A/N: You guys keep me encouraged to keep pumping out these chapters in a semi-timely fashion. Thank you oh so much for the reviews, the addition to your lists! This chapter does feature a flashback told mostly from Damon's POV.
Pairings: Bonne/Damon (main), Bonnie/Klaus (friendship), and others when needed.
Rating: M with MA material trickled throughout.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot and all original characters. Other characters belong to LJ Smith/CW Network. Copyright infringement is not intended.
What was that saying? That nothing grows in a heavily trodden path? Self-made paths weren't all that different from millionaires, Bonnie thought. They made their own way, made their own short cuts through a system designed to make sure everyone else failed or only got ahead by strict terms and conditions. What took some decades to achieve they could do in months because nepotism, elbow rubbing, and violent provocation garnered more clout than standard ass kissing.
This wasn't her world and Bonnie wanted no part in it but for the moment she was stuck.
She examined the three-inch hairline laceration above her clavicle compliments of Damon's fingernail. It was red and inflamed but it didn't look as terrible as it felt. Still, this was the first bruise other than hickies he's left on her skin.
Trying not to think about something was the equivalent as thinking about it. The strained muscles in her legs and back ached just like her thoroughly banged vagina. Bonnie opened a bottle of aspirin and tossed back two pills and chased it with a martini.
Was she a victim? Was she an enabler? Was she Switzerland? She hadn't downed enough liquor to even begin to answer those questions. What Bonnie did know without a shadow of a doubt was that her tolerance and patience was wearing thin.
The man currently doing construction on her ire strolled into their luxurious bathroom in full frontal nudity. Showboating his virility, impassive expression on a face Bonnie usually had a hard time deciding if she wanted to punch or kiss. Things would be so much easier if he was nice, but Damon wasn't nice. She never mistook his altruism for anything other than manipulation.
Tonight had proven he could shower her with affection, but at the end of the day she was nothing but another one of his prized possessions.
Damon turned on the shower and the hiss it made transported Bonnie back to his private study just hours before where she had made a similar noise when he entered her.
She threw away the Q-tip she used to apply Neosporin to her cut at the same time Damon approached, imprinting his body along hers, resting his hardening dick along her hip, and gently cupped her by the back of the neck.
Once again their eyes met in the mirror and he pressed his lips to her temple before his eyes migrated south and he saw the damage he caused.
"Did I do that?" Thankfully his voice wasn't high-pitched like Steve Urkel's.
Bonnie's head moved up and down.
"I'm sorry," he whispered and lightly grazed the skin under the abrasion. "You can get me back later."
"I already have," Bonnie hinted with a tip of her head at the crescent shaped trenches peppered along his ribs.
Damon snorted in amusement as he inspected her handiwork. "I guess you did."
Giving her ass a smack, Damon headed off to the shower. "Get in with me, little wife."
"I've already showered."
"Then get in and wash my back."
Wash your own fucking back, Bonnie was burning to say but then she was interrupted by her ringing cell phone.
Glancing at the screen she grimaced and let it go to voicemail. She didn't want to deal or hear Llewellyn's bullshit. Not tonight. Not ever.
Most people when they got married did so for love, or it was an arrangement between two powerful families wanting to breed more power. Their marriage came about because of Llewellyn and his stupidity.
Well, Bonnie amended she couldn't rest the sole blame on Llewellyn. If it hadn't been for her Women's Studies professor imploring Bonnie to study abroad in India for a semester then she never would have crossed paths with Damon Salvatore in the first place. Llewellyn just happened to be at the right place during the wrong time.
"Bonnie?"
Hearing her name being used by her husband made her jump. She snapped her head to the right and Damon was staring right at her.
"Get. In."
"I'm going to bed," Bonnie cancelled those plans, left the bathroom, and slammed the door closed after her exit.
In the shower, Damon's head thudded against the tile. His behavior tonight made him an exceptional bastard but really it wasn't anything new. He worked wonders with his left hand so long as the right didn't know what he was doing, and honestly, the confused man had no idea what he was doing other than making his life ten times more complicated than it needed to be.
Grabbing his Calvin Klein shower gel, Damon lathered himself and began to hum.
