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The tense evening with Billy and Jacob seemed harmless enough now; I decided to forget it completely.
I toss things, too.
“So you never met anyone you wanted?” he asked in a serious tone that made me wonder what he was thinking about. I was grudgingly honest. “Not in Phoenix.”
“It seems like a long time to you, doesn’t it?” he mused. I nodded glumly.
“We match.” He laughed again. I realized he had a long, light tan sweater on, with a white collar showing underneath, and blue jeans.
His skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday’s hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface.
The meadow, so spectacular to me at first, paled next to his magnificence.
“I’m the world’s best predator, aren’t I? Everything about me invites you in—my voice, my face, even my smell. As if I need any of that!”
“As if you could fight me off,” he said gently.
“I was afraid… because, for, well, obvious reasons, I can’t stay with you. And I’m afraid that I’d like to stay with you, much more than I should.” I looked down at his hands as I spoke. It was difficult for me to say this aloud.
“So what you’re saying is, I’m your brand of heroin?” I teased, trying to lighten the mood. He smiled swiftly, seeming to appreciate my effort. “Yes, you are exactly my brand of heroin.”
I wasn’t used to having to go to such circuitous measures, listening to your words in Jessica’s mind… her mind isn’t very original, and it was annoying to have to stoop to that.
“Bella, I couldn’t live with myself if I ever hurt you. You don’t know how it’s tortured me.” He looked down, ashamed again. “The thought of you, still, white, cold… to never see you blush scarlet again, to never see that flash of intuition in your eyes when you see through my pretenses… it would be unendurable.” He lifted his glorious, agonized eyes to mine. “You are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever.”
“You already know how I feel, of course,” I finally said. “I’m here… which, roughly translated, means I would rather die than stay away from you.” I frowned. “I’m an idiot.”
“And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…,” he murmured. I looked away, hiding my eyes as I thrilled to the word. “What a stupid lamb,” I sighed. “What a sick, masochistic lion.”
And it was almost warm, his usually icy skin. But I barely noticed, for I was touching his face, something I’d dreamed of constantly since the first day I’d seen him.
“Will you turn into a bat?” I asked warily. He laughed, louder than I’d ever heard. “Like I haven’t heard that one before!”
“Come on, little coward, climb on my back.”
He hesitated—not in the normal way, the human way. Not the way a man might hesitate before he kissed a woman, to gauge her reaction, to see how he would be received. Perhaps he would hesitate to prolong the moment, that ideal moment of anticipation, sometimes better than the kiss itself. Edward hesitated to test himself, to see if this was safe, to make sure he was still in control of his need. And then his cold, marble lips pressed very softly against mine.
Besides, friends don’t let friends drive drunk,” he quoted with a chuckle. I could smell the unbearably sweet fragrance coming off his chest. “Drunk?” I objected. “You’re intoxicated by my very presence.” He was grinning that playful smirk again.
“And are you not affected at all?” I asked, irked. “By my presence?”
“You like fifties music?” I asked. “Music in the fifties was good. Much better than the sixties, or the seventies, ugh!” He shuddered. “The eighties were bearable.”
She knows other things. She sees things—things that might happen, things that are coming. But it’s very subjective. The future isn’t set in stone. Things change.”
“I come here almost every night.”
My first stalker romance.
“Don’t be self-conscious,” he whispered in my ear. “If I could dream at all, it would be about you. And I’m not ashamed of it.”
“Isn’t it supposed to be like this?” He smiled. “The glory of first love, and all that. It’s incredible, isn’t it, the difference between reading about something, seeing it in the pictures, and experiencing it?”
“Yeah, it’s an off day when I don’t get somebody telling me how edible I smell.”
“Jasper is very interesting. He was quite charismatic in his first life, able to influence those around him to see things his way. Now he is able to manipulate the emotions of those around him—calm down a room of angry people, for example, or excite a lethargic crowd, conversely. It’s a very subtle gift.”
“Your human instincts…,” I began. He waited. “Well, do you find me attractive, in that way, at all?” He laughed and lightly rumpled my nearly dry hair. “I may not be a human, but I am a man,” he assured me.
His gold eyes grew very soft. “You said you loved me.” “You knew that already,” I reminded him, ducking my head. “It was nice to hear, just the same.” I hid my face against his shoulder. “I love you,” I whispered. “You are my life now,” he answered simply.
“Wrong again,” he murmured in my ear. “You are utterly indecent—no one should look so tempting, it’s not fair.”
In her long khaki skirt? xD
“Hi, Bella!” Alice said, and she bounced forward to kiss my cheek.
I rolled my eyes. “Vampires like baseball?” “It’s the American pastime,” he said with mock solemnity.
His eyes flickered back to the porch, and then he leaned in to swiftly kiss me just under the edge of my jaw. My heart lurched frantically, and I, too, glanced toward the porch. Billy’s face was no longer impassive, and his hands clutched at the armrests of his chair.
He frowned. “What I meant to say was, don’t do what you’re doing.”
Billy's a real one for doing something so uncomfy.
Only in Washington would the fact that it was raining buckets have no bearing at all on the playing of outdoor sports.
Facts. Nothing got cancelled.
“You smell so good in the rain,” he explained. “In a good way, or in a bad way?” I asked cautiously. He sighed. “Both, always both.”
“Damn it, Bella!” he broke off, gasping. “You’ll be the death of me, I swear you will.”
“That won’t help,” Alice said softly. “I could smell her across the field.”
“You brought a snack?” he asked, his expression incredulous as he took an involuntary step forward.
I glared at him and continued. “You take me back. I tell my dad I want to go home to Phoenix. I pack my bags. We wait till this tracker is watching, and then we run. He’ll follow us and leave Charlie alone. Charlie won’t call the FBI on your family. Then you can take me any damned place you want.”
“I love you,” I said in a low, intense voice. “I will always love you, no matter what happens now.”
“Just let me go, Charlie.” I repeated my mother’s last words as she’d walked out this same door so many years ago.
I HATE THIS
“How can you kill a vampire?” He glanced at me with unreadable eyes and his voice was suddenly harsh. “The only way to be sure is to tear him to shreds, and then burn the pieces.”
“Why should I?” she hissed. “What is she to me? Except a menace—a danger you’ve chosen to inflict on all of us.”
Oof
Jasper and I looked at each other. He stood across the length of the entryway from me… being careful. “You’re wrong, you know,” he said quietly. “What?” I gasped. “I can feel what you’re feeling now—and you are worth it.” “I’m not,” I mumbled. “If anything happens to them, it will be for nothing.” “You’re wrong,” he repeated, smiling kindly at me.
And I remembered Alice sitting with me on the dark leather backseat. Somehow, during the long night, my head had ended up against her granite neck.
“It’s been almost a century that Edward’s been alone. Now he’s found you. You can’t see the changes that we see, we who have been with him for so long. Do you think any of us want to look into his eyes for the next hundred years if he loses you?”
“Would you tell me the truth, though?” “Yes. I will always tell you the truth.” Her voice was earnest.
“You see, the vampire who was so stupidly fond of this little victim made the choice that your Edward was too weak to make.
“I can’t always be Lois Lane,” I insisted. “I want to be Superman, too.”
