Out of Choices - Chapter 33, Part 1
Title: Out Of Choices
Chapter 32: Connection (Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.1, 19.2, 20, 21, 22.1, 22.2, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33.1, 33.2)
Author:JCAddict/picklewinkle/Sher
Fandom: Twilight
Word Count:11,596
Rating: R/M, for sex and language
Story Summary: Bella is devastated by the loss of her mother and is forced to go live with Charlie, her Mom's best friend when there is no one else to take her in. She gives up on living, too lost in her own anger to let anyone close to her. Enter Edward, the handsome teenage vampire, and the beginning of a complicated love-hate relationship. Neither can deny the connection between them, but can their love survive the fear that rules her and the secret he hides from her? AU, OOC, Rated Mature for language and lemons. Also available at Twilighted.net
Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight and all of its characters. I'm just manipulating them like imaginary playdoh so I feel like I have some power over them **snorts**
33. Conflicted - Part 1
A/N: Twilight and all of its characters are owned by Stephenie Meyer.
This chapter is long and split unevenly between two entries because it's too big for one entry.
More earning of the story rating in this chapter. *shrugs* I make no apologies. This chapter has always been there in my plan/mind from the very beginning. My only hope was to do it justice, so I hope I accomplished that.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I appreciated the feedback. I think maybe I left some of you speechless :op
From Bella’s POV...
He wrapped his free arm around my waist and pulled me to his body with a light melodic laugh that made my toes tingle. I was craving the comfort of his arms as a way to extend the rapture of what he’d just done to my body so I turned in his arms and pressed my back to his chest. Maximum skin-to-skin contact. I sighed happily; ignoring the urge to figure out how that just happened and instead letting the waves of euphoria continue to wash over me. Edward seemed to understand what I wanted or he was happy enough to have my skin against his. He nuzzled his chin into the crook of my neck and whispered, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I murmured contentedly.
“Did it help at all with your faith?” he asked thoughtfully, picking up a piece of my hair, twirling it around his finger circumspectly. “Did you feel my love for you?”
“I felt a hell of a lot more than that,” I joked.
“Don’t make light of it,” he appealed in a quiet voice. “I was being truthful when I said I would make you believe in the strength of our love. Obviously there’s more to our connection than physical love, but do you think I could make you feel that good if there wasn’t a strong and enduring bond between us?”
I could feel the tingling in my cheeks starting as soon as he began to speak, softly emphatic and decidedly sure. Only I could manage to blush at the notion of what Edward was capable of making me feel. Lying there naked beside him didn’t make me blush, having had him stroke me into orgasm didn’t make me blush, but thinking about Edward knowing that he could make me climax made me blush. I was seriously broken.
“Why are you blushing?” he wondered, kissing my cheek softly.
“I guess I’m just finally comprehending what happened,” I answered honestly.
“Did you enjoy it?” he whispered against my ear, squeezing me lovingly with the arm he had wrapped around me. I wasn’t sure if he meant it rhetorically. I mean, he gave me a freaking orgasm. I’m pretty sure that was an unequivocal sign that I enjoyed myself.
“Yes,” I informed him in quiet voice. As silly as the question seemed to me, I knew it would hurt his feelings if I didn’t answer him, and considering he did it all for me, I owed it to him to be as honest and reassuring as he needed me to be. I shivered, coming down from my post-orgasm high. Between my lack of clothing and Edward’s cool skin, the room suddenly seemed freezing.
“Are you cold?” he asked worriedly, reaching for the comforter and tucking it around me. It bothered me that he pushed it between his body and mine, and it made me worried that he didn’t like being close to me like that. I twisted my hips, unsubtly pulling the covers away from my back and flipping them over the both of us. With the comforter gone, I spooned my body into his and removed all space between the two of us. In my innocent search for the comfort of our physical connection, I inadvertently pressed my ass so tightly to his hips that I was able to feel every bit of his erection against my bare skin. Edward shifted away from me minutely, bending his knees and tucking them into mine to disguise the displacement of his hips, but I wasn’t fooled. I knew he was trying to be a gentleman and I bet he was hoping that I hadn’t realized what was happening. He knew me better than that.
In truth, I felt like a bit of an idiot for not trying to touch him somewhere in the middle of everything he did to me. I had kissed his neck and shoulders but I never actually put my hands on him intimately. I felt even worse when I realized I didn’t know that one spot to touch him that would drive him nuts, some tiny little unsuspecting area that would make him let go of his control if I touched him there. I should know where that was, or at least have investigated trying to find it. Once he started touching me I became a bundle of hormones and nerves with tunnel vision. I don’t think I would have continued to breathe if it weren’t an automatic response. There wasn’t much of my body that I had control of when Edward was touching me.
