Bella followed Rosalie into her bedroom, where Rosalie shut and locked the door behind them. Although a lock would not technically keep vampires out, Rosalie seemed to think the symbolism might.
Rosalie turned to her, and it seemed like she was going to ask Bella something. Bella stood on her tiptoes, threw one arm around Rosalie's neck, and brought their lips together. Rosalie softened their meeting, gently leaning back to cushion the way their lips crashed together. She kept Rosalie close while she reached down with her other hand to unbutton Rosalie's shirt. Bella wrapped her free fingers in the collar of the shirt and pulled it back and down, freeing it from Rosalie's shoulders. Bella paused for a moment. "Is this okay?" Rather than replying, Rosalie freed her arms and dropped the shirt to the floor.
Bella felt the gentle pressure of Rosalie's hands as they ghosted their way down her body. Strong fingers ran down her spine, over her butt, her thighs, and then hooked behind her knees, lifting her up. She had tried to be in charge of the moment, but with Rosalie's strong hands guiding her legs, she wrapped them around Rosalie's waist. They remained where they were, only five feet deep in the expansive bedroom. She wanted Rosalie to carry her to the bed, lay her down, and kiss her senseless. Kissing Rosalie had awakened something in her, and she didn't want whatever it was to ever go back to sleep. She didn't carry Bella to the bed. Instead, she brought the girl to her long dresser, which took up most of one wall.
Bella's hands traveled over Rosalie's bare skin. Her palms ran over Rosalie's shoulders, down her back, and on top of the entrancing abs once more. Rosalie chuckled. "Stop it," Bella grumbled against Rosalie's lips, causing Rosalie to laugh again. Bella leaned away, glared at Rosalie, then tried to get back at her. She whipped her shirt off in one smooth motion.
Well, she tried to. Bella did get her shirt up to her shoulders, over her head, and her hair free with no difficulty. Unfortunately, her arms got stuck in the long sleeves. She had a few rubber wristbands on, and they were trapping her hands in the cuff of her shirt. As Bella struggled, Rosalie laughed again and reached out to help. The two of them managed to get her bracelets free. Bella threw the fabric onto the ground and pouted. "That did not go how I imagined it in my head."
"These things rarely do." Rosalie wasn't looking at Bella's face. She was staring at her chest, and it made Bella feel self-conscious. She was wearing a plain white bra. It had no frills, no lace, no personality whatsoever. She felt underdressed compared to Rosalie in her designer jeans and bright red lace. Bella eyed her hands where they were resting on Rosalie's belt loops. Rosalie leaned in to kiss her again, then paused. "What's wrong?"
Bella leaned forward in an attempt to initiate the kiss. "It's nothing."
Rosalie put her hands on either side of Bella's face, gently tilting her head up to make Bella meet her eyes. Rosalie's eyebrows bunch up as she searched Bella's face. Her cheeks heated up under the inspection. She was being stupid, and she knew it. "Talk to me. What are you thinking?"
"I am feeling extremely...exposed."
Rosalie smiled and let her hands slide down to rest on Bella's shoulders. "You are just about half naked right now. Are you shy?"
Bella nodded. "I felt a little more brave about three minutes ago." She sighed. "Why wouldn't I be shy when you've shown me what you look like, Rose?" Rosalie froze. The temperature in the room dropped. Bella didn't know what she'd said, but something about it was wrong, painfully wrong. Not once had she ever seen Rosalie resemble a statue as much as she did right now. "Rosalie?"
Rosalie's eyes seemed to darken as she stepped back from Bella. Her hands still hovered, like the ghost of Bella's shoulders was supporting them. "I need a moment to myself." Rosalie strode purposefully across the room to the glass wall opposite them. Bella knew there was a glass door that opened to a balcony, but with the darkness outside, she couldn't see anything other than the room's reflection. "I will be back. Stay, please." It wasn't a question, but it wasn't a demand either. Rosalie opened the door and jumped from the balcony, still only half-dressed. The curtains by the door ruffled in the wind. Bella looked at her own stunned reflection and wondered what she had done wrong.
The cool night air flowing into the room kicked Bella out of her shock. She knew that vampires could be mercurial. She had even forgotten that Rosalie used to be the coldest one of them all when it came to her. As she methodically moved around the room, Bella picked up her shirt, turned it right side out, and put it back on. She went to the door, shut it, and pulled the curtains across it. She left it unlocked in case Rosalie decided to come back to her room that way by jumping three stories up. She picked up Rosalie's button-down and laid it across the foot of the bed. The bed covers had wrinkled where they had been together earlier, enjoying each other's presence.
