A/n: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. However, I, under the penname listed above, do own this story, plot and its variations. I prefer it not to be plagiarized and thank you in advance.

A whole lot of chapters ago, I promised readers a certain something. I am finally coming through. I want to thank Beth/BookGeek80 for her expertise and help.
Quoda: the name says it all.

Chapter Five

Immediately after school the next day, Bella holed herself up in the near empty library. Originally, in a crazy adrenaline rush from thinking that maybe the legend of the incubus would explain Edward, she had Googled it. But searching for information about a sex demon on the Internet was like holding a pornography party on your browser. Eventually, she found a website that gave a detailed history of the incubus. The website stated that incubi were most often demons that came into a woman's bedroom at night and had sex with her while she was asleep. That didn't describe Edward at all—not that she knew of, at least—but she pushed that thought aside, reasoning that there must be many different types of incubi in the world. Perhaps she had just stumbled on a new kind, the kind that was good looking and intelligent and well spoken and had all the trappings of a teenage boy. She thought about emailing the website author to tell them about her dilemma—after all, if anyone would be able to identify what Edward was, it should be the expert. But she couldn't bring herself to write the ridiculous e-mail. Instead, she decided to run preliminary tests on her hypothesis, according to a short but specific list of characteristics that often helped one identify an incubus.

Ever-organized, Bella wrote a heading: "Characteristics to Identify Incubi."

Then as if someone was watching her, she furtively glanced around and erased the word "incubus." If someone were to find this notebook, she didn't want to have to explain this list. In its place, she wrote "inmates." And she then frowned as she read the actual list. Which described nothing about inmates:

1) Often react strangely in the presence of crucifixes, with documented and rumored behaviors ranging from ticks and spasms to spontaneous combustion.

2) Are often thought to be "allergic" to the color yellow in its bright forms, as it mimics condensed daylight for these creatures that prefer night.

3) Those who were attacked often claimed that the demon had unusually cold skin; however, this account is conflicting. While some accounts state that it was cold all over, others state that the frigid body temperature was concentrated in one particular area: its genitals.

Anyone who saw this notebook would think she was seriously nuts. She wasn't sure she would disagree with them.

[-]

Later that night, Bella watched several reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, reasoning that not only would it give her a view into supernatural, albeit fictional, creatures, it would also instill her with the kick-butt, girl power attitude she needed to crack the conundrum of the delicious, (maybe) demonic Edward Cullen. What she didn't expect was to wind up watching an episode that seemed to mimic her very own life, an episode in which every female, from protagonist Buffy and her sister Dawn to lesbian Willow and demon Anya fell in love with a football player. She watched slack-jawed and shocked as art appeared to imitate life until the episode culminated in the reveal that it was the guy's varsity football jacket that was the source of his mystery power.

She couldn't get the episode out of her mind as she walked into her biology class the next day. Edward had clearly been in and out of the classroom already—he was nowhere to be seen but his books were on the lab table… and his jacket was slung across the chair. As the weather had gotten colder, he had replaced his black leather one with a heather grey peacoat.

Bella reached out and tentatively fingered the sleeve, like she was touching a bomb. It was soft and downy, inviting and comfortable. Suddenly, Bella felt a huge jolt up her arm and snatched her hand back. Logically, she knew that it was static cling that had caused the shock but, paired with her overactive imagination, she stepped away from the offending article of clothing as if it was a livewire. Logically, she knew that Edward's jacket was not the reason he was a walking aphrodisiac, but she couldn't stop the shiver that shuddered down her spine. Logically, she knew she shouldn't take life lessons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but logic wasn't at the forefront of Bella's mind at this time.

"If you're cold, you can wear it." Edward's voice took her by surprise as she startled once again, inwardly cursing herself for being so jumpy. Buffy was never caught by surprise.

Edward mistook Bella's silence and continued, "Seriously, I don't mind. It'll be big on you but at least you'll be warm." He picked up the jacket with one finger and held it out to her, and she flinched violently, as if he were offering her barbed wire to wear. Their biology teacher always blasted the air-conditioner, so she could pass off her interest in his jacket because she was cold. But she had no explanation for the almighty flinch when Edward held out the offending item toward her or why she refused his offer with a silent shake of her head. If he noticed Bella's strange, mute behavior—and by the perplexed, pretty pout he wore, he did—he spoke nothing of it.

