[UPDATED 16th May '15]

I do not own the Vampire diaries

Dates With Damon

1

Soap suds dripped down her body, caressing her curves and feeling so nice. Bonnie didn't usually stop to smell the roses, as it were, but today... Today she felt a sort of sensual anticipation, as if, and now she just knew she were being silly, someone would look at her, treat her like an adult. At eighteen she was an adult, but no one ever treated her like one. She always told herself she did not mind...

But she did mind. She minded a lot, when it meant that the boys saw her as a child and far too young to think about as a serious dating prospect. Elena and Meredith were both so... So pretty and grown-up. They had had many dates over the years, both were in a serious relationship now.

She turned the knob on the shower and the water-stream slowed to a trickle. Though it was still warm and cloying she shivered, as if s ghost and entered the room. There weren't any spirits in here, she would have sensed it with her witchy gifts, but she wrapped a towel around herself tightly.

It was just the temperature change, she told herself, not something in her mind. The heat from the shower she had just taken was leaking from her skin like gas from a punctured tyre and a chill had raised bumps on her skin.

She picked the brush from atop the dressing-table without glancing at it, knowing that it would be the first thing her fingers touched; she remembered she had tidied it just that day and only her brush sat on the shinning wood surface. She remembered, too, that she left her window ajar when there was the sound of a bird flying close to her window.

"Bonnie -" a masculine voice started from behind her before she could properly turn, and at the sound her towel slipped from her bare body and pooled at her feet. Her fingers were numb as she stared in shock at what laid on her bed, casually on his side and touching her nude body with his penetrating gaze.

Before she took the shower, she had brought out some pyjamas especially so she could get dressed quickly because of the cold night, but he had moved them. In his hands, he held a silken dress which she had never seen before. It had lace in a vee at the collar and along the hem at the bottom. "Why not wear this?"

"Why not wear that?" she repeated, her heart beating so fast she could barely breath. "It's too cold." she said in answer, thinking about how the cool silk would make her skin break out in goose-bumps. From the cold, she told herself, she would shiver from the cold.

"No it's not, I'll make sure you're warm..." he told her smoothly, moving to her side in a flash. He ordered her to raise her arms and after a moment's of hesitation she did as she was told. She couldn't meet his eyes to gage the mood he was in. Damon sank to a crouching position at her back and her nerves went on high alert – super sensitive to even the air he breathed. It was true though; he did make her warm -he made her hot all over- even as he took a seat on her bed.

Bonnie, with her forest of red hair and sometimes sickly complexion, couldn't quite understand why Damon was interested in her; her face wasn't as pretty as Elena's, nor was her hair as silky smooth an flawless, but he sat on the bed, just out of her sight – waiting. What was he waiting for, she wondered, did he expect her to do something?

She saw him in the reflection of the wall-length mirror watching her. He raised an eyebrow. He asked, "Is there something wrong, little robin? Would you rather I turn around while you dress?"

What a silly question, she found herself thinking despite herself, gazing at his reflection as if the mirror were a Tv screen, I love it when you watch me. She loved to feel his intense gaze trailing patterns across her skin like a brush over a canvas – his brush strokes silky smooth and masterful...

"No!" she started at once, unable to dampen her initial reaction to his words, "I mean, no, that's okay. You can look at me – if you want." She could feel the flush spreading from her cheeks down her neck. The skin there prickled with the awareness that a possible threat, a vampire, watched her from the bed. She knew that the blood just beneath the surface of her skin was a temptation difficult to resist

"Don't worry, Bonnie," he sighed, with some exasperation, I'm not going to do anything."

"What do you want, then?" she asked in a tiny voice that broke. Damon always wanted something, and that something was usually in the form of the blonde goddess that was Elena: Elena who had been through so much in regards to Stefan and the dark dimension that it seemed even Damon had the sense to leave her alone. Was Bonnie her replacement, was she just something to tide him over until he found something he actually desired?

"Now, what makes you think I want anything more than your company?" he asked sweetly, flashing his 700kw smile of brilliant shinning teeth. "I want a date – with you, Bonnie McCullough. Tonight. How about it?"

It wasn't really a question, she thought, her mental voice frightened. He would take her on a "Date" whether she liked it or not. "OK." she told him quietly.

