I own nothing at all to do with Twilight. All things belonging to Twilight are the creation of their owner S. Meyer respectively. Just love the characters so much, especially Edward and Bella.

This story will contain a very controlling, possessive, vampire Edward... exactly how I like him, anyway. :) Rating M: for lemons, violence, and supernatural theme. Hope you will enjoy!

HAUNTED

Watching me, wanting me, I can feel you pull me down. Fearing you, loving you, I won't let you pull me down. Hunting you, I can smell you-alive, Your heart pounding in my head. Saving me, raping me, Watching me.

-Haunted, Evanescence

Chapter 1

As the shrilling school bell signalled in class, I gathered my things and rushed out, following all the students who were arduously filing their way out of the school building. I lingered around in the parking lot, hoping to see my father's cruiser parked there amongst the other cars. Only it was nowhere to be seen.

I sighed loudly at myself in frustration as I peered up at the sky. The weather was turning from bad to worse by the minute as it always seemed to do in the gloomy state of Forks, Washington. I would have to settle on walking all the way home in the horrible weather then.

The wind came suddenly, robust and strong, like a tornado, making the dry rustling scatters of leaves on the pavement swirl around me. Clearly and predictably, it was about to rain. The sky slowly turned a coppery blue as I made my way down the road across from my school. I started to shiver as the biting wind cut straight through my clothes and tried to wrap my arms around myself for warmth and comfort. It was useless.

Water began to pour down from the sky. In an instance I was soaked.

My clothes were soaked; even my shoes were soaked. There was no shelter, nowhere to protect myself and hide out until the storm is over. What made matters worse, was that the books I was carrying tucked underneath one arm – Shakespeare, Bronte, and one of my school Biology text books – were completely drenched. As I continued to walk in the pouring rain, my school shoes, which are not waterproof, to my horror, sludged against the concrete and made squishing noises.

I was now regretting refusing my Dad's offer for a ride home after school. Where could I possibly go? There was no other option but to continue on walking in the rain until I reached my house. And my house was over three blocks away.

I mentally smacked myself against the forehead. Of course, only I would be this unfortunate to be stuck walking home in the rain!

I turned west across the street and as I did so someone beeped their horn at me.

I didn't recognize the car model, or the owner for that matter. But it was a nice modern car. Not to mention expensive-looking, with glossy silver exterior and a set of tinted windows. Whoever owned it had to be one lucky person!

Suddenly I was aware that the car had stopped moving.

There was something unnerving about it; the way it stopped all of a sudden as though waiting for me. It dawned on me that it only started rolling against the asphalt once I was walking beside it. The car continued to slow down to a leisurely pace to match my sluggish small strides.

The tires scratched loudly against the gravel as they rolled over the pavement, then before I knew it, the tinted window on my side was rolled halfway down, and a young man was peering at me through the fogged up glass.

With what little I could see inside the car, with the red velvet seats and all the clouds of smoke leaking out the gap through the open window from the cigarette dangling between the young man's lips, he reminded me of a sixties movie star almost. Like James Dean in "Rebel Without A Cause", only well-off and rich.

I squinted through the drops of rain to catch clear sight of him as, by with his forefinger and middle finger, he removed the cigarette from his mouth.

He continued to stare at me, hardly paying any attention to the road in case he crashed his fancy-looking car. There was something very... off about the way he stared at me; a calm possessiveness in his twinkling eyes that confounded me.

There was no denying that he was very handsome in an otherworldly way; He had acquired prominent cheekbones and a sharp jaw. His eyes were a mix of colour, a blue-green I noticed. There was something about him that was automatically fascinating to me, but I couldn't seem to place it.

And then he leaned over to flick his cigarette butt on the wet concrete. And then at last, he spoke: "I could offer you a ride if you like?"

His voice was like melting butter, something soft and compelling, all at the same time, which fell into your ears like a caress; It was something you could listen to for hours on end without finding yourself getting sick of the sound of it.

He continued gently after a moment, while I stared at him like some idiotic mute of a teenage girl.

"I know it's a little unorthodox, considering you've never met me before, and how utterly reckless it would be for you to just accept a ride into the unknown night beside a stranger in his car, but I'm thinking merely of the text books you're carrying. There is nothing worse than attending school the next morning with your books soggy and moist from the rain."

The corners of his mouth twitched into something of a satisfied smirk, and it occurred to me then, that with the way he said it, he was obviously speaking from experience.

I scrutinized his face carefully. I found it hard to believe that he was even still attending high school. He looked older than me by at least a year or two, so it didn't seem to make any sense.

