A/N: I want to give a big hug to amgglekim, who is now the beta for this story! She is doing a wonderful job, so make sure you go read her stories and leave her heaps of reviews! Thanks again babe!

Everyone else who offered to beta the story, you're all amazing and you deserve chocolates as well.

As usual, I own nothing!

EPOV

The sun had barely risen, and I was already waking up. Which was ridiculous; we were in the middle of our summer vacations and if there was one thing I loved doing was sleeping in. But today, just today, my body was completely justified in its decision to wake me up.

It was different today, though. I wasn't alone in bed. I turned around, desperately trying to disentangle my feet from the rumpled sheets, doing my best not to wake up the woman next to me. Just looking at her face, gazing at her delicate, perfect nose, with her thick eyelashes gently sprayed on her cheekbones and her lips slightly parted to enhance her steady breathing, I wanted to call her name. To shake her, wake her up and repeat our previous night until we both fell asleep exhausted again. Even more than that, I wanted to enjoy this moment when Bella lay peaceful next to me, with her arm still covering my waist. So that was precisely what I did. I ran one hand lazily up and down her arms, feeling the soft texture of her skin underneath my fingertips, until I was sure I had memorized every inch of her skin. Then I let my fingers lazily travel to her shoulders, her neck and down to her chest, keeping my touch light so she wouldn't wake up. It wouldn't be the end of the world if she did; she would probably just smile and do the same to me, albeit much more intensely. There was just something so intensely erotic about touching Bella's naked body while she slept in my bed with her skin still glowing from our making love.

I was trying very carefully to avoid her main erogenous zones; mainly because I was damn certain if anyone touched my dick I would wake up in a second; but also because the buildup, the sluggishness of my movements, was turning out to be an incredible turn on for me as well. My hands carefully avoided her breasts, running over the middle of them to her stomach, where my hands played with her belly button, my gaze never leaving my hands or Bella's body. I was simply entranced at the way she looked and the way she felt and I couldn't miss a second of it if my life depended on it.

I sensed Bella squirming. I had probably tickled her by accident. But as my touch traveled to her ass I was beginning to lose my control; seeing her perfect little body being caressed by my fingers was heavenly, but I was damn close to assaulting her and ready to lose myself in her when I heard the sweetest sound coming from Bella's lips; she was moaning. Those sweet sounds were all a result of my touch. It never ceased to amaze me the way she reacted to me, even after last night. Everything felt brand new.

I squeezed her flesh a little harder, infinitely more turned on after I heard a gasp escape her lips, and unconsciously my hands traveled downward to her thighs. Bella threw one leg over mine in reaction, literally opening herself to me. I looked up at her face to see her eyes boring into mine, and my gaze faltered for a second before I saw she wasn't upset. She had a lazy, teasing smile on her lips, and her eyes still had evidence of the night of sleep she had just woken from.

Bella used her tongue to wet her lips and she wriggled her hips around a bit, slightly thrusting herself in the direction of my touch. "What are you waiting for?"

Life didn't get much better than this. Looking down at my hands again, I noticed they continued stroking her thigh affectionately unbeknownst to me, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what she wanted me to do next. A little startled at her forwardness, I brought my lips to Bella's and rolled over on top of her, burying my face deep in her hair so I could smell her properly; and just as I remembered, it was strawberry and coconut and something new I couldn't recognize. As my body pressed on top of hers I knew she would feel just how much I wanted her; how much I needed to have her this very second. And it made me unbelievably happy that she only seemed more excited once she felt me.

Bella turned us around again until she was the one on top and as she did so I lost balance and I fell with a loud thud on the floor of my bedroom.

I was dressed. I was alone. And I was too mother-fucking horny for my own good.

