Spiral Static

I was going to kill Alice.

Judging from the beautiful, old-fashioned wedding dress she’d picked out for me, I had assumed that she would exercise similar discretion when she begged to choose my nightgown for the wedding night. She hadn’t let me see it and had only handed me the gift-wrapped box to slip into my suitcase right before they came to get my bags before the wedding. I wished now that I had at least brought a backup nightgown. What had she been thinking? She must have foreseen that I wouldn’t like it.

There was a note inside the box.

Try not to let him eat you when he sees you in this.
I would miss you terribly if he did.
All my love,
Your new sister

Despite my aggravation, I couldn’t help but smile. Alice meant well of course, but apparently I was more modest than even she assumed.

I shivered in the cold hotel bathroom and wrinkled my nose again at the offending pile of satin and beaded lace that was nestled in the box of tissues. I needed something to wear, but I couldn’t make myself put it on. I didn’t see any other options. The complimentary bathrobes were in the closet out in the bedroom where Edward waited, so that was out of the question ... not to mention a little silly. I couldn’t exactly go out there in a towel, and I wasn’t about to put my wedding dress back on. I’d only managed to get the itchy thing off five minutes ago.

I glanced at the clothing items Edward had removed and left in the bathroom before I had pushed him out and claimed the room to myself. His dress shirt, still perfectly pressed despite the fact that he’d been wearing it all day, was hung up on the door. His tuxedo jacket was next to it, also immaculate. A bowtie hung around the neck of the hanger.

Problem solved. I tugged the shirt off of the hanger and pulled it on. It smelled wonderful. Perhaps a little too big, but it was a billion times better than the other Alice-approved option.

Pleased, I turned toward the mirror to take care of the rest of my appearance. There was a small mountain of hairpins that I’d already extracted from my hair. Alice had really gone overboard, but even I had to admit that it had looked nice with the veil. Edward seemed to like it, at least. I blushed, remembering the perfect look of awe and love on his face when he’d seen me. He had glowed like he was standing in a patch of sunlight. That moment alone was worth the pain of the whole wedding.

It took me a good twenty minutes to brush all of the hairspray out of my hair and calm the resulting frizziness. Eventually my hair relaxed, and I let the soft curls fall loose down my shoulders and back. He would like that. I smiled at my unfamiliar reflection. I wasn’t a huge fan of getting dressed up, but it was nice in a way. Though I had resisted at first, I was glad I had allowed myself to enjoy today. I still hated all the attention – and a bride was the worst thing in the world to be if you hated attention – but seeing the look on Edward’s face, and on Charlie and Renée’s ... it occurred to me that maybe this day hadn’t been about me at all.

The day was surprisingly painless. I hadn’t even tripped when I walked down the aisle. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t happy when it was all over. Edward had laughed at me in the limo, relaxed and beautiful in his tuxedo, watching as I kicked off my shoes to massage my blisters. “I thought you were going to sink into the floorboards during the ceremony.”

“I almost did,” I admitted. “Lucky you were there to hang onto me.”

He had smiled, eyes forever fixated on mine. “Yes. Lucky.”

We’d been taken to a hotel by the airport. Our flight was scheduled later the next day, though I still hadn’t been told where we were going for our Honeymoon.

I was … married. It all seemed so strange.

Edward was still waiting for me, I remembered, a fact that made my stomach want to drop out of my body and onto the floor. This was really going to happen. It didn’t seem real yet. His scent was all around me, wafting up from his shirt, lending itself to my own body. I buried my face in the fabric and breathed deeply. It made me miss him, though he was just in the next room, and I hurried to finish.

When I exited the bathroom, I promptly spoke up to prepare him for disappointment at the sight of me. “I’m sorry, Edward,” I said before he could speak, “but I can’t wear that thing that Alice bought me. Don’t be mad, okay?”