But by the end of class, Edward had clearly forgotten about Bella's bizarre behavior because, while Bella was gathering her books to go to her Intermediate French class, Edward did something that turned him impossibly, infinitely more appealing. Something that shooed all thoughts of incubi and monsters and lists out of her head, leaving a hazy static through which she struggled to maintain her mental and physical faculties and not drool.

"Parles-tu français, Bella?"

The answer to his question was very simple: yes, she did speak French. But all she could do was freeze and look at him wide-eyed, unable to understand but unable to deny the biological, feminine reaction she had to hearing him speak. In French. It was only made worse when he began to flirt with her.

In French.

"Laisse-moi deviner ton nom dans la classe francaise," he said, playfully. He didn't wait for her answer, but proceeded to do as he had said and guessed her French name. "Belle? Because you are, you know. Not just belle, you are la plus belle." If Bella could have focused on his words, calling her not just beautiful, but the most beautiful, her belle blush might have made its appearance, but it was like he was speaking in another language. Which he was, of course, but Bella had taken French for the past three years. She should have been able to understand him.

Instead, it was like his mouth was moving in slow motion with the audio turned down. All she could concentrate on were his lips, parting and thinning to form o's, his bottom lip disappearing under a crystal bright, congruent row of teeth as he pronounced his hard vowels, and his ruby, rhubarb red tongue incrementally emerging out of his mouth—and it was no wonder French was the language of love.

It certainly was the language of lust.

She could scarcely pay attention to where she was walking, as she and Edward navigated out of the classroom and into the hallway, let alone anything he was saying. His words filtered into her head in meaningless, sexy fragments. Meaningless, sexy fragments… in French.

"Est-ce que—" Edward's tongue "—que je—" Edward's tongue "—avec toi—" Edward's tongue, twice "—classe?" She missed his entire question—asking whether he could walk her to class—save for that last part and thought that she might just agree to anything avec (with) him and his torturously torrid tongue that was speaking in a foreign tongue. She realized he was waiting for an answer.

"Oui," she said, her tone rendering it a question.

"Oui?" Edward parroted, his mouth forming a distracting, delicious pucker as he pronounced the word, his eyebrow challenging her as to whether she knew what she had just agreed to. At this point, he could have asked the most famous French question of all—voulez-vous coucher avec moi en ce moment instead of ce soir—and her answer would still probably be "oui."

In her daze, she realized that they were now standing right outside of her French classroom.

"Au revoir, la plus Belle-a," he said tauntingly as he continued down the hallway. Her hazy brain registered that Edward always seemed to have a time limit when he was talking to her—he would often end the conversation abruptly, always leaving her wanting more. She spent the rest of the day contemplating Edward's potential para-normality. He was so sweet sometimes, his smile so boyishly buoyant and vivid in its veracity, that it disarmed her desire to see the worst in him. Her confidence in her crazy conclusion about him began to wane. Edward simply couldn't be an incubus.

Bella didn't see Edward until the end of the day when almost everyone had already left school premises. As she was walking to the library, this time not to delve further into her crackpot theory about him but to do some schoolwork,she saw him loitering, quite suspiciously, in the empty hallway outside of the AV room. Some strange inner urging instinctually cautioned her to avoid getting his attention. Edward's eyes swept across the hallway and passed right over Bella, tucked in her corner behind a bank of lockers. But she could see him clearly from her vantage point, straight and tall, jeans hugging the curve of his ass, shirt buttoned up incorrectly. In fact, he had missed some buttons all together, exposing a sensational sliver of his golden, etched stomach, which was rising with each breath and compacting into tight, corded muscle with each exhale. Bella dragged her eyes away to see Edward swing his head from side to side once more, thumb scratching a tiny spot above his eyebrow before he turned his head and tossed a lopsided grin to—Jane? Yes, that was Jane Faire, a blonde senior, who was now reaching up to place her hands on his shoulders, whose tiny gymnast body was being lifted by just Edward's two hands to reach his height, who just…who just licked his ear! Edward released her and she skipped away, giggling, as he watched her depart.

