We were in the deeper, darker water. Bella was clutched to me and it was so warm on all sides I felt suspended, as if floating on air. I hovered for a moment not moving, my eyes closed, enjoying the warm weightlessness.

"Edward?"

My eyes snapped open to look down at her face and I pressed my lips against hers, her next question lost in a kiss. I moved my lips against hers gently but fervently enjoying the feel of her soft wet skin against mine. She resisted nothing. Always warm, always open to me, too obliging and trusting.

My tongue sought hers and I heard her moan as her soft fingers entwined themselves in my hair and then I couldn't stop myself. My lips moved across her face, her cheeks, her eyelids, her luscious throat. My hands roamed across her slick, soft form, down her spine, across her hips to her thighs pulling them both up on either side of my waist.

She was completely wrapped around me now. For a moment I had the sensation my heart was beating, until I realized it was her loud and thunderous heart beating against my chest. Her soft breasts were crushed against my chest, yielding into me. The sensation of a heart was so strong I felt almost human. In the warm water I could almost feel blood coursing through my veins. For a moment I could be just a man in love with a woman, making love in the waves for the first time. No complications, no gaps between us. No differences.

But there was no time to consider this as Bella began to nuzzle me with her cheek, her soft lips leaving small, burning tracks against my neck. Her mouth sought my ear and she began to nibble my earlobe as her warm, sweet breath surrounded my ear and the side of my face. I felt a deep knot tightening in my stomach and then lower as I felt her body writhe against me, her back arching, her legs tightening around me, a burning fire seeping out between them from her center.

Before I knew what was happening she was beneath me on the sand. Somehow we were back on shore. I looked down at her in the moonlight. Her hair was wet and wild, some plastered to her beautiful face but most tangled out into the white sand, an elegant canopy like dark flames, splaying out in all directions from her angelic face. Her eyes glowed, reflecting the moon and I was sure I had never seen anything so perfect in my entire existence.

I gently brushed the hair from her face. Her eyes closed at my touch. I slid my fingers across her neck, her collar bone and she gasped, her hips rising reflexively, and bit her lip as I cupped her right breast. Bella's breasts were small but perfect, just like her. Sweet rounded tear drops with light pink nipples. I pressed my lips against the soft mound, enjoying the heat and the feel of her heart pounding into her rib cage. If I had not been so preoccupied I might have wondered if her heart was beating too fast, if she was doing herself some kind of permanent injury. But I was too far gone. I couldn't stop.

My mouth moved to her breast again, this time letting it slide inside my mouth, my tongue aching to taste her skin, both delicately salty and sweet. I slid my tongue around the soft nipple in gentle circles and heard her breathe in a ragged, deep breath. Her legs slid further open a hot throbbing radiating from between them. Her hands sought my hair as I circled her nipple again and again with my tongue, loving the feel. I switched to the other breast, finding it equally appealing.

I pulled downwards then, my mouth and tongue, kissing and tasting across her ribs, her perfect flat stomach, her belly button. She was so small, so frail. So thin. Was I making sure she was eating enough? Was she too tiny? It seemed that women when I had been alive had been a little rounder, fuller. Not that I'd seen many naked but still maybe I should cook more for Bella. Maybe… but I lost the thought. My brain was too fogged to concentrate. I traveled to her hips, her thighs and as I pressed my lips to the inside of her thigh. Once. Twice. She moaned a deep moan her hips arching against me.

There was a deep blush across her skin, everywhere, but nowhere was it more evident than between her thighs. She was perfectly formed, small delicate the folds of skin like a flower burning hot to the touch and I did touch. Lightly at first I stroked across the tender skin, so engorged with heat and blood beneath the surface, so slick and wet, so ready and waiting. Her scent here was more intoxicating than I had thought possible. It was Bella but more, more animalistic, more primal, more woman.

I pressed my lips against her core, my tongue slipping into her, desperate to taste her. She groaned deeply, I felt the vibration of it as much as I heard it. Her knees and thighs pressed against the side of my head as I licked again, sliding my tongue deeply into her. Her thighs clamped against me tightly but it didn't matter. She couldn't hurt me and at this point she couldn't stop me – no one could.

I tasted her again licking up to her delicate mound at the top of her womanhood. Taking this small nub into my mouth I sucked deeply swirling my tongue around it varying the pressure. She tasted so sweet, so pure, so perfect. I was preoccupied with her taste my hands trailing across her hips, fingers digging into her buttocks. I heard my name called out from far away, felt her hips buck against my hands and face, felt her thighs press against my cheeks but I couldn't stop myself from tasting and sucking her in again and again.

She cried out again, higher pitched, not my name. Maybe my name. Not sure. There was more to taste suddenly and she was shuddering, her back arching high. I held onto her hips tightly, maybe too tightly. It didn't matter right then. Her legs went slack, slid to the sand. Her breathing was a laboured panting. Her body flushed. I slid back up to look at her face.

Her eyes were lit by more than the moon and her skin glowed a delicious pink. She was damp with sweat, her lips slightly parted. She smelled amazing, waves of sweet scented heat wafted from her skin. I knew I wanted her then. Wanted her badly. Wanted to be part of her, inside her, surrounded by her. Engulfed, lost. My own need throbbed between my legs pressed up against her hard and pulsing against the slick softness that I had just kissed into oblivion.

