When Jacob Didn't Say A Thing but Made His Point

There.

There will always be that moment, that precise second where friendship falls away and something deeper, darker, baser rises to the surface. That brush of awareness that makes her skin tingle and stomach twist.

She knows it. He knows it.

It hovers in the air like sparks from a bonfire; harmless, beautiful, elegant even....until it falls on your skin and burn.

"You should go, Jake."

Jacob merely blinks; a slow, flutter of eyelashes that covers his dark, deep eyes that never waver from her averted face.

Here she is again, punishing him for doing nothing but existing.

It isn't his fault, it is hers; for feeling the way she does, for being the way she is.

Simply put, for being who she is.

Because at this point in her life, there is no Bella Swan without Jacob Black.

Because he is the rock that Bella clings to when she is cut adrift.

Because he is the foundation in which she rebuilds herself around.

Because it is within him where she finds herself again.

Bella turns herself away from his blazing presence in the guise of putting away the dishes from their shared meal in the sink. From the corner of her eyes, she watches him. Her shoulders tense, her heart hammering in her chest, as he comes closer to where she stands and slowly, slowly in a gesture as benign, as casual as it is meaningful, places a hand an inch apart from hers...and feels the air between their fingers singe.

The space around their fingers vibrates up her arm with an intensity that steals her breath.

His heat seeps into her skin from the tip of her fingertips, every nerve pulsing, streaking up her skin to dance inside her chest and settles deeply inside her stomach to jump and churn.

She doesn't dare look up and see his face.

She counts each beat of her heart, each breath that she takes and in those mere seconds, feel him fill her, those empty pockets where only he exists and only he could reach.

Not a minute too soon, just seconds before she gives in to her feelings and leans into him, wrap herself around him and take, take, take, Jacob takes his hand away and in a swirl of scents and texture disappears without a word.

She doesn't breathe until she hears the back door close.

Sighing, she catches a reflection of her face on the glass cabinets and couldn't help but smile mockingly at the high color of her cheeks, the stormy depth of her eyes, that soft, yearning expression that shifts endlessly on her face.

And of course, there is that all too telling shaking of her hand.

As she rinse and wash the dishes that they had used, she thinks about the two men in her life and realizes that Jacob doesn't need words to tell her how he feels or to tell her how she feels.

He only needed to be.