"He… hello," I mutter when I finally find my phone. My nightstand seems like it's shrunk overnight. Weird.
"Buzz me up, El. I'm freezing down here." I can hear Caroline's teeth chattering.
"Where are you?" These sheets feel weird, too. Not bad, just different than usual. The light is coming in through the windows in a way that it usually doesn't. I have black out curtains for a reason. Unless…
"At your place. Is your buzzer broken? I've been ringing for like three eras of man."
"I'm… I'm not at my place," I look around and it hits me… holy fountain of hand-dyed batik, I am not at my place. That is not my wainscoting and these are not my dark blue sheets. This isn't even my soft gray T-shirt. What the H? "Oh jeez, crap crap crap, Caroline, I'm not at my place."
"You're not in jail or someth… oh my god, you're at Damon's!"
"How did you know that?" I hiss. Yeah, I'm at Damon's. Specifically, I'm in Damon's bed when I should be in my own. Now that my brain cells are waking up I distinctly remember a real hot and heavy, high school-style make out session in front of the fireplace before migrating to Damon's bedroom and kissing until we fell asleep. No sex, I promise.
"I didn't until now." She's so smug and proud of herself. I'm replacing her coffee creamer with salt the first chance I get. "Now the jig is up."
"I slept with him, oh crap, Care, I slept with him." I'm really trying to keep calm. I know it seems stupid, but this was a huge step and I didn't even plan on taking it. This all started as offering moral support for him at Hannah's parent-teacher thing yesterday and now I'm waking up in his bed, in his clothes, with terribly chapped lips. This is exactly how people lose themselves and I cannot afford to lose myself in anything other than Fashion Week and our new line right now. Damn him and his stupidly gorgeous personality.
"Ooookay… orgasms are usually better for your nerves than this so what went wrong?"
"No, not sex, I actually literally slept with him."
"Like snuggled?"
"Yes snuggled, Caroline! It's not like I made a bed on the couch with the dog!"
"Aww, he has a dog?!" Yes, Caroline, he's practically perfect in every conceivable way. Mr. Mary freaking Poppins. "Well are you staying for breakfast?"
"Should I? Does snuggling rate breakfast?" I have to ask because I really don't know. I'm not a snuggler. I'm not a sleep over kind of gal. I wish my phone hadn't woken me up, I'm freaking out.
"Did you like the snuggles?"
"Yes, I mean as far as snuggles go it was pretty fantastic." That is not a lie. Damon's hands feel amazing on me and he kisses like… I don't even have words. I'm not even disappointed we didn't get 'farther' because every we did do felt so incredibly good. His lips are softer than I thought they'd be.
"Why are we even having this conversation then? Of course you should stay for breakfast unless he kicks you out."
"He's going to kick me out? Why would he kick me out?"
"El, seriously, but the neuroses back in the drawer no one is kicking you out. He's not, like, in the room right now is he?"
"He's asleep… I think." I hope. His eyes are closed and he hasn't reacted so… I really hope.
"Yeah, I'm hanging up now. Bye, love you!" Caroline wisely disconnects, at least one of us can function in the morning. I carefully set my phone back on the nightstand and try not to make any noise. I realize how silly that is because my phone just rang about ninety times and I had a very vocal melt down but a girl can still hope. I carefully situate myself back between the sheets and close my eyes. Damon still hasn't moved, so maybe he's a heavy sleeper.
"Not sleeping," he says very clearly. Clearly enough to have been awake for quite some time. When he finally does open his eyes he looks smug as hell, he's getting salty coffee too.
"For how long?"
"Since your phone rang," he smirks and stretches his arms above his head. What happened to his shirt? I mean, not that I mind that much, or at all. "For the record, I'm not kicking you out."
I just grumble a few choice words in response and pull the blanket over my head. I wish this was an invisibility cloak and I could just sneak off to Fiji, change my name, and start a new life. I may never live down this abject humiliation. He has every right to laugh at me. I made an idiot out of myself, and if he was made about Caroline running her mouth at work about him I'm sure he's incensed about the conversation he just heard. To my surprise his arms wrap around me and pull me close to his warm chest.
"I just need a minute," I grumble from under the sheet, because I'm really twelve and incapable of confronting my feelings head on. That doesn't stop me from melting into his embrace though. I can feel his fingers inching under the hem of my, well… his T-shirt.
"Take all the time you need," he chuckles and kisses the top of my head.
"How are you so cool about this?" I huff and throw the sheets off. I prop myself up on my elbows and force myself to look at him directly, like an adult.
"Cool about what?"
"Me being a nutcase."
"You're not a nutcase, Elena," he smiles genuinely and tucks a loose hair behind my ear, damn it if that doesn't make me a little hot. This simple gesture thing is going to kill me. "You're gorgeous."
"Stop that," I blush like a damn school girl but that doesn't stop me from snuggling back into him.
"Stop what?"
"Being so sweet, you're supposed to be a cocky jerk. Remember?"
"I can honestly say I've never had a woman ask me to be a jerk before."