Swallowing thickly, I found my voice. "But you don't look like a high schooler," I pointed out, and he laughed at me; The sound of his laughter resounded through my ears like a soulful melody of some sort.

He started tapping a hand graced with elegantly long fingers very distractingly against the steering wheel and shook his head.

"No, I finished my years of education two years ago," he explained evenly. Well, that makes sense then. "But when I was your age, I was still trying to get my license. I remember I had to endure walking home in the chilly, pouring rain, as you are doing right now..."

He turned his head in my direction; a far away and distant look in his eyes, as though he was seeing the whole event right before his very own eyes again.

"I absolutely hated it and I'm sure you do as well, which is why I am simply offering you a ride." He grinned at me widely, baring his teeth and I felt my heart rate pick up a notch. "I know that if I was ever in that situation again, I would have wanted someone generous enough to stop by and offer me a lift. Now why don't you just hop in?"

There was a clear note of frustration and impatience in his tone, which I couldn't imagine why.

I hesitated by the door of his car, thinking it through. My Mother had always stressed the importance on many occasions never to accept a lift from a stranger, no matter how charming and gorgeous they were.

"Well?" he prompted, darting me a funny look that I couldn't read.

It couldn't hurt to accept a lift from this beautiful older man, could it? That way I would be undercover from the rain, and he was generous enough to offer. Oh, what the hell? I decided, tearing off my backpack as he leaned over in his seat to open the door for me. What damage will it do if my Mother never finds out?

The wind blew my dark hair into my eyes and I scowled, feeling my face going red with every moment that passed by between us, as I tossed my backpack down onto the floor underneath the seat. With a hand, I tried to quickly brush the strands of limp, wet, hair back behind my earlobes self-consciously, while I slid into the passenger seat and closed the door carefully shut.

"Feels much better to be out of the rain, doesn't it now?" The man said knowingly as I place my stacked collection of schoolbooks into my lap and folded my arms across my chest anxiously.

I sighed deeply through my nostrils with the goodness of being under shelter in the car, and he took that as a confirmation; He chuckled at me as he rounded slowly down another street. Every now and then, as I quickly gave him directions to my house and listened in silence to the rain tapping outside against the glass, my eyes would flit over to his face without my consent.

He was, without a doubt, the most handsome man I had ever had the pleasure of seeing. Thankfully, he didn't notice my observing of his face. He kept his eyes straight ahead to the road, as any experienced driver does.

Every single time he turned a corner smoothly by rotating the steering wheel, a tendril of his bronzed tousled hair would fall against his forehead and he would lift one hand off the steering wheel to brush it back against his scalp with his fingers. Every time he did it, I seemed to gape at him in a trance.

"Would you like a cigarette?" he asked after a moment of silence, one hand fingering the crumpled packet of Camels that were lying there on his dashboard.

I snorted. Yes, I actually snorted! "I don't smoke," I said awkwardly.

I saw him look from my direction quickly to the windshield again. His mouth was open in bewilderment and his eyes were narrowed. The look was quite adorable. "Ever?"

"Ever."

"Interesting."

"I mean, I'm only seventeen. It's kind of illegal for me," I pointed out, then quickly regretted it. I didn't know what possessed me to say that.

But I was frightened; frightened that it would ruin my chances with him in some way even though I probably didn't have a chance in the first place. The idea that he would ever be interested in a girl like me was laughable.

I peeked over at his face quickly to see if I had said the wrong thing. I couldn't read his expression. "So, you're seventeen?" he repeated, slowly. "Or are you already seventeen?"

"I'm already seventeen," I explained, nervously. "I'm eighteen in September."

"Interesting," he said again.

"I don't know what's interesting about it," I said confusedly, shrugging. "Why, how old are you?"

He was uncomfortable now. I could see the wariness in his eyes and the way his mouth tightened.

He shrugged. "Why should it matter? Age is merely a number," he mumbled, adopting my attitude of confusion. "Do you study English literature at school?" he asked brightly, changing the topic.

"Yes." I was surprised that he knew. "How'd you tell?"

"By your books. I studied them when I was around your age." His face twisted in guilt, and he shuddered for some reason. He shook his head. "God. I sound so old, don't I?"

"You don't look old..." I whispered, shrugging. "You look only a few years older than me," I added confidently. I was positive he was only a year or two older, but age seemed to be a touchy subject for him, I was quickly discovering. "I mean... is it okay to say you look kind of... nice?" I was rambling. I didn't even know why I was saying all of this; He probably thought I was an idiot.

He chuckled softly, and my cheeks reddened. "Nice?" His low voice cracked in disbelief. Then he shrugged, and I could tell he was pleased by his tone of voice, "I suppose nice is better than what I was expecting."