I awkwardly looked at my bed again just to make sure Bella wasn't in it and it had only been a dream; a wonderful, amazingly life-like, perfectly frustrating dream. Which incidentally was becoming a regular occurrence; ever since the damned party where Bella ended up sleeping in my bed I had been waking up believing I was just about to make love with Bella. Which of course created yet another problem for me; we never actually did it in my dreams. We had done it before, and were about to do it again. The act itself was always banned from my head, as if my own mind was punishing me for even having these dreams. A fact which made me impossibly more sexually frustrated.

Even her body, which I knew came so easily to me in dreams, appeared to be blurred within my memory every time I tried to remember it later.

I blamed her smell for all of this. I distinctively smelled her shampoo on my pillow and sheets, even after I washed them. Twice. It had gotten to the point where, when Bella was around me, I avoided touching her so she wouldn't leave her scent around me. I knew where it would lead: me, in the bathroom jerking off just to get the edge off.

I picked up my watch from the desk to see the time. It was not even 9 p.m. yet, and I was already up and alert. I stole a glance at the bulge in my pants.

Clearly my plan to get a nap that would hopefully last until morning didn't work. I frustratingly ran a hand through my hair, striding angrily to the bathroom and closing the door behind me with a loud bang. The sound didn't bother me. I hoped everyone else in the house had as much trouble sleeping as me. Especially Bella and her stupid strawberry & coconut shampoo.

I pressed two fingers to my eyes, urgently begging my brain to remember anything, anything from my dream-Bella to help make this quick. It was too fuzzy and it kept getting fuzzier by the second; apparently the more I wanted to remember it the more the memory wanted to run away from me. I leaned on the sink and splashed cold water on my face, giving it a couple of rough scrubs before I caught my reflection in the mirror. I looked like crap. Not even crap. I was a few steps below crap. I looked like shit.

I threw water in the mirror in an attempt to deform my reflection, and started running the cold water in the shower. I didn't even feel like jerking off. What did that say about me?

As I stood beneath the freezing water I knew I had to do something about Bella's shampoo. I could buy her a new one, claim it was an advanced birthday present; a very weird and cheap birthday present. Or I could just be an ass and sneak into her room and empty her bottle without her noticing. That had to work as well, unless she had a million bottles of shampoo lying around the house. The point was what I did was irrelevant; I just had to solve this so I could get a good night's sleep again.

I turned off the water and wrapped a towel around my waist, and checked the time again. 8:54 p.m. Fuck. Everybody was probably still downstairs laughing and giggling at stupid shit and I didn't even want to go there and pretend to be interested in anything they had to say.

It was times like this it was nice to have a distraction from reality. And when I say times like this, I meant times when Bella did a one-eighty on me and changed everything I was positive about. Again. I wasn't very normal by any definition of the word, but Bella certainly wasn't either. A few days ago Bella had left my room precisely while I was in the bathroom and ran away, only to come back two minutes later shoving her cell phone in my face with a message from Jacob where he whined about how I hit him. He had no fucking clue. I did want to hit him, my fists were dying to smash his face for what he was about to do, and he better be well aware that what I did was a tiny, minute demonstration of what I truly wanted to do to him.

Just the fact that Bella had his number under Jake peeved me. With no reason, of course, because I'd seen her call him that right in front of my eyes and it didn't seem to bother me that much at the time. For some reason it was too informal, too friendly for my taste. Hell, Jacob Black would have been too informal for my taste.

Don't even go there, I told myself firmly.

I had hardly seen Bella after that, except of course when we all ate together. After the awkwardness of our first lunch I avoided those as much as possible, bringing the food to my room instead and eating alone. Nobody but Bella found that weird, since I had always avoided Bella during the time she spent there. Even though we had both agreed to be friends I knew we had both made a conscious decision to stay away from each other while other people were around. I, for one, had no intentions of explaining to anyone what was going on, and I doubted Bella wanted to be the one to do it.

But as much as I kept my distance, my brain was making sure I didn't forget her, or how much I'd come to desire Bella. She insisted I not say anything after she kissed me and it was probably for the best. I would likely have fucked it up and made Bella run in the opposite direction again.