Edward and Jane? Bella fumed. There really was no girl above hooking up with him, no girl who could resist him. The revelation that Edward had hooked up with Jane, just the latest in his long list of conquests, reignited Bella's crazy theories and ideas that Edward was not your average, incredibly good looking, sinfully charming Romeo. She looked over to him again, now leaning against the wall, whistling. His lips were puckered and moist as he interrupted his tune to lick them. His stance pushed out his chest and she could see two sets of finely carved sinewy, diamond hard muscle through the buttons he had forgotten to do up. Bella felt her thoughts wavering—maybe it was possible that he really was just that irresistible. Maybe he was nothing more than a long, lean lothario. God knows that he was good looking enough, and he was so adept at perpetuating that mysterious aura that surrounded him and—

Bella's musings were rudely interrupted as her eyes widened. There, coming out of the same door that Jane had…was Renata, Forks' lone foreign exchange student! Being almost as tall as Edward, she didn't need to be lifted by him to place a searing kiss onto his smirking lips. He returned the kiss, pushing off the wall to stand straight and weaving his long fingers into her waist length, straight black hair. He tilted her head to kiss her more deeply, causing her to release a sound that could only be described as a mewl. He finally began to pull away, leaving barely an inch between their faces, only to smirk again—that is, if you could smirk while the person you had just been kissing was still sucking on your bottom lip.

Renata released his lip with an audible pop and said in her thick Slavic accent, "I told Janey it would be a good idea."

Edward leered, his ember, amber eyes catching fire and burning with lust. "You girls are so creative with your… ideas. Don't ever stop…" he leaned in, eyes smoldering, his voice a slow burn with a low rumble in his throat as he ran his lips softly, teasingly over her cheekbone. "…using your imaginations." He pulled back and grinned as Renata, duly dismissed, walked away with a dazed, cloudy look on her face.

Edward's expression was pure sex as he resumed his stance against the wall. His head and shoulders were resting on the wall, but the rest of his body was angled outward. Between the perpetually seduced hair, the open buttons on his shirt and his succulent, swollen bottom lip, Bella wouldn't have been surprised if someone walked by and threw themselves onto his body—his steel hard, sinewy, coiled body—just because of the post-coital aura he was radiating. A part of her considered throwing herself at him but another, more insistent part of her couldn't help but think about that dorky, geeky boy, the god in front of her and how in Holy Heaven—or was it Hell?—that they could be the same. She wondered why Edward was still biding his time outside the classroom when—

Didyme. Didyme too? Bella thought incredulously. The voluptuous redhead came out of the room and faced Edward, who didn't make a move to stand up straight this time. Her hair looked like a bird's nest, tangled with some pieces even standing almost straight up. Edward placed a hand on her flushed, flustered face, caressing her cheek with his thumb before sliding it down to her neck to run his finger over her clavicle. His hand moved lower, dripping down her arm and attaching itself to her waist just underneath her breast, his thumb sliding back and forth.

"I'm sorry," he said, voice low and husky, lust and sin resonating out of every syllable. "I forgot you had run into the closet to wait for me. Got a little caught up." He chuckled low and deep, and his eyes flared bright as he flashed the same look to Didyme that he had just given Renata. It worked just as well; Didyme sighed and ran her hand down his chest.

"It's okay," she said, mock pouting. She slid two fingers through the open buttons of his shirt and lightly caressed his stomach.

"Oh D," he said, the molten chocolate in his voice pouring itself all over Didyme as he tilted her chin upwards with his middle finger to meet her gaze. "I see that smile hiding. I bet you liked watching."

He nuzzled the crook of her neck, and she giggled as she pulled away from him. "I don't mind spectator sports. But I really excel at full contact games." With that, she pushed him through the door back into the room she had just emerged from, ready for play.

