Donation Drive ch7: A Song and Kiss Equal Bliss

After Emmett dragged Edward upstairs, Jasper, Esme, and Carlisle checked me over for any wounds. Edward had collided with Jasper, and the impossibly loud crack of their impact had sent me backwards onto the floor. Outside of some minor bruising on my back, I was physically unharmed. Emotionally however, I was still upset despite Jasper's best efforts.
I ran up the stairs and saw Edward dumping clothes into a suitcase as he swore aloud. I lightly ran my fingers across the wood grain on his door. He turned and gave me a look that was at once filled with malice and also with great pain and regret.
“Edward, I'm sorry. I just wanted...”
“I know what you wanted. You wanted to help. Could you have chosen a more stupid way? No, I don't think so.” He slammed the drawer and jerked open another. “I could have killed you! I would have killed you had my brothers not intercepted. Even now, I can smell your blood on everything and only by some divine grace am I resisting the urge to rip out your throat.”
As he spoke, I could hear James downstairs trying to reason with Jake. James' voice brought back the memories of our conversation last night on the motorcycle. “Change me,” I whispered.
Edward's head snapped up and the gold in his eyes flared as bright as the full moon. “What?!”
“Change me, Edward. Drink my blood and then change me. You get the blood and then I'm no longer a liability.”
Edward was in front of me in a flash of movement, his hands coming up and then moving back as if burnt. I watched as he clenched his hands into fists and slowly lowered them to his sides. When he spoke, his anger had burned away into a cold venom.
“I won't damn you to this unlife, Bella. You deserve far, far more than to become a monster like me. We can find someone to penetrate your mental barrier and remove your memories. You'll think of us only as a faded dream of long ago.”
I could feel angry tears spilling over my cheeks as I fought back my urge to slap Edward.
“No! You will not take my memories from me, the same way you can't make my decisions for me, Edward. I am my own person. Yes, I'm beyond pissed that I was manipulated into coming back to Forks, but I am the one who chose to come back. You and Jake both need to realize that I am not some marionette for you to march around on a stage as you see fit.” His sudden pout reminded me of a child. “How old are you?”
His lips curved into a bemused smile. “Seventeen.”
“And how long have you been seventeen?”
He shrugged. “A while.” Under my unwavering stare, he finally relented and gave me the information I wanted. “I was born in nineteen-oh-one. Carlisle changed me in nineteen-eighteen.”
I nodded in response. “And no one has seen fit to remove your head from your ass in all these years?”
Edward looked at me with a mix of shock, anger, and even amusement. His hands unclenched and then rested on my shoulders. He looked over my head suddenly and began speaking once more. “No, Jasper, we're fine.” I jumped as Edward spoke to the vampire who had appeared in the doorway behind me, his lanky frame taking up most of the vertical space.
“She doesn't feel 'fine,' Edward. I think she's plum ready to rip your head from your shoulders.”
Edward's answering growl reverberated through his arms and made my whole body quiver.
“No, she may be angry, but I don't see her resorting to harming me. Bella is much too forgiving and caring to ever hurt someone.”
His hands began to slide up and down my arms.
“Excuse me? Don't you dare talk about me like I'm not here.” I pushed against Edward's chest, attempting to shove him away, yet he refused to move. “You know very little about me, and the more I get to know you, the less I want to.I am standing by my earlier diagnosis that you are bi-polar. One minute we're having this amazing conversation on the phone, the next you're in a barbaric rage and scaring the shit out of me in Carlisle's office, then you're all sweet and apologetic before begging me not to leave. Now, you're back to the caveman routine, deciding what I'm going to do with my life. Well, fuck you, Edward.”
Jasper laughed and came over to where Edward and I were standing, his long fingered musician's hands still holding me immobile. “I think that the two of you need to kiss and make up. Now, kiss.”
Lust filled me as every part of my body responded to the feel of Edward's hands on my shoulders, and then his thighs brushing against mine as Jasper pushed me into Edward. My breathing sped up and the seam of my pants felt tighter as my body swelled with increased blood flow. Along with the lust came confidence and a wanting so strong I could cry for what was before me. Edward's eyes were black, his breathing coming out in pants as fast as mine and his hands drifted up my neck to cup the sides of my head, his wrists at my jawline.
I closed my eyes and tilted my head up, not knowing anything but the vampire in front of me and the need to kiss him, to feel him, to have him as my own. Cold breath swept across my face, bringing with it the frozen lemonade scent that made my insides burn with a passion Jasper's emotional shove could not match. Edward moved that fraction of an inch more and our lips connected. My arms went from pushing against his chest to around his neck, tugging at him, needing him as close as possible. I wanted him to burn in the flames that were consuming me, licking at the back of my lips. Then the fire was over almost before it started. Edward gently pushed me away and held me as far as his arms could reach.