"Well I've never slept over with a guy before. I mean like this, like literally sleeping. I usually go home. Well not usually, it's not like a usual thing. More like an occasional thing, except for sleeping over. This is all new."
"Elena, do me a favor? Don't talk about your other boyfriends when you're wearing my clothes."
"Ok," I smile sheepishly and blush again, if he only knew that none of them ever deserved to be called a 'boyfriend.' They've just been guys who have filled my time. I guess you'd call them 'boyfriends' but none of them have every made my heart flutter or made me think about what a future built around us might look like. It's terrifying that Damon has already checked off both of those boxes and then some in the matter of the few weeks he's been in my weird life. He climbs over me and I hope he'll kiss the hell out of me, if only just to loosens the knots my head is tying around itself right now.
He delivers. Good lord, he delivers.
He kisses a hot trail down my neck that dissolves me into a haze of want and need all over again. He finds the spot right under my jaw that makes me skin erupt with chills. I'm barely holding it together when he nips at my shell of my ear and moves his hand down my thigh to hitch my knee around his waist. He swallows the moan he draws from my lips when he grinds his hips against mine. Unfair.
His skin is smoother than I thought it would be but the muscles, wow. He has little soft spots here and there, like right below his belly button, which I kind of love more than the toned hard muscles of his abs. It's something that's so real and imperfectly flawless. I can't even say that they're flaws because they just make him even more Damon, just like the scar on his left side. I can't resist running my fingers over it and he must be ticklish there because he shivers and chuckles lightly against my lips.
"What happened here?"
"Dirt bike accident, sixteen," he smiles and braces himself on his elbows to allow my fingers to continue their exploration. Our noses are still touching and it's so intimate that I should be uncomfortable but I'm quite the opposite, actually. I feel whole. I could get used to this.
"And this?" I smile and run my fingers over the bold black .MMXI inked onto his chest over his racing heart. I've never really been a tattoo fan but there's something about his little hidden ink that is a major turn on. Maybe it's the stark simplicity of the letters against his smooth skin and taut muscles or that it will be our own little secret next time we see each other. All my girls at work may flirt incessantly with him (while he does nothing to discourage it) but I'm the only one who will know about this. That silly coffee cart girl and the blonde courier who unbuttons the top button of her blouse before she hands him the signature clipboard can keep their girlish giggles and coy smiles because this is all mine, they'll never know him like this. Their fingers will never trace these lines like mine are.
"Hannah's birthday." The way he answers does something to me. It softens some jagged edge deep inside me that I didn't know existed. He doesn't even know that he's fixing me right now, I didn't even know I was broken until now. It's pretty incredible, connecting with someone like this.
"And this?" I can't see the scar on the back of his right shoulder but I can feel the jagged raised edges. He peppers kisses all over my face except for my lips. It's playful and cute and it's making me feel precious.
"Shark bite, Costa Rica."
"Seriously?" I shove at his shoulder because he can't be serious. I think back to how much I wanted to pepper spray him the day he was flirting with Rebekah over sharks at work. It feels like eons have passed since then. I could barely stand the sight of him when we first met but he's just continued to surprise me since then.
"Seriously," he replies and pulls my hand away from his shoulder, kissing all five fingers before wrapping my arm back around his neck.
"Let me guess, mother great white shark whose adorable, defenseless shark babies you were trying to save from a crack dealing hammerhead?"
"Close, juvenile male Caribbean reef shark stuck in a gill net."
"I thought you were lying about that to woo Rebekah."
"I don't lie, Elena. Who's Rebekah?"
"My assistant. Cute, perky, blonde, stares at you like you're Adonis reborn. Usually wears those ridiculously gorgeous cognac Prada boots that sold out in my size three seconds after they were released."
"Honestly, the only pair of shoes I've ever noticed at that office are those black ones with the red bottoms you've been torturing me with."
"My Louboutins?"
"I guess."
"Aw, I love those shoes." I do, they're comfortable for high heels and they make me stand up straight. Like Coco said: keep your heels and your standards high.
"You have no idea what I want to do to you when you flash those sexy little red soles."
"You really like them?" I'm surprised he noticed them, to be honest.
"Oh Elena, I more than like them," his eyes darken and I swear he growls at me. The look on his face has me rubbing my thighs together to release a little tension. He shouldn't be able to look at me like that, it's delicious and dangerous. This isn't sweet, playful Damon; that look is passion and dominance and earth-shattering sex. His eyes say that he'd utterly consume me if I gave in. I let myself think that he'd want me to be his. "Those shoes are making me a fetishist. When you wear those I want to lock you in my office and undress you with my teeth so I can fuck you until my name is the only thing you remember."
"Well, I have an excellent memory, Mr. Salvatore," I smirk and push him off of me. With grace that I didn't even know I possessed I straddle his hips and kiss him with everything I can muster. He wants more, I know he does by the way his fingers tunnel into my hair. Hell, I want more, but now isn't the right time. As corny as it sounds I want our first time to be special and not rushed in hushed silence, shoe-horned between Caroline's wake up call and breakfast. I want to have hours to enjoy him and worship him, he didn't wait this long to be used for some dirty talk and a quick orgasm. We're going to do this the right way.