Bella couldn't believe her eyes. No. Scratch that. She couldn't believe her eyes when she'd seen Renata emerge from the room. Now, she just couldn't believe that any high school boy could have his own harem. He was like a fucking factory. No literally, a factory of fucking.

Her anger caused the blood to rush through her ears, thus making her unsure as to whether or not she was imagining Didyme's low, impassioned calls. As noises and accompanying images hurtled through her brain, Bella felt her pulse increasing like slow acceleration of a train, until it was throttling her towards an anger she had nowhere to direct to.

Chug chug.

Edward appeared to have just had a threesome with Jane and Renata.

Chug chug chug chug.

He was currently in that same room with Didyme.

Chug chug chug chug chug chug.

He was systematically working his way through the roster of randy, raunchy Forks females.

Chug chug chug chug chug chug chug chug.

With one notable exception: herself.

Choo choo! Choo choo!

Bella's anger was so great she was surprised steam didn't spring from her ears like the caboose of a locomotive. She didn't know whether she was more incensed by Edward's behavior, his lack thereof towards her or her own preoccupation with either. But on the same track as her anger came one singular, focused thought—there was no way Edward Cullen was a normal, human boy. And she'd be damned if she got distracted from that fact again. She'd be damned if she didn't get proof.

[-]

1) Often react strangely in the presence of crucifixes, with documented and rumored behaviors ranging from ticks and spasms to spontaneous combustion.

The next day, Bella felt overly strange walking into biology wearing a crucifix around her neck. It made her feel conspicuous, like her conspiracy to smoke out Edward's true identity was blatant, but her anger and suspicion fueled her flimsy plan and fought her discomfort.

However, she couldn't dismiss her actions as fruitless because, from the moment that Edward watched her walk into the class, he stared at her necklace strangely. This is it, Bella thought. He can't be near the cross. In fact, he looked highly uncomfortable. He still looked supernaturally stunning, but his eyes were lidded like he was incredibly tired, his nostrils were flaring as he took unusually deep breaths and every few seconds he would tip his head backwards. He was jerking his head ever so slightly and couldn't seem to concentrate on anything or even finish his sentences.

Then, all of a sudden, he wrenched his head forward and let out a ghastly, booming noise.

A sneeze.

He lifted his head and sniffed lightly, saying, "Sorry. You know that feeling when you need to sneeze but it keeps on escaping. Man, that sucks." He shook his head as if to clear it, eyes bright and smile wide.

Bella felt her insides deflate... until she noticed that, every so often, Edward's eyes were still sliding over to her necklace. She kept her own eyes carefully on him, watching as he would stare at her necklace, taking a breath in, nostrils flaring, mouth hanging open slightly, tongue darting out to moisten his lips every few seconds. Then, as if he was catching himself, his eyes would quickly flick to Bella's, at which point she would promptly pretend to be engrossed in the assignment. But in reality, Bella barely remembered that she was in a class. Her mind was racing—Edward really was uncomfortable in the presence of a cross. She was positive it was only a matter of time before he displayed other traits of an incubus.

She could barely look at or speak to Edward for the rest of class—which was just as well since he seemed more in the mood for staring. They spent the remaining minutes of their class in silence, though Bella could barely focus for all the different thoughts racing through her head. If Edward truly was an incubus, then what other sort of creatures existed? Would she next discover that among her other classmates, someone was a werewolf? A vampire even? Although, it wasn't such a far stretch to imagine Lauren Mallory was a witch. And what should she do about Edward's… condition? Should she tell someone? Could she tell someone? She wasn't sure she could say the words out loud.

As soon as the bell rang, Bella quickly gathered her stuff, wanting to avoid having to make any sort of talk, small or big, with Edward. But as she darted her eyes upward to check what he was doing, she saw only an empty chair. Edward had disappeared as quietly as always. It was only after class when Bella was in the girls' bathroom and looked in the mirror that she saw she had forgotten to button the top two clasps of her shirt. Her lacy blue bra could be seen clearly.

No wonder Edward hadn't been able to stop staring... at her chest, not her necklace. Frustrated, disappointed and mildly relieved, Bella pulled out her trusty notebook and put a little 'x' next to "aversion to crosses."

