Attack on Bonnie
Mystic Falls, Present Day
"Let me get this straight," Jeremy's voice carried across neighborhoods to land in Bonnie's ear as she closed the front door of her house. "You followed Dana by yourself, risked confronting Klaus or God knows who after—-"
He cut himself off.
Bonnie didn't need him to finish. She knew the rest: after what she'd promised yesterday.
In the Gilbert home, Tyler watched Jeremy pace. He'd definitely been with Bonnie recently. What he didn't know was in what capacity. Though he could guess. Or maybe that was him projecting his own recent deed with Bonnie during December's full moon. Watching Jeremy's agitation now, he no longer felt like joking with him about whether or not he'd seen Bonnie, because if Jeremy had seen her, if they were somehow making headway to….who knows what status they were aiming for….he needed to know how serious they were about it and where he stood with both. Jeremy had promised that the two of them sleeping together wouldn't disturb their friendship, and he still believed him. But would Jeremy and Bonnie sleeping together disrupt their friendship?
"I know what I said, Jer, but in that moment all I could think about was the fact that the guy who fully intended to kill me at the 60s dance, the one succeeded at killing three people the night of the sacrifice, now had Dana in his clutches. I needed to find out if she was okay, if she was meeting him, maybe learn something about this New Year's Eve bash."
Bonnie shrugged off her coat and turned to see her father listening to her conversation from the bottom of the stairs. She mentally cursed herself. It was one thing for her father to know she was going to ring in the new year with the vampire who tried to kill her, and it was another for him to hear her say it. Bonnie grimaced apologetically at him and then focused on the conversation.
"What were you gonna do if she had gone straight to him?" Jeremy asked. He couldn't stop pacing. He was angry with her, and he was relieved that nothing had happened, and he was scared over what could've happened.
"I didn't really have a plan," Bonnie confessed. "I'd just get her out of there. But I had to leave her on her own when I realized I was gonna pull into Klaus' driveway."
"You went to the house?!" Jeremy and John bellowed simultaneously. "Bonnie, you could've gotten kidnapped!" Jeremy continued solo.
Bonnie winced. "I know. I didn't pull in. I followed her all over town. I think she was running errands for the party. It's not like I drive by the mansion every day. I didn't realize where I was—"
"Until it was almost too late," Jeremy huffed.
Elena frowned as she watched her brother.
"I'm fine," Bonnie stressed. She wanted to calm Jeremy down.
"How is Dana?" Tyler asked.
"Compelled," Bonnie said. "She looked a little too happy to be going into every store."
"Did you see the blonde woman?" Elena asked.
"No," Bonnie answered.
"But we don't know if she saw you," Tyler said.
Bonnie sighed. She didn't need Tyler giving Jeremy more (totally reasonable) reason to fret.
"Um," Caroline spoke up, "I'm leaving Matt's place now." Everyone listened to her get into her car. "He still hates us for knowing about Vicky and not telling him—-"
"Most of us," Tyler pointed out. Matt had no problem with him. He himself hadn't learned the truth surrounding Vicky's death until Jeremy had explained everything.
Caroline rolled her eyes. "But he's compulsion free. He's been drinking vervain religiously. He plans on ringing in the new year alone."
No one felt that Matt should be alone during the last minutes of the year. Everyone knew he was going to spend it thinking about Vicky, replaying those moments when he could talk to her through Jeremy. But they were all relieved at the fact that staying home meant Matt wasn't going to be anywhere near vampires. He knew now to stick to the golden rule: don't invite strangers into your house.
"How are you going to skip out on your parents'—I mean your mom's New Year's Party? That party happens every year," Elena said to Tyler.
"I'm not," Tyler answered, his grudge against sharing this information with the whole group showing in the flexing of his jaw and the bounce in his stance. "It's the first new year without my dad. My mom doesn't feel like throwing a party."
"Oh my God," Bonnie said as she sat heavily on the couch. "You have to bail on her?"
"That sucks," Caroline said.
"Maybe you shouldn't come," Jeremy said while simultaneously wishing he was having a private conversation with Bonnie. He was still stuck on her following someone she knew was under Klaus' thumb by herself.
"I'm going. We don't know how Klaus will react if I don't. He sent each of those invitations for a reason."
"You're not going to be able to explain it to your mom," Elena said.
"I know," Tyler responded more sharply than necessary.
"I'll go," John said. "I'll go; I'll show up before you have to leave, and then I'll suggest you go hang out with your friends. She should be up for it."
Tyler knew she would be. Carol was up for anything that made her feel Tyler was adjusting well without his father. The only problem with John's plan was that Tyler actually wanted to be home with his mother when the new year came.
"It'll work," Tyler said.
Bonnie turned around on the couch. Her father stood in the same spot, the same worried look on his face. She faced forward and mentally hurried this meeting along.
"Okay, the plan, "John continued. "We need to be open to the fact that Klaus most likely has more surprises up his sleeve, more people that he's compelled. Matt's not one, but there could be others."
"Are we focusing on the part where he sent someone to talk to Bonnie and no one else?" Jeremy asked.
"Yes," John assured him.
Bonnie voiced something that had nagged at her during her drive back. She'd told them about her conversation with Dana, and now she repeated one specific part of it. "I asked Dana who else was invited to the party, and she said just me. Just me."
"You think that means something?" Caroline asked.
"I do," Bonnie said reflectively.