It was partly shock too - shock that there was a secret that existed that had the potential to tear us apart, shock to find him waiting in my bedroom, shock that he asked to untie my robe and was going to touch my body. I would like to say it was shock when his lips hit my bare skin but it wasn’t. It was erotic and blissful and such a fucking turn on. My brain stopped working. One second I was this crying mess of an incapable person, spilling my guts about my Mom and begging for his patience while I tried to work out the clusterfuck of fear I’ve become, and the next minute Edward was giving me something I’d only dreamed of, and with such intensity and ardour that it overwhelmed me, and not a bad kind of overwhelm, but the sweetest, most intense and focused out of control overwhelm I’d ever experienced. It was like being delivered to heaven’s gate on a cloud.
I needed to return some of what he’d given me, not just because I wanted to touch him or because he deserved to feel some of the pleasure he’d given me, but because I wanted him to feel my love the same way he wanted me to feel his. I knew I would always be better at showing him how I felt than I would ever be at speaking my feelings. The words just never seemed like enough, not for someone as remarkable and exceptional as Edward. Maybe he wouldn’t let me touch him, or maybe he wouldn’t want me to touch him, but I had to try.
“No, I’m not really cold,” I pointed out. “It’s more me coming back down to Earth after what you just did to me.” I flattened my back and pressed it against his chest, shifting my hips slightly forward and away from him.
“You should let me cover you up. You’ll get cold against my skin.” I heard the sincerity in his tone and I knew he was only concerned with my comfort, but it was still hard not to feel hurt. The last thing I wanted was to be separated from him.
“I’d rather be cold and touching you, than warm and without your touch,” I whispered, unable to keep the emotion out of my voice. I knew the emotion was sincere, born of his love and generosity, but it still felt foreign somehow. I’d spent so much time pushing everyone away. Now that I’d let him into my heart, he seemed to call out the emotion I’d been repressing all of these months, even though I knew that wasn’t the case. It was just his love, capable of amazing feats, like bringing down the walls of an angry young woman and teaching her to love again. I let my hand drift up languidly, trying to appear casual, and laid it on his hip.
“I hate that I can’t offer you warmth,” he whispered wistfully. I didn’t want him to worry or focus on anything negative.
“What you offer me is so much more important than warmth. Besides, in the summertime you’ll be like my own personal air conditioner.” I fanned my fingers out, stretching them downwards, and caressed his thigh.
“I like the idea of spending the summer with you,” he admitted. “And if I can cool you down then all the better.”
“But for now you can just hold me, okay? I don’t want anything to come between us, not even something as insignificant as a blanket. Unless…unless you’re saying that you don’t want to be close to me…that you don’t like the feeling of my skin next to yours?” I felt a bit guilty for searching out his reassurance, but only a tiny amount. I was new to all of this, and I never promised that I was confident.
“Bella,” he scolded softly, “do you really doubt that I’m enjoying being close to you this way?”
“Not really…maybe…it’s just that when I pressed myself into your body, you pulled away.”
“I didn’t pull away Love. I simply tried to shield you from the coolness of my skin.”
“I don’t want to be shielded from it. I like your cool skin. I like all of you,” I explained in a quiet voice, sliding my hand off his thigh and purposely grazing the erection he was trying so hard to hide from me. I expected some reaction from him but got none. I made another pass, pressing my hand more firmly against his zipper, and felt him twitch beneath my palm. Even though the reaction was a reflex, I felt the tiniest bit victorious in making him feel something, since I was pretty sure he was doing his best to purposely not react to what I was doing. On one hand, no reaction made sense if he was trying to dissuade me, but it could also mean he didn’t know what the appropriate response was, that it felt so good that he didn’t want to do or say anything that might make me stop. I felt so clueless, but I didn’t let it curb my enthusiasm. I stroked him again, purposely curving my hand around him and dragging my palm along him. I didn’t understand how he could repress his reaction when I was getting turned on by the simple act of touching him, enjoying the feeling of him hard under my hand, knowing he was aroused.
“Bella,” he whispered, “what do you think you’re doing?”
“What?” I asked, feigning innocence.
“Nice try,” he chuckled, calling me on my act.
