A/N Again I really feel the need to say a huge "Thank You" to all of you that favourite and alert my stories and leave me reviews. You have no idea how incredibly pleased these all make me! Knowing your opinion truly helps me be inspired to write more. If you've come this far, you already know this story is rated M and why. Hope you enjoy this chapter. Please let me know what you think. I try to reply to most of my reviews if I can!
Chapter 3 – Kinda I Want To
"I can't shake this feeling from my head.
There's a devil sleeping in my bed.
Watching you from across the way,
I cannot make this feeling go away.
I know it's not the right thing.
And I know it's not the good thing.
But kinda I want to.
I'm not sure of what I should do,
When every thought I'm thinking of is you.
All of my excuses turn to lies.
Maybe God will cover up his eyes.
Why does it have to be this way?
Why does it have to be?
Why does it have to be this way?
Kinda I want to.
Maybe just for tonight.
We can pretend it's all right.
What's the price I pay?
I don't care what they say.
I want to.
I want to. (I'll take my chance tonight)"
- music & lyrics by Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails
Damon's POV
Today should have been more relaxing.
Yesterday I spent a busy morning cleaning up the mess my own sheer fucking stupidity created the previous night. It's a bit ironic that I use the phrase "cleaning up the mess" as how I killed her was incredibly neat and what I had to do to her in the end was what was so messy.
I'd woken up in the dark hour before dawn and rolled over. My damned heart had felt like it literally squeezed in my chest when I saw the back of the dark-haired girl's head lying on the pillow beside me. From behind she had looked so much like Elena. Then I remembered my fuck-up of the evening before and I sighed.
I could have just buried her somewhere in the woods, but I know her friend saw me leave with her that night and I don't really want to become a suspect in a young girl's disappearance. Not sure if I've mentioned it, but I'm friends with Liz Forbes, who's the local sheriff. But friendship only goes so far when worried parents are breathing down your neck. Plus, to be honest, I kinda feel her family deserves some sort of closure. Yes, the old Damon scoffs at me for feeling regret or giving a shit if some random humans are in pain. But I can't help but think that I'd want to know if something happened to one of the very few people I care about.
I wouldn't say I feel remorse exactly for losing control the other night, but…OK, yes, there's a slight sense of guilt there. But, mostly I'm annoyed with myself for allowing it to happen when I didn't intend it to. Being in control is something I've always prided myself on. Until I met her and started to let myself care about stuff, there was never any problem with that. So yes, I'm pissed at myself but a part of me is also pissed at Elena for doing this to me.
I'd found the girl's purse on the floor near the door and a set of keys inside. There were a few abandoned cars behind the deserted roadhouse and it didn't take me long to figure out that the tired, rusty-looking, silver Ford was hers.
Another thing I've always prided myself on is that I'm very neat with my victims and tend not to waste blood. I think I located only one tiny droplet on the bed sheet. But those two small, neat, puncture wounds in her neck screamed "Vampire", so unfortunately I had to tear her up a bit to make it look more like an animal attack. It was seriously repulsive to have to rip my teeth violently into her cold, stiff neck and shoulder and make a big mess of things. I felt a bit like Stefan, to be honest with you. It was fucking disgusting.
I left her now torn up body only about twenty or thirty feet from her car, back toward the bush that ran behind the place. Having redressed her before leaving my room, I made sure to pull her jeans and panties down to her knees so it looked like she drunkenly wandered over to the treeline to pee before leaving.
It was all I could do. I felt dirty in more ways than one, so I'd rushed back to my room to have a shower. I didn't leave the motel room for the rest of the day.
This morning I now lie atop the freshly changed bed – yes, I also made sure to get some clean sheets from Mrs. Bates – and sip my bourbon and think. In case you're wondering, I'm back on the vile, ice-packed blood I brought with me. In very small doses. So… same old, same old, right?
Not exactly.