"Which means we were right," Jeremy said to Bonnie, "Those two attacks were deliberate."
"Wait, two attacks?" Tyler asked the question for everyone else. "I thought it was just one. When did the other happen?"
Jeremy let Bonnie answer.
"Yesterday."
Yesterday
Jeremy sunk into the water with a prolonged groan.
Bonnie gritted her teeth in sympathy. "Okay," she said and kneeled by the bathtub. "You should feel better by the time we're done. This should be better than actual physical therapy."
They were making this up on the fly. Jeremy had called her last night and told her he was stiff as a board. He was stumped by the fact that he was only now getting sore. The vampire hoard had ambushed them at the witches' house a full three days ago.
Bonnie had called him earlier today after she'd appeared home and gotten her bearings and at the end of their conversation she'd asked if he was feeling better, and he'd told her was feeling worse, barely able to move, so she'd told him she was coming over.
"Is the water hot enough?" She asked.
"Not really," Jeremy answered.
Bonnie was running him a hot bath, remembering from her active cheerleading days that heat was good for sore muscles. Now she dipped her hand in the water and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath to concentrate because what she didn't want to do was set the water aflame. She just wanted to heat it up. Moderation.
She exhaled and felt the power flow out of her. "Say when," she said softly. The water in the tub flowed against her hand. She felt no actual heat on her hand, just water and energy, which is why she needed Jeremy to tell her when to stop.
"Stop," Jeremy instructed, his eyes trained on her face. "It's good."
She looked at him and he could tell she was feeling the effect of using her magic, of connecting with two elements. She looked just a little bit happy, her eyes just a little bit out of focus. She smiled warmly at him.
Bonnie gathered some water in her free hand and dripped it over his chest. She repeated the movement like a mantra, not really thinking about what she was doing and not realizing that she needed the comfort, not only because of the attack three days ago but the attack she'd suffered today. Alone.
"I want you to promise me you won't go back there by yourself," Jeremy said.
"Trust me, I don't have a death wish."
Jeremy hooked his index finger under her chin and made her look at him.
"I'm okay," she said quietly, barely able to utter the words, because Jeremy's touch compared to the touch of all those vampires... "I went back there to protect the house. To cast a spell. It's been three days; I didn't think..." She shivered, and she smelled dirt when she inhaled and suddenly it was on her skin, as if she hadn't scrubbed herself clean earlier.
That Morning
Her stomach twisted as soon as she stepped foot into the old foyer. She tried to chuck it up to memory. It was simply a reaction to what happened three days ago. So she kept walking in, but the shadows looked a little too dark, a little too full, a little too...alive. And that's when she heard a hiss. It came from below, like it was crouching.
"Shit," she forced out between clenched teeth.
The house seemed to take a deep breath in hungry anticipation. Vampires. In the scariest sense of the word. These didn't look like they could ever blend into society. Undergrounders, John had called them. John had taught them about the different classes of vampires, and vampires, hunters, werewolves, and witches acknowledged the labels. There were Nightwalkers, commonly just called vampires. They were the ones confined to the night. They were the second most numerous. Definitely the most visible. They killed and turned the most people. The very few who had daylight jewelry were called Daywalkers. The oldest and believed to be the most numerous yet rarely seen were the Undergrounders. They were identified by skin thin and fragile in appearance and covered with spider veins. Some were pimpled with additional varicose veins. Their eyes no longer varied in color. They were either blood-shot red or covered by cataracts. Centuries of living in absolute darkness had dulled their irises as well as their eyesight. They were too old to bother turning humans. No one was sure if they still had the ability. Turning humans implied an interest in life. Undergrounders were interested in feeding and killing. They had no need to worry about their numbers. Most Nightwalkers would become Undergrounders and few of them had any idea.
They had great vision in the dark, but their strength in navigation came from their ears and nose.
They smelled Bonnie as soon as she walked in, and when her panic kicked in, the sound of the blood rushing through her veins drove them mad. O-positive witch blood.
The house exhaled and six vampires set upon Bonnie.
She didn't scream, but she couldn't hide the fear in her eyes or the alarm radiating off of her taunt body.
"Incendia!" she commanded, and the candles in the foyer lit up at the same time that she turned to the door to make a run for it.
A vampire lunged at her and she threw her right hand out and sent him crashing into the wall. There was no Jeremy this time, no one else with whom they could distract themselves. They weren't going to split up, one faction trying to kill Jeremy upstairs while the other drove her down to the basement where the old house was darkest.
Jeremy wasn't here and she remembered what it felt like when they touched her, their agony, their rabid hunger, their age, their loneliness, their disorientation, their death. All of it was psychic energy, and they meant to torture her with it. She'd almost died three days ago from the potent combination of their death and disorientation at living for so long and slowly, very slowly, losing their humanity in behavior, looks, and instinct. It had clawed at her sanity and begged her to leave herself, leave her present and delve deeper into their lives, what it was now and what it was then. And bereft of any psychic defenses, she'd delved. She hadn't been able to help it. Only the pain of two sets of fangs digging into her right shoulder and her left arm had shocked her out of it enough that she could fight back. She'd been confused and disoriented, her brain still trying to delve deeper into their experiences, but she'd fought back. And she'd shrieked at the top of her lungs for Jeremy, for him to help her, for him to hear her. Screaming his name had also aided her in staying in the present and in her own mind.
She couldn't go through that again, didn't think she'd survive it. She was dead if even one of them laid their ice cold, papery hands on her. She needed to get outside.
