Chapter Three

Jacob

Much as someone might back away from an unintentionally discovered crime scene, I closed the bathroom door and made my way back upstairs.

When I reached the landing I saw Nessie in a towel, Carlisle and Esme by the door to Rosalie and Emmett's room, and Emmett just inside by the bed.

"Why don't you take a walk. Calm down a little. Work through some things and come back later?" Carlisle suggested to Emmett in his usual calm and warm tone.

"Yeah, sure," Emmett muttered and headed out of the room without meeting anyone's eyes. He made his way downstairs and out the front of the house to the forest where his footsteps almost instantly disappeared.

"The bathroom downstairs is a bit of a mess." I stated to no one in particular.

Nessie pointed behind us. "Just use that one. There's probably no towels in it, but it's the only one that isn't an ensuite or on the back wall."

"I'll get you some towels, Jacob," Esme offered immediately.

I smiled tightly. "It's ok. I know where the linen closet is."

She nodded with a small smile of her own and then turned back towards her bedroom. Carlisle quickly followed.

The linen closet was in the laundry room on the ground floor and as I hopped down the stairs three at a time for the hundredth time today I wondered if there would soon be a day where I never set foot in this house again. There were very few people here anymore who would be comfortable having me around. And even though Nessie was taking the whole thing with a great deal of humor, that wouldn't last forever and I was pretty confident things were going to break down between her and I very rapidly. Imprint or not.

When I reached the laundry the room was dark, and the walk-in closet within it was windowless and packed to the ceiling with bedding, towels and various items that seemed to call it home.

One item I had not anticipated seeing was…

"Alice?" I squinted a little as I looked into the furthest corner of the closet.

She sat curled up on the floor next to a stack of bed sheets and what looked to be a steam mop.

"Hey, Jake," she replied in a soft, cracking voice.

"Why are you in here?" I asked before I could think it through. Obviously she was hiding.

"I didn't think anyone would come in here," she answered, speaking just above a whisper.

"Sorry. I just came for a towel." I reached out and quickly grabbed a light grey towel from the left side of the closet. "Didn't mean to interrupt."

"It's ok. I'm kind of glad it's you. At least you can kind of relate to how I feel."

I sighed roughly and walked over to the corner as I spoke. "If I'm being totally honest with you, I actually can't."

She looked up at me, puzzled. "Why's that?"

I slid down the wall and sat beside the tiny ball of midget vampire. She looked messy for once, and her eyes were vacant, rather than bright and friendly like she usually was.

I started to explain. "I… I was cheating on her too. That changes things. And I knew she was cheating on me from Rose, which also changes things. The only part I didn't know is that one of those people she was cheating on me with was Jasper. But to tell you I'm even close to being as shocked and hurt as you are would be a lie."

Alice seemed to ponder my words for a moment, then nodded. "True."

"I can imagine how I'd have felt if I were in the same position, and that would have sucked pretty bad."

"It was like my heart was ripped out of my body and the cavity was filled with acid," she replied far too quickly for that analogy to have only just popped into her head.

"You've given that description a bit of thought." I commented.

She shrugged. "I've been in here for a while."

The sound of Nessie's footsteps coming down the stairs caught both of our attention then and we listened as she walked through the house and down to the living room to leave through the back door.

Alice looked down at the floor and her breathing got shaky.

"I loved her so much. I would have done anything for her. Killed for her. Anything."

"And now you hate her?" I asked, looking to my left at her dark hair.

Alice peeked up at my face. "It's not that defined. In some ways it's like Emmett said with you and Rose, it's not even her, it's him. He's the one that made me promises and broke them. But the difference between you and Emmett compared to Nessie and I is that level of love. There was no bond between you two like there was with her and I. It hurts more than I can even explain that she would do that."

"It's kind of weird that she grew up calling him her uncle." I'd been bursting to say something about that factor since it was exposed, and now seemed as good a time as any.

Alice hummed. "Honestly, that's the only part of this I've been able to understand. He was never around her - primarily because he wanted to bite her… - so they never really got much of a connection while she was very little. She was about five before they ever really spent much time together, and by that point it was a bit late to establish a familial relationship with a teenager."

"I guess." I shoulders bounced with a small shrug. In hindsight she truly hadn't been around Jasper at all until she got old enough that he started teaching her combat techniques.

"A big part of me wants to leave," she confessed, whispering. "But I don't know where I'd go, and I don't want to be alone."

I didn't really know what to say to her. It's not like there was some silver lining in this situation, and even if there was she wouldn't want to hear it right now.