But when I glanced his way, my husband didn’t look mad or even a little disappointed. He didn’t even speak. He was only still, frozen like a marble statue from where he sat on the edge of the bed, staring at me. His hair was out of place, unusual for him, as if he’d been dragging his fingers through it. He looked almost boyish sitting there in his slacks and undershirt. His skin was smooth and beautiful in the soft light of the room.

It was all a bit distracting. I forgot what I had been talking about, but my lips continued to move wordlessly. It was then that I focused in on his face – his eyes, more importantly, and the look I observed there almost made me turn around and go back into the bathroom. He looked ... hungry.

I didn’t see the big deal. He’d seen me in my nightclothes before, and this wasn’t that different. But the sight of me wearing his shirt, admittedly with nothing underneath save a modest pair of cotton panties ... well, I didn’t realize he would find it so appealing.

It took me a moment, but I found my voice. “Hi,” I said, starting over again.

His eyes fluttered to my face, dark under his thick lashes.

“Are you mad?” I asked. My hands moved to fiddle with one of the buttons on my shirt. I wanted to make sure it was still there. The way he was looking at me made me feel like I wasn’t wearing anything at all.

His brow furrowed, confused. “What?”

I realized he hadn’t heard a word I’d said when I had come out of the bathroom. A slow smile spread across my face, excitement stirring inside of me. This was kind of fun. “I guess not.”

Edward didn’t return the smile. His face was the color of ash, blue shadows bruising his wary eyes. “Bella?” I almost didn't hear his whisper. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

But I’d already prepared myself for resistance. He had warned me about it in the weeks before the wedding. “I’m not promising anything,” he would tell me when the subject came up, mostly in whispered conversations in my bed, late at night. “Your safety is always first.”

Edward was too protective of me. Even he had admitted that. It was time for him to let go a little bit.

Ignoring him, I made sure to maintain eye contact as I slipped my panties off, letting them glide down my legs to the ground. I barely caught the slow intake of his breath.

His gaze fell to the scrap of soft cotton that now lay at my feet. Tension rolled off of him in waves. “I’m serious, Bella.”

I glowered at him. “Good grief, Edward, they’re just underwear.”

He looked up at me then, and I promptly shut my mouth. His eyes were bordering on feral. I could see the flat blackness sneaking up on him, edging out the beautiful color of his irises. That was reason enough to stop taunting him. I might be reckless at times, but I wasn’t stupid. At least ... not that often anyway. “I thought you and Emmett went hunting yesterday.”

He blinked and shook his head, as if my words had stirred him out of a trance. Then he swallowed, eyes still fixated on me. The darkness had faded from his irises. “We did.”

“Then you can control this if you’d just try. Just ... take a minute or something. Do you need me to distract you?”

“This isn’t a joke, Bella.” He was getting angry now, voice rising to plead with me. “I could hurt you.”

We’d been through all of this before, of course, so I didn’t take the rejection personally. I approached the bed, unconcerned with the heated glare he aimed at me. I’d once misinterpreted that glare – hidden my face from it even, thinking it was filled with hate. But no ... he was just afraid.

“Edward... ” I whispered, reaching out to touch the back of his neck at the hairline. It was like silk beneath my fingers.

My touch seemed to calm him. He sighed, resigned. “What if you bleed?” he asked quietly.

“Then I bleed. It happens. And you’ll stop yourself if that excites you ... because you’re Edward, and I’m Bella.” I captured one of his hands in mine and lifted it to cup my cheek. “Do you really think you would ever hurt me? Do you really think you’re capable of it?”

His face seemed to say I know I’m capable of it. But to his credit, he didn’t speak the words out loud. We’d had this argument so many times, and it had always come down to two little words in the end.

“I’ll try.”

I was glad he had decided to skip to that part. It was enough.

I kissed his hair and let him fold my body into his arms. He was still sitting on the edge of the bed with me standing in front of him. It was nice, leaning down toward him instead of the other way around. Since he was taller than I was, it wasn’t often that I was able to hug him from that angle. He buried his face between my breasts, nuzzling me, inhaling my scent. One of his hands slipped under the hem of my shirt, tracing patterns with his fingers up the side of my thigh. His hand finally came to rest on my bare hip, his skin cool against the heat radiating off of my body. I was positive he could hear the sound of my heart increasing its tempo. I thought it was going to rip out of my chest.

