I apologize for the delay in posting. This is very dialogue heavy but they had to have the talk. This is all Elena's POV. I hope that it doesn't disappoint and I hope to make the next chapter have more action. Thanks for all the support!
Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries
Just One Dance Chapter 7
After dinner, while I open the bottle of wine, Damon builds a fire in the living room. I carry the two glasses and the bottle to the living room to join him. For a few minutes we just sit in front of the fire sipping our wine and watching the flames in the fire grow bigger. I can only hope that it's a metaphor for whatever this fire is between Damon and I.
"Where do you want to start?" Damon asks.
"Why don't I begin and explain why kissing you that night was such a big deal to me and not something I ever do?"
"Sounds good."
"Damon, I turned 23 in June and I have had exactly two relationships in my life. I had one boyfriend in high school, Matt Donavon."
"The bartender at the Grill?"
"Yeah, he was the quarterback in high school and I was a cheerleader." At the look on Damon's face, I have to laugh. "I know, no stereotypes there and I wasn't head cheerleader. That was Caroline."
"I just have a hard time picturing you with him." Damon clarifies. "Don't get me wrong. He seems like a great guy but you are so full of fire."
"You're not far off on what happened. At the end of my junior year, my parents were killed in a car accident and everything changed."
"That's understandable."
"Probably but we were already having issues. He just didn't know it. He kept talking about us going to the same college, getting married and having two kids, one just like him and one just like me."
"You didn't want that?"
"I wanted it someday with someone but I knew that it wasn't going to be him. Only, I hadn't told him yet. When my parents were killed, something in me changed and I couldn't hurt him anymore so I let him go."
"How did he take it?"
"Not well. It was years before we really became friends again which was what upset me the most. We had been friends just as long as Caroline, Bonnie and I had been friends. I hated losing one of my oldest and best friends."
"Speaking as a guy and one that hopes to be with you someday, sooner rather than later," Damon does his eyebrow thing and it makes me blush. I don't know how I'm going to resist him. "I imagine it would be hard to love you and then lose you especially if he had his whole life planned around you. Although that is a lot of pressure especially when you lose your parents."
"Exactly. So I spent my senior year dealing with my parents' death, focusing on school and helping Jenna with Jeremy. He's not that much younger than me but losing our parents was a lot harder on him. Then Bonnie, Caroline and I went to Whitmore and I met Liam Davis, my only other boyfriend."
"What was he like?"
"Cocky and arrogant, a little like someone else I know."
"I have reason to be."
"We'll see. Anyway, Liam was a pre-med student and we met at a party and started dating. We dated through most of college but when it came time for graduation we both knew it was over. He was headed to med school and I was coming home."
"That was it?"
"Pretty much it. Neither one of us was willing to change what we wanted so we split up. Also, I wouldn't have let him give up med school for Mystic Falls. That was really when I realized we were over."
"Maybe you knew something better was waiting here."
"Maybe but you should really understand that making out with strangers in bars is not my thing. I had a small wild streak before my parents died but after that I got really serious. I would go out with Bonnie and Caroline but I always came home alone."
"So what was different the night we met?"
"I'm still not sure I can put it into words but there was a pull between us that I've never felt before. It was like I was tethered to you and fighting it would be useless."
"I felt it too. I still feel it." Damon says as he takes my hand and rubs circles on the back of my hand with his thumb. It's so soothing and it would be so easy to get lost in this feeling.
"Honestly, I probably would have gone home with you that night with very little hesitation. I was caught up in you and the Bacardi." I'm blushing because I can't believe I'm being this forward with my feelings. I'm usually very reserved. I decide it must be the wine. "Of course, little did I know you had a girlfriend waiting at home." Back to reality.
"Nice transition to me. I have never really had a serious relationship and I think that's because I had to take over the business right out of college after Dad died. I never had the time or wanted to put the time into a relationship."
"What about Andie?" I ask, confused. Wasn't she a serious relationship?
"Andie was different. When we started dating, there was never any expectation of it being long term or a match made in heaven. There were never any strings attached or anything like that. We went out when we wanted to and that suited both of our careers."
"But you were together for long term." I protest.
"We were but not for any reason that you think." Damon lets go of my hand and rises to start pacing. "The relationship, for lack of a better word, had just about ran its course. Like you with Matt, I needed to break things off and hadn't got around to it. Then, Andie was driving to her parents' house with her little brother when they were broadsided on the passenger side."
"Oh no." I gasp.