[-]

2) Are often thought to be "allergic" to the color yellow in its bright forms as it mimics condensed daylight for these creatures that prefer night.

The next day, Bella entered her biology class feeling even more conspicuous and crazy than she had the day before. Not only had Edward had no reaction to the crucifix (just to her breasts), but she had to dig to the bottom of her closet to find the only yellow article of clothing she owned. It was a dress Renee had bought for her years ago, back when she had no breasts that she, let alone Edward, could see. The bodice was stretched tight, making her feel like her body was bound. Additionally, in trying to shimmy into the dress this morning, she had fallen over and bruised her shoulder on the corner of her dresser. Adding insult to her injury, the dress wasn't just yellow. It wasn't even just bright yellow. It was bordering-on-neon, brighter-than-Alice's-dad's-Porsche, mildly-retina-scalding yellow.

And Edward was grinning widely. He didn't look disturbed at all by the color of her dress. At first, Bella thought his grin might be directed at the fact that she pretty much flashed her bra to him yesterday. She waited, allowing time for his amusement to die so that he could show a reaction to the color she was wearing appropriate for what he was. But it never came and as she talked and listened to him, she heard the lark-like lilt in his voice—it was enchanting, encapsulating and deceptively entrapping, like his words were embracing her. Every few minutes, he would look over her, eyes roving up and down her guilelessly, his gentle, golden gaze warming her. His smile was wide and unwaning, not in the least like the leer he had given her yesterday. It was plain to see that Edward was unabashedly, unashamedly appreciative, in a way devoid of libidinousness, of Bella's look. He clearly liked her in yellow.

Depending on whose point of view you saw it from, Edward had passed (or failed) Bella's second test with flying colors. Well, just one color.

And, as if she wasn't confused enough by his behavior, when she arrived at her locker at the end of the day, there was a sunflower—bright as her dress and extremely rare in Forks—sticking out of her locker. When she looked around the hallway to see who might have left it, she spotted Edward at the far end of the hall, smiling at her. More than his subtle, self-satisfied smirk, this was a genuine, gorgeous grin, innocent and irresistible, much like the boy who wore it.

She surreptitiously pulled out her notebook and crossed out the second fact in her list. Only one fact remained.

[-]

3) Those who were attacked often claimed that the demon had icy cold and unusually hard skin—however, this account is conflicting. While some accounts state that it was cold all over, others state that the frigid body temperature was concentrated in one particular area: its genitals.

Well, duh it would be hard around the genitals. That is sort of how the things worked, Bella thought sarcastically. She sipped her coffee and sighed. She had come to the coffee shop after school with the intention of getting some reading done, but she had not even pulled out her book yet. Mr. Wilde and Mr. Gray simply had nothing to hold her attention when compared to Mr. Cullen. She kept on reviewing the events of the past week—one of the strangest of her life—and analyzing the outcomes of her "experiments." Edward didn't have an aversion to crosses or yellow, that was clear. The only "test" that remained was the one she had counted on not having to perform.

How would she ever find out if it was cold? Especially since she couldn't even say what "it" was. Edward was jumping everyone's bones but hers... maybe she should just jump his (bone). Bella snorted out loud before she could even complete the utterly ridiculous thought of her seducing Edward. The man at the table next to her stared.

"Sorry... funny book," she said, raising the object in her hands slightly to indicate what she was talking about. He continued to stare, both eyebrows raised this time. She looked down.

She was holding her coffee cup, nary a book or even a piece of paper in sight.

Deciding that her school work deserved at least a fraction of the attention she was devoting to her Nancy Drew emulation, she pulled out her novel of Faustian bargains and beautiful boys. But for every hedonistic act of Dorian's, every mention of his limitless beauty and unnatural grace, she could only imagine him as Edward.

By Biology class a few days later, Bella still hadn't figured out a way to observe the third characteristic, and she had run out of other traits to test. As much as the idea of Edward being an incubus scared her, she thought she would be more disappointed at this point if he was just a normal boy. Because then all these girls would be voluntarily hooking up with him. And that would mean that she, too, was voluntarily, devoid of any black magic, rather smitten with Edward.

