CUPCAKE WARS CONTEST

Title: Tongue in Cheek Pen name: PortiaKhalo Pairing: Bella/Edward Rating: M Word Count: 2,324

Disclaimer: All Twilight related things are belonging to Mz. Meyer, as always. My brain is solely responsible for this deviation.

A/N: All my love to Aleighy, who pre-read, fixed my silly mistakes, and made me the cutest stinkin' banner I've ever seen. I'll have her to hold, for real, so, so soon! Yellowglue, I would give you all the cupcakes in the world if it meant I could burrow deeper into your heart. Thank you for everything.

"Bella this is ridiculous. If I were capable of vomiting, I would be at this moment."

"Yes, Edward, and if you'd changed me when I asked, so, so sweetly the first time, Alice wouldn't need to throw me 'one last Halloween party' would she?" I said.

I was making cupcakes. Alice had gotten it into her head that I needed to enjoy the macabre side of Halloween once more before I became a monster myself. The theme was, of course, vampires. Who better to throw a vamped out shindig than Alice Cullen?

But she was horrible in the kitchen. I'd promised to make dessert for everyone if she'd hire the rest of the food catered instead of attempting it herself. I didn't want any of the guests willingly choosing to become Jasper's snack after eating dinner.

"I just need your help!" I prissed unapologetically.

"All you have to do is set your teeth into one teeny, tiny cake so I get the placement of the bite marks right. Alice will love you for it…" I sing-songed.

"Fine." Edward smoothed back his hair and I watched his unassuming Adam's apple bob in his throat.

He approached my counter-top like a caged animal being teased ever so cruelly. I snickered to myself, not wanting to poke fun of him anymore than I already had. His long, eternally manicured fingers wrapped around the soft, spongy cake, and with the fear of a thousand devils he brought it to his mouth.

I licked my lips as his parted. I'd never been able to feed Edward before, and some deeply maternal instinct inside me groaned with satisfaction at what was about the happen. He'd hate every single taste bud for being afflicted with sweetness, but just the thought of watching him bite into something I made, made me woozy.

At the last second he lowered his arm.

"I can't do it, Bella. I'm sorry." He set the cupcake back in the exact center of the tray and flew out my back door before I could blink twice.

I met him on the porch.

"It's not a big deal Edward. It's just a silly cake. I can make them ooze fake blood whether or not the bites are anatomically correct. Alice will get over it." I soothed.

I hugged him around his stony middle and his cool fingers brushed my hair behind my ears. Kissing his heartless chest, I pulled from his grasp and turned around. The sun was setting just over the trees and the cool breeze taunted my overheated self. Being in the kitchen with Edward was something close to cooking in an over-sexualized sauna.

I twisted my hair around my fingers and rested the tangles on top of my head, letting the wind wisp away the remnants of our failed food experiment.

Edward growled behind me and I giggled.

"You smell good enough to eat, you know." He said gruffly.

"And so the cycle continues." I said, skipping back into the house.

He left soon after to break the bad news to Alice. He'd be back through my window at bedtime, but I still missed him like a breath lost to a punch in the gut.

I busied myself frosting the rest of the cakes the same color as Edward skin. Alice had mixed a few drops of food coloring to the perfect tint, which she found extremely amusing.

"Now you can rub Edward's skin all over you!" She'd tinkled.

The thought had crossed my mind then, and only now had I allowed myself to smear just a smidgen on my lower lip for the shear delight of slowly licking it off again. I couldn't bear to puncture the miniature desserts just yet, though. It would have to wait for the morning.

Edward returned that evening, just as the deep dark settled outside, and Charlie started to bray like a donkey in heat in his sleep. I beckoned my frosty fella to my bed and he snuggled me over the covers, like he'd done so many twilights ago.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Alice is beside herself about the cupcakes. She wants me to try again tomorrow." He admitted.

