Waxing Crescent (Alice Cullen x Bella Swan)

Chapter 11 - The Charlie Problem

She jerked away with lightning speed. The absence of her touch more chilling than the feel of her marble skin pressing down into every part of me ever could be.

She hadn't quite managed to completely remove herself - still hovering above me. But, she had managed to dig her fingers into dirt like she was cleaving onto some sort of life raft. 

She kept her eyes squeezed shut, and, despite the tension rolling off of her in waves, her face was otherwise inscrutable.

"Alice, babe, why-" I lifted myself up on my elbows, flustered but still trying desperately to understand, and, shamefully, restore what was lost.

She swiftly shut that dream down.

"Hush! If you call me that, it will only make this more difficult for me."

"Make what more difficult?" I pulled myself up higher, propping myself onto my palms as I tried to get closer to her once more.

"My incessant thirst to rip all of your clothes off and devour you, right here and right now, that is what!"

My cheeks burned, and I think I even made some sort of strangled squeaking noise at the back of my throat.

"And would that be such a bad thing?" I eventually coughed out, knowing full well that I was playing with fire.

"I think so, I..." She trailed off.

Her brows knitted together, her eyes still remaining firm and barring me from seeing the depths of her.

"I think I could hurt you if I am not careful. I have already told you... I need to be sure," She opened one eye, a much darker gold peeping through lashes, "And, ahem, if our unusual circumstances has somehow escaped your notice, I wanted candles, not moss and caterpillars. Surprisingly, they do not seem to set the mood quite like ambient lighting and satin sheets with an exceedingly high thread count does, would you believe?"

"True," I chewed my lower lip before letting my teeth graze away with a pop, "But, if you don't want to have sex with me, you're going to need to stop kissing and touching me like that. It's infuriatingly, unbearably, UNENDURABLY unfair. I personally don't want my first time to cause suspicious rashes or-or stain my clothes and skin a grotesque muddy brown, but it's really not so easy to say no to the idea when your tongue is jammed down my throat."

Both of her eyes fluttered open this time. She looked down at me, her lids heavy and her fringe casting her face into light shadow.

"Trust me, my love. It is hard for me, too. I am not the only one who is good at teasing - You know that, right? Nights have been long and far too lonely without you," She drifted closer, letting the chill of her fingers glide underneath my chin and traipse down towards the hollow of my neck, "You are so enthralling and you do not even have a single clue. Somehow, that makes you all the more alluring."

A wistful sigh parted her lips, "Your ignorance. God! It makes it so much worse. Or, so much better. I have not decided which, just yet."

"Mhm," I closed my eyes, automatically reveling in her touch, "Alice, this is what I'm talking about. So unfair."

"Yes. Yes, it is."

She bounced back up to her feet and offered her hand after dusting them off in a surprisingly fastidious blur, "But is it not just so much fun?"

"If you say so," I rolled my eyes, ignoring her now pristine hand and pulling myself up onto my feet.

I dusted the dirt off my jeans the old-fashioned, and very human, way, and looked around, trying to see if I could make out the trail.