The only thing I could think to do was comfort her, so I very obviously lifted my left arm towards her as an offer for a hug and she leaned into my side far more readily than I'd assumed she would.

"You stink, Jake." She said when my arm draped around her tiny shoulder. She didn't move to get away though.

"That's not surprising," I replied, smirking at the directness of her remark. Given the level her head was at she was likely getting all my sweaty armpit stink, as well as the smell from Nessie and I. Upon realizing that I felt bad. "Do you want to leave it until I've showered?"

Her head shook a little. "It doesn't matter."

Bella

"You need to explain to me why." Edward stood across the room from me, leaning against the wall while I sat on the bed.

My hands were fidgeting against my will in my lap and were picking at my nails and cuticles.

Getting caught up in the moment isn't really a good excuse for cheating. But what is?

"It was about a year after we got married," I started slowly. Perhaps if I gave some context as to how it came about he might be less furious with me. "I asked her for some… tips… to be better in bed. It felt like we were doing the same thing over and over again and I didn't want you to be bored of me."

"And she couldn't just tell you? She had to show you?" He interjected, still very much annoyed.

I sighed and closed my eyes, trying not to get completely pissed at him cutting me off. "It wasn't as deliberate as that. It just kind of happened. I didn't understand what she meant and she tried to explain, but it's not like I had a tonne of experience to reference."

"Right." His tone was sharp and clipped.

This isn't getting us anywhere.

"It's been six years. You didn't even know anything had happened, and it hasn't changed anything between us until now. If you want to stay together then you'll need to eventually stop being mad at me. If you don't want to then there's no need to go through this interrogation."

His jaw visibly clenched and I watched his eyes darken with frustration by the second. I stayed quiet though because he needed to choose how he wanted to move forward, and how he wanted to go with that would dictate the next actions between us.

It took around a minute, but he did finally speak. "I want us to try and fix this."

"Ok." I nodded. "I don't have a better answer for you than what I've just explained. That's really all there was to it and if I was to try and tell you there was anything more it would be a lie. I'm sorry if you're not satisfied with the answer, but it's all I have."

He stared at me for a long time after I stopped speaking and I could see the wheels turning in his mind. We were about to determine whether this was going to be the start of us moving past this, or the start of the end.

"Ok." Edward nodded, taking a step forward off the wall. "It's been six years, as you say. If it were going to affect our relationship it would have by now. Just… don't do it again, I guess; I don't really know what to say."

"I'm sorry," I said quietly.

He sucked in a deep breath and exhaled roughly with a small frown. "That took you a long time to say. I've been waiting for it, and it's taken you until now."

Nessie

I followed Jasper's scent trail from where he'd gotten out of the river after fighting with dad. He'd headed south east towards the seclusion of the mountains.

What are you even going to say to him if you do catch up? "Heyyyyy. Sorry your life is ruined and my dad tried to beat you up."

I rolled my eyes at my own stupidity and tried to focus more on my tracking. It didn't seem like he was trying to hide his path just purely based on the fact I was able to follow it. I'd always been terrible at tracking and if he'd even somewhat tried to dodge me in our training sessions he usually succeeded.

Being wet and dripping though his scent was strong behind him and that was very helpful.

It took maybe thirty minutes of intermittent sprinting along the trail before I knew I was getting close.

A series of loud crashes began all of a sudden. It was a fair distance ahead, but the slightly irregular time between them told me it wasn't a logging machine.

I ran forward as fast as my legs would allow in the direction of the sound. It became apparent the nearer I got that the crashing was trees being ripped from the ground and then thrown.

My eyes caught movement in the canopy and I watched as a huge Spruce moved sharply to one side then the other and then very unnaturally tilted at a forty-five degree angle and launched like a spear into the ones around it.

Slowing to a more normal pace I climbed the rocky slope towards where I knew he'd be standing. Another tree was ripped up from it's roots and hurled off into what I guessed was a sizable pile.

And then, I saw him.

He was an absolute mess of wet clothes, clumpy hair, and the erratic movements of someone who had clearly reached breaking point. He was also covered in dirt and bits of the trees he was destroying, which helped finish off his look.

"Jasper," I said, not thinking it through for what I'd say after that.

He whipped around - clearly surprised to see me - and demonstrating by that surprise that he'd been so caught up in his rage he hadn't even heard me coming.

His face was dark and feral in a way I hadn't seen ever before, and it scared me more than I liked to admit.

"What?" His voice was harsh and it cut me like a diamond blade.

"I…" My voice trailed off as quickly as I'd tried talking. Why didn't you think of anything to say?!