"Aw, I'm sorry. I really think she'll forgive us if I just do it myself in the morning." I kissed his jaw gently and nuzzled my head into his chiseled chest.

"No, I think I have to do it. She says she sees it working out to my advantage." He laughed.

Alice and her mental crystal ball. The two combined were a blessing and a curse, especially if you were a vegetarian vampire being bamboozled into eating frosting.

I squirmed my legs under the covers, remembering the way I'd felt when that snow-white cake had almost touched his lips. Edward cocked his eyebrow and scooted down the narrow bed until we were face to face.

"I don't have to know what you're thinking when your cheeks flush like that, Bella." He teased.

I lowered my lashes for the briefest moment, and squeezed my eyes tightly when I felt his stony-rose lips bump into mine. I wondered if he could still taste the sugary topping I'd lapped off my wooden spoon earlier and was lost, completely, to a daydream of other parts of Edward in my mouth as he slowly devoured mine.

I pulled him closer to me, and felt venom tingle against my tongue. That was always the cue for us; our intimacy ended when the icy liquid touched any part of me. He smoothed his hands down my arms, calming my over-heated nerves back to a sleep-ready state and rested his hands against my stomach.

"I'll see you tomorrow, my love." He whispered against my temple.

"I love you." I mouthed, knowing he could hear me even when I couldn't hear myself.

It was always painful to say it. He'd left once over blood spilled at a party. This was more metaphorical, but my heart still feared for it's scarred tissue.

In one dreamy blink he was out my window, and I cursed my heavy eyes for robbing me of one last glimpse of his behind before I drifted off to dream land.

In my unconscious state, the bookmark placed where Edward and I had stopped kissing was thrown away. The promise of his devilish teeth in my creation led to wild imaginings of his lips against my neck. There were nibbles, just like the tickly prick of a needle against your thumb before the blood begins to pool, with no thimbled chastity in my way.

He was sitting in my old rocker when I woke up. I was fidgety and too hot, and had thrown back my covers before I'd realized he was there. His eyes were black, and his forehead showed his worry, like ripples in ancient sandstone. I blushed, so thankful he couldn't hear my thoughts, and stumbled to curl up in his lap.

"I'll do it this time, I promise." He said solemnly.

"It doesn't matter, Edward…" I yawned against his neck.

"I know, but I want to know what happens if I submit myself to this torture." He pressed his smile into my ear and my axis was righted once again.

I left Edward alone in my room to go take a bath. I did not want Charlie finding Edward in the house so early on a weekend. It was the quickest and quietest shower I'd had in a long time. Knowing me, and my magnet-like abilities around all kitchen messes, I'd probably need another one after decorating three dozen cupcakes.

Robed and rushing back to my room on drippy, tippy-toes, I found Edward lazily scanning the Halloween cupcake cookbook I'd found my recipe in. He turned it toward me with an arched brow and a devastating smirk to point out the zombie brain recipe.

"There's a lot more to it than this, you know." He commented. He was a vampire know-it-all after all.

I faltered, almost forgetting to keep my firm grasp on the lapels of my cover-up.

"They've never eaten brain, that's for sure." He said, almost to himself, flipping past more gruesome grub.

I laughed loudly, slapping my hand over my mouth when I remembered Charlie, and made my way to my closet to get dressed.

What does a girl wear when trying to convince her undead beloved to eat people food? Yoga pants; that's what. Yoga pants and a La Push t-shirt. That way I knew Edward was in the right mind set to bend unto my white-chocolate-cake will.

This time, when we made it downstairs, I had him sit in a kitchen chair. If his infallible hands couldn't be trusted to get the cupcake to his mouth, then mine would have to do.

At the very last second, I had a brilliant idea.

"Stay perfectly still, Edward. Just let me touch it to your teeth and then we'll clean you up." I promised.