What had she done wrong? What exactly had she said? 'I've seen what you look like?' No, that hadn't been it. It couldn't be because she was comparing them to each other again, was it? Rosalie was the most beautiful creature ever to walk the earth, and she knew that.
Bella felt extremely, devastatingly alone. She knew if she left the room, she would find a house full of vampires who would be happy to spend time with her, but she didn't think that would help. The vulnerability of a girl seeing you shirtless and walking out was too embarrassing to even try and explain to anyone. She considered going home but decided seeing Charlie in the next hour would also be mortifying. What if she cried? What if she told him what happened? What if he freaked out if she wouldn't tell him what happened? He expected her not to come home tonight, so she would stay here, alone in Rosalie's room, and wait, even if her every instinct told her to leave. Leave right now. She had been abandoned again. At least this time, she wasn't alone in the woods.
Bella sat on the bed and knew she wasn't being fair. Rosalie had asked for a moment and promised she would come back. She hadn't let Bella down yet, so she deserved the benefit of the doubt.
A light flashed over Rosalie's door. Bella looked at it, confused. It reminded her of the light that flashes in the school when they have a fire drill. She went to Rosalie's door, unlocked it, and opened it to find Alice on the other side. She looked like a child at their parent's door in the middle of the night. "Hey, I'm glad you realized what the light was for."
"I didn't. I was very confused."
"If I knocked, you wouldn't have heard it. Soundproofing, you know?"
"That does make sense." Bella turned away from the door and walked in. Alice followed. "Did Rosalie call you?"
The door clicked shut behind them. "No."
"Did you have a vision?"
"No." Alice picked at her shirt. "I saw her running away into the night. Jasper and I were in the woods...uh reading."
Bella sat on the bed. "Why were you reading in the woods at night? It's dark outside."
"Bella." Alice sounded exasperated. Bella just shrugged, trying to soothe her bruised ego. "We were not reading."
Was she supposed to ask what they were doing? She didn't care to. Instead, she curled up on the bed and said, "Okay." The bed smelled like Rosalie. She couldn't quite identify the scent, just that it was distinctly Rosalie.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No."
"Do you want me to talk about anything else?"
"No."
"Okay." Alice flitted around the room at lightspeed. She gathered items quickly, sat them on the bed next to Bella, then paused at the door. "Make yourself comfortable. She'll be back soon. Do you need anything else?"
"No. Thank you." The door closed with a quiet click, and she was alone again. The items Alice left next to her were in a very small pile. She sifted through them, finding a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, a sweatshirt, and a TV remote. The remote confused her. There wasn't even a TV in the room. On a whim, she pressed the power button to see what would happen. There was a very quiet whirring, and a large flat-screen TV came down from the ceiling. It turned on once it was locked in place and immediately started playing porn loudly. Two women were in the middle of a sex scene. One woman was pounding into the other from behind, wearing just a leather harness. She pulled the hair of the other girl, who was screaming in pleasure. "Oh my god!" Bella grabbed the remote and tried flipping through the channels but accidentally kept hitting the volume button. The girl screaming, 'Yes, yes!' just got louder and louder.
In a panic, she finally just hit numbers. The channel changed to some news station where the anchors discussed a storm coming to California. She rolled face down onto the bed, her cheeks burning. The embarrassment of the situation started to fade, especially when she realized no one else would have heard it. Thank god for soundproofed vampire houses. As her brain caught up to what had just happened, she realized a few things. First, the TV was perfectly positioned to watch it while lying on the bed. Second, that might not have been the program Rosalie was last watching, but it was definitely the channel. Finally, the image of those two women going at it doggie style was now burned into her mind. She was going to ask Rosalie about her TV habits later, just out of curiosity.
Bella changed into the clothes Alice left out for her in Rosalie's bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror and noted the bags under her eyes. Once her clothes were picked up off the floor, she went back into the room and crawled into Rosalie's bed. The clock on the side table said it was almost one am. With no idea when her fake mate return, Bella settled in and searched for something on TV she could fall asleep to. She finally settled on a How I Met Your Mother marathon. Eventually, after an hour or two of embarrassment and misery, she fell asleep to the sound of a laugh track and Ted Mosby failing to find love.