"It was horrible. Her brother wasn't killed instantly but he died later that night in surgery. Andie escaped with only minor physical injuries but she was extremely close to her brother, a lot like you and Jeremy."
"Damon, I feel so bad for her." I can't imagine losing Jeremy at all much less in a car accident with me driving even if it wasn't my fault. It would be devastating and I suddenly feel a rush of empathy for Andie.
"And she went through most of it without her parents. She felt guilty for surviving and couldn't open herself up to share their grief. I couldn't add to her pain when I was all she had." Damon stops pacing and turns to look at me. "So for a long time I put my feelings aside and helped her through her grief and while it's not something she'll ever be over she has learned to deal with it."
"Didn't she go to dinner with her parents on Friday?" They must be close now.
"For the past couple of months, they have been reaching out to her and trying to mend the bridge between them. Andie has been doing her part as well by trying to open up. She's not usually open with her feelings."
"It's been a year, Damon. You are allowed to live your life and if you didn't want to live it with Andie, she deserved to know. Just like Matt did." He sits back down on the couch and takes my hand again.
"You are completely right, Elena, and I may have to live with the cost of not doing the right thing at the right time." Damon is looking at me so intently that I squirm under his scrutiny. I know that he's referring to the fact that I might not give him a chance but I don't know that I have that choice. We almost seem inevitable.
"Damon, thank you for telling me about Andie. I don't feel like such a homewrecker now." I look down at our clasped hands.
"Elena, look at me." Damon lifts my chin. "You are not a homewrecker nor should you feel like one. Meeting you made me realize Andie and I were finished a long time ago. Remember how you said you had never felt that way before when you met me?" I nod. "It was the same way for me. If I had the choice, I would have taken you home that night and never let you go."
"If that's how you felt, why has it taken you so long to breakup with Andie?"
"Honestly? I was a coward and I didn't want to rock the boat."
"What changed?"
"Stefan. He pointed some things out to me on Friday evening and I really thought about what I was doing to you, Andie and myself and it wasn't fair to anyone."
"Stefan talked to me on Friday night too."
"Really? And what did my little brother say?"
"He assured me that I wasn't the other woman and that I should wait for you."
"And then Caroline sent you on a date the next night?" Damon growls. I think I might like the possessive side of Damon.
"Yeah, I don't think they were on the same page on this at all. He was protecting you and she was protecting me."
"Now that we have everything out in the open, what do you think about giving us a chance?"
"I think I can do that." He fist pumps and I laugh. "However, I have two requests."
"Okay. Shoot."
"First, that we don't repeat the mistakes of our pasts. If we ever start having doubts or reservations, we talk to each other. No putting it off or acting like everything's fine."
"I can do that. And second?"
"Can we keep this quiet at work? I don't want everyone thinking the new girl is screwing the boss. Let's see how it goes."
I have a request of my own."
"What's that?"
"This." Then Damon kisses me. He starts out slow and tender, really taking the time to trace the lines of my lips with his tongue and then when I open my mouth, he explores the inside just as thoroughly. I finally feel the freedom in how right this really is and now we can be open and honest and that translates into our kisses.
I lay back on the couch and pull Damon down with me. My fingers are running through his hair while he is trailing kisses across my jawline to my right earlobe. I literally shiver at the contact and he is evoking things in me that I didn't dream were possible.
Damon moves down my neck to my cleavage where I thank God that I am wearing a v neck sweater because he pulls my sweater and bra down to free my breasts.
"Elena, you are so beautiful and perfect." Damon pinches one nipple between his thumb and forefinger while sucking on my other nipple. I am already wetter than I have ever been in my life and we are just getting started. What is this man doing to me?
"Damon," I gasp trying to find my breath. "I need to stop." He stops, looks up at me and from that look alone I almost wonder if I'm doing the right thing or not.
"What's wrong?"
"I need to slow down. I can't sleep with you tonight as much as I want to. I'm still sorting through everything and I need time to process. Do you understand?"
Damon moves off of me so I can sit up but he puts his arms around me and pulls me into his side and kisses my on top of my head.
"Of course I understand. I'm incredibly disappointed but I get it and I'm not going anywhere. We'll wait until you're ready. Obviously, I hope it's sooner rather than later."
"I'm sure it will be." I am so happy that he is willing to wait. I need to be sure before I jump into anything and with everything that's happened between us it's not as simple as meeting in a bar and going home with him.
"Is it okay if I hold you for a while?"
"There's no place else I'd rather be." I snuggle in tighter.