A wave of undead energy beat at her back. She ran faster than she'd ever had, and she broke into the light. She stopped for just a second to turn around, before her peripheral vision caught the horrifying sight of the vampires charging out into the sunlight. She screamed and resumed running. Her heart beat even faster when she realized they weren't using their speed to catch up to her and tear her apart. They ran at a normal pace, so whether or not she kept her head-start depended on pure luck.
She ducked her head and gritted her teeth and almost covered her ears when the first agonized cry attacked her ear. She threw a frenzied look behind her and saw that two of them had caught on fire. And they still ran after her.
"Fuck!" She willed her legs to move faster. She needed to tell Jeremy about this. She needed to tell someone. She needed to live.
She wasn't gunning for her car. She'd parked at the side of the house, so she'd long left it. She realized she didn't know where she was running to, and she needed to run to somewhere. She couldn't keep running until they all burned to death.
Legs burning, she looked behind her and saw three were on fire. The first two had fallen to burn to ashes, their limbs too weakened by the fire to run anymore. She turned her head forward just as the sixth caught on fire.
"Patefacia!" she commanded, staring at the ground as her feet ate more dirt. Heart-stopping roars rose behind her, and she pictured their fangs were bared. They knew she was trying to magic herself away. They knew they were losing their chance to kill her.
"Domus ego tollite!" she tried breathlessly when nothing happened. "Patefacia, Patefacia, Patefacia!"
She looked behind her again. It seemed like the last four were not going to slow down.
She looked forward, and her mistake dawned on her. She was commanding conflicting elements. She was concentrating on the earth yet saying 'carry me home.' The ground can't carry her anywhere.
"Domus ego adtrecto! Patefacia!"
She was suddenly pushed by an unseen energy, and her heart sped up at the thought that she was going to fall, that she was going to slow down and they were going to catch her. And fall she did. She fell forward straight into the earth which gave way before her knees impacted.
She screamed when she fell into dirt before shock rendered her mute. All was dark and she was so out of sorts that she didn't realize she was falling home until her breath was forced out of her lungs when her stomach hit the living room floor.
Stunned, she slowly braced her arms so she could sit up, small rocks, leaves, and specks of dirt raining on the wooden floor. She suddenly turned on her back when she heard an agonized scream and let out a yell that rivaled the burning vampire's when she saw her falling into the ceiling, about to crash into her. She crossed her arms over her eyes and missed the activation of the supernatural barrier that kept her from entering her home without an invitation. She was thrown back from the whole and burned to death on the forest floor.
Bonnie scrambled on her butt and crawled backwards when another vampire's scream sounded farther away.
She didn't hear her father's anxious yelling of her name until he was shaking her.
"What?" she asked, adrenaline distorting her voice. Her chest heaved, and her skin crawled where Rudy touched her.
"Close it! You have to close what you opened so they can't try to come through."
She rummaged through all the magic words in her brain for a closing spell. She spent so much time studying the composition of spells that it was getting easier for her to make one up on the spot, despite her flub on the arrangement of the words earlier.
"Untrinque fit, ut ante fuit."
The ceiling slowly closed and she sagged into Rudy's chest, shaking and dirty.
Yesterday
"Bonnie," Jeremy said. The water had turned cold enough to make him shiver.
"Sorry," Bonnie said as she came out of her reverie. She flexed her hands in the water and realized her discomfort at the attack had imbued it with coolness. She closed her eyes and concentrated.
"Okay," Jeremy said when the water got warm again. He still cupped her face.
"They were looking for me," Bonnie said when she opened her eyes.
"What?"
She nodded. "They were after me. The one that fell in...I looked straight into her eyes when I turned around, and I saw this…..desire...to protect Klaus."
"Klaus?" Jeremy said, dropping his hand from her face and sitting up straighter.
Bonnie resumed running the water over his chest.
"As in the guy who...killed Jenna? What's he got to do with this?"
"I don't know. But she wanted to protect him. To take me out to make him safer."
"But you haven't thought about him since the day he was here."
They both knew that wasn't true. With the possibility that he was the one picking off the werewolves, Bonnie had been doing a lot of thinking about Klaus.
"I did almost stop his ritual from happening. He thought I was dead once. Maybe he doesn't like the idea of me walking around at the same time he is."
"Bonnie," Jeremy said softly. Her eyes were heavy when she looked at him. "Did they touch you?"
"No," she said. "I wouldn't be here if they had. But I felt their...energy. It was almost as bad as them touching me. And it's making me think about the last time." She closed her eyes and heard Jeremy hiss and jerk in the water.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
Jeremy gritted his teeth against the pain. "Uh...nothing. Just...the water dripping from your fingers. It got a little hot. A lot hot."
Bonnie turned her wet palm up and saw steam rising from it. "Oh my God," she exclaimed, her voice firm for the first time since she'd run the water for Jeremy. "I'm so sorry."
Jeremy shook his head.
"I'm sorry. Are you okay? God, I need to pay attention."
"It wasn't that bad," Jeremy emphasized. He smiled when she looked at him. "Swear."
Bonnie smiled. She missed the days when him worrying about her and caring this much about her meant she could kiss him. She'd watched him call on incredible strength to snap the neck of what must have been a centuries old vampire when he'd finally stumbled his way down to the basement sporting considerable bites and bruises.