Damon decided it was safe to let her have a little privacy while she got dressed, the least he could do, but he listened to what she was doing from the bottom of the stairs. He could hear the rustle of the silk as she pulled the dress over her head and the sound of her jewellery rustling as her fingers dug through her box, trying to find that one piece of jewellery that would flatter the dress. It had been more than a whim that caused him to go to her, but after only feeling obsession for Elena and Katherine did he know what love was?

He wasn't prepared for her when she appeared at the top of the stairs and the sight of her took his breath away. He had been breathing because he was nervous, which was weird in of itself. She looked glorious, like an angel cast down from heaven, and suddenly not so innocent. She looked like a fox in the dress he had brought her, like a vixen from the forest. Yes, that was the word he searched for; Wild.

"Are you sure I'm who you want?" she asked as she began to descend the steps, and Damon felt glad that he had waited to adorn her with the shoes down stairs. She wasn't as graceful as Elena by any means, but her clumsy steps were cute and it was like watching a puppy taking it's first steps. In an instant he had climbed the steps and had her in his arms.

"A lady ought to have someone to help her when descending the stairs," he said matter-of-factly as he gracefully carried her down to the hall below. It gave him such warmth to have a woman in his arms without wanting to feed. He felt like he did when he was human and this made him happy. "And Darling," he met her eyes and there was nothing cruel in them. "I'm sure."

As he carried her down, she tried not to focus on how his arms fit snugly against her, how his touch sent electricity down her spine. If he thought this was helping her, he wasn't so different from his brother – overprotective and attentive. Smiling to herself she thought that she better not tell him this thought or he would drop her.

"Why is it so hard for you people to believe that I just don't want to be alone?" he asked, exasperated suddenly, answering a silent question he thought was written all over her face, What are your motives?

"You don't make it easy," she stammered, clinging to him like a koala bear holds to a tree, "You seem happiest when you're alone." And she prayed that she hadn't said the wrong thing.

His face, as she stared up at it, seemed to harden visibly. He didn't say anything else until they were in the car heading out of Fells Church. When they were driving down a long road in a parting between the trees he finally spoke, "I guess, you're right. I guess I – I don't know. I can't be like Stefan. I can't be gentle, can't be like him..." he paused and shook himself. "I don't want to be like him."

"I don't want you to, either" she told him almost silently, hardly believing she was actually speaking these words out loud. "I like you for who you are, Damon," she looked at him for the first time since she had begun speaking, "you're the fun one."

"Now, that's true." he told her, flashing her that brief smile that was there and gone in a second.

He drove the car into the parking lot of a restaurant she had never seen before and parked at the end away from any of the other cars scattered around the area. He told her that it was because he didn't want anyone to scratch the lacquered black paint. She noticed that all the cars around her looked expensive and she wondered again where he had taken her, and whether this was an elaborate trick. What other possibility was there than that? Damon didn't usually do this kind of thing.

And why would he do this sort of thing with her?

As they walked through the entrance of the restaurant, she caught the eyes of the people waiting to be seated and wondered if they could be really checking her out. At school, the only person people would stare at like this was Elena – because Elena was the pretty one. Bonnie was always the one that no one took notice of, but tonight, for the first time, she was the centre of attention for practically everyone.

"You're blushing," Damon told her, his tone teasing but gentle, "you're even more beautiful with colour in your cheeks."-Which only made her blush harder, her cheeks feeling luminescent.

The waitress took them to a table in the corner, away from the rest of the diners, and Bonnie saw Damon slip the poor woman a generous tip with a smile. "Let—let me know when you're ready to order," she stammered, handing us both a leather-bound menu. She stood waiting for the corners for a few moments before Damon explained that they needed time to think,

"Damon," she began once the waitress had sauntered away dazedly with our orders, "Why are you doing this to me?"

She expected him to reply with something along the lines of 'Because I thought it would be fun – I was bored.' but his face was serious. He told her, "I needed some time away from her." he said simply, his tone cutting.

"Oh." she replied, looking down at her fork and knife as her eyes watered. She had always been quick to cry and she didn't want him to see the pools in her eyes. He put two fingers beneath her chin and lifted her face so she had to look at him.

"I couldn't think of anyone better to spend time with."