As far as Edward Cullen is concerned, any chance that he had at a love life ended 3 years ago. That was until a runaway squirrel and an energetic dog brought him face to face with Bella Swan. Their connection is undeniable, but he has a secret that could drive her away.

A/N: So this idea came to me a couple of weeks ago, and I thought that it deserved to be written. It's AH, AU, and pretty OOC, and very different from things that I've written in the past. I have to give a huge thanks to my beta, Navaehell. I'm pretty fucking hopeless with semicolons.

This is rated M for strong language, crude humor, and future lemons.

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or any of the characters represented in this fic, no matter how much I wish that I did. I also don't own the song 15 Steps by Radiohead, but I do jam out to it on a regular basis.

Chapter 1

Lips met lips. Skin touched skin. If that wasn't perfection, I decided that nothing really was.

I moved a pale hand between her creamy thighs, eliciting a gasp from the vixen's mouth. A devilish smirk spread across my face as I slowly and torturously slid a skilled finger past her smooth folds and inside of her warmth. She bucked her hips immediately, and my grin widened at how she unashamedly did so with no abandon whatsoever.

"So fucking sexy," I thought to myself and slipped another of my pale fingers into her. The moan that ripped through her lips was enough to make my soul tingle with satisfaction, knowing that I was making her feel so good. I couldn't wait to bury myself so deeply inside of her that neither of us would be able to tell where one body ended and the other began.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me. Of course my alarm clock had to go off as soon as I was about to dive into the woman with no intentions of ever coming out. It was the ultimate cock block.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

I groaned loudly as it kept going off. Most people would simply reach over and turn it off or hit the snooze button; however I pulled my pillow over my head and tried to drown out its screams. Screaming was the only way that I'd come up with to describe the sound that my alarm clock made. It wasn't a beep or a buzz. No, it was more like someone walking up behind you while you were sleeping and screaming something along the lines of, "get the fuck out of bed you lazy ass!" as loud as they possibly could. Sometimes I think I would have preferred that. At least then I would have the option of punching them in the face…or stabbing them. You couldn't stab an alarm clock without looking like a loony. Plus it would probably be much less satisfying, not to mention downright embarrassing when you would have to go and buy yourself another one.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Oh fuck you," I said groggily, flailing my arm over the side of my bed and hitting the snooze button with the side of my hand.

Insulting electronics. That's really great, Edward. What's next? Asking them out for coffee?

I ignored that obnoxious little voice in my head and instead, buried my face in my pillow to get my approximately 8 and a half more minutes of sleep.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

I felt something warm and wet slide over my cheek, and I slowly opened my eyes to find my gray and white Husky perched on my bed, licking my face like it was going out of style. With a groan I nudged him away from me and turned my back towards him. He was a persistent bastard though, and I felt that same warm, wet thing sliding over my cheek.

"Alright, alright!" I groaned and pushed his face away from me. "I'll get up." I grumbled and sat up in my bed, realizing, to my dismay, that, that was the most tongue action I'd received in years. I immediately made a mental note to never, under any circumstances, express that out loud. I would never fucking hear the end of it.

I ran a hand over my face before looking over at the fluffy bastard in time to see him hop lithely off of my bed and trot his triumphant little ass out of the room. Prick.

Running a hand through my unruly, bronze hair, I turned towards my alarm clock that was still going off like the fucking building was going to burn down, and switched it off. That so was not 8 and a half minutes.

The neon red numbers glowed at me diabolically. There was nothing good at 4:39 in the morning, not one single thing. Unless of course you were still up from the night before and you happened to be rocking the world of some gorgeous girl. The only sort of action I ever got was in my sleep though, and the girl never actually had a face, and I never actually got to have sex with her. Sure, I got to touch her and finger her. I even went down on her once, but did I get so much as a stroke? No. She always got to have all of the fun. Even my subconscious was set on keeping my self-inflicted celibacy in tact. I'm sure Freud would have a field day with my cock-blocking subconscious.

It's not exactly self-inflicted, Edward.

And there goes that voice in my head again. No matter how many times I tell it to shut the fuck up and die, it never does.

I heard the soft padding of feet against my wooden floors and my gaze drifted to the door of my bedroom. My furry ball of a dog was standing there with his leash hanging out of his mouth. He was always so eager for our 5 a.m. runs. It was disgusting.