Not often did he question why he and Bonnie perpetuated they were this happily married couple. Damon knew his reasons for marrying her. She was beautiful as fuck. The first time he laid eyes on Bonnie all he could think about was getting her by any means necessary. Did it make him a Neanderthal prick—perhaps but Bonnie's fate had been sealed the moment she stepped foot in the VIP section of that nightclub in Mumbai.
Bonnie's reason for agreeing to marry him had nothing to do with lust at first sight and had everything to do with keeping her brother out of prison. No one told Llewellyn Wilson to get coked out of his head and kill the prostitute he solicited at a casino, Damon thought benignly. Unfortunate her death was, but another man's fatal mistake had been Damon's fortune.
Owning a company was one thing, making investments was another and Damon was king at capitalizing on a ripe deal. And Bonnie had been the sweetest deal of them all.
Mumbai, India—1½ Years Ago
"You're a prick and an asshole," she fumed.
A saccharine smile curled pink lips, and the glint in his formidable azure eyes bespoke of flattery not offense. "Two of my greatest accomplishments besides, you know, making forty-seven million dollars last year," Damon replied flippantly.
She scoffed crudely while she vigorously searched for her clothes that had been discarded hastily only three hours ago in their haste to screw each other's brains to mush.
"Well I hope you have fun with Ben, Lincoln, Jackson, and Washington since those will be the only people left who can tolerate your smug ass. You might have money, Damon but you sure as hell don't have class or much of a personality at that."
The amusement on his face vanished like a cruise liner drifting into the Bermuda Triangle. Paradise was lost, hospitality forgotten, and what stood in front of her now was the mangy entrepreneur who had no qualms about slashing the throat of his competitor in full view of the public.
Stacey Lannister could barely swallow her spit. The muscles in her body tensed like shifting tectonic plates, converging and crashing violently into one another that she became a literal statue.
"You're one to talk about personality, Miss Stacey. When I found you the most special thing about you was your ability to shoot golf balls out of your twat."—Stacey blushed to her roots.—"And now you think you can lecture me? Me?" Damon crossed the room at an inhuman pace to stand only centimeters away from Stacey who couldn't look him straight in the eye. Not anymore. "I pulled you out of the fucking gutter and I can easily throw your ass back in. I'm sure daddy misses his fluffer," he smirked evilly.
Stacey's nostrils flared. Her hand twitched with the almighty power to slap Damon Salvatore's head clean off his highfalutin shoulders. Belittling her for doing what a girl born in Tennessee with only an eleventh grade education could do for money was one thing. Making light of her abusive childhood was another. For that very reason alone she tolerated men but within her burned a hatred that all the water in the oceans combined wouldn't be enough to extinguish.
Straightening her spine, Stacey offered up a conciliatory smile she didn't feel and probably still came off as a sneer. She ran her fingers—although a bit shakily—through Damon's soft, raven tresses again resisting the urge to inflict as much pain by ruthlessly pulling his hair.
He was beautiful and knew it and if he weren't such a dick he'd be perfect. But the man was tainted by his own narcissism, and grandiose self-importance that Stacey convinced herself he was beyond redemption. Men like Damon seemingly flipped a switch on their humanity after reaching a certain pay grade and level of success. They stopped seeing people as people and turned them into pawns they played with at will and threw away like trash once bored. She had vowed to cut her losses before Damon could do the honors for her. Nevertheless, she invariably fell for his bullshit, and continued to allow him to wine and dine her knowing nothing would ever come of it other than a couple of screaming orgasms she wouldn't have to ask a bartender to mix.
However, Stacey knew when to pick her battles. She was in a foreign country with nary a person to call friend should Damon decide right then and there he was tired of her and sent her ass packing.
"You're right," she purred submissively. "I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for you riding in, in your black Ferrari," she trilled a laugh that was about as genuine as a handshake between President Obama and Rush Limbaugh.
Damon's laugh was dry as he pulled Stacey's fingers out of his hair, thrust her aside, and sauntered over to the overstuffed chair in his suite with his jeans barely hanging on to his narrow hips.
"I think we should call it a night. I want to be alone right now."
Nodding, Stacey began making tracks to the bedroom, but stopped when Damon cleared his throat. She refaced him.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?" he pondered.
"To the bedroom."
