Author's Note: I haven't written anything in a long while, so it was nice when a little bit of inspiration came to me. This is just a little one-shot I wrote after re-reading Twilight. Please review!

Disclaimer: Unfortunately everything belongs to the very lucky, and very talented, Stephenie Meyer.

Summary: For the first time, Edward is left wanting. Just a little BxE one-shot, set during the early stages of Twilight (before the meadow scene, where they "get together")

Wanting

I know that it's wrong, sitting here, watching here like this. I've been telling myself that ever since I started, and yet somehow, I still haven't stopped. It's far too dangerous, being here so close to that overwhelming temptation. I can smell her even now, from the branches of this tree across from her house. Even though her window, which I'm looking right through, is closed. Her scent permeates everything here, and its intoxicating.

She sits reading in bed, leaning against the headboard with her lamp on. It's a nightly habit of hers, half an hour or so before she sleeps. Tonight its Anna Karenina. She looks tired; her eyes are tense and her dark hair seems to make her look paler. In this light, she seems almost as pale as me. I can see her heartbeat from here, where it pushes ever so slightly against the smooth skin of her neck. I can hear the thick, heavy gushes as it makes its way around her body, and its mouthwatering.

Again, I remind myself that I shouldn't be here. When it would be so easy for me to just slip in through her window and press my lips to that smooth neck, and be out again before even a second had passed. I am so sorely tempted. As with the first day I met her, a million different plans and fantasies have formulated in my head, circulating around drinking her blood. The thought both thrills and disgusts me. It is getting easier to manage now though. When I am near her, in Biology, I practice. Every few minutes or so I will take a breath and hold it, force myself to feel that burning raging anguish in my throat, and steel my hands to my sides so I don't grab her to me. I will not give in. I will learn to overcome this.

I'm still not sure why I try so very hard. The way her blood is for me…there are so few humans like that. The others would not think so badly of me if I gave in, when faced with such devastating temptation. They have heard of this, as I have, and I know that when this happens it doesn't last long. They are always overcome, in the end. I wonder if that will happen to me.

Bella, she is so fragile. So delicate and so…precious to me, though I don't know why that is so. I suppose it could be her blood. The way it calls to me, is made for me, marks her as mine in a way I've never really experienced before. I feel so honour-bound to protect her, even from myself, even at my own expense. Blood that precious should not be spilled on my account. And yet, there is something else. I can't quite understand what. Something that connects me to her, that draws me to her even though by rights I know I should stay far away. Certain thoughts have presented themselves, though I laugh at their absurdity. Yes, she is very beautiful, and desirable, and all those other things. And yet in my 90 years I have never been tempted in that way, not once, even by one of my own kind. Why now? Why her?

She is an enigma for me. The only mind I cannot read. The only blood that I crave but cannot have. The only…friendship? love? that I have ever wanted, but cannot be.

Her sigh rouses me from my thoughts. Though my eyes never left her they focus again, and I can see in even clearer detail the strand of hair that strays across her cheek, and the delicate glow of the moon on her skin as she reaches across to put her book down. She runs her fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face, and I wonder how it would feel to touch it. Would it be soft, and warm, like the rest of her? Would it be as smooth and silken as it looks?

She turns her lamp off and now it is only the moonlight that illuminates her. I can still see her perfectly, of course. Every single, beautiful detail. She sinks down into her bed and rests her head on the pillow, though she doesn't close her eyes and roll onto her side as she normally does. For a moment she looks out through the window and I wonder if she can see me, though I know I'm too well hidden, and too far away for her human eyes.

Those lovely, brown, human eyes close briefly and her eyelashes sweep across her cheek. They are so long, and only serve to make her look more delicate. More fragile. Then her hand moves down, between her legs. Though it is under the covers I can see that it is there, hear it even in the rustle of the sheets. I stop breathing, just in case, unexpected and surprised. I don't know how I'll react to this. Even more worryingly, I don't know how I want to react to this.

She sighs again, as her hand starts to move. The cover is sitting around her middle and her breasts heave at the sound. Her breasts…I had never really noticed them before. She is wearing only a thin white tank top, and it does not cover so very much. They look soft. That is the only word that I can think of, and to my surprise I find myself imagining what it would be like to touch them. And then, more surprisingly I find myself wanting to touch them. Just to see if they are as soft as she, or as warm.

This is new. This is some strange, foreign emotion that I have never experienced in all my years. Not like this. Memories or thoughts in other people's minds are nothing like this. This wanting and longing and heat and desire that is quite different from the gnawing, persistent thirst in my throat. In my grip, a thick branch breaks clean off. How odd. I had not even noticed that I was gripping it.

I cannot take my eyes from her. Though the gentleman in me is ashamed, there is nothing that I could do. I'm sure if I was human I would be blushing, like Bella does so oft. This instinctive, primal sort of urge has taken over me completely, and I am also sure that if I was human I would have given in long ago, thrown open that window and jumped in. Though I am sure that this is pushing my super-human self control to the limits.

I have never known desire like this before. I have never felt lust.

Her pretty, pink lips part and she gasps a breath. Her luscious heartbeat quickens and those breasts move again. And then she exhales, "Edward…"

And that is it. That is the limit of my self-control. I am down from that tree and racing through the forest as fast as I can go in the other direction.

As I run I think of her. I can no more stop myself than I can living. Like me this desire is unconscious, immortal. Now that I've discovered it, now that I've heard her calling my name, doing that, I can never think of her the same again. Forevermore, she will always be the one human that I wanted. The one who got under my iron-clad self control, under my skin. Thoughts of her stream through my head like the longing in my icy, venomous veins. I feel unnaturally warm, awake. I wonder if this is how it will always be, wanting her and never having. She is too precious; I must protect her from myself.

And yet, I don't know if I can stay away.

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