Midnight Sun (Twilight #1.5)(82)

Agony again, watching her leave.

I leaned after her, wanting to hold her here. "Bella?"

She turned, and then froze, surprised to find our faces so close together.

I, too, was overwhelmed by the proximity. The heat rolled off her in waves, caressing my face. I could all but feel the silk of her skin...

Her heartbeat stuttered, and her lips fell open.

"Sleep well," I whispered, and leaned away before the urgency in my body -  either the familiar thirst or the very new and strange hunger I suddenly felt - could make me do something that might hurt her.

Bella shivered a little in fear... and anticipation.

She sat there motionless for a moment, her eyes wide and stunned. Dazzled, I guessed.

As was I.

And she smiled at that; it was nice to know that she could dazzle him, too.

She recovered - though her face was still a bit bemused - and half fell out of the car, tripping over her feet and having to catch the frame of the car to right herself.

I chuckled - hopefully it was too quiet for her to hear.

"I wouldn't be so sure with Bella," Jacob mumbled.

I watched her stumble her way up to the pool of light that surrounded the front door. Safe for the moment. And I would be back soon to make sure.

I could feel her eyes follow me as I drove down the dark street. Such a different sensation than I was accustomed to. Usually, I could simply watch myself through someone's following eyes, were I of a mind to. This was strangely exciting - this intangible sensation of watching eyes. I knew it was just because they were her eyes.

A million thoughts chased each other through my head as I drove aimlessly into the night.

For a long time I circled through the streets, going nowhere, thinking of Bella and the incredible release of having the truth known. No longer did I have to dread that she would find out what I was. She knew. It didn't matter to her. Even though this was obviously a bad thing for her, it was amazingly liberating for me.

"Well, that's nice to hear," Bella said; all his thoughts had been so negative before.

More than that, I thought of Bella and requited love. She couldn't love me the way I loved her - such an overpowering, all-consuming, crushing love would probably break her fragile body.

"Hmph," Bella huffed, she was stronger than he thought she was.

But she felt strongly enough. Enough to subdue the instinctive fear. Enough to want to be with me. And being with her was the greatest happiness I had ever known.

For a while - as I was all alone and hurting no one else for a change - I allowed myself to feel that happiness without dwelling on the tragedy. Just to be happy that she cared for me. Just to exult in the triumph of winning her affection. Just to imagine day after day of sitting close to her, hearing her voice and earning her smiles.

I replayed that smile in my head, seeing her full lips pull up at the corners, the hint of a dimple that touched her pointed chin, the way her eyes warmed and melted...

Bella was blushing from this description.

Her fingers had felt so warm and soft on my hand tonight. I imagined how it would feel to touch the delicate skin that stretched over her cheekbones - silky, warm...so fragile.

Silk over glass...frighteningly breakable.

I didn't see where my thoughts were leading until it was too late. As I dwelt on that devastating vulnerability, new images of her face intruded on my fantasies.

Lost in the shadows, pale with fear - yet her jaw tight and determined, her eyes fierce, full of concentration, her slim body braced to strike at the hulking forms that gathered around her, nightmares in the gloom...

Jacob hissed at this description and Bella shuddered.

"Ah," I groaned as the simmering hate that I'd all but forgotten in the joy of loving her burst again into an inferno of rage.

I was alone. Bella was, I trusted, safe inside her home; for a moment I was fiercely glad that Charlie Swan - head of the local law enforcement, trained and armed -  was her father. That ought to mean something, provide some shelter for her.

Jacob chuckled. "Ah, so that point eases his mind a little."

She was safe. It would not take me so very long to avenge the insult...

No. She deserved better. I could not allow her to care for a murderer.

But...what about the others?

Bella was safe, yes. Angela and Jessica were also, surely, safe in their beds.

"He has a point," Jacob hissed. "That man can't be allowed to just walk free... you're not the only one in danger."

"True," Bella said, but she was hoping for imprisonment.

Yet a monster was loose in the streets of Port Angeles. A human monster - did that make him the humans' problem? To commit the murder I ached to commit was wrong. I knew that. But leaving him free to attack again could not be the right thing either.

The blond hostess from the restaurant. The waitress I'd never really looked at.

"You can't like the idea of him hurting them or someone like them," Bella said, though the girls were annoying, they didn't deserve that.

Both had irritated me in a trivial way, but that did not mean they deserved to be in danger.

Either one of them might be somebody's Bella.

That realization decided me.

I turned the car north, accelerating now that I had a purpose. Whenever I had a problem that was beyond me - something tangible like this - I knew where I could go for help.