*Un-beta'd. Fair warning. No copyright infringement intended.
Don't put your mouth up to my lips and tell me you can't stay
Don't slip your hand under my shirt and tell me it's okay
Don't say it doesn't matter 'cuz it's going to matter to me
I can't be
Alone with you.
You've got me out on the edge every time you call
And I know it would kill me if I fall
I can't be
Alone with you.
-Jake Owen, Alone with You
The sound of tires kicking up the gravel of his driveway and subsequent footsteps to his front door woke him from his restless doze. Pulling back the dark curtains obstructing his view, his eyes widened in surprise at the bright yellow cab car making its way back onto the main road. He glanced at the clock, the neon red glow showing him it was 2:30 in the morning and awakening his curiosity as to who was at his house at such an hour.
The pounding on the door jolted him into action and he made his way downstairs in the darkness. He didn't bother to turn on any lights; he didn't need them anyway. He twisted the worn metal knob just as another knock resounded on the hard wood and opened the door quickly, shocked by who was on the other side.
"Elena?"
She turned her brown eyes on him and smiled.
"Damon!" she shouted with glee and wrapped outstretched arms around him. Her body pressed tightly to his and he wanted nothing more than to return her hug. However, he could tell by her behavior that something was off.
Grabbing her upper arms, he pushed her away and held her at arm's length, looking at her with narrowed eyes. Taking in her diluted pupils, her flushed cheeks, and her all around over-friendliness he deduced she'd been drinking.
"You're drunk." It wasn't a question.
She pulled out of his grasp and managed to look sheepish for a minute before grinning. "Only a little," she admitted and held up two fingers spread about an inch width apart.
Any other time he would have smiled at how cute she was when she was intoxicated. But her being here… he wasn't sure if he could deal with that tonight.
"Why are you here?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
Her eyebrows furrowed and she looked deep in thought. Damon knew it was just an act, part of her game.
"I wanted to see you," she replied and took a step toward him.
He scoffed and turned his back on her in disbelief. "So you reject me when you're sober, but in the middle of the night and with the assistance of Captain Morgan it's okay?"
"No, Damon," she pleaded, placing one hand on his bicep and spinning him back to her. For a second she thought she saw vulnerability written all over his face, but she must have imagined it because a further look showed nothing but indifference. "It's not like that, okay. It's just…" she trailed off and sighed.
"Yeah, I know what it 'just' is." He roughly pulled his arm away from her and retreated toward the study. If they were going to have this conversation he really needed a drink.
Her heels clacking against the wooden floor echoed throughout the large house and made him wish he didn't have enhanced hearing. Especially when he heard her steps falter and her sharp squeal of surprise, and he had to rush to catch her before she could hit the ground.
Cradled in his arms with wide eyes looking at him, one palm stroking the growing stubble on his cheek, she looked so innocent. He knew that wasn't the case, but it didn't stop him from being sucked into her gaze, leaning his head closer to hers.
"Damon," she whispered when their lips were merely centimeters apart, pulling him out of his trance. He blinked and lifted her out of the romantic dip he'd caught her in, setting her back on her feet before moving away to his drink cart.
Amber liquid rushed out of the bottle, into the tumbler, and down his throat before he repeated the process. He didn't look at her, knowing if he did he would take her in his arms once again. She was like a siren, calling and drawing him near only to watch him crash against the cold rocks and drown him in his own misery. The very fact that he could feel her presence drawing near without seeing it made him tense and down the alcohol once again.
"What are you doing?" she asked as he refilled the glass a fourth time.
"What does it look like?" He turned to her then. "Just getting myself to your level, sweetheart." The sarcasm dripped from his tongue before he replaced it with more liquor. He barely felt the burn as it went down his throat that time, alerting him to the fact he was well on his way to intoxication.
Her pout he saw in his peripheral vision made him roll his eyes.
"What?" he snapped.
"Don't do this, Damon."
"Do what?" he asked, fingering the bottle of bourbon and contemplating whether or not to pour more into his cup.
"At this rate you should skip the tumbler entirely and just chug it from the bottle," she snapped.
He looked at her with a sneer. "C'mon, Elena, I'm not some frat boy with a beer bong. You don't 'chug' a vintage as fine and expensive as this."
"No, you just dispense, swallow in one gulp, and repeat."
He couldn't help the smirk that came unbidden to his lips. "Why, Ms. Gilbert, was that a joke?"
She smiled in return. "Merely an observation, Mr. Salvatore." The way his last name rolled off her tongue in such a sultry way, combined with the alcohol running through his veins, and the come hither look she was giving him had him in front of her faster than she could blink. Equally as fast, his lips were against the shell of her ear, his breath tickling it as he spoke one word.
"Stay."
He pulled back far enough to look her in the eyes, his own blue ones pleading with her to not reject him this time. He saw her gaze dart down to his mouth and a second later felt her lips press gently against his. He kissed her back, deepening the kiss with almost bruising force, laying everything out there for her.
Her hands delved into his hair as her mouth opened to let his tongue mingle with her own. When she was in need of air he transferred his mouth to her neck, kissing and gently sucking while his hands tightened on her waist. She pulled his lips back to hers and gripped his hair more, pulling softly when his teeth nibbled her bottom lip.
He didn't want this to end. It didn't even have to go any further as long as she continued to be here. He'd be happy with just her company, even her drunken company. But in what felt like too short of a time the kiss ended and she left his embrace.
He didn't have to look at her face to see what she was going to say; he'd gone through it enough to know the words by heart now.
She opened her mouth to speak but he stopped her with two fingers against her kiss-swollen lips before she could say a word.
"I don't want to hear it tonight, Elena," he said softly, almost tenderly.
Her eyes were filled with a mix of lust, sadness, and indecision. It was always the same. He turned away, unable to face the rejection he knew was about to come.