I gathered her up then. Not sure why exactly. Just sure I needed to not take her on the beach like an animal. Like she wasn't special. Like she wasn't everything to me. Maybe some old, human part of me wanted to be a gentleman. Wanted to be Cary Grant. I didn't know. I knew I needed her to be somewhere soft, safe, comfortable. Without much thought or time, we were on the billowy white bed. I laid her gently, like china, like porcelain against the sheets and pillows content that I would be careful, so careful.

But she pulled me to her then with more strength than I would have thought possible and I was on top of her. She said my name again as she pressed her lips to mine and roamed my face with her mouth, my cheeks and jaw and neck. Her hands sought me everywhere, my back, my chest, my hips. The thrill ached in me, made me thrust against her and I knew I was lost. I crushed her to me and she gasped. I didn't have time to see if was pain or something else. I only hoped it was something else. Wanted it to be.

My hands slid to the outside of her thighs bringing her knees up to my waist. She locked her legs around me. Instinct, human maybe, took over and I looked into her eyes as I softly, slowly slid myself into her. Then I stopped abruptly. I heard her whimper. She bit her lip. My eyes were on hers again. Then I remembered. This was new for her too. There was something Carlisle had said about a woman's first time.

"Bella?" my voice was a hissed whisper. It took everything I had not to thrust forward into her again. Her burning, wet opening beckoned me to enter further.

"It's not bad. Really. It hurts but in a good way," her hand touched my face. "I don't want you to stop. I don't want this to end now."

"Pleasure and pain," Carlisle had said. "They exist together. Sometimes it's a fine line. Sometimes one inevitably leads to the other. The human stuff is messy Edward. Complicated"

I closed my eyes and tried to think past it. The discomfort she might feel at first was inevitable. It was human. It was part of what she was. What this was. I would be as tender as I could. I would do this for her. I would do this for us.

I pressed my lips to hers. I thrust again, deeper, harder. I felt her barrier give way this time against my cold, throbbing shaft of steel. She gasped. But I thrust again intent on making this happen. Making this work. We could work. We could fit together.

I looked into her deep dark eyes, so full of desire, once again as I slid away and back deeply into her. It was then that the smell hit me and I lost the last vestiges of my control.

The blood, small drops of her innocence, her virginity. I had spilled them. It hit me when I least expected it, at a moment of great vulnerability and intimacy. When I was most raw. I bucked then driving into her harder than I would have ever meant to, a growl escaping my lips, my head tilting backwards.

I fell against her desperate to move my head from her neck, my teeth from her skin. I bit down deeply, hoping I was nowhere hear her flesh, all the while thrusting into her in a crazed frenzy aching against her hot, wetness, wanting to slide into her again and again. I tasted something then, cloth… feathers? I didn't care. My mouth was full of soft fluff. It wasn't skin so I didn't care.

I heard her cry out. Her arms and legs were wrapped around me. Her nails were digging into me but I really couldn't feel it. Not that she could come close to breaking my skin.

She moved with me as I drove into her again and again. She was soft yielding, pliable, perfect and I was hard, throbbing, cold, a freight train. I felt the pressure building between us.

My head was swimming with the agony of it all. The scents, the sound of her moans drove me to the edge. I thrust into her again deeply and it all exploded. Her name flew out of my mouth along with a plume of feathers and my body when rigid, hard. My back arched up away from her as I shuddered into her. I felt an ebb of something stream out of me into her, deeply inside her. God, don't let it be venom. I gritted my teeth against the explosion, light, fireworks, pleasure so deep it was agony. I shuddered again.

If I'd had a heart it would have pounded. Stopped dead. I was breathing ragged, gasping as I was rocked by wave after wave of intense electric pleasure. I'd never felt anything like it. Never thought anything like that existed and it was only Bella that had made it possible.

Bella.

I realized then that her arms and legs were no longer around me. I stopped. She was breathing. Irregularly but breathing. She was damp, slippery from sweat. Hair stuck to her face, feathers everywhere. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted.

"Bella?"

"I love you," she murmured.

I slid out of her, off of her and she moaned slightly in disappointment. Already I could see red welts forming on her arms, her ribs, maybe other places. I didn't want to think about it.

She shivered against me, draping herself around me. Her head on my chest. Her sweat was already beginning to dry. The air still hung heavy with her sweet scent and something else. Sex? Love? I pulled a blanket around her trying not to notice the hand prints forming on her skin, her ribs, her hips. My hand prints. Dear God why did this have to be a mistake? Why did this, so beautiful, so perfect for me, have to cause her any agony? Why Bella?

I would let her rest now. Let her heal. Pray none of her bones were broken. Pray she wasn't scarred for life.

I pulled some feathers from her hair. But there were too many. She adjusted herself on me, snoring softly.

"I'm sorry Bella. I'll never hurt you again. I'm so sorry." I was sick. I was no man. I was a monster. That fantasy was dead.

"Mmmhh," she muttered as she drifted more deeply into sleep.

I lay still staring into space. I would be there to love her. Be there when she woke up. But we could never do that again. Not while she was human.