Because then he really would be a rather indiscriminate slut.

And because then it would mean that he was choosing to hook up with all these other girls—and not her.

He was not just another guy. He couldn't be.

So it was out of desperation to get some sort of reaction from Edward that a few days later in Biology class, Bella began to sing.

"Earth to Bella, you think you've got it all figured in. Earth to Bella, everything you know is wrong, well almost…" She cringed inwardly at the look on Edward's face, halfway between incredulous and horrified. She knew she was somehow both toneless and out of tune but, like so many times she was around Edward, she had undertaken an action so silly and stupid that there was no way to cover it up.

Edward was smiling at her, his height affording him the ability to literally and metaphorically look down on her. He nudged her shoulder playfully, raised his eyebrows and said, "You're not trying out for glee club, are you?" His words rolled and bounced, like chuckles, and he nudged her shoulder lightly again. Unbidden, she found her body following his as it retreated away, craving his warm solid weight, her smile growing in the warmth of his expression.

"No… that's just one of my favorite songs. Earth to Bella. So fitting. It's by Incubus," she said, trying as subtly as possible to stress the name of the band. She couldn't believe how lame she was, trying to incite a response from Edward by mentioning that name. "Do you like that band? Incubus?"

But to her surprise, Edward's smile melted off his face. His plump lips thinned into a stern line, his eyebrows furrowed low on his face and his eyes lost their merriment and mirth. His answer was so short, it was almost rude.

"No, I don't." He leaned away from her, the warmth of his body and his demeanor replaced with a frosty silence and cold bewilderment for Bella.

The bell rang and he muttered a goodbye to her before stalking out the door, leaving Bella to her befuddlement in his wake. After not being "allergic" to crucifixes or the color yellow, could she really take this—her mere mention of the word—as an indication that Edward was an incubus?

As she walked to the library for her free period, she realized his short, sullen answer about the band Incubus could really just be his hatred for the band. She sat down in an empty section and pulled out her laptop. She went to her bookmarked page and began to read more about incubi, seeing many facts that she had so conveniently overlooked—like the fact that victims of incubi often appeared listless and without vitality. If anything, it was easy to spot a girl who had been with Edward. For the most part, their eyes were bright and aloft, cheeks blushing and beaming—and, of course, the giggles. Oh, the giggles. Another fact she had ignored in her selective research was that incubi tended to repeat their victims—as far as she knew, Edward had not hooked up with the same girl twice. In fact, if Bella had had the sense to realize it, the only girl he seemed to have repeatedly paid attention to was… her. But Bella didn't realize this because her head was too filled with nonsensical thoughts. She resigned herself to the fact that whatever the source of his mysterious metamorphosis, Edward wasn't, despite her numerous, clearly infallible tests, an incubus.

He was just an asshole.

A gorgeous asshole. A gorgeous, strangely mysterious asshole. A gorgeous, strangely mysterious, deliciously intelligent, incredibly intriguing asshole. A gorgeous, strangely mysterious, deliciously intelligent, incredibly intriguing, threesome having, student-body seducing, golden-eyed asshole.

The worst kind of asshole.

It was a few days later, while talking to her friend Jacob Black, that Bella realized she might have been wrong about Edward Cullen, yet again.

[-]

Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind…

A/n: Most importantly, thank you for reading. I appreciate everyone who is reading, and especially everyone who is reviewing and sharing their thoughts. Hearing your words makes mine worthwhile :)

The whole "how to spot an incubus" facts list is a weird twisting of random facts and my imagination for the purpose of this story. If you need to identify an incubus, please do not use it as a guide. Instead, contact me and in addition to the wealth of knowledge I now possess about sex demons, we can talk about me writing your biography.

If you are under a rock and haven't heard, Quothme has been all over the place, including a rec for her fabulous Awake In the Infinite Cold on TLYDF. She, like Edward, gives as good as she gets and wrote a rec for Legendary on on the Little Known Ficster. The link is on my profile.