"So the first ambush wasn't an accident after all," Jeremy said. "You can't go back to that house," he repeated.
"I promise." She almost voiced her next thought but decided against it. Still, Jeremy was thinking along the same lines.
"That doesn't solve the problem of them wanting you, though. If they want you, then they'll find a way. It's not like the house is the only dark place in Mystic Falls."
"So what I need a bodyguard now?"
"If that's what it takes," he answered, and Bonnie didn't need to ask if he was volunteering. The protectiveness edge of his face spoke volumes. Bonnie smiled and when she let the water trickle down his chest this time, she traced the path of one droplet and stopped just above the waistband of his shorts.
"Sorry," she apologized distantly, though she didn't take her hand away. He was bigger than he used to be, the reward for spending hours working out. She'd been surprised by it when she'd seen him after summer vacation. He'd taken his shirt off for her here and there while she'd been in Georgia but seeing it in person had been something else. She'd told him that she wasn't sure how she felt about his new size. Then he'd taken his shirt off and she'd chuckled and said maybe she could get used to it and had immediately started feeling up his pecks. Then she'd broken up with him.
"It's fine," he answered as he drank in her expression. She wasn't feeling okay, that was clear. She'd been inconsolable after the first attack.
Bonnie pressed harder against his body. "What do we do?" she asked.
Jeremy cupped her face and made her look at him. "We do nothing. Not yet. You're freaking out about the attack."
"I'm not used to being attacked." She's fought vampires, taken them down both through team work and by herself. But she has never been a target, not like this. She has never been ambushed. "We need to take care of you," she said.
"No, I think we need to take care of you," Jeremy said softly. She'd made it out fine physically this time, but emotionally and mentally the vampires' touches were messing with her. "What do you need?" he asked.
Bonnie was stumped. She knew what she needed, mentally and emotionally. She knew what she needed to feel. But it took some work to voice it. "Life."
He was a hair's breath away, so she kissed him.
Jeremy had been thinking about kissing her. He'd been thinking about holding her, anything physical to let her know that he was here, that she'd made it out, that she was okay now. He'd settled for cupping her cheek. But she was kissing him now, and he didn't know how long it would last, if she was just in a quick state and was going to snap out of it and apologize, so he poured everything in the kiss. He tried to create as much of a safety net as he could.
Bonnie was overwhelmed by the contact, so much so that she almost climbed inside the bathtub to join him. But she needed more than this, and she only hoped that they were building to it.
Jeremy hissed and broke the kiss. He yanked her palm away from his chest.
"What? Oh my God, I'm sorry."
He chuckled even though the pain lingered. "Are you sure this is still an accident?" he asked breathlessly.
Bonnie was speechless, because he didn't look opposed to the idea that it might not be. "It was an accident. But….do….do you want it to not be?" She avoided his eyes and looked down at the fist she'd made on the side of the tub. "I need to channel. I need to feel that life. I need that energy."
Jeremy noted the distressed frown lines on her forehead. "Then do it," he said.
Bonnie raised her eyes. She stared at him long enough to realize that he'd just undone three months' work of her trying to stop loving him.
Jeremy desperately clung to his sheets with his hands and teeth as Bonnie laid siege on his back. They'd moved from the bathtub to his bed, and he'd changed to a pair of dry basketball shorts, and now he lewdly humped his bed as Bonnie straddled his butt and burned his upper back. She'd been slowly making her way up from his waist, and it was almost over. A damn shame.
Bonnie dipped her hands into the bowl of water she'd brought to his dresser and laid her hands on his right shoulder blade. Her palms tingled as she warmed him up to burning. She'd started on his left lower back and steadily made her way up, then moved to his middle lower back and slowly made her way up, then his right lower back, and now she was regretfully at the top. But the journey had been unforgettable. She gave him reprieve by channeling him after each new burn mark. They were on the pain part right now, and they were in unison as he rocked his erection against the bed, and she rocked against his ass.
Bonnie was as wet as he was hard. She didn't need to burn him to feel life. Channeling him would've been enough, but he'd told her point blank that he'd rather the burns not be an accident, and she liked that he liked the pain. Intermittent channeling and her arousal had chased away the crawling feeling of death her encounter with the vampires had left her with.
Jeremy sweated as Bonnie seared his skin. The back of his ears prickled from the heat on his body. He groaned and raised his hips off the bed. Bonnie chuckled and humped him faster, and he laughed at how much she was enjoying this before it dissolved into a hard moan. "Now," he said tremblingly when his shoulder burned too much.
Bonnie channeled him immediately and not for the first time the swift change from pain to pleasure made Jeremy's dick twitch in the confined space between his body and the bed. Bonnie was lowered as all of the tension from withstanding the pain left his body and he sagged into the mattress. She leaned forward and kissed the spot like she'd started doing on the third burn mark.
"Better?" she prodded.
"Yes," he panted.
She smiled and placed a kiss on his neck. It was painted a nice blush pink from her experimenting on his body, and it made her wonder if his face was just as flushed. "Are you okay?" she asked not for the first time.
"I'm fine," he assured her. "It's good. Really good." That earned him another kiss on the same spot on his neck. "Take off your pants," he labored. Surely she wouldn't object after all the grinding she'd been doing on his butt. Was it possible for her to mark his back and then walk away like it was nothing?
It wasn't possible. Bonnie dismounted him and stood on the bed to strip completely naked. Jeremy flinched through the pain and rose up on his elbows to turn his head and watch her undress. Bonnie was amused by his effort. "You need to strip, too," she said. "I can help," she said when he started to struggle.