“I’m not allowed to return the favour?”
“I don’t need you to return the favour,” he informed me flatly. I could sense his reluctance, but I was sure it wasn’t because he didn’t want me to touch him, more that he didn’t want to force me into anything or ask something of me that I didn’t want to do. He was a gentleman after all.
“I want to,” I informed him, pushing my index finger against the fly of his jeans and fumbling with his zipper, working to undo it with my fingertip. Once I finally had it opened enough, I pushed my hand in through the opening and curled my fingers around him again. Through the thin fabric of his boxers I could feel him in even more detail and whimpered softly. I began rationalizing in my head, equating what he’d done to me with what he might like to have done to him to justify my own arousal, wishing he’d give me the tiniest bit of encouragement so I didn’t feel like such a pervert.
“Bella,” he warned quietly. I continued to stroke him with a delicate pressure, ignoring his complaints because I wanted him to feel the pleasure of being loved too. No matter what I was feeling, this was about him and showing him that I loved him as much as he loved me. I heard him exhale forcibly, and felt the rush of air against my ear as it left his mouth. I was petrified that it was done in anger or irritation but continued to move my hand slowly up and down him, warring with myself about what it meant. Finally, when I couldn’t stand it any longer, I rolled over to face him, holding my breath and ready to defend my actions, expecting to find him angry. Instead of anger, his face was relaxed and his eyes were closed. When he opened his eyes to look at me all I saw was lust. “Bella, we can’t do this,” he told me in a strangled whisper. Sadness rang from his tone in a tangibly painful way.
“Why Edward? Why can’t we do this?” I forced the words out in a quiet, controlled voice, trying to sound confident and mask the fear that was taking over inside of me. I couldn’t comprehend how he could love me so fully and not want me to touch him too, how he wouldn’t want me to give him my love or at least return the love he gave to me.
“I don’t feel right doing this,” he admitted, his voice raw and emotional. I searched his eyes for some hint of explanation but there was nothing telling to help me understand his words.
“You don’t feel right?” I questioned, trying with everything in me not to get angry. “Am I doing something wrong? Or is it that you just don’t want me to touch you like this?” I was sure I sounded defensive, and even though I was probably overreacting, I didn’t know how to take his statement. Regardless of what he said, he couldn’t make me believe that I was doing something wrong. His body was enjoying what I was doing; I could feel the results underneath my fingertips. The idea of him not wanting my touch was much more frightening to me.
“Bella, don’t be absurd. This has nothing to do with you.” I swallowed hard. It was easy to feel that way when he wasn’t the one being rejected.
“Then why are you trying to push me away?” I demanded, trying to disengage my emotions from my brain, fighting hard against my instinct to shut down and pull away.
“I’m not trying to push you away; simply slow things down.”
“Why?” My mind was screaming at me to calm down. I needed to understand why he didn’t want me to touch him.
“Because I don’t want any secrets between us, and I know you’re not ready to talk about that yet.”
“Careful Edward, that sounds dangerously like blackmail.” My accusation was a low blow, but I didn’t believe him. It was more than the secret that was holding him back. If the secret were the most important thing to him then he wouldn’t have touched me. Something else was driving his apprehension, and it was incredibly hard to not take his rejection personally.
“You know I mean no such thing. Be reasonable Bella. I simply want complete honesty between us before we come together like that.” His irritatingly male ability to be logical and unemotional at the worst times was heartbreaking. I could feel the panic taking over, the rejection and unworthiness digging their heels in.
“So you don’t want me to touch you?” I croaked softly, choking on the emotion I was trying so hard to keep inside.
“Bella,” he cooed, pulling my chin up and forcing me to look at him. “Of course I want you to touch me. There’s nothing I want more. You can see what you’ve done to me, what simply being next to you has done, even before you laid your hands on me.”
“I don’t understand Edward,” I revealed, feeling even more confused as I tried to assemble his words into a coherent thought, still fighting to contain my emotions. “You like what I’m doing to you, but you don’t want me to do it because of the secret that stands between us that you are sure we are strong enough to survive?” I saw the hurt in his eyes instantly and I regretted saying anything. Hurting him was the last thing I wanted. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Just forget it okay? I can see your point. I’m just overreacting. It feels like you’re pushing me away or rejecting me or whatever.” I closed my eyes and shook my head in frustration. “I know you’re not, or that’s not what you’re trying to do. It’s just my fucked up heart that’s got it all wrong.”
