Edward looked down at me, waiting until I met his gaze before he stepped through the threshold.
He carried me through the house, both of us very quiet, flipping on lights as he went. My vague impression of the house was that it was quite large for a tiny island, and oddly familiar. I’d gotten used to the pale-on-pale color scheme preferred by the Cullens; it felt like home. I couldn’t focus on any specifics, though. The violent pulse beating behind my ears made everything a little blurry.
Then Edward stopped and turned on the last light.
The room was big and white, and the far wall was mostly glass—standard décor for my vampires. Outside, the moon was bright on white sand and, just a few yards away from the house, glistening waves. But I barely noted that part. I was more focused on the absolutely huge white bed in the center of the room, hung with billowy clouds of mosquito netting.
Edward set me on my feet.
“I’ll… go get the luggage.”
The room was too warm, stuffier than the tropical night outside. A bead of sweat dewed up on the nape of my neck. I walked slowly forward until I could reach out and touch the foamy netting. For some reason I felt the need to make sure everything was real.
I didn’t hear Edward return. Suddenly, his wintry finger caressed the back of my neck, wiping away the drop of perspiration.
“It’s a little hot here,” he said apologetically. “I thought… that would be best.”
“Thorough,” I murmured under my breath, and he chuckled. It was a nervous sound, rare for Edward.
“I tried to think of everything that would make this… easier,” he admitted.
I swallowed loudly, still facing away from him. Had there ever been a honeymoon like this before?
I knew the answer to that. No. There had not.
“I was wondering,” Edward said slowly, “if… first… maybe you’d like to take a midnight swim with me?” He took a deep breath, and his voice was more at ease when he spoke again. “The water will be very warm. This is the kind of beach you approve of.”
“Sounds nice.” My voice broke.
“I’m sure you’d like a human minute or two.… It was a long journey.”
I nodded woodenly. I felt barely human; maybe a few minutes alone would help.
His lips brushed against my throat, just below my ear. He chuckled once and his cool breath tickled my overheated skin. “Don’t take too long, Mrs. Cullen.”
I jumped a little at the sound of my new name.
His lips brushed down my neck to the tip of my shoulder. “I’ll wait for you in the water.”
He walked past me to the French door that opened right onto the beach sand. On the way, he shrugged out of his shirt, dropping it on the floor, and then slipped through the door into the moonlit night. The sultry, salty air swirled into the room behind him.
Did my skin burst into flames? I had to look down to check. Nope, nothing was burning. At least, not visibly.
I reminded myself to breathe, and then I stumbled toward the giant suitcase that Edward had opened on top of a low white dresser. It must be mine, because my familiar bag of toiletries was right on top, and there was a lot of pink in there, but I didn’t recognize even one article of clothing. As I pawed through the neatly folded piles—looking for something familiar and comfortable, a pair of old sweats maybe—it came to my attention that there was an awful lot of sheer lace and skimpy satin in my hands. Lingerie. Very lingerie-ish lingerie, with French tags.
I didn’t know how or when, but someday, Alice was going to pay for this.
Giving up, I went to the bathroom and peeked out through the long windows that opened to the same beach as the French doors. I couldn’t see him; I guessed he was there in the water, not bothering to come up for air. In the sky above, the moon was lopsided, almost full, and the sand was bright white under its shine. A small movement caught my eye—draped over a bend in one of the palm trees that fringed the beach, the rest of his clothes were swaying in the light breeze.
A rush of heat flashed across my skin again.
I took a couple of deep breaths and then went to the mirrors above the long stretch of counters. I looked exactly like I’d been sleeping on a plane all day. I found my brush and yanked it harshly through the snarls on the back of my neck until they were smoothed out and the bristles were full of hair. I brushed my teeth meticulously, twice. Then I washed my face and splashed water on the back of my neck, which was feeling feverish. That felt so good that I washed my arms as well, and finally I decided to just give up and take the shower. I knew it was ridiculous to shower before swimming, but I needed to calm down, and hot water was one reliable way to do that.
Also, shaving my legs again seemed like a pretty good idea.
When I was done, I grabbed a huge white towel off the counter and wrapped it under my arms.
Then I was faced with a dilemma I hadn’t considered. What was I supposed to put on? Not a swimsuit, obviously. But it seemed silly to put my clothes back on, too. I didn’t even want to think about the things Alice had packed for me.
My breathing started to accelerate again and my hands trembled—so much for the calming effects of the shower. I started to feel a little dizzy, apparently a full-scale panic attack on the way. I sat down on the cool tile floor in my big towel and put my head between my knees. I prayed he wouldn’t decide to come look for me before I could pull myself together. I could imagine what he would think if he saw me going to pieces this way. It wouldn’t be hard for him to convince himself that we were making a mistake.
And I wasn’t freaking out because I thought we were making a mistake. Not at all. I was freaking out because I had no idea how to do this, and I was afraid to walk out of this room and face the unknown. Especially in French lingerie. I knew I wasn’t ready for that yet.
This felt exactly like having to walk out in front of a theater full of thousands with no idea what my lines were.
How did people do this—swallow all their fears and trust someone else so implicitly with every imperfection and fear they had—with less than the absolute commitment Edward had given me? If it weren’t Edward out there, if I didn’t know in every cell of my body that he loved me as much as I loved him—unconditionally and irrevocably and, to be honest, irrationally—I’d never be able to get up off this floor.
But it was Edward out there, so I whispered the words “Don’t be a coward” under my breath and scrambled to my feet. I hitched the towel tighter under my arms and marched determinedly from the bathroom. Past the suitcase full of lace and the big bed without looking at either. Out the open glass door onto the powder-fine sand.
Everything was black-and-white, leached colorless by the moon. I walked slowly across the warm powder, pausing beside the curved tree where he had left his clothes. I laid my hand against the rough bark and checked my breathing to make sure it was even. Or even enough.
I looked across the low ripples, black in the darkness, searching for him.
He wasn’t hard to find. He stood, his back to me, waist deep in the midnight water, staring up at the oval moon. The pallid light of the moon turned his skin a perfect white, like the sand, like the moon itself, and made his wet hair black as the ocean. He was motionless, his hands resting palms down against the water; the low waves broke around him as if he were a stone. I stared at the smooth lines of his back, his shoulders, his arms, his neck, the flawless shape of him.…
The fire was no longer a flash burn across my skin—it was slow and deep now; it smoldered away all my awkwardness, my shy uncertainty. I slipped the towel off without hesitation, leaving it on the tree with his clothes, and walked out into the white light; it made me pale as the snowy sand, too.
I couldn’t hear the sound of my footsteps as I walked to the water’s edge, but I guessed that he could. Edward did not turn. I let the gentle swells break over my toes, and found that he’d been right about the temperature—it was very warm, like bath water. I stepped in, walking carefully across the invisible ocean floor, but my care was unnecessary; the sand continued perfectly smooth, sloping gently toward Edward. I waded through the weightless current till I was at his side, and then I placed my hand lightly over his cool hand lying on the water.