"No," he said quickly. She didn't need to see how wet the front of his gym shorts were. The degree to which this entire exercise turned him on was truly ridiculous. "I got it." He put his forehead on the bed and raised his lower half to take the shorts off. By the time he was done, his back was stinging. "Channel me. Please," he huffed.
Bonnie quickly got down and did what he needed. "I can take some of the pain away," she suggested. They were done now; there was no need for him to actually suffer. This was supposed to be fun. Maybe a little weird, definitely kinky, but fun. He couldn't go about his day to day life with a mangled back.
But Jeremy shot the idea down. In order to take pain away, Bonnie had to take it onto herself, and he was not going to have that. His most vivid memory of her taking pain away was when she took on Elena's wounds during the sacrifice. Klaus had taken enough blood to kill her, but by the time it was all said and done and Elijah had rushed Klaus out of the clearing, Elena had still had a faint and fading heartbeat. Stefan had heard it. Bonnie had tried to fix it.
He hadn't seen it, of course, since she'd knocked him unconscious, but he'd found out when he'd woken to learn Bonnie was passed out from a severe neck wound. The witches had taken their powers back while Bonnie was in the middle of the spell. She had been fine at the beginning of the spell, barely feeling the pain as she raced to bring Elena back before her heart gave out. When the witches wrenched the powers from her, the spell turned deadly for her. The wound spread fast on her neck, and Stefan and Damon were so quick to take Bonnie's place when she stumbled away from Elena in utter shock at what was happening to her that neither noticed that she was suddenly gravely injured until she gasped in panicked fear and collapsed.
Damon's blood had healed her.
Jeremy had been pissed.
To Love Bonnie Bennett
It was bad enough she'd betrayed him and with a kiss of all things. She'd almost gotten herself killed to top it all off.
"Damon could've healed her! Or Stefan!" For the life of him, he could not bring his voice down, and he could not stop pacing in her bedroom. She lay on the bed looking frail, more from being shaken by the experience than any physical after-effects.
"Do you really think that was on my mind? Stefan said he heard a heartbeat and before he could do anything I just moved. I did what first came to mind. I honestly….I forgot all about them and what they could do. She was barely hanging on to life, and my first thought was that I was the only one who could save her."
Bonnie wished he'd stopped pacing. He was making her queasy.
"Right," Jeremy responded, "Because it's your responsibility to save everyone, Bonnie, consequences be damned. This is your calling. That's what you said, right?"
"Are you patronizing me right now?"
"Nope. This is what you do. You risked your life to save Elena. You risked your life to save Elena." Jeremy wiped his mouth and walked out of her bedroom, because he honestly couldn't think of anything else to say, and he could feel his chest tightening.
"Jeremy. Jeremy!"
Bonnie called after him, but he didn't come back. He didn't leave the house, but he stayed downstairs for a while, long enough for him to cool down. When he came back up, he found her curled on the bed and staring out of her window. He climbed in and spooned her.
"I wasn't trying to get myself killed, you know," Bonnie said.
"I know," he responded.
He only half believed her, but he didn't know how to say it. He didn't know how to tell her to slow down for his sake. He only knew the crippling fear he felt whenever he thought about the risks she took. With Jenna dead, her risks took an extra hard toll on his nerves.
And a month and a half later he took refuge in the girl that was already dead.
Yesterday
"You're not taking this on, Bonnie," Jeremy said.
"I didn't mean take on the burns," Bonnie assured him. "I meant cast a spell to promote healing. You'd still hurt, but it would fade gradually, not completely, over the course of the night. I can't sleep here overnight and channel you. My dad's home, and I don't know how John would feel about it, not to mention your sister. I don't want you to be in pain."
"It's fine," he huffed. "Think of it as a mark. I want to wear it."
Bonnie smiled. Memories of another mark knocked on her brain, the hickey he'd sported from his trip to Miami. Is that why he hadn't bothered to cover it up? Because he'd wanted to wear it? Bonnie kept the door closed and turned the memory away.
"You're here now," Jeremy continued with a smile. "You can channel me now." With some effort, he sat up so he could face her.
"Yes, I can," Bonnie said provocatively. She had her answer about the shade of his face. It was almost as flushed as his back.
Jeremy reached for her and pulled her into a kiss. There was definitely something wrong with him. He'd been with Tyler two Sundays ago, watching avidly as he worked off leftover adrenaline from the previous night's full moon on his cock. Jeremy had spent half the day looking forward to it. Tyler had transitioned the night before with Bonnie standing guard, but he'd called him up the next morning to tell him how it went and he'd asked if he could see him in the afternoon. He'd worked Tyler up and then made him wait while he got his.
He'd been hard and ready for Tyler two Sundays ago, telling the pent-up werewolf what he liked, where to lick and where to linger, and now he wanted nothing more then to watch Bonnie come and be taken apart by her.
He'd known that he still got turned on by Bonnie. That was such a badly kept secret that Tyler was starting to weave explicit images of her in his ear to help get him off.
But it was another thing to be sitting naked in front of her, kissing her, and feel how badly he wanted her. That he can go from actually being with Tyler to actually being with Bonnie and sincerely look forward to what they were going to do together, that he could actually be turned on by both and crave both…..there was something wrong with him. And it wasn't a situation where Tyler had ceased to exist now that he was with Bonnie. Tyler still existed. And so did Bonnie. He looked forward to his next time with Tyler. And he hoped there would be a next time with Bonnie. Maybe he'd feel weird about it when he wasn't so horny.