Rosalie paced in the backyard. She had run off her anxious energy across miles of woods, but now she needed to go back in the house and talk to Bella. It was important for her to explain that her complete and total shutdown had nothing to do with Bella. Well, it did, but not because of Bella. Those words she'd said, '-when you've shown me what you look like, Rose, ' sounded desperately similar to something disgusting that had been said to her on a dark night decades ago. On the last night of her life, she'd been told almost those exact words.
'Come on, show me what you look like, Rose!'
That had been what he'd said before the terrible thing had happened. That wasn't what Bella said. That wasn't what Bella meant. Bella couldn't hurt Rosalie if she tried, and she very much doubted the girl would try. They had a good thing going, and Rosalie was enjoying her time with Bella. She was a new person. Whatever growth Bella had done when they were gone had made her stronger, more independent, and brave. Maybe she had just become more of herself. How had Rosalie repaid her? She had gotten the girl in a vulnerable position, had a freakout, and essentially jumped out of a window. The hurt expression on Bella's face as she folded her arms over herself and tried to appear smaller was haunting Rosalie. "How do I even explain that?"
"Tell her what happened to you, you dumbass." Rosalie stopped her pacing and looked at the back deck. Kate was standing there, leaning on the railing. "I can't believe you left that absolutely tantalizing human alone in a house full of vampires."
"Shut up, Kate." Rosalie resumed her pacing.
"The only way you'd do that and exit from the balcony, no less, is if she scared you."
"I said shut up."
"Remember the first time you were bi-curious, and I pinned you down?" Kate chuckled. "I thought it was sexy, but then none of us saw or heard from you for three months. I don't think I ever recovered from telling Edward I scared you away with a sex thing. Did I tell you that was the first time I ever saw a vampire throw up blood?"
Kate hadn't told her, but Edward had. "Esme made him replace that carpet by hand."
"So what happened? Did she say she was in love with you or something?"
Rosalie joined Kate on the deck. "No. It was something else."
"The old trauma?" When Rosalie nodded, Kate put an arm around her waist and leaned into her. "It's okay. Humans these days are so much more understanding. When I was human, I would have murdered any man who dared spurn me. Now, humans understand trauma and their emotions. They'd rather talk than kill. They've gone soft, but it's probably for the better." Kate smiled. "And if she isn't understanding, you can give her to me."
"Even if I wanted to, I couldn't give her to you."
"I know. Choice and all. Still fun to pretend." Kate let her go then. The conversation was over, and she had to explain herself to Bella. She was not excited.
Rosalie slowly made her way through the house. The mansion was a flurry of activity. Emmett and Jasper played chess while Edward watched. Alice and Esme were measuring the kitchen island, ready to repair it again. Tanya and Irina were watching some romance game show and fighting over the contestants. No one stopped Rosalie, for which she was grateful.
When she reached her bedroom door, she turned the knob hesitantly. It was unlocked, and for a moment, she wondered if Bella was even still in there. Maybe she had taken Alice's bed or gone to sleep on a couch in the library. Maybe she had gone home rather than wait for Rosalie to pull herself together. Her fears were for nothing. In the glow of the TV, she could see the shape of Bella's sleeping form. She lay curled under the covers, her back to the door. A man on TV said, "Legen….wait for it, I hope you're not lactose intolerant because the second half is…DARY!" The laugh track went on as someone on screen groaned. Bella had found her TV and chosen to sleep with it on.
Rosalie went to her closet to change into leisure wear. She was happy to see Bella had stayed and had been able to sleep. She was less happy to see the TV on because she knew exactly what she had been watching on it last after feeling a little…pent up, as Bella would say, and had relieved the feeling with a bit of video assistance. She felt no shame in having physical urges and taking care of them, though she wished Bella hadn't come across her favorite channel alone. Now she had two things to talk to Bella about, but they could both wait until morning.
Rosalie went over to the bed and slid under the covers next to Bella. She left enough room between them that she wasn't touching the girl at all, just in case Bella didn't want that. She began to relax, trying to enter her meditative state. She was almost there when Bella jolted awake, took a deep breath, and started looking around the room.
"Rose?" She asked groggily, her voice scratchy.
"I'm here."
Bella rolled over and looked at her through squinted eyes. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I am. I'm sorry about before."
"It's okay." Bella scooted closer to Rosalie. She threw a tired arm over Rosalie's waist and nuzzled in. "We're gonna talk about it tomorrow. But not now. Sleepy. You sleepy?"
Rosalie almost laughed. Instead, she said, "Yes I am."
"Rest now." Bella seemed to barely finish her sentence before she fell asleep again. With Bella curled into her, Rosalie knew that, even though she couldn't sleep, she would rest, at least for a little bit.