“Don’t say that,” he pleaded. “You have as much right to feel the way you do as I have to my own feelings. And I can see how my words are confusing to you. Perhaps I took advantage of the situation, having you in my arms and being able to show you how much I love you, but I wanted to share my faith with you.”
“You didn’t take advantage Edward. I want to be with you,” I insisted. “You keep talking about how much faith you have in us, but if you truly believe that we can’t be touched by anything then why are you resisting something we both want? It’s okay to admit you’re scared. I’m scared too.” I hated to question his faith. It felt like I was defiling scared ground.
“I’m not scared Bella. I know I can’t control whether or not this secret changes your feelings about me, but nothing will ever change the way I feel about you. Long after you’re gone, I’ll still be loving you.” His statement sent my mind reeling.
“It sounds like you’re expecting that I’m going to leave?” I accused, poorly masking my hurt.
“Not at all,” he corrected, “but I can’t explain it any further now.”
“The secret,” I declared, rolling my eyes and pressing my lips together, trying to reign in my irritation. “What is this really about Edward? What I think I can’t handle, or something you’ve decided is going to happen once you tell me? You want to be with me but you’re resisting because of some perceived reaction on my part? You’re holding back because I don’t have enough faith?”
“No,” he insisted, frustrated. “This is solely out of courtesy for your feelings and has nothing to do with whether or not I want to be with you.” Something in his words put everything into perspective for me.
“So you think because I’m afraid of losing you that I would somehow regret being with you after the fact?” I asked softly. My heart ached when I said the words. I was a lot of things - stubborn, sarcastic, impatient, - but there was no part of me that would ever regret loving Edward. I would regret not being good enough to keep him, I would regret fucking up and losing him, but I would never regret loving him.
“You might,” he confessed, “but only because it’s a horrible thing.” He sighed again, his brow furrowed and creased. As soon as his words registered in my brain, the tears I’d been holding back began to fall. I couldn’t help it. I was an emotional melting pot. I felt rejected and confused, frustrated and scared, and just to add insult to injury, I was incredibly turned on. I only wanted to love him. It didn’t seem like too much to ask for. He looked at me incredulously and I knew he didn’t understand where my tears came from. I could feel the defensive vices building in my mind, readying to push Edward away to protect me from further hurt.
“Why don’t you just leave me now then,” I suggested sarcastically. “You seem so sure of how I’m going to react; you could save us both the trouble.”
“Bella, don’t,” he warned, irritated.
“Don’t what Edward? Don’t get frustrated because you’ve already decided how I’m going to react? Don’t love you? Don’t feel hurt by you not wanting my love? Don’t concentrate on how you can throw this all back in my face because I’m too fucking weak to live without you?” Choked out through my tears, my words sounded more like defeated excuses than accusations.
“I meant please don’t hide behind your sarcasm, and you’re not weak Bella. Love doesn’t make you weak.”
“No, apparently it makes me bolt.” I stared at him wide-eyed as the tears continued to fall, silently pleading for him to make the hurt stop.
“Bella, relax please,” he pleaded softly, smoothing his hand over my hair lovingly. “I don’t think you’re going to leave. I think we are strong enough to work though things. I do have faith in our love.”
“But not enough to be with me? You don’t want to let me love you the way you loved me in case I might regret the only thing in my life that’s made sense since my Mom died?”
“That’s not fair. You’re oversimplifying.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right. Let me rephrase…you don’t have enough faith in me to trust that I’m always going to love you?”
“I do,” he insisted, his eyes wild with emotion.
“You believe that I will always love you?” I asked skeptically, rephrasing my question to make my intent clear.
“Yes.”
“Okay,” I nodded, accepting defeat. “It’s important to me that you believe that, and if you do then there’s nothing more to say.” Nothing constructive that would change his mind anyway, and I didn’t want to cause a fight. He wasn’t being unreasonable. I turned away from him, feeling uncomfortably vulnerable, trying to dry my tears and hoping to put an end to our painful conversation while my hand searched blindly under the covers for my robe. I kept trying to convince myself that it was enough if he believed that I would always love him. Just because I could show him my love more easily that I could speak it didn’t meant he needed me to show him, even if I wanted to. I wanted him to see that I took him at his word, that I wasn’t impossible or undeserving of his faith. I could be the sort of woman he saw me as, patient and understanding and capable of thinking outside of the freakbag of emotions I usually worked out of. I could be mature. I could be rational. I could be worthy of Edward’s devotion.
