I gave it a couple of days, but I still couldn't get the girl from the club out of my head.

Bella Swan. She was gorgeous, she smelled great, she was sharp and witty and could hold a conversation… not to mention holding her liquor. She had been all-around a great way to spend one of my endless evenings.

Plus, she knew what I was. OK, she may not have had the best reaction to my undead status, but she knew.

This train of thought was making me sound like a nancy. I needed to man up.

Which lead me to here and now: standing in front of the top floor flat in a posh apartment building holding a flower. Yes, a flower. My plan to man up had, in fact, failed completely and utterly miserably.

I knocked on the door and waited. I could hear faint sounds of life inside and knew she was there. I wanted to break down the door and demand she talk to me again, but played it cool. My patience was rewarded when she opened the door without asking who it was… and apparently without checking the peephole, if her reaction was any indication. She was as beautiful as I remembered, once again in some obviously very expensive clothes. These were simpler than her outfit in the club had been, but she didn't look any less edible.

"You!" she shouted. "Did you track my scent? Are you here to kill me? That doesn't make sense, Alice would have said…" She trailed off and looked at me expectantly.

"Track your scent?" I sneered at her. "I'm a vampire love, not a bloodhound. There's this genius device called a phone book. Swan comma Isabella. This address." She gasped when I said vampire, but more in shock that I'd admitted it than surprise, if my guess was right. "And no, I'm not here to kill you. I was hoping for coffee."

She was looking a bit chagrined from the phone book thing, and was off kilter for my coffee comment. She repeated "coffee" faintly before finding her wits and her voice again. "You can't drink coffee," she said, accusingly. Then I could practically see her brain engage as she scrunched her nose a bit. Not that I was watching her close enough to see the scrunched nose. Or that I even cared that she scrunched her nose adorably. Not that it was adorable. Oh, sod it.

"You drank alcohol," she said, her voice hard to read. A mixture of accusation and wonder. I couldn't follow her at all on this one.

"Yeah, I drank alcohol. And today, I will drink coffee. Remarkable thing I have, this mouth, that lets me do it. Oh, and talk. Which is what else I was after. After a few hundred years you become a sucker for stimulating conversation. Now, what do I have to say to make you kick your lovely behind into gear and head to Starbucks?" Perhaps I had imagined this girl being confident and witty. Had I drank more than I'd thought? She seemed so limp and fragile compared to the spitfire I'd engaged with last night.

Then it was like she could hear my thoughts. You could practically see her spine grow. "Wait here," she growled at me before slamming the door in my face. It opened less than two seconds later, and she grabbed the flower from my hands, then slammed it again, leaving me standing empty-handed and confused in her hallway. I don't know why I was listening to this obviously deranged and bipolar human female. Well, I do have a track record for being attracted to the crazies. I waited for her.

I listened to her small noises through the door in the empty hallway for what felt like an eternity. For all I knew she was running away or perhaps calling some vampire goon squad to stake me.

My fears proved to be false when the door was yanked back open probably less than ten minutes later by Bella, now flowerless and wearing a jacket and some freshly applied lip gloss that smelled like strawberries. Strawberries had never smelled better.

She ignored me completely as she stalked over to the bank of lifts and poked the button fiercely. She didn't even look at me when I joined her, so I ignored her just as hard as she ignored me. We stepped into the lift together and she stared at the floor on the way down, her body a picture of tension. I tried to subtly inhale deeply. Her scent was overpowering in the small space and it was even better than I remembered. I could spend all night in this place, just breathing her in.

I have officially lost the plot. I'm a vampire. We do not make mushy comments about humans. Even in our heads. This would be my new mantra, and I would repeat it all night if I had to.

She looked up once as the lift slowed its gentle descent as we came to the ground floor. She stared into the mirrored panel and her mouth opened a little as she only saw her own reflection. Her head whipped around to look at me, and her eyes widened when she confirmed that I was there. I was starting to suspect that something was rotten in Denmark.

She stayed silent as the lift doors opened, and practically ran from the tiny mirrored room and into the lobby. Much to my surprise, she didn't keep running. Her spine came back, and she just started walking to the Starbucks up the block. She stole my trick and didn't check to see if I was following her.

Of course, I was. Pathetic little puppy that I apparently was now. She joined the queue and I slid in smoothly behind her. She continued pretending I didn't exist.

When she got to the counter, I smiled a little to myself as she ordered a mocha with marshmallows. "Make that two," I added from behind her. To her credit, she didn't jump, or even turn and stare at me. She heaved out an aggrieved sigh and finally spoke.

"It's on you," she announced, echoing back to our first conversation. I bit back a grin as she continued, "I'll find us a table." She flounced off to the back corner of the shop in search of a private table, obviously proud of herself. I happily paid the chap behind the counter and took our drinks to the table.