He sighed angrily. "I'm not ok. I don't want to talk about it. There's no point in me going back. Thank you for coming out anyway. Does that about cover it?"

As he blasted off responses to the things he'd obviously anticipated I'd ask, I found myself looking at the leaf litter rather than his face.

You're so stupid. Why would he want to see you when you're the reason his world is now collapsing?!

Jasper drew in another breath loudly, but let it out slowly this time.

"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings," he said in a much softer tone.

"You didn-"

"Yes I did." He interjected.

I didn't bother trying to deny it again. With him and the way his gift works there was no point in lying about anything to do with emotions. Even just to spare him guilt. So I stayed quiet instead.

Around a minute passed in silence before either of us spoke or moved. It was him that broke the frozen silence.

"Why did you come out?"

I peeked up at his face for just a moment, but it was enough to make my heart slam in my chest vigorously.

His brow furrowed.

"I… wanted to talk to you."

He made a gesture with his arm that I took to be a prompt to speak.

"I hadn't actually planned what to say…" I admitted sheepishly.

Jasper exhaled sharply at that and started walking down the slope towards me. He stopped a few feet away and dusted off his hands on his pants before folding his arms across his chest.

"Look…" His voice trailed off for a long moment, then was much softer when he continued. "… I'm sorry. I know it was my mind that gave us away. I don't blame you. For anything, really, but certainly not for us being discovered. I'd understand it if you came out here to rage at me, but it really doesn't appear that's your motivation."

I shook my head. "No. Definitely not."

He breathed in and out roughly again. "Ok. I'm grateful for that. So what did you come for?"

You, my mind answered instantly. I felt myself flush and my heart sped up again even though he couldn't hear my thoughts.

"Ok, what is wrong with you today?" Jasper asked abruptly. "You weren't this nervous when we had sex, so I don't understand what's got you so jittery now just talking to me."

My heart was slamming in my chest rapidly and there was absolutely no hiding it. I wasn't stupidly in love with you when we had sex.

"Jesus," he muttered, walking the few steps of space that had been left between us quickly to then place his hands on my upper arms. "Just calm down, ok?"

I felt myself cool suddenly and become slightly sleepy as all my muscles relaxed. My mind slowed as my body wound down and after a few moments his hands left me and he stepped back a couple of feet. My arms felt strangely hollow without his touch anymore.

"Better?"

I nodded. "Yes. Sorry. I'm just… having a bit of a day."

He laughed dryly. "Yeah, me too. Go on, what inspired you to follow me out here? Did you want to fuck again or something?"

My entire body tensed and I was surrounded in an instant in memories of us on the top of that hill in Oregon. He'd pinned me against the car with my legs around his waist and had barely moved my panties to the side before thrusting hard into me. Even the memory of feeling him inside me was enough to make me immediately throb.

Jasper hummed softly and I knew he felt my lust. There was no point not acknowledging it.

I shrugged and glanced at his eyes again. "Well, I mean… I wouldn't be entirely opposed, but no. Not that."

He laughed softly. "Wouldn't be entirely opposed…"

Without intending to, my eyes rolled. "Fine. Would love to. Think about it all the time. Still, not that."

The half second glance at his face that I chanced then showed a smirk on his lips and a lightening in his eyes. A small plus if nothing else.

"What about you?" I asked. "Opposed?"

Another quiet chuckle left his throat. "Um… no, not opposed. I wouldn't have gone to extraordinary lengths to make it happen, but if a situation presented itself… well…"

I went to quite extraordinary lengths to make it happen when it did. I remembered concocting the plan of how I'd have a meltdown and he'd "coincidentally" catch me going as I ran away, and I'd tell him he could come with me or just let me go because I was going either way.

The whole fascination had stemmed from the distance between us when I was growing up, but by the time my curiosity about him really piqued I had already started sleeping around and so my natural inclination was to fuck him as a means of getting to know him. In hindsight perhaps not the best way I could have gone about it-and it certainly made things complex-but I always struggled to actively regret it for a few reasons.

Firstly, the fact that the sex was absolutely amazing and by far the benchmark for what I compared everything else to.

Secondly, it had made me much more comfortable around him (until today).

And finally, the most important reason, that the first time he held me and we kissed I damn near felt my entire body explode into nothing. A feeling I'd been chasing ever since and had hoped I'd have with Jake, but didn't.

"I can see the wheels turning in your mind," Jasper interrupted my inner monologue. "I wish you'd speak."