Next part
Chapter 32: Connection (Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.1, 19.2, 20, 21, 22.1, 22.2, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33.1, 33.2)
Author:JCAddict/picklewinkle/Sher
Fandom: Twilight
Word Count:11,596
Rating: R/M, for sex and language
Story Summary: Bella is devastated by the loss of her mother and is forced to go live with Charlie, her Mom's best friend when there is no one else to take her in. She gives up on living, too lost in her own anger to let anyone close to her. Enter Edward, the handsome teenage vampire, and the beginning of a complicated love-hate relationship. Neither can deny the connection between them, but can their love survive the fear that rules her and the secret he hides from her? AU, OOC, Rated Mature for language and lemons. Also available at Twilighted.net
Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight and all of its characters. I'm just manipulating them like imaginary playdoh so I feel like I have some power over them **snorts**
33. Conflicted - Part 1
A/N: Twilight and all of its characters are owned by Stephenie Meyer.
This chapter is long and split unevenly between two entries because it's too big for one entry.
More earning of the story rating in this chapter. *shrugs* I make no apologies. This chapter has always been there in my plan/mind from the very beginning. My only hope was to do it justice, so I hope I accomplished that.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I appreciated the feedback. I think maybe I left some of you speechless :op
From Bella’s POV...
He wrapped his free arm around my waist and pulled me to his body with a light melodic laugh that made my toes tingle. I was craving the comfort of his arms as a way to extend the rapture of what he’d just done to my body so I turned in his arms and pressed my back to his chest. Maximum skin-to-skin contact. I sighed happily; ignoring the urge to figure out how that just happened and instead letting the waves of euphoria continue to wash over me. Edward seemed to understand what I wanted or he was happy enough to have my skin against his. He nuzzled his chin into the crook of my neck and whispered, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I murmured contentedly.
“Did it help at all with your faith?” he asked thoughtfully, picking up a piece of my hair, twirling it around his finger circumspectly. “Did you feel my love for you?”
“I felt a hell of a lot more than that,” I joked.
“Don’t make light of it,” he appealed in a quiet voice. “I was being truthful when I said I would make you believe in the strength of our love. Obviously there’s more to our connection than physical love, but do you think I could make you feel that good if there wasn’t a strong and enduring bond between us?”
I could feel the tingling in my cheeks starting as soon as he began to speak, softly emphatic and decidedly sure. Only I could manage to blush at the notion of what Edward was capable of making me feel. Lying there naked beside him didn’t make me blush, having had him stroke me into orgasm didn’t make me blush, but thinking about Edward knowing that he could make me climax made me blush. I was seriously broken.
“Why are you blushing?” he wondered, kissing my cheek softly.
“I guess I’m just finally comprehending what happened,” I answered honestly.
“Did you enjoy it?” he whispered against my ear, squeezing me lovingly with the arm he had wrapped around me. I wasn’t sure if he meant it rhetorically. I mean, he gave me a freaking orgasm. I’m pretty sure that was an unequivocal sign that I enjoyed myself.
“Yes,” I informed him in quiet voice. As silly as the question seemed to me, I knew it would hurt his feelings if I didn’t answer him, and considering he did it all for me, I owed it to him to be as honest and reassuring as he needed me to be. I shivered, coming down from my post-orgasm high. Between my lack of clothing and Edward’s cool skin, the room suddenly seemed freezing.
“Are you cold?” he asked worriedly, reaching for the comforter and tucking it around me. It bothered me that he pushed it between his body and mine, and it made me worried that he didn’t like being close to me like that. I twisted my hips, unsubtly pulling the covers away from my back and flipping them over the both of us. With the comforter gone, I spooned my body into his and removed all space between the two of us. In my innocent search for the comfort of our physical connection, I inadvertently pressed my ass so tightly to his hips that I was able to feel every bit of his erection against my bare skin. Edward shifted away from me minutely, bending his knees and tucking them into mine to disguise the displacement of his hips, but I wasn’t fooled. I knew he was trying to be a gentleman and I bet he was hoping that I hadn’t realized what was happening. He knew me better than that.
In truth, I felt like a bit of an idiot for not trying to touch him somewhere in the middle of everything he did to me. I had kissed his neck and shoulders but I never actually put my hands on him intimately. I felt even worse when I realized I didn’t know that one spot to touch him that would drive him nuts, some tiny little unsuspecting area that would make him let go of his control if I touched him there. I should know where that was, or at least have investigated trying to find it. Once he started touching me I became a bundle of hormones and nerves with tunnel vision. I don’t think I would have continued to breathe if it weren’t an automatic response. There wasn’t much of my body that I had control of when Edward was touching me.
