed of this for so long," she said. I repeated the previous motion, mesmerized by how gratifying it felt to play her like an instrument. All I had to do was strum and she trilled. "So, so long…"

"And now we can have it."

And with that, I surrendered completely.

I buried my face between Bella's legs, never wanting to come out. She cried out as soon as my tongue trailed across her cunt, collecting all the precious sap along the way. I groaned when the magnificent flavour struck my taste buds. This wasn't the first time I was savouring it, but it was the first time when it wasn't laced with blood—and somehow it tasted just as divine.

Having been starved for a brutal amount of time, my mouth opened wide, ravenous for the feast. I used my hands to seize Bella's legs and make them wrap around my shoulders like ivy. Once I had her in position, I grabbed her ass tightly and pushed my face deeper between her thighs, delighted to feel their pressure on my ears.

My cock ached and begged for attention, desperate to replace my lips, but it had to wait.

"Fuck, Bella, your taste…" I droned in between licks, caught in a state of adulation. "I can't stop." My lips locked around her clitoris and I sucked hard. Once. Twice. Three times. She groaned, feeding the new addiction forming inside my core. "I can't ever stop."

Unsated, my tongue slithered through the small ocean of Bella's arousal, until it reached her small folds. It unabashedly pushed its way through them, until it sunk into the warmest and tightest place to ever exist. Almost on command, more juice flowed at my intrusion and I made sure to swallow every drop.

"Oh, God, you're going to make me come," she wailed.

I couldn't speak, not now. I was infinitely happy exactly where I was: between her legs, tongue-deep in her pussy. There was no other place I wanted to be.

Possessed by my own zest, I started to move my tongue back and forth, initiating a slow rhythm. My eyes darted upwards, to see Bella's reaction, and I was immediately enraptured by how the pleasure affected her features, making them softer and more hedonistic. I kept my eyes locked on her face when my tongue retreated from her cunt, only to start trailing tiny circles around her clitoris.

I could feel the crescendo of her need in a way I was never able to back when I was a witness from afar. It was like a solid pulse, but different from the one of her heart. It rang in my ears and echoed in my chest, urging me to go on. In a way, it was almost like a separate entity inside my brain, whose encouragement kept me focused.

Go on.

Lick her good.

Don't you dare stop.

Have no mercy on her clit.

Look at her squirming.

Finish her.

Bella's orgasm came so quickly and erupted so violently, that it took us both by surprise. Her loud cry sent wonderful shivers down my spine.

"Fuck, Edward, yes! Oh, God, yes, fuck!"

More delightful obscenities rolled off her tongue and I felt her wetness exploding in my mouth, copious and luscious. I swallowed it, fully in love with its treacly taste, and demanded more with a groan. A second climatic wave rushed through her body and culminated right where my lips met her flesh, getting her pleasure to spill out again.

On and on it went—wet and sweet—until the apogee started to subside.

I remained on my knees, planting lazy kisses on her spent pussy, for several minutes. I loved how she quivered each time my lips grazed against her clitoris, as if the ghost of her orgasm was still haunting the intricate web of nerve endings. Deep down inside me, the flames were roaring, calling on me to appease their torment.

Ordering myself to remain good, I finally untangled myself from the embrace of Bella's legs and rose, so that I could face her again. Without a word, I leaned down to stroke her lips with mine. Softly at first, just to let her get a taste of her own climax, then fiercer, once I felt her tongue searching for mine.

As our kiss escalated, my aching member throbbed between us.

"I don't want to stop," Bella purred, once my lips moved to her earlobe.

"Mmmmm…" I sucked on the malleable flesh for a few seconds, finding it difficult, but not impossible, to convince myself to let it go and talk. "What makes you think I'm done with you?"

I went back to playing with her earlobe.

"Well, I… I… oh…" she tried to respond, but her train of thought seemed to derail when I lowered my mouth to her neck.

"I'm only getting started," I smiled against her throat. It was incredibly easy to mess with her mind—even more so than usual, now that she was so drunk on lust she could hardly think straight. Still keeping my face buried in the crook of her neck, I lowered my hands until they reached the imposing curvature of her ass and lifted her up, forcing her sodden pussy to mash against the hardness in my jeans. "Trust me, you'll beg me to stop."

"I can take it," she promised.

"Prove it."

Before Bella could voice any more thoughts, I was already whizzing through the forest with her in my arms, rushing back to our meadow.

And as I did so, I could see, at long last, that life had a purpose, after all.

My purpose just so happened to be the greatest of them all: to love and be loved by Bella in perpetuity. No other man had been blessed with a happier fate.

No other man ever would.

I think it's safe to say this chapter has been a long time coming!

My beta CoppertopJ did say that the chapter requires a NSFW warning, a tissue warning, and a cold shower alert, I just wanted to let you discover that on your own ;).

I can't wait to discover your thoughts on this chapter! Your reviews are definitely my own personal brand of heroin.

Until next Sunday, stay safe and happy!