"Fuck you." I glared and threw a pillow at his fluffy little head, missing, of course. That was how my life worked. The smug bastard waltzed over to my bed, dropped the leash the floor, and walked back out. Aren't dogs supposed to be loyal and obedient?

I heard Hamlet give me a commanding bark from the hallway outside of my room and I groaned.

Your dog owns you.

This time, I couldn't disagree.

Unwillingly, I pushed myself out of bed and stretched my arms out. Then, I looked down at the tent in my pajama pants and sighed. Oh, the joys of morning wood.

I felt sorry for him (yes, I did just refer to my penis as though it is a separate entity). He'd been subjected to the exclusive company of my right hand for longer than I'd like to mention. "You'd better get used to it," I muttered.

Really? You just spoke to your cock?

"Yeah, get over it," I snapped. Great. I talk to alarm clocks, my dog, my genitals, and now that annoying little bastard who lives in my head. No wonder I can't get any action.

That's not the real reason, and you know it.

Okay, so I had to give the bastard that. I've never been the kind of guy to just hook up with girls. Call me old fashioned, but I'm convinced that two people shouldn't have sex unless they're in a committed relationship and they know that their attraction goes beyond being just physical. Because of that, I've only been with one woman; the only girlfriend that I've ever had.

Well, there's that, and there's also the fact that I permanently removed myself from the market about three years ago. I'm sure that the female population of Seattle was, and still is, utterly devastated.

Right.

With a sigh, I walked into the bathroom that was connected to my bedroom and looked at my reflection in the mirror over the sink. My hair was sticking out in every direction possible, and I knew that it was secretly planning a hostile takeover of my head, and then eventually, the world. No matter what length it was or how much hair product I put in it, my hair did whatever the hell it wanted to. I'd learned to accept that fate long ago, and it wasn't like I was ever trying to impress anyone with my dashing good looks.

To add to my utterly fantastic morning look, stubble had made residence on my face and was in the process of spreading along my cheeks and down my neck like the plague. My hair was becoming an epidemic, and I knew that it was only a matter of time before those guys from the government showed up in their radioactive suits and put me into some sort of containment cell or something.

If they only knew what sort of epidemic you could be spreading.

That was the moment when I decided that an intense Google search was in order. Surely there had to be a procedure in which a person could have an obnoxious and just down right cruel voice removed from their brain. I would have asked my doctor of a father, but I really did not need him thinking that I'd finally lost my mind and gone all schizophrenic or something. I was well aware of the fact that the voice was, in fact, my own, and that it cut through all of the bullshit that I tried deluding myself with on a regular basis. It was better than dealing with reality by far.

I reached out, pulling the medicine cabinet, and just like that, I was faced with reality in the form of prescription bottles. That was always my least favorite part of the morning. I couldn't stand seeing the way that my name was printed across them. I knew it was weird and completely fucking ridiculous, but something about the way it looked made me cringe. I don't even know why I felt that way. I'd accepted my fate long ago, and I had an overall positive attitude about all of it, but there was just something about those fucking pill bottles.

With a sigh, I reached out and grabbed all 562 bottles before setting them down on the counter. I filled the cup that I kept on my sink for such occasions up with water and started the arduous task of taking my daily medication. When I was finished, I put each bottle back in its place and adjusted them all so that they were perfectly lined up with the labels facing forward. Yes, I was slightly OCD.

After my daily arsenal of medication was successfully ingested and the bottles organized, I splashed water over my face, brushed my teeth, and attempted to smooth down my hair to the best of my ability. After that, I padded back into my room and quickly rid myself of my pajama pants, replacing them with athletic shorts and a white t-shirt. Then, my search for socks began.

For some people, finding a pair of socks is as easy as reaching into a drawer and pulling a pair out, but that wasn't the case for me. It didn't matter how many pairs of socks I bought or where I kept them. After one wash, most of them would disappear inexplicably. I reached into my very unorganized sock drawer and considered my options. Deciding that it really didn't matter, I reached in and grabbed the first two socks that I could get my hands on and slipped them on my feet. One was white, but the other one was bright green. How I became the owner of a bright green sock, I didn't know, but I decided not to dwell on my sock problem much longer. Some day I would have to go on an excursion to find that black hole that seemed to consume all of my socks.

Maybe Hamlet has a sock fetish.

I groaned. It would only be a matter of minutes before Hamlet came trotting back in and dragged me outside to start our jog, and being dragged by a dog was a very degrading sort of experience.