It was partly shock too - shock that there was a secret that existed that had the potential to tear us apart, shock to find him waiting in my bedroom, shock that he asked to untie my robe and was going to touch my body. I would like to say it was shock when his lips hit my bare skin but it wasn’t. It was erotic and blissful and such a fucking turn on. My brain stopped working. One second I was this crying mess of an incapable person, spilling my guts about my Mom and begging for his patience while I tried to work out the clusterfuck of fear I’ve become, and the next minute Edward was giving me something I’d only dreamed of, and with such intensity and ardour that it overwhelmed me, and not a bad kind of overwhelm, but the sweetest, most intense and focused out of control overwhelm I’d ever experienced. It was like being delivered to heaven’s gate on a cloud.
I needed to return some of what he’d given me, not just because I wanted to touch him or because he deserved to feel some of the pleasure he’d given me, but because I wanted him to feel my love the same way he wanted me to feel his. I knew I would always be better at showing him how I felt than I would ever be at speaking my feelings. The words just never seemed like enough, not for someone as remarkable and exceptional as Edward. Maybe he wouldn’t let me touch him, or maybe he wouldn’t want me to touch him, but I had to try.
“No, I’m not really cold,” I pointed out. “It’s more me coming back down to Earth after what you just did to me.” I flattened my back and pressed it against his chest, shifting my hips slightly forward and away from him.
“You should let me cover you up. You’ll get cold against my skin.” I heard the sincerity in his tone and I knew he was only concerned with my comfort, but it was still hard not to feel hurt. The last thing I wanted was to be separated from him.
“I’d rather be cold and touching you, than warm and without your touch,” I whispered, unable to keep the emotion out of my voice. I knew the emotion was sincere, born of his love and generosity, but it still felt foreign somehow. I’d spent so much time pushing everyone away. Now that I’d let him into my heart, he seemed to call out the emotion I’d been repressing all of these months, even though I knew that wasn’t the case. It was just his love, capable of amazing feats, like bringing down the walls of an angry young woman and teaching her to love again. I let my hand drift up languidly, trying to appear casual, and laid it on his hip.
“I hate that I can’t offer you warmth,” he whispered wistfully. I didn’t want him to worry or focus on anything negative.
“What you offer me is so much more important than warmth. Besides, in the summertime you’ll be like my own personal air conditioner.” I fanned my fingers out, stretching them downwards, and caressed his thigh.
“I like the idea of spending the summer with you,” he admitted. “And if I can cool you down then all the better.”
“But for now you can just hold me, okay? I don’t want anything to come between us, not even something as insignificant as a blanket. Unless…unless you’re saying that you don’t want to be close to me…that you don’t like the feeling of my skin next to yours?” I felt a bit guilty for searching out his reassurance, but only a tiny amount. I was new to all of this, and I never promised that I was confident.
“Bella,” he scolded softly, “do you really doubt that I’m enjoying being close to you this way?”
“Not really…maybe…it’s just that when I pressed myself into your body, you pulled away.”
“I didn’t pull away Love. I simply tried to shield you from the coolness of my skin.”
“I don’t want to be shielded from it. I like your cool skin. I like all of you,” I explained in a quiet voice, sliding my hand off his thigh and purposely grazing the erection he was trying so hard to hide from me. I expected some reaction from him but got none. I made another pass, pressing my hand more firmly against his zipper, and felt him twitch beneath my palm. Even though the reaction was a reflex, I felt the tiniest bit victorious in making him feel something, since I was pretty sure he was doing his best to purposely not react to what I was doing. On one hand, no reaction made sense if he was trying to dissuade me, but it could also mean he didn’t know what the appropriate response was, that it felt so good that he didn’t want to do or say anything that might make me stop. I felt so clueless, but I didn’t let it curb my enthusiasm. I stroked him again, purposely curving my hand around him and dragging my palm along him. I didn’t understand how he could repress his reaction when I was getting turned on by the simple act of touching him, enjoying the feeling of him hard under my hand, knowing he was aroused.
“Bella,” he whispered, “what do you think you’re doing?”
“What?” I asked, feigning innocence.
“Nice try,” he chuckled, calling me on my act.
“I’m not allowed to return the favour?”