Elena's POV
I'm not sure why I even went to school today. I so don't want to be here. With a little assistance I did sleep straight through for the second night in a row, but today I am the sole definition of "spaced out". I can't concentrate on anything and don't think I've heard half the words my teachers or my friends have spoken to me so far. When Stefan asked me earlier if I was OK, I simply told him I was tired. I may have been snarky about it.
The lunch buzzer just went and I've decided I'm going to skip out and go home. I'm eighteen; I don't need anyone's permission to leave school any more.
As I weave my way across the busy parking lot to my car, I get the distinct feeling that I'm being watched. Not in the way of curious fellow students passing glances in my direction, but in the way of a creeping, burning sensation in my brain that tells me someone is focusing all their attention on me and me alone. It causes gooseflesh to rise along my arms and in the centre of my back. I twist my head around quickly but don't see anything out of the ordinary. Maybe I'm going nuts.
When I get back to my empty house, I go straight on up to my room. I head directly for my closet to drag out some yoga pants to change into and my eyes happen to fall on my rich blue Miss Mystic Falls pageant dress from last year hanging in the back. Seeing it reminds me instantly of Damon, of course, and suddenly another seething wall of anger hits me like a friggin' speeding freight train. I clench my fists so tightly at my sides that my fingernails dig deeply into my palms. It's weird – I feel the sharp cutting sensations of pain, but at the exact same time it almost feels far away, like it's someone else's hands being torn.
I force myself to focus past my rage for a minute and upturn one palm toward my face to discover a line of four small blood–filled crescents there. I heave a sigh and head into the bathroom I share with my brother to locate a tube of antiseptic ointment to apply to my eight little wounds.
When I step back into my bedroom, with only the thought of retrieving one of Jenna's old painkillers on my mind, he's here. Sitting there on my window seat with his dark hair all tousled, looking like the perfect pin-up boy that he is. Like he hasn't been gone for the last five days. Like he hasn't been avoiding me.
That wave of violent fury again explodes like fireworks in my brain. I'm not sure exactly why I'm so incredibly angry with him but let's just say it's a good thing there aren't any stakes nearby.
I stand perfectly still and glare at him, not sure what might come out of my mouth if I allow myself to speak. Almost perfectly still that is – my hands have started to shake uncontrollably.
He tilts his head to one side and raises an eyebrow at me. He even has the audacity to ask me if I'm OK. I don't answer.
Then he stands up and approaches me with a clear look of worry written all over his face. It's a frickin' good thing I'm not Bonnie or he'd have one hell of a witchy migraine right now.
As his hand reaches out to touch mine, I suddenly find the urge to move again and I smack him – hard – right on his left cheek. It hurts my hand like crazy, but I don't flinch. His mouth falls open in shock and he grabs and pins my wrists in his strong fingers. His eyes narrow at me and he demands to know what's going on. Yes, "demands". Being bossy with me at this point only adds fuel to my ever growing flames.
I've also found that my voice has returned and I start to yell. And to struggle. He holds me still anyway. I'm shouting at him for disappearing. For not saying goodbye. For not returning my calls or my texts. For worrying me. For leaving me. For making me need him so goddamn much. At that last part I burst into tears.
He pulls me against him and wraps his arms around me, holding me so tightly to him that I can barely breathe. Or maybe it's my desperate sobs that are making it so difficult for me to breathe. I'm gasping and crying and making a real mess of both my face and the shoulder of his shirt. His hands are rubbing circles on my back and he's actually making soft shushing sounds in my ear. Really. Damon Salvatore is soothing me like a parent would their distraught child. Who would have thought? It makes me weep even harder.
This is the first time he's ever held me. I've hugged him a couple of times in the past when he was upset, but he's never hugged me back. Never. As I force my focus to his fingers tracing patterns along my spine, I find myself finally beginning to relax. Also, he smells really good. The light scent of his cologne is one I've never smelled before on any other guy and it's very…enticing. To me, it's very Damon. I inhale long, deep breaths and feel my mind calm further.
I don't pull away. He doesn't let me go.
My so-called boyfriend is the furthest thing from my mind.
Damon's POV
I don't know how I managed to convince myself that I needed to see her face to face today.