"Maybe I didn't make myself clear but I said I wanted to be alone," he obscenely enunciated every syllable in the word. "That means I want this suite I used my cold hard cash to pay for all to myself."
Her jaw sky dived to her ample chest. "Where am I supposed to sleep?" her southern accent became thicker with her incredulity.
"I don't really give a shit, Stacey. Go canoodle with those two sheiks you were flirting with earlier. Here," Damon reached in his pocket for a wad of cash and pulled off fifteen crisp one hundred dollar bills. He stretched them out to her. "That should be enough to get you a coach ticket back to the States."
Doubly furious now, Stacey threw the Manolo pump in her hand directly at Damon's head who ducked just in time.
"Fuck you!" she swore, found the rest of her things and stormed out of the penthouse hotel suite.
Damon tossed the bills in the air making it rain for no one. He had already violated so many bachelor rules he had no one's ass to kick but his own. Never bring sand to the beach. Stacey Lannister, for as beautiful as she was, had been nothing more than a distraction. A costly one at that.
Men in his position were supposed to be seen with women draped all over them like couch covers, but at the end of the day when the pretentious layers were pulled back, Damon valued his solitude more than anything else. Plus, jackrabbiting between a pair of thighs could only dull the ache currently pressing up against his chest for so long.
No matter how fast you ran or what course you took, your problems were still there, chasing you and snapping at your heels. Burn them away with alcohol, blot them out with meaningless sex, and they still glared in your face twenty-four fucking seven refusing to be vanquished.
Thrumming his fingers on the arm rest of the chair, Damon's mind wondered. He didn't want to be alone. Left with his thoughts and he was liable to do something incredibly fucked up.
If he was going to be miserable he might as well head out and find some company.
Damon showered. Ditched his jeans for tailored threads with a price tag that would enrage anyone living paycheck to paycheck. He tamed his notoriously tousled locks easily transforming from entitled trust fund baby to transcontinental mogul. His blue irises were on his fire, his tongue was parched, and his dick had been a long way from being satisfied.
It was time for the debauchery to begin.
Two hours later…
Love could sometimes be like balancing a fattail scorpion on the back of your hand. One wrong move and it could turn against you. The idea of love intrigued you, but you feared its sting. Losing love could be as deadly as the venom contained in the stinger of a scorpion, Damon thought as he eyed the small creature perched on his hand.
His fingers were wrapped around a shot glass. The idea was to take a shot while not jostling or enticing the scorpion to sting. The crowd of spectators surrounding him watched without breathing or blinking. Their gazes volleyed between the dumb American and the scorpion putting all their money on the arthropod to be the victor.
What they failed to take an account of was the fact Damon, too was a predator. Like the scorpion. He wouldn't say he went around looking for things to kill, but he did murder whatever got in his way with his tongue, his prowess, and ambition. Nothing really survived in his path, and if it did then it came out much better than its original intent—at least that was the lie he told himself.
Scorpions didn't hunt in packs. They didn't need to and neither did Damon. He was a nomad, an orphan in a sense because he had been the only person to truly believe in himself. He had a brother, but Stefan was always gone. Such was the life of a scholar.
Damon raised the glass a little higher and the scorpion took a step. A collective gasp became a vacuum and sucked up all available oxygen. Women jostled one another; men shouldered other men for a bird's eye view of the show.
A tiny smirk curled Damon's lips when the rim of the glass butted against his mouth. He was eye-level with the venomous creature. Its beady black eyes bored into his and if Damon could have read its mind he was probably being cussed out in Hindi.
Hands began to drum the bar top and the energy of the crowd thickened as it appeared the American might actually be able to pull this off. However, anyone could balance a deadly insect on their hand. Draining a cup of liquid with said insect on your drinking hand without getting stung was the true Herculean test.
There wasn't a doctor on sight and the nearest hospital was miles away. If for whatever reason Damon was stung he'd be a dead man within minutes. The thought of his own mortality made his heart beat faster in anticipation. His adrenaline had completely taken over and he felt high.
Amber fluid crashed into his teeth and slithered down his throat one gulp at a time. The scorpion moved again, this time turning completely around mooning Damon for all intents and purposes. The crowd burst with fear and thrall that this might be it. This brave and foolish asshole might be dead in seconds.