While her statement that she wanted to be friends hurt me, deep down it was the only rational solution, and she had probably realized that as well. I had never been able to be in a decent relationship; I had never been capable of caring too much about anyone else, and certainly not in the way Bella deserved. And if there was one thing I learned with that kiss was that she had been designed to taunt me senseless.

There was nothing, absolutely nothing I would have denied her when we were lying in my bed kissing like the world was about to end and our only possible salvation was in each other. She kept thrusting her little body in my direction, with small moans and groans which mocked my self control until there was none left. I wondered if at the time she had noticed how close I was to ripping her clothes off.

Probably not, I mused, massaging my forehead vigorously. She never pulled back, never told me to stop it. On the contrary; it felt like she didn't want me to end it. Or maybe I was just assuming she wanted what I wanted as well.

But Bella referring to our kiss as her first good dirty kiss irked me. I thought the first one was pretty fucking awesome as well – even if it ended badly. Apparently she didn't share that opinion.

Walking downstairs in the direction of the kitchen, I put my thoughts about Bella in the corner of my mind. There was no point in thinking about her anymore, mostly because my brain would take care of that tonight once my head hit the freaking pillow.

That was until I entered the kitchen and saw Bella and Alice deeply in conversation about something. Bella had her back to me, so she hadn't noticed me. But Alice's head shot up as soon as my head peeked inside and gave me her typical vibrant smile.

"Good evening."

I saw Bella's neck swinging around to look at me, and the emotions in her eyes were crystal clear as soon as she laid her eyes on me. She was happy to see me there, but also a little confused, and it made me feel like a prick again. I had been ignoring her on purpose for the past days, but really only because of my dreams. It had nothing to do with her particularly.

I managed to give them both a small smile accompanied by a very unenthusiastic "Good evening," and headed for the coffee maker, desperately needing something to take the edge off. As I turned to face them both, I saw Alice giving Bella a discreet pat on the hands, probably reassuring her that my presence wasn't going to be a problem.

I rolled my eyes at the situation and decided it was time to end this freaking charade.

"It's okay, Alice," I said with just a hint of annoyance in my voice. It was hard to care when you were sleep deprived.

"Oh?" She kept looking back and forth between me and Bella, awkwardly checking us both for our reactions. Bella gave her a quick nod and smiled at Alice.

"Yeah; Edward and I…" I straightened up, nearly dying of anticipation. How the hell was she going to finish that sentence? "It's not a problem anymore," she concluded.

I snorted loudly, which warranted me two raised eyebrows from the kitchen table. I had probably sounded just a little bit like a dick. But what the fuck did not a problem anymore mean? Was that how she saw me? A problem?

I was about to ask her just that when I saw Bella's uncomfortable expression and I remembered that I didn't want people to know about us, either. Of course that was mostly because even I didn't know what we were yet. I nodded at Alice who kept the suspicion in her eyes in spite of Bella's words.

"Good. Great," she creased her brows in thought. "It's about time," she finished after a minute.

Bella turned around and gave me a restrained smile. "So…how's the book?"

Sensing this was more an effort to keep the conversation rolling than genuine interest in the story, I decided to be helpful. It wasn't only her fault I was having sex dreams with her. "It's pretty much the same. I printed out the stuff I have so far in case you wanted to read it though. You haven't read it for a while," I said, more accusingly than she deserved. She hadn't read it because I hadn't given it to her.

"I can read it now, I'm pretty bored." Alice's head shot up filled with a wounded expression, making Bella laugh. "I didn't mean it like that. I just have a few minutes now…"

"What book is this and why am I not reading it?"

"You hate reading, Alice," I retorted.

"I do not! I just like doing other stuff better, that's all. Besides, if it got you two talking it has to be some sort of masterpiece."