It started off late this morning with me trying to read and trying to relax, already half way to drunk for the day. And all the way to bored. I was trying not to think about her and failing miserably of course, but what else is new? I happened to glance over at my cell phone lying abandoned on the table.
I'd have to say my first mistake today was picking up that fucking phone and letting myself read the last few text messages she'd sent me. They were from the day before yesterday. My goddamn heart strings started snapping, one by one, as I read:
Where are you?
Why did you leave?
I miss you, Damon.
What did I do to make you leave?
I really miss you so much right now. Why aren't you here?
Those were just the most recent ones. I managed to stop my nosey fingers before they scrolled back further and I quickly snapped the phone shut.
In hindsight, I should have just tossed that motherfucker out the window of my speeding Camaro before I ever even checked in.
I didn't know what happened that night to inspire her to send those texts, but I suddenly really needed to go see if she was all right. I told you I was pathetic.
So, earlier I went to her school and from a distance noticed her making a bee-line for her car over the lunch break. She drove home. Which was odd. Like the little lost puppy that I am around this girl, I followed her. That was mistake number two.
When she steps into her bedroom and sees me sitting there waiting for her, the first thing I notice is that she's bleeding. Just a little and very recent. I'm about to ask her what happened, when she shoots me the most pissed off look I honestly think I've ever gotten from her – and believe me, I've been the recipient of some doozys. She's positively radiating rage from her every pore right now.
I ask her if she's OK and she doesn't answer so I get up and take a step toward her. Me ignoring her recent texts and calls should not be important enough to elicit this degree of fury. I'm not sure why she's glaring daggers at me and I'm definitely concerned that I've done something else to raise her ire to such a level, but right now I have no idea what. Usually I know exactly why.
Her inner psycho-bitch takes over and she gives me one hell of a smack in the face. What the fuck? OK, now worry is rapidly edging over into pissed-off territory. I take a deep breath to calm myself before I grab her slender wrists and hold them still to prevent any more violence against me. I insist she tell me what the flying fuck is going on. I may have asked more nicely than that. Maybe.
Suddenly she breaks her frosty Ice Queen silence and starts yelling at me as she struggles to pull her wrists free from my grasp. I'm stunned for a moment as I slowly begin to realize why she's so angry with me. She thinks I deserted her. She's been worried. And then she says something else and promptly bursts into tears.
It sounds like, "Why do I have to need you so goddamn much?" But I guess my vampire hearing is faulty today or something, because there's no fucking way that's actually what she said.
I can't deal with Elena's tears. Never have been able to and probably never will. Each sob stabs my heart like a tiny wooden stake. I crush her slight body against my own, encasing her snuggly in my arms and letting her gasp and cry against my chest while I rub her back. After a while, her breathing begins to even out and she calms down. But she doesn't pull away. And, God help me, neither do I.
This is mistake number three.
I can feel her hot breath against my neck and it's driving me to distraction right now. I wonder if she's noticed the hard bulge in my jeans that's currently pressing against her belly button. Like fuck, she hasn't. But she still doesn't let me go.
I nearly lose my mind when her soft lips begin kissing a slow trail up my throat, eliciting a low rumbling groan from me that almost resembles a purr. If she's trying to torture me, she's wholeheartedly succeeding on every front. I'm rapidly turning to putty beneath her touch.
She works her way up to my chin and finally to my lips and I surrender, because, really, what else can I do? This is what I've wanted since the second I met this girl. I open my mouth and kiss her like some long lost lover I haven't seen in years. There's so much passion and need, love and desperation, so much soul-consuming fucking heat between us in that kiss that it feels fragile - like a filament of spider's silk; like it could evaporate into nothingness at any moment.
This is mistake number four. Or possibly five. I think I've lost count.
Stefan's face doesn't enter my mind. Not once. Right now, it's just Elena. Always Elena. She and I. Me and her. I've never wanted anything the way I want this girl. I've never loved anyone the way I love her. And, fuck the consequences, right now is about us and us only.