"I have condoms in the closet," Jeremy said.
"In the closet?" Bonnie asked incredulously.
He laughed. "Jenna used to snoop around my room. She found my weed, which led to an unnecessary conversation. I wasn't trying to repeat the experience, so I hid the condoms. I haven't really thought about taking them out." A blanket of sadness covered him as he looked at the closet.
He has gotten better, a lot better, but Bonnie now knew from experience with her grandmother's death that it never completely went away. Jenna was the third close relative Jeremy had lost in less than a year.
"I have a better idea," she said softly, and she got his attention and watched him come back to the present.
She bit the inside of her bottom lip, and Jeremy watched her flawlessly go from sexy to adorable and back again when she let her lip go and moved down to straddle his knees.
Bonnie wanted to do this for him because he was the kind of wonderful person who let her scar his back so that she could feel life again. Because he was the kind of wonderful person who was that invested in making her happy. He worried that much about her; he wanted to be her bodyguard; he delivered himself to her and her power and trusted that she knew what she was doing. She was humbled by the level of his trust, and she tried very hard not to explore the idea that if he could be like this with her, if he cared this much and was this invested, then why the hell had he cheated on her? Unresolved feelings or not, why did he start to build something with her only to cast it away and then act like the other girl never existed? Because the way he was with her right now, the way they've been for the past forty minutes, it was like he'd never said he loved another girl. He couldn't be doing this because he was a very nice person. No one was that nice. She loved all of her friends, would do a lot for them, but she would never willingly lay prone while they put her through pain, no matter how much better it would make them feel.
Jeremy couldn't possibly be this nice. Tyler had tasted like the next person who could break her heart, but Jeremy already had, yet here she was, and here he was making her feel things again.
But she was thinking too much.
Be in the present. Just like he'd done: be in the present.
She kissed his cock and took him into her mouth.
She was at a point in her life where she was proud of her dick sucking ability. She'd certainly driven Tyler wild a couple of times since homecoming, including the following Monday when he'd come knocking at her door after he didn't see her at school, wondering if she was pregnant, and most recently the night of December's full moon.
But this was Jeremy, and she hasn't sucked his dick since Spring when she'd been entering the world of oral sex.
She wasn't worried about not being good, she was simply….She wanted to drive him wild. She wanted to make him whimper and get him to a place where he was unable to contain himself. She wanted to be amazing. She wanted to give him a damn good reason to truly forget he'd ever declared everlasting love for Anna.
But she was back to thinking too much. Nevertheless, she was worked up about sucking his dick now like she was getting ready to come first place in a marathon, like she was on HBO's version of the Bachelor and he would choose the woman who can render him the most incoherent after an orgasm.
Jeremy wasn't prepared for the enthusiasm with which she came at his dick. He saw the change and had no idea where it came from. She'd gone from cool, laid back and dominant seductress to driven, eager, and thirsty for what his dick could give. She sucked his dick with purpose, and he didn't stop her or ask a single question. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn't be able to get a full sentence out, because she was making him hiss and moan.
Bonnie made him feel so good and without her magic flowing through him his back stung, and that only added to his eroticism. Though he'd never experimented with pain during any sexual act, he'd thought about it more than once. He was curious. And now his curiosity had been satisfied in a way he couldn't have imagined.
He wanted to lie on his back, but every time he went to do it, his back protested.
Bonnie never once looked up at him. She was focused on her work, the sounds he puffed her guide: when to go faster, when to slow down, when to lick, when to focus on the head. She grinned around a mouth full of dick when he caught a strong grip of her hair thrusted into her mouth. Anna who?
He came on her next stroke, loud and reaching, his grip still strong, his big body jerking, all because of her crooked mouth. She reaped what she'd sowed and swallowed his come.
"Shit. Oh," Jeremy croaked. It felt like his body would never stop shaking, like he'd never come out of this orgasm even though he'd stopped ejaculating. And every jerk either stretched his back or coiled the skin together, which brought another level of heat.
Bonnie kissed both of his inner thighs and bit the left one. When she rose, she saw that he was still hard enough. She was impressed and only a little baffled. Mostly, she was flattered, because it was an indicator of how much he wanted her.
"Oh my God." Jeremy lay on his side and curled into the fetal position.
Bonnie smiled. She channeled him and asked, "Are you okay?"
He nodded, eyes closed.
"Come here," he said, before he even got up.
"We can take a break," Bonnie offered.
Through the haze, Jeremy could've sworn he heard smugness. He wanted more than anything to roll onto his back, but he took her offer and caught his breath. When he was ready, he sat up.
"Come here."
Bonnie straddled his thighs and kissed him. Afterward, she dismounted him and followed his direction to the exact hiding spot of the box of condoms. "How are you still hard?" she asked conversationally as she stepped on the desk chair she'd dragged over to rummage on top of the closet.
"I don't know," Jeremy drawled distractedly. It wasn't the most sophisticated answer. It wasn't the answer he would've said at all if he wasn't so focused on the curves of her toned ass as she stretched up. "You did burn my back. Kind of hard to calm all the way down from that."
Bonnie grabbed a condom and stepped down. She was smiling brightly as she walked back to the bed.