“I don’t need you to return the favour,” he informed me flatly. I could sense his reluctance, but I was sure it wasn’t because he didn’t want me to touch him, more that he didn’t want to force me into anything or ask something of me that I didn’t want to do. He was a gentleman after all.
“I want to,” I informed him, pushing my index finger against the fly of his jeans and fumbling with his zipper, working to undo it with my fingertip. Once I finally had it opened enough, I pushed my hand in through the opening and curled my fingers around him again. Through the thin fabric of his boxers I could feel him in even more detail and whimpered softly. I began rationalizing in my head, equating what he’d done to me with what he might like to have done to him to justify my own arousal, wishing he’d give me the tiniest bit of encouragement so I didn’t feel like such a pervert.
“Bella,” he warned quietly. I continued to stroke him with a delicate pressure, ignoring his complaints because I wanted him to feel the pleasure of being loved too. No matter what I was feeling, this was about him and showing him that I loved him as much as he loved me. I heard him exhale forcibly, and felt the rush of air against my ear as it left his mouth. I was petrified that it was done in anger or irritation but continued to move my hand slowly up and down him, warring with myself about what it meant. Finally, when I couldn’t stand it any longer, I rolled over to face him, holding my breath and ready to defend my actions, expecting to find him angry. Instead of anger, his face was relaxed and his eyes were closed. When he opened his eyes to look at me all I saw was lust. “Bella, we can’t do this,” he told me in a strangled whisper. Sadness rang from his tone in a tangibly painful way.
“Why Edward? Why can’t we do this?” I forced the words out in a quiet, controlled voice, trying to sound confident and mask the fear that was taking over inside of me. I couldn’t comprehend how he could love me so fully and not want me to touch him too, how he wouldn’t want me to give him my love or at least return the love he gave to me.
“I don’t feel right doing this,” he admitted, his voice raw and emotional. I searched his eyes for some hint of explanation but there was nothing telling to help me understand his words.
“You don’t feel right?” I questioned, trying with everything in me not to get angry. “Am I doing something wrong? Or is it that you just don’t want me to touch you like this?” I was sure I sounded defensive, and even though I was probably overreacting, I didn’t know how to take his statement. Regardless of what he said, he couldn’t make me believe that I was doing something wrong. His body was enjoying what I was doing; I could feel the results underneath my fingertips. The idea of him not wanting my touch was much more frightening to me.
“Bella, don’t be absurd. This has nothing to do with you.” I swallowed hard. It was easy to feel that way when he wasn’t the one being rejected.
“Then why are you trying to push me away?” I demanded, trying to disengage my emotions from my brain, fighting hard against my instinct to shut down and pull away.
“I’m not trying to push you away; simply slow things down.”
“Why?” My mind was screaming at me to calm down. I needed to understand why he didn’t want me to touch him.
“Because I don’t want any secrets between us, and I know you’re not ready to talk about that yet.”
“Careful Edward, that sounds dangerously like blackmail.” My accusation was a low blow, but I didn’t believe him. It was more than the secret that was holding him back. If the secret were the most important thing to him then he wouldn’t have touched me. Something else was driving his apprehension, and it was incredibly hard to not take his rejection personally.
“You know I mean no such thing. Be reasonable Bella. I simply want complete honesty between us before we come together like that.” His irritatingly male ability to be logical and unemotional at the worst times was heartbreaking. I could feel the panic taking over, the rejection and unworthiness digging their heels in.
“So you don’t want me to touch you?” I croaked softly, choking on the emotion I was trying so hard to keep inside.
“Bella,” he cooed, pulling my chin up and forcing me to look at him. “Of course I want you to touch me. There’s nothing I want more. You can see what you’ve done to me, what simply being next to you has done, even before you laid your hands on me.”
“I don’t understand Edward,” I revealed, feeling even more confused as I tried to assemble his words into a coherent thought, still fighting to contain my emotions. “You like what I’m doing to you, but you don’t want me to do it because of the secret that stands between us that you are sure we are strong enough to survive?” I saw the hurt in his eyes instantly and I regretted saying anything. Hurting him was the last thing I wanted. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Just forget it okay? I can see your point. I’m just overreacting. It feels like you’re pushing me away or rejecting me or whatever.” I closed my eyes and shook my head in frustration. “I know you’re not, or that’s not what you’re trying to do. It’s just my fucked up heart that’s got it all wrong.”