“You... you need to go to your room now, and stay there. Please, Bella. I have to leave and you're making this more difficult. I won't let myself hurt you. Now go!”
I was frozen in place watching Edward as he brought two fingers to press against his lips. He whispered something and Jasper tugged me backwards and out into the hall. Jasper gently shoved me into my room.
“I don't like it, but I have to agree with him, darlin'. Givin' him your blood was a bad move. What was Carlisle thinkin' in agreein' to that?”
“He thought Edward needed a dose of confidence in his self-control. Carlisle thought Edward was stronger. Apparently, we were both wrong.”
My lips still burned with the remembered fire of Edward's momentary kiss. I wanted to feel my body ignite at his touch again and again. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I was immediately flooded with concern.
“Jasper, is Edward alright?” I remembered how Edward said it hurt to be near me. “The pain he's in being near me; is he okay? Let me by!” Jasper was blocking my doorway and I could not see Edward's door from my vantage point.
“Hold your horses, kitten. He's a tad shaken but fine. Just leave him be...well, sounds like he's leavin' you be, I guess.”
Five seconds later, Jasper moved from the doorway and I ran past him and down the stairs as I heard a car start. I reached the front door as Edward's Vanquish pulled out of sight. Several curses left my lips as I stepped out onto the steps before Alice and Rose each grabbed one of my arms.
“Let him go, Bella. Our brother is an arrogant ass. Get used to it.” Rose rested her chin on my head and brushed some wayward strands of my hair out of my face. “I must say, those were some rather inventive uses of the word 'fuck.' When will he be back, Alice?”
“Soon enough that no one but Bella will miss him.” Alice's lips were curved up into a smile. “But she's going to be busy enough in the meantime.” I turned to look at her, but her golden eyes were locked on Rosalie.
“With what, Alice,” I asked.
Her giggle was my only answer as she spoke to Rosalie outside of my hearing range.

---

One day turned into two and then a third before the phone in my room began to ring. Jake was sitting in the chair under the window as I reached for the phone. The day after the guest room on the third floor became my space, Jake had become a little relaxed on his policy regarding coming up. With Edward gone, Jake came up whenever he wanted.
I was still so frustrated with Edward, that I had closed his bedroom door and refused to so much as acknowledge his presence, or lack there of at the moment. Looking at the caller ID, I saw “Denali, Tanya” on the display.
“Hello?”
“It's Edward. I... Just go into my room please.”
Jake looked at me oddly and I just shrugged. “Fine, Edward, give me a second. Jake, stay here.”
I took the phone with me across the hall and into Edward's room, the door knob opening with the whisper soft sound of well-oiled metal bearings.
“I'm in your room, now what?” I hated that I sounded so hostile to him, but I couldn't help my feelings. He exasperated me at every turn.
“Please, sit down at my computer. There is a stack of blank Compact Discs on a spindle beside the tower. If you put one in the CD burner drive, and turn on the monitor, I should be able to handle the rest.”
I sat down in the metal and leather chair before the shelf that functioned as a computer desk. I turned on the monitor's power and then reached for a CD. As soon as I put it into the drive, Edward asked me to click on a small green icon in the lower right. Once I did as asked, the cursor began to move on its own. Rapidly, several programs opened and then closed before I saw “file transfer, time remaining 7 minutes,” show on the screen.
“Edward, what is all this? Why did I have to do it? Couldn't one of your siblings do this for you?”
I heard a soft thud and then a sigh. “No, dammit.” Another sigh left Edward's lips. “Just, wait, please. Please, Bella.”
I focused my eyes on the woods outside the home, letting my mind follow the path of a hawk soaring over the treetops. A few minutes later, I heard Edward hum almost mindlessly as the whirring of the CD burner began.
“It's ready,” he said, a split second before the system ejected the disc tray. “Go put it in the CD player on the wall and then press the fourth button on the presets list. It should handle the rest. Go sit on the couch, center cushion, and close your eyes. Set the phone down, and just listen, please.”
I did as Edward asked and a song started playing, piano and violin accompanying one another while a male's voice, obviously Edward's, began to softly hum along with the song. The hum turned into words that went by too rapidly for me to hear, but my heart knew them. The piano's notes threw me into the lower pits of Hell before a ray of light tugged at my soul and lifted me back into the world of the living. Fire ripped through me as the notes washed over the room, the speakers threw me into a maelstrom of sound and emotion.
