Title: Forbidden Fruit

Authors: The Lion and The Lamb

Pairing:Edward/Bella, all canon.

Rating: M (for future chapters)

Summary: Not wanting to intrude on her mother's new-found marital bliss, Bella Swan moves back to her hometown of Forks to live with her father and brother. But what happens when the brother she never knew turns out to be everything she wanted? All-Human/Alternate Universe.

I felt his lips pressed hard against mine before I even realized it; he kissed me with a sort of urgency… his fingers gripping at my shirt, pulling me closer against him. I couldn't breathe; I couldn't move; all I could focus on were the thoughts that kept screaming, 'This is wrong. This is so wrong.' And yet I let him continue. I didn't push him away, and I didn't tell him to stop. The truth was, I wanted this just as badly as he did.

I wanted him just as badly as he wanted me.

I don't recall the exact circumstances of my parents' divorce; my brother and I were only children. My mother got the car and the RV, my father got the house, my father got my brother and my mother got me. It was split almost in half, everything even. While my brother stayed in my rainy hometown of Forks, I moved with my mother to Phoenix; in fact, my brother and I had always been as opposite as our settings.

I spent my childhood taking shifts with my brother during summer vacation and winter break; he'd come to Phoenix one year, I'd spend the next in Forks until the year he'd started high school. Our father, Charlie, had decided 'the kids ought to have an uninterrupted social life,' and for that reason only, Charlie was my savior even if I'd never had one.

Our lives were completely uninterrupted aside from the occasional mailed gift. It was, in some ways, as though I'd never had this whole other family on the Pacific Northwest… until the day my mother decided to run off and get married. She'd eloped.

Phil was… nice, and yet just as much as a teenage boy as he seemed to be at times. Instead of having a step-father, I was reminded more of the brother I might have had if we'd grown up together. He was a ball player, strictly minor league, and he traveled far more than my mother would have liked.

This is where things changed.

When Phil was traded to Florida, I had the choice of moving with them or to Forks to be with my father and brother. I chose the latter. Anything would be better than watching my mother mope every time her husband went out of town, staying behind because she, for some inexplicable reason, felt that it was necessary to suddenly start acting like a mother.

Within months, my bags were packed and my flight was booked. In the end, I'd rather live with a father who wanted me than a mother I'd be burdening. I knew mom wanted to be as close to Phil as possible, and I was an obstacle – I wanted her to be happy.

There was no fanfare for my arrival, not that I expected one. My dad and brother were the only family I had; no cousins, no grandparents, no aunt and uncles. My father Charlie was the chief of police and had never really seemed to find anyone he was sincerely interested in dating. He was too busy for relationships; too busy for anything but the occasional boy's night out with the same friends he'd had since high school.

My father's home was almost exactly as I remembered it as a child, only it smelled different. It smelled like dust, stale air, and… men. The home was well worn with no obvious intentions of changing things, as every trace of my mother's existence still remained from the wedding photos to the paint and wallpaper she'd put on the walls.

"Oh, I didn't know your flight came in yet…"

I didn't recognize the voice at first and upon turning I had to tilt my head up to find his face. It was the messy hair and disinterested gaze all belonging to my brother, and it figured that he wouldn't care about anyone but himself. I frowned, and he rolled his eyes in response. It had always been like this between us – we weren't close, and we never really got along.

In the corner of my eyes I saw Dad shake his head as he walked toward the kitchen, leaving me to fend for myself. Charlie didn't want to get involved, and I got where he was coming from but I couldn't help feeling like he was some sort of traitor.

"Oh, I didn't realize you were still a jerk," I replied. "The least you could say is 'hello,' Edward."