He glanced again at my panties, cast aside but apparently not forgotten. Then he laughed ... a clear, jovial laugh. “You little minx,” he all but purred when he’d finished.

Then he pulled my face to his and kissed me.

It was unlike any other kiss we’d ever shared, though I’d seen hints of this sort of underlying passion before. It was ... hot. Hot like the heat waves that rolled off of the pavement on a sweltering Phoenix afternoon. But his lips were cold against mine, like always. It was the pace, the frenzy, the hunger that had me seeing sunbursts exploding behind my eyes. He parted his lips against mine, his tongue seeking passage. The kiss slowed then but turned into something impossibly hotter. Fingers tangled into my hair and angled my head to allow him easier access. He tasted me deeply, slowly.

Too soon he pulled away, but I didn’t have time to protest before I felt his lips on my neck, nipping and licking down my throat. I swallowed with difficultly, eyes closing in delight. My mouth was going to be bruised in the morning. And my neck. I couldn’t find it in me to care.

“I want to touch you, Bella,” he whispered against my neck between breathless kisses. Then he looked up and locked eyes with me. “I need to touch you. May I?”

I’m sure the face I made in reply wasn’t pretty. Was he kidding? If he didn’t get over his antiquated sentiments, I was going to pop him in the nose. I decided against that course of action, knowing that would probably be a more painful experience for me than for him.

“Duh,” I hissed. I didn’t mean to sound so immature, but he’d stopped kissing me to ask me for my permission, and I didn’t like that at all. He seemed to understand my frustration, and grinned at me wickedly as his hands slipped under my shirt.

He started at my waist, and he traced the line of it with his fingertips ... then one hand found the small of my back, and the other pressed flat against the softness of my belly. The pressure felt unexpectedly good. I flushed a bit but held still, letting him draw a slow circle around my bellybutton. He left a kiss there, through the shirt, and whispered something to me as he did so. I didn’t understand a word he said. I was past hearing. He touched every inch of my back, waist, and stomach. He did so reverently, like I was made of paper-thin glass.

Then, just before I thought I was going to go insane with anticipation, he tiptoed his fingers up my ribcage and cupped one of my breasts in his hand, a look of wonder and curiosity on his face. I stared at him, weighing his reaction. I’d always wondered if he’d done this part before, maybe while I slept or while I was too caught up in kissing him to notice. I wouldn’t have been angry if he had ... I’d resigned my body to his care a long time ago. But no, his expression revealed this was all quite new to him. He brushed a thumb over the nipple, eyes darting to my face, perhaps to see if I liked it. I did, but I squirmed anyway. It was useless trying to get out of his iron grasp though. He chuckled, correctly interpreting my reaction as a positive one, and refused to let me escape. His lips found mine again and took me in a playful kiss. I relaxed, resigning myself to his caresses, lulled by the sweet taste of him.

Cold fingertips, smooth as glass, found the tender flesh of my inner thigh. I gasped against his mouth, and my legs began to tremble as his fingers moved upward in a deliberate path ... but he didn’t touch me there. Not yet. I was about to crumble from expectation.

Leaving his place on the edge of the bed, he went to his knees suddenly before me, holding me by the waist so that I remained standing before him. His eyes were serious when he looked up at me, black and amber fighting for control. “You’re sure you want to do this? Last chance, Bella.”

I nodded, unable to speak. “Please,” was all I could manage.

My eyes drifted shut when I felt the bottom of my shirt being lifted. He pulled my body so close to his own that I had to grasp him by the shoulders to steady myself. His breath swept over the bare skin of my abdomen, and he pressed a burning kiss into the hollow dip next to my hip bone. My thighs parted, guided by his hands, and he brought his mouth to the part of my body that no one on this planet has seen since I was a baby.

