Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,65

madness had possessed me last night. I really needed to find a way to control my impulses. Perhaps a little distance would help with that.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, sounding not at all happy with my revelation.

More pleasure, more pain.

“We’re going to be hiking in the Goat Rocks Wilderness, just south of Rainier.” Emmett was eager for bear season.

“Oh, well, have fun,” she said halfheartedly. Her lack of enthusiasm pleased me again.

As I stared at her, I began to feel almost agonized at the thought of saying even a temporary goodbye. She was so soft, so vulnerable. It seemed foolhardy to let her out of my sight, where anything could happen to her. And yet, the worst things that could happen to her would result from being with me.

“Will you do something for me this weekend?” I asked seriously.

She nodded, though clearly mystified by my intensity.

Keep it light.

“Don’t be offended, but you seem to be one of those people who just attract accidents like a magnet. So… try not to fall into the ocean or get run over or anything, all right?”

I smiled ruefully at her, hoping she couldn’t see the real sorrow in my eyes. How much I wished that she wasn’t so much better off away from me, no matter what might happen to her there.

Run, Bella, run. I love you too much, for your good or mine.

She was offended by my teasing; I must have done it wrong again. She glared at me. “I’ll see what I can do,” she snapped, jumping out into the rain and slamming the door as hard as she could behind her.

I curled my hand around the key I’d just picked from her jacket pocket and inhaled her scent deeply as I drove away.

7. MELODY

I HAD TO WAIT WHEN I GOT BACK TO SCHOOL. THE FINAL HOUR WASN’T out yet. That was good, because I had things to think about and I needed the alone time.

Her scent lingered in the car. I kept the windows up, letting it assault me, trying to get used to the feel of intentionally torching my throat.

Attraction.

It was a problematic thing to contemplate. So many sides to it, so many different meanings and levels. Not the same thing as love, but tied up in it inextricably.

I had no idea if Bella was attracted to me. (Would her mental silence somehow continue to get more and more frustrating until I went mad? Or was there a limit that I would eventually reach?)

I tried to compare her physical responses to others’, like the receptionist and Jessica Stanley, but the comparison was inconclusive. The same markers—changes in heart rate and breathing patterns—could just as easily mean fear or shock or anxiety as they did interest. Certainly other women, and men, too, had reacted to my face with instinctive apprehension. Many more had that response than the alternative. It seemed unlikely that Bella could be entertaining the same kinds of thoughts that Jessica Stanley used to have. After all, Bella knew very well that there was something wrong with me, even if she didn’t know exactly what it was. She had touched my icy skin, and then yanked her hand away from the chill.

And yet… I remembered those fantasies that used to repulse me, but remembered them with Bella in Jessica’s place.

I was breathing more quickly, the fire clawing up and down my throat.

What if it had been Bella imagining me with my arms wrapped around her fragile body? Feeling me pull her tightly against my chest and then cupping my hand under her chin? Brushing the heavy curtain of her hair back from her blushing face? Tracing the shape of her full lips with my fingertips? Leaning my face closer to hers, where I could feel the heat of her breath on my mouth? Moving closer still…

But then I flinched away from the daydream, knowing, as I had known when Jessica had imagined these things, what would happen if I got that close to her.

Attraction was an impossible dilemma, because I was already too attracted to Bella in the worst way.

Did I want Bella to be attracted to me, a woman to a man?

That was the wrong question. The right question was should I want Bella to be attracted to me that way, and the answer was no. Because I was not a human man, and that wasn’t fair to her.

With every fiber of my being, I ached to be a normal man, so that I could