“That is what you've done to me, Isabella.” I could hear Edward's voice thick with unshed sobs as he spoke over the phone which I'd discarded beside me on the couch.
The music changed into something light, slow, reminiscent of the song I'd dreamed of the day after my birthday.
"I wished," I heard him almost whisper and I picked up the phone, "I wish you could feel the… complexity… the confusion… I feel. I wished that you could understand. That is why I wrote this and played it for you. I have not played the violin in over a decade, yet I needed to, for you. What I can't say in words, I can in my music. My kind, we do not change, Bella. When we do, it is forever.
“That evening, changed me. You are so foolishly naïve, but so warm and loving; you are at turns the most unselfish and giving person I've met and simultaneously the most frustrating with your almost idiotic ventures to help. I. Cannot. Drink. Your. Blood. You will die.”
“I'm...”
He cut me off. “I don't want your apologies, Bella. Just don't ever do it again. Your donations will have to be given when I am not around or after I have had sufficient time to prepare myself for the sensory assault. Now listen, the song is changing.”
Edward drew my attention back to the music and I listened as the music built into a cacophony of sounds that were at once sweet and horrifying. The music ended bitterly but then the softer high notes began again in that almost lullaby before becoming the heated exchange Edward and I had in his bedroom. Then the bliss of our kiss played for my ears and it went down into my soul. He had felt the fire. He hadn't been oblivious to it.
“You felt it too,” I murmured.
“Bella, that was my first kiss; of course I felt it. Can you not hear how it changed me? But I don't know how to be close to you. I don't know if I can.”
His first kiss? How has he waited this long? If he hasn't kissed, has he not... Oh boy. The forty year old virgin has nothing on him.
“You have to find someone else to feed; you have to bond with another. James will gladly take you on as a second donor. His contract with Victoria does not deny him that right. If James asks and my father denies, the Volturi can override it. I will call and request the transfer. Women like to travel. He could even leave you in Italy; you would like it there. James is trouble, but I do not doubt that he would take care of you properly. It is the best solution.”
I hung up the phone. I wasn't going to listen to his “solutions” for my life any longer. Edward dialed back once and then a second time before the phone in his room began to ring. I let it go unanswered until the answering machine picked up.
“Please, Bella. I'm doing this for your own good. You'll forget about me, about our kiss, and go back to your life. Please, for me, just go.”
I lifted the phone from the receiver. “If all you have to say to me involves ordering me around, save your unnecessary breath and don't come home.” With a heavy heart, I hung up the phone and then stopped the cd. I ejected the disc and then went back to my room. Jake was on my bed and with one look at my face, he got up.
“I think I should probably go, and um, give you some space, right?”
I nodded; I was too tired to deal with Jake.
“I'll be downstairs if you need anything, babe.” His fingers lightly ruffled my hair before his heavy frame loped out the door and down the stairs. I missed the not-so-long-ago days when he was exiled to the second and first floors and the third story remained my sanctuary from all but Alice and Rosalie.
As I threw myself onto my bed and pulled the pillow over my head, I heard the main house phone ring simultaneously on all three levels. It stopped after just one ring so I knew one of the Cullens had answered it. Thinking I had finally escaped from Edward, I relaxed into the bed and tried to focus my thoughts.
He had admitted, in a roundabout way, to wanting me and to liking me. I, in some fashion, liked him- more than liked him. Edward however, was annoying the fuck out of me. I was not going to take his attitude lying down. I have been taking care of myself for far too long to let some seventeen year old try and tell me what was good for me.
I gave up my train of thought in a fit of disgust with myself as I found myself analyzing each flawless inch of skin I had seen and/or touched of Edward, my cellphone let out a small beep, signifying a text message had been received.
“B, why was $750 deposited into our account under B Swan? What are you doing?Eric”
With trembling fingers, I typed out a short message. “I'm on the Cullens' payroll now. I wanted to share my earnings with you.”
His reply hurt more than I had anticipated. “Please tell me you aren't a donor.” I knew from my discussion with Carlisle that Eric knew what they were, but his disappointment, even via a handful of letters on the screen, hurt. Our parting was still too new and raw.
I called him to continue the conversation. Eric answered on the third ring. “Please, Bella, tell me you aren't a donor.”
“I can't tell you that, Eric, sorry.”