Deciding to face the inevitable, I grabbed Hamlet's discarded leash and walked out of my bedroom and through the hall of my lonely apartment. Hamlet was waiting anxiously by the door and I rolled my eyes at him. I never understood why he got so happy about running down the same streets every single day and seeing the same, monotonous scenery. Sure, I did it every day too, but it was more out of necessity, not enjoyment.

Hamlet let out a loud, high-pitched bark that made me wince. That dog could be so fucking annoying sometimes, and it was pathetic that he was my only company most of the time.

"Calm your ass, I'm coming," I grumbled and went to retrieve my iPod from its place on the coffee table in my living room.

I quickly strapped the apparatus to my arm and was thankful to have such a handy contraption. There was a point in time when I was completely oblivious to such inventions, and I just held my iPod in my free hand as I jogged. On one unfortunate morning, my arm shot forward a bit too quickly as I ran, and my iPod flew out of my hand and landed in the street, only to be run over by a truck. May it rest in peace… well, pieces.

Needless to say, I was distraught over the loss of my precious iPod until my little sister showed me the light. God bless her. Now, I ran through the streets of Seattle with my iPod sitting securely in its holder on my arm. It really was a beautiful thing.

I attached the iPod to my arm and shoved the ear buds into my ears before I walked over to where my running sneakers were sitting haphazardly next to my front door. I bent over to put them on, and when I stood up straight again, Hamlet was standing behind me, wagging his fluffy mess of a tail around expectantly. I rolled my eyes at him and hooked the leash that I'd been holding onto his collar.

He bounced around excitedly in front of the front door, and it reminded me of what my sister Alice looked like before a shopping trip. In many ways, Hamlet and my sister were a lot alike. They were both demanding and far too energetic, and I loved them both dearly. Yes, it sounds sappy as hell, but my life has been pretty shitty in the last few years, and Alice was the most supportive member of my family. She was only a year younger than me, and we'd always been close growing up. She understood me in a way that my parents and brother never would be able to.

As for Hamlet…well, dogs are man's best friends, right?

Another bark from Hamlet snapped me out of my thoughts, and I chuckled lightly.

"Alright, let's go." I patted his head and opened the door to my apartment. Once we were outside, I reached over to the iPod on my arm and hit play.

"How come I end up where I started?

How come I end up where I went wrong?

Won't take my eyes off the ball again

You reel me out then you cut the string"

Ah, the sweet sounds of Radiohead.

Our run started out as it always did. It was late spring in Seattle, and it was one of the rare days that I didn't have to jog in the rain. The sun was slowly making its daily ascent, and as I continued running down the not so crowded streets, it warmed my skin.

Like every other day, we ran through the park that wasn't too far from my apartment building. It was always a very welcoming environment, and always pretty secluded at the early hour of 5 am. I let Radiohead drive my feet forward and found myself getting lost in the beats of the music and the light breeze blowing through my tousled hair.

Everything was peaceful…too peaceful.

It was then that I felt a sudden tug at the leash in my right hand, sending me stumbling forward. My eyes darted down to the frantic dog that was practically dragging me forward and then shot up to the wayward squirrel that he was after.

Fuck my life.

"Hamlet, stop!" I said frantically and tried pulling back on his leash to no avail.

The smart thing to do would have been to let go of his leash and let him chase the squirrel for a little while. He would come back to me without a doubt, but did I do the smart thing? No, of course not.

I was too caught up in trying to rein my fucking insane dog in that I didn't even notice the woman who was walking down the sidewalk, completely unaware of the catastrophe that was going on around her.

I let out a loud "oof!" as my body collided with something, sending me toppling gracelessly to the ground.

The leash slipped from my hands sometime during my fall, and my headphones were sprawled out on the cement next to me. With a groan, I pushed my body off of the ground until I was in a sitting position, and that was when the world stopped.

Standing in front of me was the most beautiful woman I'd ever had the privilege of laying my green eyes on. Her long, brown hair fell over her shoulders in soft waves that perfectly framed her heart shaped face. Her skin was the loveliest shade of ivory and it looked so soft and smooth that I was tempted to reach out and touch it. Her soft, pink lips were moving, but I couldn't hear any sound. My eyes raked over her face, taking in all of her stunning features, and my breath caught in my throat when they landed on her eyes. They were like the deepest pools of chocolate, and I was slowly drowning in them.

Shit.

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