Stephenie Meyer owns any Twilight characters and Twilight plot lines that may appear in this story. The remainder is my original work. No copying or reproduction of this work is permitted without my express written authorization. Don't steal, it isn't polite.

Please enjoy the final chapter of Laid Bare. I've thought for so long this needed more. But then suddenly I realized that this is exactly where our story needs to end. :)



Everything in this cabin was broken.

Tarnished, demolished, crumbled to dust from our days spent there, going from passionate and slow to frantic and fast, to violent and desperate to loving one another in the sweetest sense of the word.


We adored one another so ardently, we tested our strength, we learned our bodies that were familiar yet foreign to us now that we both felt brand new to one another.

And we laughed.

Because nothing was hindering us now.

Snow was everywhere. I don't know how the hole in the ceiling came to pass, but it had been there long enough to cover us in the purest feather-light snowflakes, reluctant to melt on our cold skin. I wrote 'I love you' on his belly, realizing only then that we had been laying there together in the same position for hours, gazing, connecting, long enough for a soft dusting to cover my vamp boy from hips to sternum.

He smiled and kissed my hand after I wrote in the snow on his body...and he proceeded to lick every bit of it off of mine.

Yeah...this was what euphoria truly meant.

This is what my life was created for.

My vampire licking snowflakes off my skin...

Feeling him warm, feeling him soft, feeling him just like the first time he hovered and gazed through my window sill.

This was everything I had been waiting a lifetime to feel.


"You need to hunt, beloved. It's been days and you've had nothing."

"I've had plenty," I smirked, gripping him hard in my first for emphasis.

He winced, and I hugged him with my whole body on top of his, whispering apologetic kisses into his skin until he was chuckling. "I forget sometimes, vamp boy. I'm so fucking tough, it's kinda scary."

He dragged one finger up and down my spine as I tried to control the strength of my embrace. He continued to laugh, whispering in my ear. "You might want to handle that particular part of my body with more care, if you tend to make use of it for the rest of your existence."

I pushed my hips down into his, rubbing slowly against him. "I promise to cherish it for the rest of my days," I smiled.

He brushed two fingers along my throat, his brow furrowing. "Does it hurt?"

"I literally feel no discomfort," I shrugged. "Well, there's some...when my mouth isn't on yours. And when you aren't doing other, dirty, dirty things to me."

It was another hour before we were done kissing, playing, laughing, wasting time because we had hours upon fucking hours of it.

I met his eyes, my smile falling and the moment turning suddenly very serious. I watched him for a long moment as his thumb ran back and forth along my bottom lip. "If I hunt...will you get out of this busted, broken bed and marry me already, Edward Cullen?"

His eyes were so soft, and it took me a while to realize I'd been studying the different speckles of gold and fading red inside them. I could see so much more now that I was his vampire. "Can't I ask you?" he murmured so softly.

I smiled, kissing the ring on my left hand and then kissing his lips. "You more or less did, baby. This is on my finger, isn't it?"

He flipped me over rapidly, hovering over me and making me tingle from head to toe from the sheer magnitude of love in his eyes. His fingers brushed back my wild hair until every strand was laid across the pillow and out of my eyes. "Let me say the words," he whispered.


He slid off of the bed until he was kneeling beside it, grabbing each of my thighs and sliding me across tattered sheets until I was sitting on the edge. His arms were wrapped around my torso, his cheek resting on my breasts, his body trembling, his breath uneven as he squeezed me like he'd wanted to for so long. Tight, with all his strength, with all the love inside him.

"I walked straight up to you, in the middle of the night. We hadn't said a single word to one another before my teeth broke your skin. Not a word, and you knew. From the very first instance, you knew."

My eyes were stinging but tears weren't falling. It was the oddest sensation, but it didn't make me feel any less. I was overwhelmed, I was full to the brim, and Jesus Christ, did my vampire have a way with words. I dragged my fingers through his hair and kissed his forehead as he continued.

"Bella, you know what I'm feeling. How I can't put this into words. How I can't touch you enough, show you enough, be inside you enough. Even now, when we have forever, it burns because I want to push this into you. To make you feel it inside so you know. a mere shadow of this overwhelming passion that has enveloped me from day fucking one. Baby..."

I shushed him and swallowed the lump in my throat, entangling our fingers on both hands and holding them against my face.

"I love you isn't's not enough. But promising to be yours for an eternity, to devote my life to you, to protect you, to be your mate...I'm praying to any power above that it's enough. My purpose, my wife...that's what you are destined to be. You know you are..."

I kissed his lips and pulled him closer, unable to wait until the words were out of his mouth. I needed his taste and his skin and his words rumbling against my lips.

"Please marry me, Isabella. Please allow me that honor..."

I nodded frantically between kisses, my arms so tight around his neck that he was grunting from the pain and laughing because he'd wanted it for so long, and now he finally had it.

I don't know how many times I whispered yes, but I didn't stop until he was inside me, until the snow was falling around us once more, and the sun had disappeared rapidly over the hill.

Hunting would have to wait for another day...

my vamp boy and I had an impending wedding to celebrate.

And a beautiful life to live.

Eternity never sounded so sweet.


I love you all...thanks for everything. :)

The end.