His sigh sounded as if the rest of his heart, the pieces I hadn't broken already, were shattering. “After everything... no, never mind. I won't be able to change your mind, so I won't insult you by trying. Just, be careful, Bella. I love you too much to want this for you, but also know that you wouldn't go into this without knowing the risk. I... I won't be waiting, Bella. I can't believe that you would be a donor. I can't wait for you to die too. Take care of yourself, if not for yourself, for me. But, I am going to tell your dad. Charlie deserves to know.”
Eric hung up before I could respond; my yell of “Don't call Charlie!” went unheard by him. It did not, however, go unheard by my housemates. Victoria and Charlotte stood in my doorway a few minutes later.
“Is everything alright, Bella,” asked the pale slip of a blonde girl.
I gave up my thoughts of screaming into my pillows once again. “Yes, Charlotte, while incredibly frustrated, I am going to be fine. Thanks,” I added as an afterthought.
Charlotte so rarely came out of her bedroom except for feeding Jasper or having dinner with the family, I had not been given much of a chance to talk with her. Everything about her screamed 'frailty'; she was all bones with few curves, and she had much the same otherworldly beauty that the Cullens had, save a blush across her cheekbones and a heartbeat.
“If you do need anything, let me know. I remember my first days and it can be overwhelming.” She gave me a shy smile. “While I'm up here, I wanted to ask,” Charlotte paused as she looked down at carefully painted pink toenails. “If Jasper asks you to feed him, as a general donor, not bonded, while I have to be on a break, it is fine with me. Do you think you could?”
Victoria sniffed and rolled her eyes. Unlike Charlotte, Victoria was loud, brassy, and had shown no small amount of displeasure in the past few days after learning that James took me into Port Angeles on his motorcycle. She really hadn't liked the fact that he let me wear her helmet, or that he had worn one so he could talk to me on the ride. Now, the mid-thigh length leather jacket I'd returned in, Edward, Jake, and Victoria had not been pleased with that.
Luckily, the boys had not said a word about it beyond a mild grumbling before going to their rooms after seeing that I was okay when we got in at three AM. James had ensured I had a wonderful birthday evening.
Our first stop was one of the few department stores and James insisted on buying me a nice coat so I would not freeze on the way back. “As much as I would love to see your cheeks flushed from the night's chill, I think the Cullens might have a problem if I returned you in less than perfect condition. Besides, I think that your natural blush, the one you make when I do this,” James tilted my chin up so that our eyes were only on each other, and then gently kissed my nose, “is much more becoming. Now, let's go purchase you a coat, sweet cheeks.”
I humored him after my first two attempts at dissuading him, and tried on coat after coat, until we both agreed on a leather jacket in a warm chestnut shade with a wide belt. Each time I slipped a coat on, James circled me quickly, looking at me like I was something to eat, and then would smile as he twirled one finger, wanting me to spin for him. I gave in and let him have his fun. I didn't like him spending money on me, but James, as well as the rest of the Cullens, had told me to relax as money meant so little.
After buying a coat and matching gloves, James slid his arm around my waist and started walking toward a few of the restaurants. “Well, you can take your pick. I don't eat, ever, so it doesn't matter to me where I drink from my flask.” He patted his hip flask that I was pretty sure held a large serving of Victoria's blood. “If you were my donor, I'd push you up against this brick wall and drink from your neck before going in.”
He gave me a devilish grin and winked before pulling me harder into his side. “But, I think Carlisle would have a problem if I took away their newest donor. Vicky might be upset if she had to share me; but don't let that worry you. She knows who her master is.”
We had a lovely dinner at this small Italian restaurant, where James was attentive, but always had a smile for the waitress. When we walked out, James tossed the waitress' phone number into the bushes outside the door. “You humans are too easy. Now, aren't you glad I had her sing that birthday song for you? She didn't want to, I could smell her reluctance, but she so wanted to please me.”
The way James viewed humans was both refreshing and disturbing. Even after knowing him just a few hours, I knew where I stood. I was alive because I was amusing, and because he had some fear of what the Cullens would do to him if he killed me, and because he thought I had some future use.
After a drive out to a beach where James built a small fire to keep me warm from the ocean breeze, he told me of how he'd chosen Victoria before the change in rules. “I drank from her twice a week, three weeks a month. I would drain a random human we came across the other week. My sire, the vampire who turned me, has his own Coven near Quebec. Laurent and the others do not take part in the Volturi's new pact. However, they remain tidy with their kills and go relatively unnoticed.”
We rode back into Forks at eleven thirty and were almost to the turn for the Cullens' when blue and red lights began flashing. With a string of curses, James pulled over. He reached into his pocket with one hand, and with the other, held my arms against his stomach tighter.
