Chapter 2, Break Your Plans.
When Damon backs Bonnie against the wall next to her bedroom door, he does it tactfully and gently, so as not to upset the balance of their current vibe, and set her off into flight mode. If he sets her off into flight mode, all of his patience throughout the past weeks, would've been for nothing.
The thing is, he's waited three stretchingly long weeks to attempt to talk to her about being with him again, so he cannot rush into it. He can't bombard her all at once with his actions either, because that will get her flying away from him in the opposite direction.
In order to keep her here, obediently against the wall, he has to have a strategy, and his strategy has to be gentle and easy to fall for. He has to stealthily worm his way into her mind in a way that will make it impossible for her to deny him what he wants.
In the three weeks that passed, she'd been on her guard, overly suspicious of every move that he made in her presence, and of every word that came out of his mouth. Then, he couldn't catch her off guard duty, and then ever so smoothly slide her into the conversation of being with him, but thankfully, the chance to catch her off guard, is today, after three long weeks.
Caroline -bless her insatiable need for get-togethers and parties- gave him the perfect opportunity to set the stage tonight, leading up to now. He played it cool all during Caroline's dinner party, to deliberately get Bonnie to let her guard down and trust him not to try anything. Clearly, it worked, because she invited him in, when he brought her home, and she even allowed him to 'show' her something, on his strict condition that she wouldn't interrupt him or protest. Which is how they are where they are now.
'Did you have a good time tonight?' he softly asks, making his feet move back so that no part of him is near to making contact with her.
He really doesn't want her to feel trapped or cornered, which means that he can't do anything just yet, to get her even a little suspicious of what he's about to bring up. He's using this time tonight, because he couldn't ask her during the past three weeks.
Bonnie nods with a soft smile to answer his question. He takes it to be an indication that she loved how the dinner party turned out.
'I had a good time too,' he supports, 'but it's only because you were there. If you hadn't been there, I would've hated it.'
Unsuspecting of what's really happening, Bonnie expectantly looks at him, just waiting for him to show her what he wants to show her. He can see it on her face that she has no clue that he's gently baiting her and when she comes to realise it, she's already hooked! But on a side note, he doesn't think that she knows that her presence always does this thing where it shines a little hope his way, so he's not completely baiting her, he's also telling her the truth.
Taking advantage of the fact that she's innocently unaware of his plan, he brings his hands to softly settle on either side of her waist. She doesn't protest to that, but she does speak up when he starts leaning his head towards her.
'Damon, what are you-' she starts only to cut off abruptly.
She does that, she cuts off, because right before the end of her question, he leans in all the way and begins nibbling on her neck. As tempting as it is to want to draw out his fangs and stick them into the softness of her flesh, he quickly reminds himself that that's not his mission, so it can wait for another time. For now, his plan is only to give her hickey, but most importantly, he's going to show her what she's denying herself by refusing to be with him.
Six soft nibbles on her neck, he switches to kiss along her neck, making the kisses soft yet tantalisingly sensual and lingering. He needs for her to remember the exact feel of the kisses even after he's gone.
In his ears, he hears her heartbeat change to rapid thump, blatantly giving away the fact that she's enjoying it. But when he hears her pull her breath in and he feels how she's forcing herself to hold her breath, almost ready to burst from doing so, he stops what he's doing and draws back to look at her.
That's as far as he will push tonight. There will be no lip kissing attempts, or any groping, because he's sure that he's made his point. Also, stopping while he's ahead will do well for him.
'Was that what you wanted to show me?' she asks, her eyes narrowed at him.
She can try to make herself look annoyed, and maybe deep down she is, but he knows as well as she does, that if she was really annoyed with him, she wouldn't have stood around and let him do that to her, whether he told her not to protest or not.
'If you were with me,' he answers, removing his hands from her waist, 'that would be the perfect ending to a wonderful night.'
In complete silence, she studies him for a long time until her heartbeat is finally back to its original pace. They keep eye contact for the whole time that she studies him, and for him, somewhere in the middle, something important shifts, intimately bringing him closer to her somehow. For the first in three weeks, as he keeps his eyes on hers to challenge her, he starts to really think.
'What do you really want from me, Damon?' Bonnie questions, using a lowly defeated and tired tone.
It's like she's telling him that she can't take this anymore. It's like she's telling him to just put an end to it, before it's too late. It's like she thinks that he will hurt her, or something...
In the beginning, he remembers, being with her had just been an idea, something that he thought could work out between them without the messy parts of a relationship, but after staring into her eyes for this long without exchanging words, the idea has suddenly changed into something real. It's like in keeping eye contact with her, her soul spoke to his soul and he couldn't help it recall that she's an amazing person that he effortlessly connects with, even without saying a single thing.
'I want...' he starts and then trails off to think of the right answer.