He kissed me there, lips soft, mouth open ... then I felt his tongue, ice cold and wet against my heat ... and I thought I could have died right then and there. My body went rigid, and I grabbed a fistful of his hair into my hand. He moaned and gathered me closer, mouth still against me, sending jolts of electricity crackling through my core. He seemed to find contentment in the taste of me, delight in the roughness of my response.

I’d never felt anything like it. It was all very strange and new. Such a raw, acute pleasure centered somewhere deep in the pit of my stomach. But when the feeling started to crescendo, always building past the point I thought surely it had to stop at, I knew that I had to get away from it. I just had to because it was almost unbearable ... too much, too much ... I didn’t know what to do with everything I was suddenly feeling, and there was nowhere to escape from it. I wanted him off of me, his clever tongue back in his mouth where it belonged. It was dangerous. I was not in control of myself anymore.

It was the first time I think he had ever truly frightened me.

It was also the first time he ignored my pleas for him to stop. Not that I actually asked him to.

“Easy, Bella,” he whispered against my flesh, lips wet. “Don’t be afraid of it.”

Sometimes I wasn’t entirely sure he couldn’t read my mind.

“Just let it take you.”

So I did, reluctant though I was. The world faded around me, and I became aware of nothing but my body ... and the way he was touching it. I felt the pressure of his hands on me, one clamped on my hip, the other gently nudging my thighs further apart to give him better access. They were the only thing keeping me from hitting the floor. I felt like I was floating, and I wasn’t sure I liked the sensation.

The encounter lasted much longer than I wanted it to. I felt like screaming, anything to get whatever was building up inside of me OUT so that I could return to my own body. But it wouldn’t come. It was maddening, like a pot of steaming water that refused to boil over. I needed something to hold onto, but nothing would anchor me. I gripped at his shirt, his hair, his ears, pulling harder than I would have if he had been anyone else. I didn’t hurt him, of course. He only smothered his smile against me and persisted in the torture.

Just when I was about to push him away and beg him to stop because I couldn’t take anymore, something happened inside of me that I couldn’t explain. My abdomen suddenly clenched ... then soared. My body seized up, and my mouth formed a perfect O. I didn’t cry out, but I wanted to. The truth was I couldn’t find my breath.

I forgot everything.

His name. My name.

In my mind, we somehow got mixed up with one another.

One person, one mind, one body.

At some point my legs must have given way because I was no longer standing. I suppose I had just sort of slid down the length of him, helped along in the right direction by his hands. I found myself in his lap, carefully cradled against him. I felt like a ragdoll – quaking, drunk with unfamiliar sensations.

He lifted my chin, and dropped kisses on my sleepy eyelids. “Such a pretty little thing ... exquisite,” he whispered into my hair. “We could stop there, Bella. You liked it, didn’t you? I could do it again. All night, if you want. We don’t have to go further than that.”

He was being terribly sweet – he had, after all, only done all this for me at my own request – and I felt guilty when the urge came over me to hide. It took me a moment to find the strength, but I managed to get to my feet even though my legs felt like Jell-o beneath me. Quite calmly, I pulled the bottom of the shirt down again to cover my nakedness and retreated to the bathroom without saying a word.

He let me go, but I could feel his eyes on me.

In the bathroom, I stared at myself openmouthed in the mirror, then splashed some water on my face, hands trembling. My makeup ran, black rivers streaming down from my eyes. I reached blindly for the soap so that I could wash it all off. The cool water was distracting, but my ears were ringing, and I had to sit down on the edge of the bathtub and put my head between my legs until it stopped.

Holy freaking crap. That had just been the foreplay.

It was the first time I had ever really seen his point. Sex with Edward wasn’t ever going to be the safe, innocent act most people were able to share with each other. The whole encounter had frightened me, and I was no scaredy-cat. Maybe he was right. Maybe we should stop there.

I bit my lip and wondered how on earth I could ever go out there and face him again.