He sneered as the cupcake's devious sweetness entered his mouth, and I pressed it against his gleaming teeth. The frosting had formed a slight skin since being applied yesterday, and it gave willingly to Edward's canines. Sighing happily, I saw him raise his eyebrows in question. His eyes pleaded with me to be done already.

"Don't close your mouth. Be still like a statue... You should be good at that." I joked.

Without warning him, I moved my face so close to his that our breath mingled visibly in front of us; we were our own high-pressure system. The cool of his inner air, and the hot of my CO2 laced expulsions, created a small cloud of condensation that made my eyes roll back and close. He was delicious.

"Still." I commanded, one last time.

With that my pink, warm tongue began the task of picking up the remnants of confection from Edward's mouth. I lapped at his top lip, where the largest dollop sat, and a panicked look crossed Edward's face.

"Shh. You won't bite, and neither will I." I cooed.

From the corner of my eye I saw his hands close into fists against his thighs. The cuff of his jeans brushed my ankle just enough to pull me from my daze. Looking down between us, I smiled at his stretched out legs nestled in the bookends of my feet. I licked my lips and refocused.

Next, I gently attacked the corners of his mouth, dipping inside just enough for my tongue to go numb at the tip. I smiled to myself and kissed his chin with with tingly lips. He was like a cough-drop lollipop, and I was gooey at my center.

"Alice is brilliant." I said against his cheek. Then, bracing my hands on his shoulders, I darted my tongue into his mouth, rubbing it over his teeth, ridding them of the offensive frosting before it could even make a palette on his palate.

"There." I said. "You're all clean."

It was the first time I'd ever seen Edward Anthony Cullen completely speechless.

"Was that a planned joke between you and my sister?" He finally managed to mutter.

"No, but you know Alice…"

I went back to the collection of cupcakes lining my counter, holding in the giddy jig sending pulses through all my flimsy limbs. There were introductions to be made before I did my victory dance. I held out the marked cake on my palm to it's friends. It was the frog, post kiss, that all other amphibians longed to be.

"Look! He did it, guys!" I squealed, reaching for the red gel frosting tubes in the cabinet above me.

"Wait a minute." Edward said. Dread filled my tummy and I turned to see him grinning crookedly at me. "I think I know better how blood drips from a wounded neck than you, love."

My heart sped up to jaguar speed and Edward laughed at me.

"Give it to me, Bella."

The tubes were in his hand before I even processed what was happening, and a moment after that I was pinned against my counter.

"You're turn, my little mistress. Hold still." His voice was deep, and I was drowning.

My eyes bulged out of my head as I watched and felt Edward dribble two iconically placed blood droplets against my neck. My breath came in shallow gasps as the icing began to slide and slip down my neck. Edward watched too, licking his ruby lips as his voracious victim trembled.

"One more for you, and then I'll do the cakes." He whispered.

His hands were ever-steady and he painted a line of sticky-sweet crimson from the corner of my mouth to my chin.

"Still." He repeated my words back to me, then tilted my head back achingly slow, letting the red continue it's journey down the front of my neck. I opened my heavy lidded eyes and glanced at the ceiling, everything but Edward was out of focus.

"This, looks so much like the real thing…" He commented, his eyes lingering on the trail he lead down my skin. "It doesn't even smell that bad. All I can smell is you and your heart gushing underneath."

He ghosted his finger over the pulse in my neck, kicking my heart's frantic dance into unthinkable realms.

Suddenly, he flattened his tongue against my neck and slurped the icing off my skin, all the way to my quivering bottom lip, before placing a chaste kiss there.

"Alice will have a field day with that." He chuckled.

With the grace of the undead he calmly walked to the cupcakes and began methodically bloodletting each of them.

"That was a little tongue in cheek, don't you think?" He asked over his shoulder.

I slumped into the kitchen chair he'd previously occupied and laid my overheated cheek on the smooth table.

"Ha. Ha. Ha." I deadpanned. "You just wait until Thanksgiving. You're plucking the turkey all by yourself."