Jewel POV

"No," he said flatly. I frowned.

"No?"

"No," he confirmed. I shook my head.

"I never said I'd do it with you. Maybe Tyler will help me," I thought aloud, knowing it would get him possessive enough to convince him. He growled against my neck.

"I'll kill him," he threatened. I shook my head and leaned against him, pushing on him to look at me straight on.

"I'd rather you didn't. His mom was really nice," I said absentmindedly. "Why don't you want to make cupcakes? I think they're cute! And then we could decorate them with icing and sprinkles and stuff," I said. He wrinkled his nose.

"Because every vampire wants to get covered in sprinkles!" he muttered facetiously. I laughed.

"How about you don't bake them. Just help me do it!" I suggested. He shook his head. "Please?" I begged, batting my eyelashes. He rolled his eyes and leaned back.

"Fine. I'm hopeless," he declared. I giggled.

"Maybe. But I like it," I said, planting a delicate kiss on his nose before pulling away. "What does one need to bake cupcakes?" I asked. I didn't have much experience cooking, so I was glad that Damon was there to prod me along.

"It depends what cupcakes you want to make," he informed me. I blinked and gave it a thought.

"All of them," I decided. He laughed.

"Let's start with one. What's your favorite cake?"

"Uh… the red one?" I asked. It was red and spongy and sometimes people filled it with cream.

"Red velvet?" he asked amusedly.

I nodded enthusiastically. "That's it!"

"You don't bake much, do you?" he asked, leaning against the counter opposite me with a sly smile.

"Close to never," I said. He shook his head.

"Well, then let's get going," he decided. I nodded.

"Anything you say, chief," I teased. Grabbing my hand, he dragged me out to the car. When we got to the grocery store I followed him around like a puppy, not really understanding what all we were buying. I offered to pay for it, but he wouldn't let me. I suspected that he liked doing this after all.

When we got back home, Damon dumped the groceries on the counter. "There you go," he said. I pouted.

"What do you mean? I don't know what to do! You said you'd help me!" I said defiantly. He smirked evilly.

"Help, not direct. I'm sure you can figure this out. Here's the recipe," he said, handing me a book. He quickly folded the page corners of a page labeled 'RED VELVET CUPCAKES - CREAM FILLED'. I sighed.

"You're stubborn, you know that babe?" I asked him. He nodded with one of his trademark cocky smirks on his face. I began unpacking the food until I wasn't sure where I was in all this mess. I suspected I was neck deep. "Damon. You have to tell me what to do. I have no clue!" I said, holding up two different kinds of sugar. I didn't even know there were different kinds of sugar!

He chuckled. Moving over to me, he flipped to the page in the book that he'd marked. Grabbing some of the ingredients, he took a bowl and showed me how to measure them into it. While I was mixing, he sprayed something greasy into a cupcake pan and set it on the counter. When I was done I watched him pour them in, all exactly equal, two-thirds full. He was surprisingly cute when he was helping me with some silly whim. "Is that so hard?" he asked smirking as he set the pan in the preheated oven.

"Yes, but not with you helping me," I giggled as he wrapped his arms around me from behind to look at the book.

"Then maybe I should help you more often," he told me with a quick peck on the shoulder. I grinned wider.

We started on the icing

"We're doing cream cheese icing," he informed me.

"You put cream cheese on red velvet cakes? Ew," I muttered. He laughed.

"I thought it was your favorite cake!"

"It is, but cream cheese is still gross," I argued playfully. He shook his head at me, but he was smiling. "This was fun," I said as I looked at the baking cupcakes.

"It's not over yet," he said with a grin.

I touched the icing and licked my finger to taste it. "You know, that's not actually as gross as it sounds," I said smiling. He was looking at me peculiarly. "What?"

"Nothing," he said coyly. I glared good-humoredly at him.

"Tell me!" I demanded with a laugh but he didn't give in. "Fine," I said, dabbing his nose with more icing.

"You did not just do that!" He laughed at me, tackling me onto the hardwood floor. I gasped in surprise and mirth before trying to push him off. Unlike my other attempts however, he wasn't making it so easy. "Not a chance, icing girl," he growled, amusement filling his eyes to the brim and a smile planted firmly on his face. Before I quite knew what was happening, he was kissing me passionately and inadvertently spreading the icing all over my nose, too.