"Was it different at all for you? When we slept together." I spoke quickly so as not to back out or change my question.

He paused in silence. When I looked up he was gazing at me calmly and seemed to almost be waiting.

I felt compelled to fill the silence for some reason, so kept talking and tried not to ramble. "Compared to other times, whether you were a vampire or human. Did it feel different for you?"

"I'm assuming you don't mean because of how warm you are, or because of who we are?" His tone was low and soft when he spoke.

"No." I shook my head.

It seemed like an eternity of quiet and stillness before he finally nodded. "Yes, it felt different."

Hopeful that maybe we were on the same level after all and he'd been struggling just as much to move past it as I had, I looked up to his face again.

His dark amber eyes were already locked on mine when I lifted my head.

"How did you feel?" I whispered.

As his lips parted his head dropped forward and his eyes moved to the ground while he thought through his words. "I felt like… I was totally overwhelmed. And overcome by your emotions and my own. I've never been so irrational and driven by impulse. Not even as a newborn. Nothing in the world was more important in that moment than being inside you and having you close. My mind was buzzing like I was in some kind of frenzy. It's not normally like that for me."

Rather than feeling exhilarated, I felt oddly cold instead. Shocked, maybe. "Me neither."

He stepped forward again slowly and my heart beat so fast it nearly hummed.

"So it's not always like that for you? I assumed I was absorbing your emotions."

My head moved from side to side on it's own. "No. Never. Not before or after you."

He was inches from me now. Arms still folded. Still looking at the ground between us. And still making me damn near explode internally from everything I could feel pulsing through my body because of him.

"You weren't making it more intense?" I asked, voice quivering slightly from the strain of trying to talk normally.

He looked up and shrugged a little. "I always do, but not like that."

I tried not to stare at him or be generally weird, but was failing miserably. My eyes were practically darting across his features, and always returned for some amount of time to his lips.

I reeeeeally want to kiss him.

"You don't want this." Jasper said quietly with his head shaking. "I know you think you do. And god knows I wouldn't have the strength to stop you if you tried. But it wouldn't work-"

I all but launched at him and our lips collided a bit messily at first. What felt like an actual zap ran through me and every cell of my body suddenly sparked to life. I desperately pressed into his body at every point I could find a way to make contact with.

He was saturated and filthy from head to toe, but I didn't care. All I wanted was more contact, more closeness, more of him.

Please just hold me and kiss me, I begged him in my mind through the contact of my hands on his face.

Without needing further instruction, Jasper scooped up my legs and wrapped them around his waist before encasing my body in his arms to hold me tight to him. Our mouths had found a familiar rhythm almost immediately and showed no signs of stopping or even slowing down as we almost consumed each other.

A lust that burned like fire whooshed through my chest and I could feel my panties were practically soaked already.

His fingertips were digging into my back and shoulders as he pressed me into him, and it only served to turn me on more that he so obviously wanted this too.

"What are you doing to me?" Jasper whispered breathlessly against my lips between kisses.

I smiled. "I'm wondering the same thing about you."

We leaned back a bit to be able to see each others face now, though he didn't move to put me back on my feet.

"What are we gonna do?" he asked.

I brushed my fingers over his face and along the edge of his hairline as we gazed at each other in silence for a short time.

"I can't keep ignoring you. It was nearly impossible before I knew you felt the same way. There's no way I'd manage to keep it all bottled up now."

His head nodded gently and a tiny smile tugged at his lips. "It's the same for me. It's only because I thought it was just a one time thing for you and you'd moved on that I didn't totally lose it. If I'd known you felt as I do it would have ripped me apart. I've had to actively switch off from you just to keep from being creepy about how tuned into you I am."

I laughed a little in a tragic sort of way. "I've been trying so hard to act like I don't care or even notice you. It's so much effort to not give a damn."

He chuckled once too and then kissed me again for several long moments. Not moving very much, just pressing our lips together and massaging my back with his hands.

"So what do we do?" Jasper asked again when we eventually broke the kiss.

I knew I had to say the one thing I loathed to think about. "You're married."

His eyes moved from mine down to my chest as he went into obvious and serious thought.

"I am married." His voice was calm. "I'm married to someone who will, likely, never want to be in a room alone with me ever again."

My lips pulled into a tight line. "Ok, but what about the rest of… everything?"

He drew in a long, slow breath and I watched his eyes flit across my face as his chest inflated. He then let the air out in a quick gust and shrugged.

"To be totally honest, I don't care."

My lips curved up at the corners and I laughed once under my breath. "That's adorable, but sooo unrealistic."

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