"It's Edward's. It's Edward's story." At Alice's confused expression, Bella continued. "He's writing it; and it's SO good. There's Edwin Clark and Elizabeth Harriet, who are these two detectives who hate each other but then fall in love-"

"They do not fall in love," I cut Bella off, the frustration in my voice making me sound harsher than I meant to. "They are investigating something. They do not fall in love."

Bella threw her tongue out at me playfully, something which caught me deeply off guard for its lightheartedness, and shook her head at Alice. "They fall in love."

Alice laughed at our bickering, and got up. "I'd love to read it sometime, too. Just not today; Jasper and I are going out."

I nodded in her direction, shrugging. If she wanted to read it I wouldn't be an ass about it. Alice was one of the few people I cared about enough that she would absolutely be invited to read it if she wanted. Bella remained sitting in the same place, and I sighed. It was time we talked about what was going on.

I crossed the kitchen to the table, sitting right in front of her. "I'm sorry I've been distant." I said, placing my hand on top of hers. "It's just different with people around us, you know?"

A little voice in my brain told me that sounded like I was ashamed of Bella, but she surely wouldn't think anything stupid like that about me. I was relieved when she gave me a sweet smile and nodded. Her eyes looked tired and there were shadows under her eyes, like she hadn't been sleeping well. In her case it surely had nothing to do with having dirty dreams about yours truly.

"Sure," she whispered while she waved a hand like it was no big deal. But it was bothering her. I could tell. Hell, it was even bothering me, and I wasn't known for my sensitivity.

Sighing, I let go of Bella's hand. I had been avoiding getting Bella in my room. Desperately and urgently avoiding it. I knew what would happen. Her aroma would infiltrate my room again and I would be tortured for another night. Then she looked at me through those eyelashes, shyly acting as if everything was okay when anyone who knew her could tell she was upset.

"You want to come upstairs, read it right now?"

***

Bella agreed, of course. Cutely enough, she actually paused to pretend she was considering my offer, as if she wasn't sure. I never had a doubt in my mind she would say yes. We both walked quietly, with Bella right behind me, and we entered my room quietly. She went and settled into her usual spot on the bed while I went to my printer, picking up the chapters I'd already printed out and handed them to her.

I stole a glance at my bed and scowled. Bella's hair was resting on my freaking pillow. Grimacing, I shook my head and turned to my computer again, my back to Bella. Could she possibly make this any harder for me?

Suddenly, I heard a couple of small bumps and I turned around again. She was taking off her shoes to make herself more comfortable. How lovely. In the meantime she could get under the covers and rub herself against my bed to make sure if somehow tonight, at least in my sleep, we went all the way. Bella placed one leg under the other and went back to reading, carefully studying each page intently before she moved on to the next one.

I sighed remembering Alice's words. That it had to be a good book to get me and Bella to speak. Had we been that bad? Sure, we hardly talked, but Bella hardly talked to anyone anyway. Sure, maybe I did hate her, or at least I had thought I did, but somehow I knew the novel wasn't the reason for us to become friends. If anything, it was an excuse.

I shifted a bit in my seat so I could take another quick glimpse at her. She sat there in her usual jeans and large shirt, and the intense look in her eyes made the corners of my mouth tilt in a smile.

"Hey," I spoke softly to get her attention. Bella lifted one finger, gesturing for me to wait. She kept her eyes on the pages for another second and then lifted her eyes to me.

"Why did we hate each other?"

Her expression went from blank to hesitant. I saw her setting the pages down beside her on my bed and grab my pillow, hugging it to her chest.

"Because you didn't like me. You thought I didn't appreciate Esme and Carlisle," she bit her lip nervously at the silence that had been set between us. "Right?"

"You didn't like me either," I replied quickly, upset that she was placing all the blame on me.

"Yes I did," Bella said firmly, widening her eyes at me. "I…I thought you were cute," she finished, giving me a sidelong glance.

The faintest color was rising to Bella's cheeks, and I was enough of a prick to take advantage of the moment.

"What? When?"

Giving me a resigned sigh, Bella let her shoulders sag and leaned back against the wall beside my bed.