"Damon! I'm getting all sticky!" I cried, pulling away from him, both of us laughing hard. I reached for a rag on the counter, but couldn't reach it because I was lying on the floor with Damon on top of me. He handed it to me and I wiped my face off before giving it back. When we were both clean and still lying on the floor somehow, he grinned down at me. "You've still got something on your face," I lied.

"Really?" he asked slyly. It was obvious that he was on to me. I smiled.

"Uh huh. Right here," I said, pulling him down and kissing his lips. This time it was his turn to moan. I was pulling him on top of me, slowly. He wrapped an arm around my head and another lay around my back as we descended. Without warning the oven gave a loud beep. "Dammit!" I said, untangling myself from him to glare at the oven. He chuckled, but it was more husky that usual.

"We need to quit baking things," he decided. I nodded. He grabbed my hand as he climbed up, tugging me with him. Removing the cupcakes and letting them cool, we started talking. "What are we going to do with all these cupcakes?" he asked me.

"I dunno. Hadn't gotten that far. We could give them to your friends. Eating them sounds good," I said. He looked up.

"They're your friends more than they are mine," he told me. I smiled softly at him.

"They care about you, Damon, even if they'd never admit to it. Especially Stefan and Elena. They want you to be happy," I said.

I wrapped my arms around him. "No they don't," he whispered.

"Hush. You can be such an oblivious idiot sometimes, you know that? Of course they love you," I whispered back. He hung his head but didn't stop me from rubbing circles on his shoulder blades.

"Now, are we going to ice cupcakes or what?" he said, stepping back to his carefree attitude. I rolled my eyes.

"If you wanted a hug, next time just say so," I scoffed at him, but we were both smiling. "Where are sprinkles?" I asked. He frowned.

"I am not making cupcakes with sprinkles," he stated loudly.

"Earlier you weren't making cupcakes at all. Where are they?" I pointed out with a laugh. Grudgingly he pointed to a cabinet where I found bakery decorations.

"Elena did a bake sale thing down here. She was into sprinkles too," he said, twisting the word sprinkles around in his mouth. I laughed.

"Unlike you dignified vampires," I said setting them on the counter in preparation. The sprinkles were red. I figured as long as we were color coordinating, we should do it well.

"Exactly," he said. I laughed.

"What are we going to do with all these?" I said, the sheer mass of nearly thirty cupcakes for two people striking me as insane.

"We could give some to Tyler," he suggested. I smiled.

"That's very big of you Damon. I'm sure all our friends will gladly accept cupcakes. But I think there might still be too many," I said, having no illusions that he wasn't being totally sarcastic and probably imagining the teen's death right now.

Damon POV

She obviously hadn't caught my sarcasm when it came to giving that mutt cupcakes. Well, I could poison them, but I doubt Jewel would approve. "I guess we'll just have to figure something out," I said, putting the cupcakes on the rack.

"I hate that you can do that so fast," she announced with a glare at my liberated cupcakes. I grinned.

"Jealous?" I asked, to which she harrumphed and turned her back to me. I came up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist. Resting my head on her shoulder I watched her gracefully cut cones into the bottom of the cupcakes and level them off, like the recipe said to. I filled them all with the icing and she put the small circular discs of cake back in place at the bottom.

We iced the cakes and I made a point of taking my time. She tilted the sprinkles so they cascaded onto the icing. I had to admit, they didn't look worse with the sprinkles.

I grabbed one of the cupcakes and took a bite. "These are good," I told her. She took a much smaller, more delicate bite and smiled.

"They are. I think this is a success!" she laughed. I loved the way her eyes lit up when she laughed, like her face was full and before it was empty, but you didn't notice. I would give anything to keep it that way.

"I agree," I said, bending down to snatch a kiss. She set the cupcake down and pulled me into her for several minutes. "What was that?" I asked, dazed after a kiss for the first time ever.

"You taste like my favorite cupcakes!" she said delightedly. I laughed.

"You know what? I think they're my favorite now, too," I confessed. She giggled and kissed me again.

It was odd kissing a girl without expecting, or wanting, more to come of it, but I liked this peacefulness that she instilled in me. I loved the taste of her, even tainted by our favorite cupcakes, and the smell of her, cinnamon and orange and cloves. She was tugging gently at my hair and she was pressed up against me. I couldn't imagine it any other way.