"And what were you expecting?" I blabbed out without thinking.

He looked uncomfortable again, and he cringed. "I was expecting something more along the lines of... hot or cute. Or whatever else they say these days."

"I think you'll be pleased to know then that those words do not come up very often in my vocabulary," I said stiffly.

"Hmmm. Is that so?" His voice was teasingly disbelieving.

We fell into an awkward silence for a bit, where I pretended to find something outside interesting. Honestly, it was hard to see through the thick sheets of rain.

A question suddenly popped up inside my head. I was dying to know. "Do you do this often?" I asked, turning slightly in my seat to face him.

He frowned, thinking something through for a moment. "Do what often exactly?"

I shrugged and said the first thing that came out of my mouth. "You know, pick a girl up and offer to give her a ride home?"

"Absolutely not..." he sighed deeply. He tilted his head over to look at me. "Is that honestly why you think I'm doing this?" He sounded a little offended, which wasn't my intention at all. "I just ride around whenever it rains, seeking out poor defenceless little girls so that I can offer them rides home?"

I cringed at how strange it sounded. "No, I didn't mean anything like that," I said fiercely, needing for him to understand and not get the wrong impression. "I just wondered if this was... something you did, just to be kind, or if there was another motive in mind?"

"There's always a motive for everything a person does," he muttered sarcastically. "A guy at a bar buys a woman a drink in order to seduce her...a man slaughters his own wife out of jealousy...a man offers a young girl a ride in order to- what?"

I felt so bad for offending him just then. He probably thought I was being ungrateful. I felt like I wanted to die.

But then he chuckled again. His mood seemed to have abruptly changed. "Only kidding, love," he said lightly.

I forced a smile as I met his eyes.

He was staring back at me in that moment, smirking a closed-mouth smile. It was overwhelming, the way his intense eyes seemed to pull me in. I felt as if his eyes could see straight through to my very soul. I had to look down at my wet books, distracting myself by wiping the small droplets of rain from them with my sleeves, to alleviate some of the pressure.

As we turned into my street and I pointed out my house, I found I didn't seem to want the ride to end with him. Even though we had only just met a few minutes ago, and despite the fact that I knew nothing about him – other than how handsome he was, of course – I found I wanted to get to know him some more. Really, really get to know him personally; get to know the innermost workings of his mind. Every little vice... I realized then, with these silent declarations that it was almost creepy of me to feel such a way about a stranger. I shuddered as I released myself from the straining, frayed shoulder harness and bent down to retrieve my backpack.

Through the corner of my eye, I saw him delving through the breast pocket of his suit jacket.

As I pulled open the latch on the door, he caught my arm. "Wait," he declared smoothly with a pleading expression on his face. "I... I don't do this very often but then if I miss the chance now, it'll haunt me forever. Here."

With a flourish, he passed me a small business card, about the width of one of my fingers and I glanced down at it. It had markings on it in black ink. A name:

Edward Masen. Financial Advisor.

Followed underneath was a cell number. Did he expect me to call him? Did he have plans to see me again? I peeked up at his face blankly.

"Perhaps I lied when I said I didn't have any motive for offering you a ride. Perhaps we could go out together some time?" He was staring at my face expectantly. I hoped I'd masked my surprise and delight well in that instance. "Have some dinner and some iced-tea?"

I had to remember how to breathe. I tried my very hardest to keep the excitement from spilling out my words as I mumbled, "I... would like that very much, Mr. Masen."

He opened his mouth to say something, and then furrowed his brows in confusion. "Uh. What's your name, love?"

"Bella."

He darted me a look of disbelief, as I told him my name, for some reason, then I couldn't help but giggle as he started singing Italian at me through the window, even though we hardly knew each other. Also, I was giggling because his singing was beautifully off-key but he didn't seem to care. The gesture was probably nothing more than something out of politeness for him, but, to me, I found it incredibly sweet and caring and, most of all, romantic.

It wasn't every day I had a man serenading me, after all!

I stood out there in the rain, yet again, as I watched his car slide around the bend of my street and out of sight, clutching his business card to my chest all the while. I felt like dancing, and jumping, for joy in that instance.

He wanted to see me again!

Me? Boring, average me!

It wasn't every day a member of the opposite sex showed me attention, but he seemed to like me, despite me still being in high school. What could he possibly have seen in me? I wondered, as I skipped blissfully toward the front door of the house.

He seemed too good to be true.

And, it would turn out that with every date I would have with him, that he was exactly that:

Too good to be true.