She grabbed hers and took a sip. She stared at the marshmallows on top as if the held the key to existence. She finally, very quietly, said, "what are you?" Her voice was a whisper.

"You were right at the club, pet," I responded with a bit of confusion. "I'm a vampire."

"But you can't be." Her voice stayed at a whisper.

I laughed out loud. "News to me." I laughed again at her confused expression.

"You're serious about this?"

"Absolutely," I said without hesitation.

I could see the gears in her brain turning and I would kill a man to be able to hear what she was thinking. Of course, I'd kill a man for looking at me funny as well, so maybe that wasn't the best sacrifice I could think of. "You don't have a reflection," she finally said.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," I responded. That finally got a giggle out of her. I grinned at her and she smiled back and some of this bloody tension was suddenly gone. I relaxed enough to bring up the heavy stuff. "I thought you had been around vampires before, pet. Why does everything seem so shocking to you?" I asked it as gently as I could, hoping she'd remain the lion I knew she was instead of reverting to the wet kitten I'd seen glimpses of today.

"I have been around vampires," she said defensively. "I still am! But they're not like you." She trailed off and looked thoughtful again, which I had to nip in the bud before things got awkward again.

"How are they different?" I was trying to keep the conversation flowing now that things were normal, or as normal as they could be, again.

"They've all got reflections, to start with!" She all but shouted at me. The reflection thing always does freak people out. At least she wasn't screaming. So many of them screamed. I get rotten headaches from it.

I had to ask the obvious question. "Did they drink blood, pet?"

"Of course they drank blood! What kind of question is that? Some vampires they would be if they didn't drink blood!" She had the sense to lower her voice for this little tirade, and practically hissed the words at me. The lion was back, and I liked it. Even when she was pissed off with me.

"Just checking," I tried to say soothingly. "You've hit the nail on the head though."

"What are you talking about?" She was frustrated now, I could tell.

"All blood drinkers are technically vampires. Well, those that have to drink blood for survival are, at any rate. But there's more than one kind."

"Oh." And then her brain was churning again. This girl was too introspective sometimes. A part of me missed the kind of girl that let you know what she was thinking all the time. A much larger part of me was kicking that part's arse, because this girl was something different and special and I couldn't work out why. Or why I should care. Or why I did care. Not that I did. Because I was a tough-as-nails vampire and absolutely wouldn't care at all about this girl. Right.

I waited for the barrage of questions that would surely come after that little revelation. She finally looked up and opened her mouth, and I was sure her first question would be about my diet. And, in a way, it was. "Do you eat food?"

It was my turn to be eloquent. "Huh?" That wasn't what I was expecting in the slightest.

"Like, human food. Do you eat it?"

"Not really. Liquids, yes. A bit of Wheatabix crumbled in a nice bowl of blood, sometimes. Chocolate, maybe. Cookies, sometimes. But not like a four course meal or anything. My body can't use it for sustenance, so I only consume things to enjoy the taste of them."

She looked thoughtful again and it was driving me mental. She wasn't doing any of the things I'd expect, but that was probably why I liked her. She sat her glass down on the table and I was surprised to see it was empty. I looked down at my own and I only had a few swallows left, so I finished it off. I sat staring at her like a mental patient, not sure what to say or do.

She stood up and started to walk away. I stared dumbly after her, feeling right sorry for myself until she turned around a few steps from the table and spoke. "Aren't you going to walk me home? The city is full of dangerous things."

I stood up and walked over to her, looming awfully close. "I'm one of them," I whispered in her ear.

She laughed, a rich, tinkling laugh. "Probably. But you're not a danger to me."

Another blow to my ego then. I nearly bit her just to prove I was a villain, but decided that would be counterproductive. "Are you so sure about that, love?" I put my best glower into it.

She laughed at me again and said "yes" as she walked to the door and out into the night, with me following like the whipped man I was. I walked her to her door without incident. She unlocked it and started inside, then turned around and looked at me with a strange expression on her face.

She stared so long I nearly asked her if I had a mocha mustache. "Will I see you again?" she finally asked.

"Do you want to?" I was surprised, honestly. I was fascinated with the girl, but so far all I had done was stalk and confuse her while admitting to being a dangerous, blood-drinking, creature of the night. Oh yes, and force her to share details of her life in exchange for alcohol. Anyone rational would be running away screaming now.

"Yes," she said simply and I nearly fell over. I stared at her, unable to come up with anything suave or cool or, well, anything to say. She flashed me one brilliant smile and said "Wednesday. 7pm. Here."

Then she shut the door in my face for the third time that day.

"Who is overbearing now?" I called through the door and I was rewarded with another laugh from her.

"Be there!" she shouted back, then I heard the sound of her footsteps moving away from the door and I took that as my cue to leave.

I headed out into the city, feeling like I had lost the game with her for the second time in a row. What was this girl doing to me? All I knew was that I would be here on Wednesday. The Hounds of Hell couldn't keep me away.