The last drop of bourbon trickled down Damon's esophagus, and with a simple flick of his wrist, he dismounted the scorpion and slapped his empty shot glass over it, trapping the arthropod.
The roar was deafening.
Congratulations in the form of: shoulder slaps, handshakes, cheers, whistles, and a couple of kisses to his cheeks and lips from gorgeous women was Damon's reward. He accepted it humbly as only a hot-blooded, white male could do—brashly. Throwing his money around. Ordering drinks for his new friends. This had gone unnoticed by him of course, but a couple pairs of brooding eyes followed his every move.
He pushed his way through the suffocating multitude needing to take a piss. His belly full of liquor and Indian cuisine rumbled. Bile rushed up his esophagus but Damon swallowed it back down. His standoff with the scorpion had been exhilarating and for the moment he had stopped thinking about her, but she was always there. Haunting him. Reminding him they were over.
Damon saw snippets of her face in the women who called Mumbai home. Escaping her was like trying not to breathe in exhaust from a smoking truck driving in front of you. He was already going back on his promise not to go down a downward spiral simply because the woman he loved walked away from a good thing. This good thing of course being him. She was a stupid bitch and she'd learn one day that what she had was amazing, and would come crawling back on her hands and knees preferably and then…
He might consider taking her back after she jumped through hoops, naturally. If it had nothing to do with charity and even then he side-eyed it, Damon Salvatore gave nothing away for free.
Not his time, not his talent, and certainly not his love. And he had loved her in the only way he knew how. Frenetic, passionate, and relentlessly. Damon was well aware that he loved too hard, but also sparingly. He wasn't an easy-to-assemble toy. His instructional manual came in several languages, required an armada of tools, and balls made of steel.
As he made it to the bathroom and planted himself in front of a urinal, Damon placed his balled fist on the tiled wall to help keep his balance while the other wrapped around his meat. His mind should have been on business—work. He hated his job and his life sometimes but the power he wielded was too addicting to give up. Fuck no to that. Being a genetic clone of his parents melded DNA might have placed him in the CEO chair, but it was his diligence that kept him there.
So to allow a solitary female bring him down in the dumps like this was unacceptable to him.
Fucking unacceptable.
He was bigger than this. Bigger than her. Tatia Rhodes the veritable love of his ill-gotten life. And he might be hurting now but Damon knew it wouldn't be forever. This pain that lingered and lynched his heart every single time he took a step would dissipate with time. He'd find someone else. There was plenty to choose from. His bed wouldn't stay cold. Stacey Lannister might have been a semi-useful distraction, but at the end the day she was leaps and bounds away from what he wanted.
Love could sometimes make you feel like you were fighting for your life, the right to exist, and it could also feel like the taste of victory when getting the upper hand on the rivalry. Maybe he was too drunk to be this philosophical, but in any case the pain of losing love was bleeding out of Damon as he used the restroom. He flushed and tucked his little monster back into his slacks.
Leaving the restroom, he meandered through the heavily congested club and decided not to head to the over populated bar and made his destination to the roped off VIP section. He flashed his credentials: a stack full of bills and was allowed admittance.
A bevy of women were there drinking Veuve Clicquot, Cristal, Dom, all the top shelf bottles of champagne. Some were attired in eye-catching saris, others wore Italian and French designers, and there were a few who took a chance and wore something conceptualized by an American. In all it was nothing Damon hadn't seen before. He made himself quite at home. Speaking the lingo, seducing the estrogen powered masses with a quick turn of phrase here, a well-placed kiss on the cheek there, and soon women were perched under each arm and attached to his legs.
The night dragged on and Damon got progressively drunker. After a while everything he consumed tasted the same.
It might have been nearing three in the morning for all he knew, but Damon decided he needed to take a breather and stretch his legs. The cloying odor of perfume and scented oil was making him congested so he stood from the velvet couch amid playful whines and pouty lips.
He promised his harem he would return, took two steps away to overlook the rest of the club when he caught something out of his peripheral.
She wore red and she wore it well. Her long sleeve midrift and high-waist skirt could be classified as conservative if it weren't for the sheer material that hinted at her butterscotch skin below. Thick ripples of ebony hair contoured to a heart shaped face that made Damon think about both salvation and damnation. She was a heavenly being dressed in devil red and if that didn't inspire an erection when he caught a glimpse of her ass when she turned sideways that certainly did it.