Jeremy wanted to ask her if she was okay, if she'd completely put the day's ordeal behind her, but he saved it for later, because right now Bonnie climbed the bed and straddled him again.
She hesitated once she was on. How were they going to do this? Jeremy can't lie down. Can he lie on top of her? That would require him to move back and forth, and his back….
"Hey." He laid a gentle hand on her hip.
"I'm just trying to figure out….logistics. You can't be the one controlling the movements because of your back."
"I have no problem with that."
"You can't lie down."
"Bon." He gave her a little time to figure out what he'd already figured out. She raised her eyebrows, inquiring about what he knew. He raised his higher. He laughed when she dropped her shoulders in exasperation. He licked his lips, distracting Bonnie in the process, and said, "We're in the perfect position."
Bonnie straightened her spine. "Oh. Right." She smiled a smile so sweet and didn't realize it, so when she opened her eyes after the one second it took her to blink, she was taken aback by the look on Jeremy's face. The look…..the look was dangerous. The look was too close, too close to their past, too close to her heart. She needed him to be in the present again.
Who said he wasn't?
Was that her voice? She absolutely did not need to read anything in Jeremy's face or his movements or his words or his actions. And then a thought struck her as to another reason why sleeping with the ex boyfriend who'd cheated on her was a bad idea. She could very well have a psychic reading at any time and find out exactly how Jeremy felt about her or exactly why he'd cheated or exactly what he wanted for their future.
So was that what that question was? A psychic reading? One that she was too hurt, in denial, or emotional to recognize as a psychic reading?
Why was she asking questions?! What she didn't need where Jeremy was concerned was clarity. Because she wouldn't know what to do with it, whichever side the coin fell. No, she needed things to stay foggy. Especially while they were naked!
"Bonnie," Jeremy said sternly and shook her left thigh. "Hey."
"Huh?"
"You looked like you fell into a trance. Were you having a vision?"
"No! No," she repeated more softly when Jeremy was turned off by her outburst. "No trances, no visions, no psychic readings. Don't say those words, okay?" She didn't need a trigger. She hoped her smile looked as encouraging as she wanted it to.
She opened the condom packet in hopes that it would put them back on track. She spat out the foil from her mouth and threw the rest behind her on the bed. She turned the condom in her hand to figure out which end needed to go on him. Once she had that figured out, she ducked her head and kissed her way up his shaft.
Jeremy watched her and wondered what the hell had just happened. First she'd taken to blowing him like she took to learning a new spell and now this strange behavior where he wasn't allowed to say certain words. Had she noticed when he'd been freshly taken aback by how beautiful she was, when his heart had pinged and he'd suddenly missed being with her something fierce?
"Ready?" Bonnie asked after she slipped the condom on.
"Yeah," he answered.
Bonnie was superbly out of breath. It was better than any workout routine. She'd ridden Jeremy until she came, and then he'd followed suit. Her strokes had been sharp, her teeth clenched, her face rigid. She'd gripped his hair and he'd grabbed her ass and helped her on the forward strokes.
She'd never really stopped thinking about the look on his face, the one that had made her wonder where his head was at. She'd gotten carried away by the worthwhile search for an orgasm, but she'd stared at his handsome face for most of it. And now that she was flopped beside him on the bed, That Look demanded attention and analyzation.
"You okay?" Jeremy asked. He was as out of breath as she was.
"I'm fine," she said with a sloppy smile, and he laughed. "Are you?"
"I'm great."
"Your back."
"I'm great. It feels good; I told you. It's even a little better. I don't even need you to channel me right now." She'd been so focused on reaching her orgasm that she'd forgotten to channel his back. So he'd reached his own with a stinging back and mouth greedy on her left breast.
He gathered her in his arms, and Bonnie let him do it. They stayed silent for a long moment, Bonnie lost in thoughts that he couldn't begin to decode, and him gazing at her the whole time.
"Thank you, Jeremy," Bonnie said softly. He averted his eyes just in time for her to look up. She had no idea she'd been holding his attention captive. "For all of this, for….letting me—-"
"Any time you want, Bonnie."
The declaration made her stomach knot. It was a good knot.
"I just wish I could've been there," he said softly.
"I'm glad you weren't. Even though I—-" She cut herself off, but then she decided to allow him access to this particular feeling. "Even though I really wish you'd been there, too."
She snuggled closer to him and Jeremy could've sworn a section of his heart unfurled. In this moment right here, the way she clung to him and looked at him, Jeremy could entertain the idea that she'd be open to talking about their breakup if he broached the topic. He wanted her to know that he loved her.
Mystic Falls, Present Day
"Why didn't you tell me about the second attack?" John asked and patiently waited for Bonnie to answer on her side of the conversation.
"Because it only happened yesterday," she said lamely.
"We agreed that she needed protection," Jeremy said.
"What exactly happened?" John asked.
"I was ambushed again. I went back to the house to safeguard it, and they were waiting for me. They chased me into the light."
John straightened from the side table that held his cell phone. "Undergrounders avoid light like….well like the plague."
"They were sent on a suicide mission," Bonnie said. "I barely got away. And….I made eye contact with one of them and got a psychic hit: she was trying to protect Klaus from me."
"AKA Klaus sent her," Tyler said.
"And here I was thinking he was here for Elena," Caroline said as she surveyed the street in front of her.
"I was thinking it, too," Elena said.
