Disclaimer: The characters of Twilight are owned by Stephenie Meyer. The content, ideas and intellectual property of this story and the 'American Vampire Series' in its entirety are owned by Just4ALE.

Chapter 10: Edward Knows Too Much

EPOV

Okay. I admit it. I'm a complete horn-dog around Bella.

The truth was that I absolutely and unconditionally loved her. She was smart and funny. Kind and serious. Honest and direct. And just naturally beautiful. I waited for 85 years for her and having in her my life made me complete.

But there was a slight problem. The more I was around her, the more I wanted. I couldn't get enough. She was a student and a human so I needed to let her study and have her rest, but I wanted her all of the time. I mean ALL of the time.

Part of this had to do with the fact that I was a vampire… plain and simple. Our passions and emotions were all intensified, so much stronger than those of humans. The scent of her blood was heavenly to me and taking it into my body regularly only magnified the attraction. Her scent combined with her higher energy levels? Completely overwhelming.

The other part? I was a 104-year old vampire trapped in a horny 17-year old body... and this 17-year old now had a steady girlfriend he was crazy about.

After seeing what her fury did to me during the Tanya chronicles, I kept hoping to see her angry, but that damn Karate worked to keep her cool as a cucumber most of the time. And so I resorted to provoking her, which actually worked out really well… that one time. After that, she was on to me.

It was an absolute joy the one day that I picked her up from school after a labor relations class she took. The class had broken into small groups to play union and management renegotiating a contract for ¼ of the class grade. The negotiations broke down that day and her team called a strike. She was so annoyed at the other team and their lack of willingness to negotiate – this was a mock case, mind you – that she was seething when she got in the car.

I couldn't even make it into my house; I jumped her in the car in my driveway.

But it wasn't just about me. I mean, okay, it was about me and my 'fuckin' teenage libido' to quote my wise brother Emmett. But it was also about her. I really wanted to please her.

And then it was about me again. I was a man with an ego. I wanted to see how high I could push that energy level without the benefit of the bite. I'd really only gotten it to a seven at max. I was going for a ten.

Luckily I had some advantages.

Of course there were the dreamtime conversations I had with her. During her agitated state in Denali in the days before Tanya showed up, Bella was talking in her sleep more than usual. One night, I tried to soothe her by speaking to her quietly. To my surprise, she answered back.

So began our nighttime Q&A sessions. I probed her feelings about me and Jacob before he had shown up. Since then, I'd been trying to get at her fantasies. I could find out little bits and pieces of what she liked and wanted, but Bella was still a bit shy when it came to talking about sex… and she kept her desires locked away even in her dream state. So I used my other advantage.

When she first figured out that I was a vampire, she asked me a number of questions related to the stereotypical myths about us. And as we spent more time together, she'd pop out with another question trying to understand my existence.

"Can you read a person's past just by biting them? Do you get all of their memories too?" she asked.

"No," I said. "You can't get all of their memories."

Which was only partially true: while you couldn't get a person's memories, you did find out some useful information. I kept that to myself at first.

I started surprising her in our romantic escapades with things that I knew she liked. Things she'd never admit out loud. Like pinning her to the wall to kiss her, her hands and body trapped by mine, as I had in the surveillance room, sometimes taking her right there against the very same wall, her body straddled over mine.

I began pushing her a little past her boundaries to see what else she'd enjoy. After that, I'd question her in her dream state, once the idea was closer to her conscious mind. And each time I learned something new, I was able to push it slightly past that point. She was actually more open to different experiences than she'd ever let on or even than she realized.

It was awesome.

I started to make a Green Eggs and Ham-like mental checklist that we could go through together: 'I have done it in a car, I have done it on the bar. I have done it in a movie theater…' Okay, nothing rhymes with movie theater, and I only fondled there her anyway. I have to work on this poem.

Eventually she noticed and called me on it.

"How do you know exactly what I like?" she asked one night as I held her in my arms.

"I'm observant," I said.

"Well, watching me carefully is one thing. I'll grant you that… no one has ever paid this much attention and picked up on so many nuances. But," she continued, "It's more than that. You seem to know things that I'm pretty sure I don't give away in my body language."

I decided then to come partially clean.

"You told me," I admitted.

She was puzzled. "What? When?"

"When I first marked you at the pond."

"I don't remember telling you anything. Did I talk?"

"You let your blood do the talking," I said. She continued to stare blankly.

I explained. "When we bite someone, we get flashes of what they're thinking about at that moment and other associated images."

Vampire legends often included stories of seduction. We were magnificent creatures that easily drew in our prey. Our voices, our smells, our movements were part of our predatory traits: even the 'ugly' vampires could do this. This other little ability was just part of our talent. Our reputations for being seductive were not undeserved; it was quite an advantage to know exactly what one's partner wanted when the bite was done in an erotic moment. Hence the biting during vampire sex.