“Hold on to me, Bella. If he pulls any shit, we're out of here fast. You got me?”
I nodded and buried my face into his ponytail that was hanging down his back over the leather coat he wore before sitting back up. I knew better than to fight him. We were also so close to the Cullens that we would be somewhere for James to cool down quickly. Tension radiated through him, feeling much like a pacing tiger stuck inside a cage.
I looked over my shoulder as the officer approached and my stomach just about fell out. Charlie. “It's my dad,” I whispered as quietly as possible.
“Does he know about you being a donor?”
“No.”
“Isabella Marie Swan, what are you doing out this late on a motorcycle, especially one whose driver was going forty miles per hour over the limit?” Charlie let out a cough and then approached James, the word “license” only getting halfway past his lips before it died. “Oh, you're one of them, the Cullens' friends. You should be more careful when you have my daughter with you. She doesn't have the same health benefits you do.”
James relaxed and released my hands. “I'm sorry, Chief Swan. I took your lovely daughter out for a birthday dinner and we lost track of time. I wanted to get her back home before they locked up for the night.”
Charlie gave James a hard look and then sighed. “Bells, into the cruiser. I was here for cake earlier and you were already gone. Alice told me you'd be back at eleven thirty so I was heading back up to wish you a happy birthday. Let's go home where I have some microwave cake bowls.” He paused and looked from James to me. “I suppose he's coming with?”
“If you don't mind, sir.”
James climbed off the bike smoothly and then lifted me off. In a voice soft enough the microphone barely picked it up, “I'll meet you at your dad's after I go feed. I'm pissed off, and an angry vampire is a hungry vampire.
I spent the next two hours with Charlie and James, dodging questions about what I knew about the Cullens and restraining myself from asking my dad why he had lied to me about the donors. I did enjoy noticing the little things, the way Charlie sat between James and me, how he didn't offer to make one of the chocolate lava cakes for James, and the slight grimace when James commented on having a filling meal earlier in the night. Charlie attempted to be sneaky and checked me over for any scars and on my part, I made sure to drop a few comments about how happy I was to see Jake again.
It was almost two thirty before Charlie let James and I go, with a heavy guilt trip about not coming to see my father on my birthday. When we got back to the house, Edward and Jake were waiting for us, with matching frowns. I just pulled my jacket around me tighter and let James lead me up the stairs. Victoria was standing in the doorway to one of the bedrooms, I assume the one the Cullens kept on hand for visiting vampires as the door had been locked on my previous tours. She scowled at me and then smiled as James looked at her.
“Welcome home, Master,” she let out on a simpering sigh.
“Good evening, Victoria. You should be sleeping. You need your rest so that I can drink more in the morning. I will be hungry and you should always be ready for me; you know that.”
She went into the room, closing the door behind her as James started up the stairs to the third floor. When I hesitated, he laughed. “I took you out; I'm going to see you returned safely to your door, sweet cheeks.”
I ran up the stairs and then bypassed James to go into my room, Edward storming up behind us as we went in. James gave a small smirk as he slid my coat down my arms and then hung it up on the coat rack which now stood beside the door.
“Thank you for such a lovely date, Bella. I am glad that we could celebrate your birthday without the drama of the young ones. Thank you for graciously accepting my gifts. Now, to properly end our night, how about a kiss?”
James pointed to his cheek and I rolled my eyes but acquiesced. I gently pulled myself up onto tiptoes, using my hands on his shoulders to stretch myself to my full height, and moved to press my lips against his cheek. He turned quickly and captured my lips with his, one hand sliding up into my hair to hold me still. His lips drew at mine, coaxing a small whimper as I felt my body responding to the kiss. James stepped back.
“Oldest trick in the book, Bella. You're going to have to step up your game if you want to stay ahead of me. Good night.”
James' kiss, while good, did not have half the effect on me as Edward's had. I broke myself from my musings to look at Victoria and Charlotte who were watching me with arched eyebrows.
“Look, I'm sorry you came up here for nothing. My ex-boyfriend found out I'm a donor and knew what that meant. He's pissed off and is calling my dad, the police chief here in Forks. I do not want to cause any trouble for the Cullens.”
“You don't have to worry about us, Bella. We're good at taking care of ourselves. We'll take care of you too, if you let us.” The loud voice of the largest Cullen made me jump. Emmett had to turn slightly so that his broad shoulders could fit through the door. He rushed toward me and I found myself partly flying as I came to land on Emmett's shoulders. “Right now, I think taking care of you involves a trip to the hot tub out back- with or without your clothes, your choice.”