"I'll stay," she said so quietly he wasn't sure he heard her correctly. He looked back at her, eyes leaping with hope. "… The night," she finished and it all came crashing down again. His ship was nearing the reef now.
"I'll call you a cab." He began to walk toward the kitchen where he left his phone earlier that night.
"What?" she asked in confusion. "Damon it's almost 4 in the morning. I don't want a cab. I want you."
He quickly pivoted on his heel at her words, anger boiling to the surface. "For how long, Elena? Until the alcohol wears off? Until the sun rises and the harsh rays of daylight bring reality crashing down on you? Until you and Caroline have another girl's night out at the club and get wasted and show up at my doorstep at 3 a.m. like I'm nothing more to you than a booty call. Or until you tell yourself more lies about how we don't belong together and run to…"
During his tirade he had moved closer and closer until he was no more than a foot away from her. His hand reached out, one knuckle gently grazing his cheek as his tone softened. Anger gone, all that was left was frustration and weariness. He was trying, and failing miserably, to keep his head above water. "Tell me, Elena. How long is it that you want me?"
"I… I…" She stepped back out of his reach and looked at the ground. "I don't know," she sighed.
"You don't know?!" he asked incredulously and started pacing the floor. "God, Elena I just want to shake some sense into you sometimes! Look around you!" He threw his hands out to the sides to prove his point. "Look at where you are, where you always end up. There's a reason for that and you know it. Why don't you just be honest with yourself for once?"
"I can't," she whispered, close to tears.
Damon saw the change in her mood start. The alcohol must have started to wear off and she had begun to see it was a mistake to come. He walked over to her and took her face in his hands, searching her eyes for some indication that he was right and there was something between them.
His lips pressed gently against hers, too quickly to even be called a kiss and she looked at him questioningly.
"What are you doing?" she asked quietly.
Instead of answering however, he kissed her again, this time with as much passion as he could muster without completely losing himself in her again. She responded eagerly, a sign that should have been clear as crystal, but she was too stubborn to admit it.
He pulled away before she could deepen the kiss like she wanted to, both of them breathing heavily.
"What do you feel when I kiss you?"
She tried to look away but his hands still cupped her face and held her in place.
"Passion."
"And?"
"Lust," she said simply, getting irritated now.
"Is that it?" he pushed.
"I don't know, Damon. What do you want me to say?"
He dropped his hands and let her free. "I want you to be honest with me! I've told you how I feel and until you can do the same I don't…" he broke off, unable to finish his sentence and spun away from her.
She made a move to reach out to him before thinking better of it, letting her arm fall gracelessly to her side. "You don't what?" she asked fearfully, not sure if she wanted the answer.
He let out a long and heavy sigh, the lack of sleep catching up to him. Adding Elena's drama and indecision didn't help him to be any less tired and he moved to the nearby couch, falling into it.
"Damon?"
"Just be honest, Elena," he said tiredly, rubbing his palms against his face before resting his elbows on his knees.
"But what were you going to say?" She walked over to him, hovering over his hunched form.
"I think it's time for bed. I've had enough of this for one night," he said into his hands.
"That's not what it was."
He looked up and stared directly into her eyes. "No, it's not, but I'm tired and before something is said or done that neither of us mean, I am ending the conversation."
"Tell me!"
"Don't push me, Elena," he said through his teeth. He was on the edge and her stubbornness and unwillingness to drop it was not helping him from teetering over it. He needed to leave before he regretted something later. What that would be exactly, he wasn't sure, but he knew he needed to extract himself.
He stood up with every intention of leaving her where she was and heading up to his bed where he'd undoubtedly get no sleep whatsoever, but she just couldn't let that happen.
"I don't want to lose you, Damon." And when she looked at him with her big brown eyes on the verge of tears and wrapped her arms around him, he just couldn't resist.
His mouth was on hers in a second, their kiss quickly escalating from tender to almost bruising. He could taste the many drinks she had consumed before coming here and it almost made him change his mind. Instead, he backed her up until she was against the wall, pressing her into it almost roughly, like he wanted to punish her for only giving him a part of what he wanted.
His anger rose with every kiss she placed on his neck and lips, but instead of letting the monster within take over, he used the emotion to fuel his lust.
He picked her up in his arms and sped upstairs, tossing her not so gently on his large bed. It didn't take long before he had her naked beneath him, squirming and writhing from his touch, her moans of spurring him on. He entered her with a sigh of pleasure, thrusting in and out a little less gently than he probably should have, building her higher and higher until she couldn't take anymore.
Sex was never the problem between them; it was the fact that he wanted more than she was willing to give for reasons unknown to him. The girl underneath him was so infuriating with her stubbornness, filled with excuses of why drunken sex at four in the morning was their only course.
He continued to pound into her as she rode out her orgasm, his fangs pushing at his gums in a plea to descend as the sudden urge to bite overcame him. He blamed his own train of thoughts and the anger inside him at surrendering to her once more and instead allowed her inner walls to squeeze him into his oblivion. It was shorter than usual, and he worried he may have hurt her, but the look of immense satisfaction on her face told him otherwise. Sure, she may be a little sore in the morning, but he felt a small comfort that it would leave her with a reminder of him and what they shared. The thought brought a smirk to his face.
He kissed her softly on the cheek as she snuggled between him and the blankets. She fell asleep quickly but sleep still eluded him and he watched her instead. She looked so peaceful when she slept, like an angel who could do no wrong, but he knew better. Her siren song had called him again, and like the fool he was, he answered.
His eyes drifted closed and he pulled her tighter, loving the feel of her in his arms and never wanting that to end. "I love you," he whispered to her before falling asleep, knowing the morning would bring a whole new batch of rocks and waves threatening to drown him.