Of course, I had always been able to hear my partner's desires before Bella.

"When I bit you the first time, I was trying to get you to concentrate on me and not the imminent danger bearing down upon us... so if you remember, I trapped you against the tree and started ripping at your jacket and scarf to get at your neck. With you being in a heightened state of arousal, I got a quick view of what turns you on."

Her jaw dropped and she sat up quickly. And then she yelled out, "Oh. My. GOD! You've been getting information from every bite since!"

I shrugged and nodded. "That's so not fair," she said. "Why do you have to have all the advantages? I don't know your fantasies."

"Bella, in all of my moments with you I'm acting out my fantasies. Don't worry about me…" This was the truth… but not the whole truth. I had one really big fantasy about her that I wasn't able to tell her.

Once the cat was out of the bag, it was fun to tease her for about what I knew.

Case in point: this Tears for Fears thing. Her comfort music and one of her favorite groups. She'd told me last year that it was background noise … just music to help her study. One day while we were at her apartment, she played the Seeds of Love album over and over while she was studying for a test.

As I sat at her desk looking at some of my research notes, I muttered, "Well at least I understand your obsession with this group now."

She was sitting in her papasan chair in the corner of the room and I could see her look up at me in my peripheral vision. Her expression was confused as she noticed the smirk on my face and her eyes started looking around the room: she was mentally churning through the statement to understand it. Then she gasped as she realized what I meant.

During one of my dream time chats with her in Denali, I asked her what was up with this group and her answer was so... Bella: she had her first erotic dream at age 18 about the lead singer. She hadn't seen much in the dream but she had felt it. I guess it was like the teenage girl's version of a wet dream, without the mess. After that, she unconsciously loved the group, although she never really consciously thought about sex when she was listening to them.

"No!" she shouted, covering her flushing face. "Why would that have popped into my head ever? Stop it! That's embarrassing!"

I laughed. "Bella, we've been together for nine months," I said. "And we've been in a lot of different situations. That embarrasses you? After everything else?"

She continued to cover her face. She just groaned. "Please, I need some privacy somewhere."

"Are you kidding? You're private all the time!"

"But Edward, you're getting stuff out of me that I haven't even figured out myself! Shouldn't I be the first to know?"

I got up and slowly walked over to her. "I love making you happy… why shouldn't I press my advantage in order to do that?"

She looked up at me from the chair. "I can't do the same for you, though. It makes this mighty uneven in a variety of ways, obviously."

"I don't mind," I said softly.

"Well, I do."

"Ah, you don't mind that much," I said, grabbing her off the chair and ghosting her across the room to lie on top of me on the floor in seconds. I ended this discussion by reliving another of her fantasies there on the floor.

"You got that from me too, didn't you?" she asked.

I nuzzled her ear and chuckled. "Of course."

"Edward, you have to stop doing this to me… I don't think I can take it. You're trying to push me to ten and maybe I don't go that high. Maybe I only go to seven or eight and you'll break me if you ratchet it up anymore."

"Don't you enjoy what I do for you?"

"Are you kidding?" she asked, kissing me softly. "Do I look like I'm in pain here? I'm just saying, I'm a mere human. You may have to dial it down a notch."

Bella got up, grabbed her nighttime t-shirt and shorts and went into the bathroom to take a shower and get ready for bed.

While she was in there, I thought about her statement. My logical 104 year-old side could see her point. She might be right: maybe she will only ever go to an eight.

The horn-dog teenager, however, disagreed. No way. Look how she reacted when you did it in that dark alcove outside of her apartment building last week. Do you like it on the floor? Do you like it against the door?

Ugh. Stop it Edward.

Then my perceptive girlfriend picked up on a small hole in my explanation.

She stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel a few minutes later, steam wafting out from the hot shower. Her brow was furrowed. "Wait a second. You can't be getting this from the bites. We've never had Tears for Fears playing when we've been together. It wasn't even on anymore when we were in the Karate studio that afternoon."

I groaned. She caught you.

"Okay," I said slowly, "so maybe you talk in your sleep."

"I talk. Yes, I know that… my mom used to tease me about it."

I breathed a small sigh. Okay, not caught.

She put her hands on her hips. Her eyes narrowed, looking steadily at me. "And what, I just VOLUNTEER information like that?"

"Well, er…" Okay, definitely busted.

She cocked her head and exhaled loudly. Her eyes looked away for a second and she mouthed the words, "son of a…" And then she turned her furious eyes back on mine. "Edward Cullen! Have you been interrogating me while I've been sleeping?!"

Holy shit! She was fuming.

Excellent…

A/N: Ah, Edward. Thank you for reading so far. Please leave a review.