The Arms of the Ocean
She's not prepared for this.
It floods her senses. Drowns her will to fight it. Tangles and spins her in its depths until she can't break free. Can't break the surface.
But she fights it. She will not become a victim to its dark lure. Will not let herself be taken over by its overwhelming pull.
She tells herself she's lost. Confused. That all these feelings are meaningless. The rightness of being in his arms, an illusion. The need that only intensifies when her lips crash into his, a burning reminder that it's dangerous. Consuming.
Her will is weak. So tired. Battered in the storms.
She understands him when he talks about living up to expectations. Some days she wants to surrender too. Wants to just give in and do what she knows she shouldn't. How much easier it must be to not have to worry about what everyone else expects. Freeing, not to have the weight of the world heavy on her shoulders. Drifting away, peacefully lulled by the waves.
She wonders if meeting him first would have made a difference. If she would have let him crash over her soul, like a wave on the beach. Pulling at her, rubbing against her, tied forever.
She wonders if that would really be any different. She's always going to be landlocked. He's always going to be there tempting her to go away with him.
He makes her feel alive. Electrical tingles across her skin. Oxygen in her lungs. Fire, intense burning flames, in her stomach. He makes her body betray her till she can't breathe, can't speak, can't think.
Makes her desperate for more. Greedy and hungry. Just one more touch, just one more word, his lips just a little farther south. Never enough. Her nerves a tangled mess her body jittery. Power enough to level her, held back with the tides.
He told her once she would have liked him had she met him all those years ago, before the darkness set in and jaded him. Before he started to believe that he didn't care about anything. But she still sees that man, and she's fallen hard. Even she will concede to that.
The man he hints at, hides from, does everything in his power to disgrace and hurt, that man could steal her soul. That man could own her if she let him. Sinking to the bottom with him, held there for all time.
So it's a constant struggle with them. Him trying to be anyone else. Her trying to love anyone else.
His brother is the safe choice. The one she loves because it's right. A lighthouse. Because he was first and there is no point in looking further now. He's a good man, a man devoted to her. It's easy to love him most of the time. He's reliable, dependable, and he's trying to be a better man. He needs her, is built on her shore and always shining a light. It's expected. A love she understands, that means more than fire and ice.
A girl like her would never choose danger. Never willingly walk into a relationship destine to self destruct. In the end Stefan would live for her. Damon would die for her.
Maybe she just can't stand the idea of anyone else dying for her.
Letting him go is the better choice. The wiser and safer choice. She tells herself that passion dies. Lust burns out. What would they have left? He means too much to her to ruin what they have now with a possibility then ends with the probability of disaster.
Quite simply, she needs him in her life. Maybe it's selfish. Loving them both, but she does. It's not really something she knows how to change either. And maybe that's why she wants things to stay the same. Familiar.
Maybe it's not knowing that he would consume her. That their flame would be glorious but short lived. But that she's just not brave enough to let go.
But she can't stop thinking about his hands on her waist. His tongue in her mouth. Her back against a pillar. Pressing and pulling. Sharing the same breathe. Tasting his passion. Her heart pounding in her ears like the rush of the ocean.
He is her sea. She is his shore. Always dancing.