"Seriously, I did. That first summer, when I was twelve; I saw you and I thought you were really cute. I even almost had a crush on you. Then you spoke; or rather, you grunted at me; for no apparent reason, at the time. So I just started thinking of you as that cute asshole who hated me. Not in those terms, of course; but you get the gist of it."

I forced my lips to remain still, even though somewhere inside me there was a little voice telling me this was the perfect moment to grin. Shaking my head to oblige myself to stick to the subject, I continued.

"I meant after that. How did we not get out shit together in the next four summers?"

"Well. You spent a summer away, which I'm fairly sure was to avoid me." I didn't correct her. "So it's only really only the next two summers. This is the third. And we've never been alone before. When other people are around its different, we had no reason to really get to know each other. I mean, look at us! Since they arrived I've barely seen you."

I felt guilty again, but I wouldn't find excuses this time. It wasn't my fault Bella french-kissed me and then claimed she just wanted a friendship with me. I was allowed a few days to get my thoughts together.

"Maybe it was meant to be," she murmured. I raised a questioning eyebrow at her, but she only shrugged. "Maybe if we hadn't hated each other we never would have had this."

I wondered what she meant by this. Was this supposed to be a fucked up, rollercoaster ride of a friendship slash occasional make out buddy? It somehow didn't sound that valuable to me, at least to someone outside looking in. Still, the way she worded it made it unbearable for me to deny it.

I could have told her that if our friendship had evolved naturally through the years there certainly wouldn't have been as many issues right now that dealt with my sudden overbearing desire for Bella. Bella and I would behave differently, more comfortably around each other. She would not look at me waiting for the moment I would say something wrong or hurt her because she'd know I would rather cut off my own hand than cause her any kind of pain.

As it was, all I could do was agree. "Yeah, maybe you're right."

Satisfied with my reply, Bella picked up the printed pages, picking them up where she'd left off and I went back to pretending I was doing anything but staring at her.

I was getting pretty good at finding random things to do while Bella read my story. I checked e-mails, researched whatever I felt needed a little more information for the novel, which at the moment included data on Saudi Arabia and Russia, and randomly listened to music on my headphones to give Bella as much discretion as possible..

Sensing a noise around me, I turned around to see Bella bending in my direction with an annoyed expression in her face. Removing the headphones quickly I quirked an eyebrow at her, as if to say 'what?'.

"An ex-lover," she asked bitterly, nearly seething at me. "Are you serious?"

"Really, Bella, it's a more than common plot device."

"I don't like it. You're just doing this to make Clark jealous."

I rolled my eyes at the direction of the conversation. Why was it that Bella and I kept fighting about Harriet and Clark's feelings, or rather lack thereof, for each other? I bristled in my chair and tilted my head. "What did you expect? That they would look at each other, fall in love and live happily ever after?"

Bella nodded her head quickly. "Yes!... No. I meant there's more to the story than that; why can't you just let them be happy while they run through the case?"

"Because they're not in love," I pointed out matter-of-factly.

"Yes they are," she replied vehemently, pointing at a particular piece of dialogue which I couldn't make out.

I only shook my head at her and turned around, pretending I was ignoring her words. They were my fucking characters. Why did she continue to insist that they were in love when I had told her over and over again it wasn't like that? I was so close to turning Harriet into a man, even if I did enjoy the dynamic in having both the male and female point of view in the story.

"Is she going to have sex with him?" She asked quietly, almost sulkily.

I turned my head to look at Bella over my shoulder. "No."

"Why not? If Harriet doesn't love Clark she might as well have fun with…Yakov." She stared resentfully at the pages and then back at me. "I hate that name, by the way."

"It's Russian. Get over yourself. She's not having sex with him because I don't want her to. It's not like her. Besides, I needed someone close to one of them who had connections to the case, and it's a perfect device to find out more about Harriet's past."