What does he want, exactly? It's not just sex, that's for sure. Sex is not a challenge for him to get, so it's not that he's just looking to have her in his bed. But on the other hand, that is what he said is the only thing missing from their relationship, so that is a bit confusing... In the beginning, the idea had seemed picture perfect, but suddenly, he doesn't know what he really wants. It's funny how one moment changes everything.
As though deeply disappointed, she makes a small sound of part disappointment and part resignation, and then follows it with, 'You don't even know what you want, do you?'
He would think that she would give him time to answer her, but instead, she rolls away from the wall and moves into her room, leaving him alone by the wall. It takes a long second for him to realise that his attempt has failed just like the last time, but when he realises that, he collects himself to try again. Fine, he'll accept that the first time that he asked her to be with him, it was purely mentally-driven, but things have changed since then, so he has to try again. Thinking this, he follows after her and closes the door behind him.
'What?' she asks, not facing him as she walks to her closet.
'I'm sleeping with you,' he announces, mostly testing for her to turn back to him.
He really will not push her. Weeks ago maybe, he would've pushed, but today, after now, he won't push her, because then she might not take him seriously. If he wants her to take him seriously, he will have to wait near her door and not invade her space like his mind is trying to tell him to do.
'Because you don't have your own bed?' she asks cynically.
From the way he knows her, he can clearly imagine the stoic expression on her face. He sometimes hates it when she does that, he sometimes hates how she tries to close herself off.
First thinking for a second, he asks, 'What do you think I want from you, Bonnie?'
If she asked him what he wants from her, it's because she has her own answer of what he wants from her, and he has an inkling of what that answer may be. He just wants to hear her say it.
'Sex, obviously,' is her response. 'There's nothing else that you could want from me.'
He'd been expected her to say the first part, however, the second part, he didn't think she would say, but now that she's said it, his mind instantly thinks of a response to challenge her,
'And why is that?' he crosses his arms, anxious to hear her answer.
Suddenly, she whips around to face him. He notices that her eyebrows are drawn together to display her displeasure.
'You want me to answer questions that I need to hear from you? You're unbelievable, Damon.'
'You're unbelievable, Bonnie,' he protests. 'You're the one pretending like we don't have a relationship, like we aren't in a relationship.'
Her facial expression in response to what he just said, asks all the questions that her mouth doesn't.
'Tell me that you cook with Matt the way you do with me,' he explains it better for her. 'Tell me that you let Stefan hold you when he wants to, just because he can. Tell me that you speak to Alaric and Enzo on the phone everyday, even knowing you'll see them later.'
Until just a while ago, he hadn't even realised that they've been dancing around in a relationship, only without the sex part. He doesn't know how he could've been so blind, that he failed to see that they've been in a relationship all this time, but they disguised it under the pretence of being best friends.
It only occurred to him a while ago, that no, normal, average best friends don't have that sort of relationship with each other, at least not to the extent to which he and Bonnie have. She can deny it, or defend their best friend lie all she wants, but the truth is, no normal best friends act they way they do with each other.
'Because when you do,' he poses, 'I'm going to tell you that there's something wrong with you. But I'm not going to tell you that, because you're no going to tell me all that nonsense either.'
Bonnie slowly crosses her arms and then maintains that, 'I'm not best friends with all the other guys, so why would I tell you that?'
Right, he wryly thinks, but to her he says, 'Trust me, Bonnie, if I wanted to just get between your legs, I'd find a way. It's not that.'
The look on her face tells him that she doesn't quite believe him, or that she's struggling to, so he decides to add more to count in his favour. Also, he doesn't want him to push her, neither does he want to go deeper, because the idea of going deeper, opens widely the possibility of her telling him something that can hurt him. He has to tone himself down, to playful, not serious Damon-insisting, so that he doesn't create that possibility of not being taken seriously, and then being hurt.
'Listen, if you tell me that you want to be with some other guy,' he proposes, 'then I'll back off.'
He probably really won't back off, because he knows himself. Actually, he definitely will not back off and let her be with some other loser guy that knows nothing about her, but he needs brownie points in his corner so...
'What's it going to be, Bon?' he teases, even though he's silently hoping that she doesn't kick him out.
For only a second, she glares at him. Whatever she sees or thinks of in that minute, though, he's quite thankful for, because she lets go of her previous plan to shun him, to accept his new proposal.
'You can sleep in my bed,' she resigns, adding a stern warning for him to remember, 'But no cuddling, no spooning, no nothing!'
Relieved that his hope came through for him, he shows her a thumbs up. He knows that she said he shouldn't try anything, but he will. He'll put his leg over hers as they sleep, and then that seed will inevitably take root, bringing him one step closer.
'I mean it, Damon,' she warns, 'no nothing!'
'I promise,' he tells her as seriously as he can, only, behind his back, he crosses his middle finger over his index finger to nullify the promise.
Seriously, Bonnie knows him, does she really believe him?
Chapter 3, Casual.