Damon vaguely recognized the man she was talking to. He couldn't be absolutely sure, but he was pretty sure the guy might be one of his employees assisting with outsourcing his telecommunications company.
And it was at that specific time the man looked right at Damon and recognition flashed on his face, and the stranger hastily started making his way toward Damon.
"Mr. Salvatore?" the man said excitedly. "Ohmygod I can't believe it's you!"
"Do I know you?"
"Yeah, kind of sort of. I'm one of the coordinators working on the Delphi project. My name's Llewellyn. Llewellyn Wilson."
"Oh, right," Damon had no idea who he was.
The two men shook hands but Damon's attention span soon drifted back over to the woman in red who was sharing a glass of champagne with a strawberry blonde.
The man who essentially barreled his way over to Damon had practically been forgotten until he started talking again.
"That's my sister," Llewellyn volunteered. "The two of us being in India together wasn't even planned, but she just happens to be studying abroad while I'm working on this merger. Funny how things work out."
Funny indeed. "Bring her over here," Damon ordered. "I want to meet her."
"O-okay."
Damon picked up on the man's hesitation. He offered him a smile. "We can talk business later."
Llewellyn nodded like a good minion. "I'll be right back."
His employee scuttled away, exchanged some words and the blonde and brunette shifted their gaze to Damon. The blonde looked receptive to the idea of meeting him. One of her eyebrows rose and already he could read the divide and conquer glint in her eyes. However, her shorter companion the one draped in red and gold jewelry appeared more reserved, tentative.
Dutifully they followed behind Llewellyn who bore no physical resemblance to his sister. He was taller, lankier with almond skin, sandy brown hair, and dark eyes. Not real conventionally handsome, but if he wore the right suit he would be able to attract his fair share of admiration from the ladies.
Once they stood in front of Damon forming an arc around him, he maintained eye contact with the blonde; however, he was scoping the one in red from head to toe out the corner of his eye.
"Jenna Sommers," the strawberry blonde introduced herself extending a hand. "It's nice to meet you."
Damon took her proffered limb and kissed her knuckles. "The pleasure is all mines, Jenna."
He snorted as quietly as possible when a tell-tale blush began tinting Jenna's cheeks. She was beautiful in a wholesome way. Nothing dangerous about her. She was suburban soccer mom hot, Damon ruled before swinging his unremitting leer in the brunette's direction.
Up close she was a thousand times more beautiful that it was almost physically painful to look at her. Damon sucked in a ragged breath and accepted the woman's hand in his immediately noticing how small it was by comparison. It would take next to nothing to fracture her bones, but harming her in any way would be a crime punishable by death.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Damon Salvatore," he introduced himself and was already raising her hand to his tingling lips.
"Bonnie Bennett," she shouted in order to be heard over the roar of music and the revelers.
When his mouth made contact with her flesh there hadn't been any outward sign from Bonnie that she was…flustered by him. That made Damon's left eye shrink in diameter. In fact, the more he studied her, the more annoyed she looked. Maybe the club scene wasn't her thing and she was out of her element. Regardless of that she should have been bouncing with joy she was shaking hands with one of the richest men on earth who also happened to be terribly good looking.
"Can I get you ladies something to drink? It's on me," Damon didn't release Bonnie's hand although he felt her trying to tug it free.
"I would love a glass of champagne…if there's any left," Jenna instantly accepted the offer.
"None for me. I've reached my limit. Llewellyn where's the bathroom?" Bonnie said.
"It should be downstairs somewhere. I don't know," her brother answered a bit tersely.
"I can show you where it is," Damon offered.
"No, that's okay. I'm sure I'll find it. Excuse me," she pulled her hand free, turned, and got missing.
Jenna walked a few paces after Bonnie, caught her by the arm, and the two exchanged words before Jenna retook her place in front of Damon. She offered up another Colgate smile that did nothing for his libido.
Deciding to go ahead and trade pleasantries with the two grinning individuals who apparently had nothing better to do than gawk at him, Damon intercepted a waitress and barked at her to bring up more bottles of champagne and clean glasses. When enough time passed and Jenna and—what was the guy's name again?—when they were distracted with the opulence being showcased on the wrists and necks of those decorating the VIP section, Damon made his way downstairs to the bathroom.
