Author's note: So...hehe...funny story. I accidentally deleted the second chapter while trying to replace the first chapter with a new, re-written and cleaner version. For some reason it's now called "It". Needless to say I will never attempt to do something so foolish ever again and if you see me try, you must beat me with a live minnow.

You try to avoid her, fate is in your hands

She's smiling, an invitation to the dance

Her heart is on the street, tu corazon es suyo

You try to get away but you can't

- Madonna

So we're back in the trenches again. The trenches of L-O-V-E.

Ewww.

But really, these last few weeks have been pretty nice. Okay, more than nice – scrumdiddliumcious. Needless to say, there is quite a big difference to merely being friends with a vampire and being a girlfriend to one. Or maybe that's not the accurate term – I mean, not yet at least. For now I guess the appropriate word would be lovers.

Oh Lawd! LOUVERRRRS!

Shut up – what else would you call us? The lion and the lamb? Please, I'd sooner gag myself with a spoon and have a firing squad assassinate my ass.

More like the insane Italian stallion and the lamb.

Isn't that the name of a pub somewhere?

I confess, I did think he'd be the standard courtly type of guy, waiting in his shiny black car outside the café I work at or the school, bright smile on his face and a bouquet of red roses in his hands.

So, how else do we bump into each other? Well, things settled into a very interesting routine...

In typical vampire fashion, Aro does not disappoint. In hindsight, given his kinds predatory nature, it all makes a lot of sense. You see kids, love come in very different packages. Some might say it with a nice valentines day card. A normal man might text or call the woman he desires and ask her out to dinner (hardy fucking har) or maybe set a date and time when he'll pick you up by your doorstep. A normal man might say "Gee!" and "gosh!" while you went out for 5 dollar milkshake at the mall.

Or maybe that's only in 50's informercials…

I think we all know where I'm going with this.

Two days after our initial tryst after that ball at the museum, I'd been walking past trefalgar square on my way to Forbidden planet (best comic book store in the world) when a strong arm had dragged me into a dark alley with the force of a terminator. I had time to squeal in surprise for about a second, before I recognized the smell of dead tissue, pasta sauce and fine wine. He was breathing in a really primal sort of way, and looking at me like he wanted to eat me up then and there.

Thankfully, I think it was not in a literal sense.

"Uh, hi?"

Saying nothing, Aro pressed me up against the nearest brick wall and claimed my lips with his soft, demanding ones in a kiss so scorching it left me chugging water all day after. But the damn bastard was all about teasing me, hands lingering at sensitive places and then all too soon pulling away, hips pressing against mine, bringing very nice memories to surface from our weekend together.

"Come ON." I growled and pressed into him, delighting in his short intake of breath. He mimicked my bared teeth, leaning his forehead against mine like he was mocking some amusing little child, shadows swallowing the top part of his face so I could not see his eyes.

Then he tutted at me, a finger to my lips. Fucking tease machine.

Just when I was about to unzip his pants, public indecency being the least of my concerns, he simply disappeared into the dark from whence he came, like friggin batman. I had to lean against the wall for quite some time to let my legs regain all their muscly filling, like oreos without the sturdy vanilla cream.

This stalking and pouncing thing happened regularly by the way. I know, I'm a lucky gal.

But I can assure you, it wasn't just good (incredible) sex and hot kisses.

Althought there've been plenty of those.

Though to say that someone like Aro was a kind, caring man was like saying that Donald Trump would make a great presidential candidate. It just wasn't true.

Was he a hoot to be around? Yes. Was he mischievous? Oh, yes.

Was he human? NO.

And I suppose therein lies the crux of it. To him, Kindness was a thing, an amusing way of getting what you want without really meaning it. I had seen it first hand many times. But the thing was, he was never like that with me specifically. The only times I had really felt threatened by him was before, when he was still living in my apartment. But then, after he'd touched me and seen every bit of thoughts and memory I possessed, something big had changed. I don't know why exactly, but I could see how differently he treated me and everyone else.

And I was afraid to ask why.

The bottom line is – I couldn't really give to figs if he was kind like a Disney prince or not. That was just not him. What touched me about him was that I seemed to be some sort of exception.

There was also a surprising amount of movie nights. I don't know how, but by some sort of unspoken agreement, every time I got out citizen kane or Casablanca, the few vampires I knew gathered around the same television set like bees to honey. It was so odd to see these creatures sitting around – lounging and watching something as trivial as tv.

"Ingrid Bergman." Marcus would say and sigh wistfully, as if that explained everything.

"Is that chocolate?" I asked of the small bag Aro was holding. He looked up at me as if spooked, then his eyes pointedly went to my crotch. In fact, all three of them did this. Like they had some sort of rainman capability. Aro passed the bag over to Caius and said, "Give it to her,"who passed the bag over to Marcus, who in turn gave me the bag with such alarming agreement that I had to know what the hell was going on.

Hold on a sec. My face started to burn.

"Can…can you guys fucking tell when I'm on MY PERIOD?!" I almost screeched.

"You said the chocolate would help…" Caius muttered to Aro.

"Don't look her in the eye." He said with much alarm, but I could tell that there was amusement in his eyes.

He asked me to look away when they showed footage of animal cruelty on the news.

When I got sick with the flu, he came over to my apartment, simply to rest his cool hands against my feverish face and draw gentle fingers through my hair as I slept. Literally, that was the only thing he did, the lazy bum. If you're evil your priorities apparently do not include fetching tea and hot water bottles.

Sometimes he'd even make a real feat of being snarky and courteous at once as he offered his hand to me when walking over a steep puddle in the street after a heavy rainfall – almost as if he did it unconsciously. And I would always look at him then and wonder, who he really was.

Just as captivating he could be, I knew deep down that there was a reason you didn't enter into a relationship with someone like him without caution.

I knew there was something terrible inside him, far worse and uncontrollable than anything I could imagine. I felt like someone standing on the other side of a steep brick wall, knowing there was something terrible on the other side, and sooner or later I'd have to climb over to take a look.