"You're fucking incredible," Damon answers and looks over me appreciatively and strokes my thighs. I could see more mornings like this, easy. "Want to stay for breakfast?"
"Ok," I smile and kiss him one more time before sliding out of bed. It's nice to kiss him when I want to.
"Hannah doesn't like cereal?" I ask as Damon mixes up a batch of pancake batter he assembled from scratch. He makes a killer cup of coffee and I'm kind of a coffee snob.
"Nope, just pancakes," he shakes his head and pours the batter into a hot pan with expertise I've only seen on Top Chef. "And only pancakes with banana and strawberry faces and enough Nutella to dip it in."
"She's a finicky eater?"
"She had a really sensitive stomach when she was a baby and a lot of things made her colicky so she has some pretty strong food aversions."
"That must have been hard."
"That's an understatement. We tried just about brand and type of formula and nothing worked for longer than a few weeks. I wanted to throw a party the day she switched to baby food, but then she wouldn't eat that either."
"What did you do?"
"Cooking lessons and lots of late night phone calls to my mom. It turned out that she'd eat almost anything with bananas." I kind of hate it when he says things like that because I can picture Damon bouncing a baby Hannah on one shoulder with a phone tucked against the other shoulder, pacing his apartment in the middle of the night and it only makes me fall deeper into him. He shouldn't have had to do all of that alone.
"Katherine was like that with sweet potatoes."
"Sweet potatoes? The orange disgusting things?"
"Oh yeah, she loved them. My dad was worried she was going to turn orange because that's all she would eat."
"Sounds messy."
"It was," I smile because I remember getting mad at a very tiny Katie when she grabbed at the sleeves of my brand-new glittery unicorn sweatshirt with sweet potato-coated fingers. My mom promised that her little orange fingerprints would come out in the wash and they faded but never went away completely. "I guess not much has changed," I mutter because now we're just making different messes. I can't even stop the tears that spring to my eyes thinking about how we were and how we are. I wish I was still worrying about sweet potatoes sullying my unicorns.
"Hey," Damon says soothingly and pulls me into a hug. His hands wind underneath my hair and massage the base of my neck and it's the most calming thing I've ever experienced and I melt into his embrace. "It's all going to be fine, I promise."
"You don't know that," I sniffle. I hate myself for being a downer, we were having such an incredible morning.
"Actually I do. I'm the best, Elena. They're not going to win."
"You're cocky."
"You know that I've earned cocky."
"That thing you do with your hands is magic," I murmur and he pulls his hands away and I think I may have crossed the line until he tips my chin up to look at him.
"I've got moves you've never seen," he smirks and kisses me hotter than he should before I brush my teeth. Morning breath is the last thing I'm thinking of when his hands trail down my thigh and boost me up onto the counter. I part my knees just enough to accommodate his hips and when he makes his move I trap him by wrapping my legs around him. He groans in appreciation and smoothes his hands back up over my hips until they find their way under his t-shirt that I'm wearing.
"My clothes look good on you," he smiles bumping his nose against mine.
"Almost as good as they look off of you," I fire back when the kisses he's planting on my neck make me bold. He tugs the back of my knees towards him and the few extra inches brings us into intimate contact and he's just a ready to go as I am. He makes me brave and I venture a hand to palm the front of his sleeping pants with just enough pressure to answer his rough tugging at my knees.
"Fuck, Elena," he breathes between kisses. "You're going to get yourself in trouble."
"All kinds of trouble," I agree with a smile and inch my hand to his elastic waistband.
"Daddy!" Hannah's voice rings out from down the hall. I'm surprised she's up this early since it's only eight o'clock, but I'm sure the delicious pancake smells have something to do with it.
"What is it Little One?" Damon manages through a pained groan and rests his forehead against my shoulder.
"Indy number one'd on the floor and it's going everywhere!" Hannah exclaims and runs out into the hallway just long enough to wave her arms frantically.
"Sometimes I hate that fucking dog," Damon mutters and adjusts his sweatpants before swiping a roll of paper towels off of the granite countertop and Indy's leash from the hook by the door. I take advantage of a few private moments to grab my phone from my purse. I only have to type in the first few letters into the search bar before I'm directed to the Christian Louboutin site.
I've been going back and forth for the last few days about what to wear to our pre-show party for Fashion Week. It's fall in New York City so the practical side of me is saying: boots. However, in light of recent information I know exactly what I need. A shiny pair of New Very Prive peep-toe four-and-a-half inch stilettos. They're absolutely gorgeous works of art. Perfect, even. If sexiness and seduction could be distilled into a tangible product, this is it. A first glance they look black but if the light hits them just right the leather around the heel is deep, inky patent black that fades into deep carmine red closer to the toe. The best part:
Bright. Red. Sole.
xoxo