"So things have changed," John declared. "I told Bonnie that you all shouldn't make any plans about handling this situation until tonight right before you left. That would keep Klaus from getting to one of you and corrupting it. But he's adding players to this, victims. So we need a plan to make sure they as well as you all make it through this party."
"He could still corrupt one of us," Caroline opined. "Namely me? The lone vampire in the group who can't go around drinking vervain for protection?"
"Caroline just get to my house as soon as possible so we can get ready together," Elena said.
"And it's a chance we're gonna have to take," John answered. "So, ideas?"
"Klaus is after Bonnie, so we need to stay close to her," Jeremy said.
"I can do it," Tyler answered. "Me and Caroline. We'll stay close to her, make sure we're sitting on either side of her."
"No, Elena will," Bonnie spoke up.
Everyone on the call waited for her to explain.
"Think about this: the last time Klaus saw Elena he had complete power over her. She was weak; she was nothing. She was forgettable. This is all about the element of surprise, right? So let's play this the way Klaus remembers, the way he expects. He expects me to be protecting Elena. You and Caroline sitting next to me is way too obvious. I'm the girl who almost killed him the last time we met; I don't need protection. Elena should be my main bodyguard."
"I like it," John said. "It's smart."
"Are you kidding?" Tyler objected.
"She's been practicing for this," John said of Elena.
"But Klaus is an Original vampire," Elena voiced. While Bonnie's idea was beyond flattering, she absolutely did not want to be responsible for her life. She didn't want everything to hinge on her. That was too much pressure.
"Okay, if there's at all any doubt about this, then we're not going with that plan," Jeremy said. "I need—-she needs people who'll be ready to defend her if Klaus tries something. Tyler's ready."
"And so am I," Caroline added.
"But it won't look right if Bonnie's sitting that far away from Elena, she's right about that," John pointed out.
"Elena you can do this," Bonnie said.
"Bon—-You're right, the last time Klaus saw me he drained almost all my blood. He scared me; he—-"
"He took Jenna from you," Bonnie cut her off. "He killed Mr. Saltzman; he made you watch two people die, wouldn't you love to get him back for all of that? Wouldn't you love to show him what you've survived? Wouldn't you love to throw all of that in his face and show him what he left in his wake?"
A pregnant silence fell over the conversation as they all waited for Elena to either take flight with Bonnie's speech beneath her wings or stay grounded and let Bonnie's words waft past her.
"Okay. I'll do it."
"Elena—"Jeremy began.
"I can do it, Jer. I promise. I won't let anything happen to her."
If Jeremy and Bonnie had been in the same room, they would've nervously looked at each other. It was one thing for Tyler to tease Jeremy about still caring for Bonnie. It was another thing entirely for Elena to put the idea out in front of all of their friends plus his uncle.
Jeremy looked over at Tyler only to find the werewolf staring at him. They looked away at the same time. Jeremy didn't think anything of it, other than Tyler had most likely guessed his secret.
"Jeremy will be my second guard," Bonnie said and brought both boys back to the topic at hand. "Caroline, you'll be on Tyler, because we can't forget about the werewolves Klaus has been killing."
"That's right," Jeremy agreed.
Tyler had honestly forgotten all possibilities of Klaus being in Mystic Falls for him during this talk of Bonnie being the target.
Bonnie continued, "I'll sit closest to Klaus, and Elena will sit on my other side, and it'll give the impression that I'm protecting her, which I will be. Jeremy, you'll be my obvious bodyguard, because Klaus remembers us as a couple. You'll be the one making it obvious that you're watching after me, but you're Elena's backup. Caroline will sit next to you. Cocooned between you and Tyler, I don't think Klaus will pay much attention to her. She's Tyler's bodyguard. And Tyler, you'll look like you're on your own. You'll stare at Klaus defiantly, whatever it takes to let him know you know what he's been doing and you're just waiting for him to come for you next."
"I like it," John declared. "I like it a lot."
"And guys," Bonnie continued. "I know we're all going in this thinking Klaus is after me….but whatever happens…if he goes after any one of you….I want you guys to look after each other, too. Look after yourselves, not just me. Promise me," she said when she was met with silence on both lines.
"Promise," Caroline said for all of them.
Bonnie's heart jumped to her throat when three loud knocks hit her front door.
"What was that?" Jeremy asked as Elena, Tyler, and John moved closer to the cell phone.
"Stay where you are," Bonnie told her father when he made to go check out the noise.
Rudy hung back while Bonnie moved toward the door.
"What's going on, Bonnie?" John asked. He succeeded at keeping the trepidation he felt out of his voice. Klaus needed to make a show at the party tonight. He wouldn't hurt Bonnie right now.
"Hold on," Bonnie told him. She stood to the side of the door, still a couple of feet away, and asked, "Who is it?"
"Chad."
Bonnie frowned and looked back at her father. Rudy shook his head to let her know he wasn't expecting anyone named Chad.
"I don't know any Chad," Bonnie said.
"Yes, you do."
Monotone.
"We go to the same school; we're both graduating this year."
Carefully and on full alert, Bonnie opened the front door. She looked around to ascertain whether or not Chad had any company. "What are you doing here, Chad?"
"I'm here to pick you up. I'm your driver to the party, Bonnie."
"The party isn't for another couple of hours."
"I'll be waiting out here until it's time."
He turned without another word and stiffly walked to the white limousine he'd parked parallel to her house.
Bonnie closed and locked the door behind him.
"Guys? I've found Klaus' second victim."