“Don’t say that,” he pleaded. “You have as much right to feel the way you do as I have to my own feelings. And I can see how my words are confusing to you. Perhaps I took advantage of the situation, having you in my arms and being able to show you how much I love you, but I wanted to share my faith with you.”
“You didn’t take advantage Edward. I want to be with you,” I insisted. “You keep talking about how much faith you have in us, but if you truly believe that we can’t be touched by anything then why are you resisting something we both want? It’s okay to admit you’re scared. I’m scared too.” I hated to question his faith. It felt like I was defiling scared ground.
“I’m not scared Bella. I know I can’t control whether or not this secret changes your feelings about me, but nothing will ever change the way I feel about you. Long after you’re gone, I’ll still be loving you.” His statement sent my mind reeling.
“It sounds like you’re expecting that I’m going to leave?” I accused, poorly masking my hurt.
“Not at all,” he corrected, “but I can’t explain it any further now.”
“The secret,” I declared, rolling my eyes and pressing my lips together, trying to reign in my irritation. “What is this really about Edward? What I think I can’t handle, or something you’ve decided is going to happen once you tell me? You want to be with me but you’re resisting because of some perceived reaction on my part? You’re holding back because I don’t have enough faith?”
“No,” he insisted, frustrated. “This is solely out of courtesy for your feelings and has nothing to do with whether or not I want to be with you.” Something in his words put everything into perspective for me.
“So you think because I’m afraid of losing you that I would somehow regret being with you after the fact?” I asked softly. My heart ached when I said the words. I was a lot of things - stubborn, sarcastic, impatient, - but there was no part of me that would ever regret loving Edward. I would regret not being good enough to keep him, I would regret fucking up and losing him, but I would never regret loving him.
“You might,” he confessed, “but only because it’s a horrible thing.” He sighed again, his brow furrowed and creased. As soon as his words registered in my brain, the tears I’d been holding back began to fall. I couldn’t help it. I was an emotional melting pot. I felt rejected and confused, frustrated and scared, and just to add insult to injury, I was incredibly turned on. I only wanted to love him. It didn’t seem like too much to ask for. He looked at me incredulously and I knew he didn’t understand where my tears came from. I could feel the defensive vices building in my mind, readying to push Edward away to protect me from further hurt.
“Why don’t you just leave me now then,” I suggested sarcastically. “You seem so sure of how I’m going to react; you could save us both the trouble.”
“Bella, don’t,” he warned, irritated.
“Don’t what Edward? Don’t get frustrated because you’ve already decided how I’m going to react? Don’t love you? Don’t feel hurt by you not wanting my love? Don’t concentrate on how you can throw this all back in my face because I’m too fucking weak to live without you?” Choked out through my tears, my words sounded more like defeated excuses than accusations.
“I meant please don’t hide behind your sarcasm, and you’re not weak Bella. Love doesn’t make you weak.”
“No, apparently it makes me bolt.” I stared at him wide-eyed as the tears continued to fall, silently pleading for him to make the hurt stop.
“Bella, relax please,” he pleaded softly, smoothing his hand over my hair lovingly. “I don’t think you’re going to leave. I think we are strong enough to work though things. I do have faith in our love.”
“But not enough to be with me? You don’t want to let me love you the way you loved me in case I might regret the only thing in my life that’s made sense since my Mom died?”
“That’s not fair. You’re oversimplifying.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right. Let me rephrase…you don’t have enough faith in me to trust that I’m always going to love you?”
“I do,” he insisted, his eyes wild with emotion.
“You believe that I will always love you?” I asked skeptically, rephrasing my question to make my intent clear.
“Yes.”
“Okay,” I nodded, accepting defeat. “It’s important to me that you believe that, and if you do then there’s nothing more to say.” Nothing constructive that would change his mind anyway, and I didn’t want to cause a fight. He wasn’t being unreasonable. I turned away from him, feeling uncomfortably vulnerable, trying to dry my tears and hoping to put an end to our painful conversation while my hand searched blindly under the covers for my robe. I kept trying to convince myself that it was enough if he believed that I would always love him. Just because I could show him my love more easily that I could speak it didn’t meant he needed me to show him, even if I wanted to. I wanted him to see that I took him at his word, that I wasn’t impossible or undeserving of his faith. I could be the sort of woman he saw me as, patient and understanding and capable of thinking outside of the freakbag of emotions I usually worked out of. I could be mature. I could be rational. I could be worthy of Edward’s devotion.
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