He slowly opened the door and Bonnie was at the sink washing her hands concentrating fully on her task. It didn't seem to matter which angle someone drank her form from she was a knockout either way.
Without the nude heels on Damon doubted very much she came much higher than his chin. His preference had been women with long limbs and even longer hair. Race wasn't really an issue with him, nor social class, but this elfin female standing unawares before him made the palms of his hands itch. He didn't know a damn thing about her only that she wasn't impressed by him yet that made him want her all the more. When Damon wanted something with persistence it gave into him. He knew without needing to ask that Bonnie Bennett would take a lot of elbow grease to win her over.
She stifled a scream when she caught him lurking in the mirror. Bonnie whirled around to face him, pea green eyes stretched wide as far as they could go.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE? Get. Out!"
Damon didn't answer right away. He tugged down his zipper and heard Bonnie gasp. He smiled and began walking toward a stall. "Calm down. This is a unisex bathroom."
Bonnie blinked. "A unisex bathroom?" she echoed.
Damon pointed over his shoulder to indicate the placard over the door that sure enough had a little man and woman drawn on it. It would have been easily mistaken for segregated bathrooms, but nope. This bathroom was intended for the sexes to share.
The two of them stared at one another. Bonnie ended their showdown, hastily reached for her purse, and scurried to the exit.
"Bonnie?"
She paused at the door but didn't turn around to face him.
"I'm glad I met you tonight."
That had been the beginning. The beginning of a turbulent courtship that all came together due to murder. What Damon learned that night was that his paradigm with his brother Stefan wasn't all that dissimilar of the one Bonnie shared with Llewellyn. The younger siblings were best friends with the word restraint while the elders lived as if life were a Kawasaki sports bike.
Llewellyn liked his drink and liked it often. So did Damon. But where Damon became a crass and crude drunk, Llewellyn turned violent. Damon learned that three weeks later while doing his part in concealing evidence, cleaning up a crime. He had never seen so much human blood in his life.
"It was an accident," Llewellyn cried making his already blood-shot eyes redder. "I didn't mean for things to go this far."
"Yeah, well she's dead! We need to call the police," Bonnie stood as far away from the dead body as she could get, her eyes trained on everything but the deceased.
"What no! I can't go to prison in some third world country!" Llewellyn hollered.
India was far from being a third world country, Damon started to protest but took the reins of the situation. "Shut the hell up! Both of you. This is what's going to happen…"
Damon was as much an accessory as Bonnie but that wasn't really the point. It was his connections Llewellyn needed to stay one step ahead of the law that made the brother/sister duo indebted to him.
"Name your price?" Llewellyn had asked the day after the prostitute's body had been disposed of, chugging on a cigarette, twitching like a crack fiend.
"I want Bonnie," three simple words that changed both of their lives irrevocably.
Did she know her brother sold her out for his own freedom? That was more than evident.
Stepping out of the shower, Damon toweled himself dry. You call in some favors of a favor, give a woman a life she never dreamed of, and it still wasn't good enough. Damon was at his wit's end.
After brushing his teeth he strolled into his bedroom stark naked and spied his wife burrowed under the duvet. Her labored breathing made him snort, but he climbed into bed, slid closer to her, and dropped a kiss to her naked shoulder.
She didn't stir. He hadn't expected her to either.
One of his many stipulations when they got hitched was Bonnie had to wear as little as possible to bed. On most nights she wore a bra and panties, or a sheer cami that left little to the imagination. She refused to sleep nude though much to his chagrin.
Damon rolled back to his side of the bed and stared up at the ceiling waiting for unconsciousness to come.
While he was slowly drifting off to the place where dreams were made, Bonnie had just stepped foot in a recurring nightmare that had the same twisted ending. A young woman dead, her brother covered in blood, and a multi-millionaire rubbing his hands together and leering happily.
The comedy slash tragedy that was her life never went into intermission.
Chapter end.
A/N: I hope I did okay with revealing the exact nature of Bamon's marriage. I will tell the events that happened in Mumbai, I promise. It's a vital reason why Bonnie is still in her marriage although she's clearly not happy. Nevertheless, thank you so much for reading and don't be shy in letting me know what you think. No pressure, though.
