The List

Chapter 23: Goodbye

EdwardPOV

In just nineteen short days, Bella had made me a completely new man. It started on our wedding day, when she gave herself to me and me alone for all eternity. Her actions that day made me feel I had worth, value, that I was bigger than what I became laying in that hospital bed in 1918. I was someone's husband. I was Bella's husband. I was a protector. And a provider. And a partner. I had so many more identities now, and they had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was also a vampire.

In the eighteen days after, Bella also made me a lover. Touch by touch, kiss by kiss, Bella coaxed me out of my shell with constant reassurance and never-ending understanding. She made me see that there didn't have to be a difference between the Victorian gentleman and the sexual being that both lived inside me. I could be both. She gave me confidence in my ability to control myself, acknowledged my vampiric needs and urges as if they were simply any normal consideration one lover might have to make for another's weakness or vulnerability, and made me realize that sex doesn't have to be serious. That laughing is okay, even desirable. That sex can be fun.

And good. Oh God has it been good. I simply couldn't get enough of her. I find it absolutely impossible to decide which has been my favorite experience so far. Perhaps it was the way she revealed her knowledge of my contribution to her list. And what she'd allowed me to do afterwards. I was just always left feeling I needed more. I never felt more like a seventeen year old than when I stood, ready to have her again, while she still lay panting beneath me from our previous time together.

Or maybe it was the day we went swimming in the lagoon with the waterfall, and she'd let me hold her under the falling spray, both my fingers and the pressure of the water bringing her repeatedly to her climax. Or maybe it was the morning I returned from hunting to find Bella naked on her knees waiting for me by the front door. She'd declared herself hungry and then opened her mouth, pointedly looking at my crotch when I didn't immediately understand the meaning of her actions. Or maybe it was our second time in the shower. Yes, that one was particularly good.

Of course, I knew this was one of her fantasies. And one of her earliest ones, if its placement at the beginning of the list was any indication. I hadn't really thought much about it the first time I'd taken her in the shower. But the second time, the shower had started out entirely innocent. We'd been out at the beach and simply needed to rinse the sand off of ourselves. We washed one another - I loved the feeling of her hands in my hair in any and every way - and spent a long time just touching and talking and being. Then I couldn't help myself, and I pushed her front into the wet tile wall and pressed my awakening erection into her behind as I kissed her shoulders.

Just then, the water started to cool and I pulled away. "Where are you going?" she'd asked.

I reached to shut off the water. "I think we've used up all the hot water," I'd replied.

She looked at me oddly for a moment and then bit her lip. Finally, she whispered, "Leave it."

I went to argue with her - I didn't want her getting chilled by the cold water. That was when it hit me. The water was cold. The marble tiles were cold. I was cold.

I used one of her now-famous lines on her. "Bella, do you have something to tell me?"

"No." She made a weak effort to distract me by wrapping her warm fist around my cock. Okay, it wasn't weak, because it was in fact distracting. But she fails to realize just how expansive my brain is and how many things it can process at one time.

In a flash I pressed against her, surrounding her in cold-my body against her back, the wall against her front, the water falling down around us. She was shivering, but the overwhelming scent of her arousal told me she wanted this.