Which was all true, but the main reason I wanted to do it now was because it was a matter of pride. I wanted to prove to Bella this was a perfectly acceptable evolution in the story and it would make sense down the line.

"I don't get it. I don't get how you could write this and not see it. Be oblivious of their attraction to be point that you don't even realize you're writing it. It's right in front of you, Edward. Why won't you let things develop naturally between them?"

I tried to ease the tension with a laugh, but Bella's eyes remained cold on mine, and she crossed her arms stubbornly. "I'll think about it. I promise."

I could see she was still somehow mad at me for the way the characters were behaving. Seeing her throwing her feet of the bed and putting on her shoes hurriedly, I got up and caught Bella by her wrist before she reached the door and held her body to me. "Hey… You can't be serious. I do what feels right to me at the moment; it's not like I know exactly how their relationship will develop."

I felt ridiculously happier when I saw Bella smirking. Playfully, she used her free hand to slap my arms. "I'm not mad at you, I'm frustrated! I don't get it. It's right in front of you!"

We both turned around at the sound of a knock on the door. Since we were looking at each other completely clueless, I stood, frozen, with Bella still in my hands. Before I could say anything, or even figure out what I wanted to ask at the person behind the door, it swung open and let go of Bella's wrist in a reflex reaction.

But I knew Emmett had seen my hands on Bella – he was looking at me like he was about to crucify me. I wanted to tell him it wasn't what it looked like, but then I didn't know what had surprised him more: that I was holding Bella's wrist or that she was in my room at all.

"Is there something going on here?" He asked; his eyes fixed on Bella.

I just wanted to know when the hell my family had decided I was too much of an asshole to be around Bella. Maybe I needed to fill out a form detailing my intentions every time I wanted to talk to a freaking friend.

"No, everything's fine," Bella replied, taking a couple of steps back from both of us, which warranted a questioning look from me. It didn't put me in the best light to walk away from me right now. But she wasn't looking at me or at Emmett for that matter. Her eyes were fixed on the floor again, and she had involuntarily withdrawn to her usual shy, private self in the presence of Emmett.

Wanting this to be over as soon as possible, I called Emmett's attention to me again. "What's up?"

"We're going out. You want to come?" His gaze shifted to Bella and he gave her an atypically sweet smile. "Sorry Bella, I would invite you as well, but it's a boy's night out. Alice and Rose were looking for you, though."

I nearly chuckled at the panic in Bella's face at his last statement, but held myself back when I pictured myself in the middle of Alice's makeovers. Yikes.

This could be the perfect opportunity for me and Bella to be alone together, though. If everyone else was leaving for the night it would be almost like we were alone again, and we would probably be able to just hang out again, which we were both clearly missing.

I was about to deny the request when Emmett spoke again. "Rose said if both of you don't come we can't come either."

Narrowing my eyes, I snorted. "And why the fuck not?"

He cocked his head looking at me and Bella through thin eyes. "Maybe she doesn't like the idea of you and Bella staying alone here?"

I was about to point out they had all left us alone here, but I knew it was useless. This sounded nothing like Rose or even Alice for that matter. They weren't the ones who had included this clause in the boys/girls night out. It was Emmett, who after seeing me with Bella apparently didn't want to leave me alone with her. I breathed deeply to keep my thoughts about where he could shove his concern, and knew I had to talk to him quickly before he went and told Esme I was getting violent with Bella. In my fucking room, as if.

"Sure, it sounds like fun," I said, discretely nudging Bella, who was looking at me like I'd just sold her to the devil himself. Poor thing.

All three of us walked out of my room, and Emmett turned around before I could say anything to Bella. I saw him place one of his oversized hands in her tiny little shoulders and I wanted to shove it away. "I need to talk to you later, Bella. Okay?"

She gave him a quick hesitant nod, and I had no doubt in my mind about how that conversation was going to go. Hopefully, though, before he had an opportunity to talk to her I would be able to convince him I wasn't as much as an ass as he was thinking right now.