The sound of Bonnie's delighted giggle is so feminine that he doesn't recognize it immediately. It makes him short-breathed for a moment.
It's something new to which he is not ready for, so powerful and sparkling that Damon can't help but press his back against the wall and turn his gaze over his shoulder to where she stands, dancing carefree in his brother's arms while something seemingly triesto rip the heart from his chest as he stands completely forgetful of Elena's body lying on the concrete, her head bent at a funny angle right next to her latest victim.
Damon has been here before, he thinks as his eyes finally move down to find his own girlfriend, wanting something that does not belong to him, wanting to force his way into a heart that's open for someone else, and he's not going to make the same mistake again.
Bonnie is happy. Bonnie laughs now. And when did she ever laugh with him? He made her life a living hell since the first day he appeared in front of her and this is his reward. The girl he wanted so much is his now, or at least the vain shell of her, and he can't put the blame on her. He guided her every step of the way though she didn't want any of this before it happened.
Damon lowers himself on one knee to push a strand of hair from her face. Did she see them? He wonders. Of course she saw them. And she was not ready for it. Now, he must help her out, if not for himself – who's lost the illusion of this love way before it started – then for Bonnie, so that the new, self-centered version of her best friend will not ruin it for her.
There's an envious, resentful part of himself that wants that, wants to wait around for Elena to tear their relationship apart with her territoriality and self-important jealousy, wants to have a chance he never dared to admit he wanted in the first place, but he did this to himself and he's not going to get in the way of Bonnie and Stefan only to torture himself some more.
He waits to hear Stefan's car driving away before scooping Elena's body up into his arms and taking her away. He puts her into their bed, tucks her in as any devoted boyfriend would, and then goes back to take care of the body they left in the alley. He breaks a beer bottle against the wall and uses the glass to stretch out the holes left by Elena's canines, opening a deep would to the front of his throat, hoping some sloppy pathologist will help him out in blaming this murder on a merciless mugger. To support the story he takes the watch from his wrist and the wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. He gets rid of the money by throwing them into a box for donations to the Veterans Support Foundation, throws the empty wallet into a garbage bin two blocks away from where the boy died and lets the watch fall though the grating of a sewer.
It's hardly the worse thing he ever did, but the reek of it follows him to the hotel room and he must scrape it off his skin with boiling water and all the shower gel the staff left them. To those like him, he realizes thinking of Elena's body in the bed he's not going to use tonight, love always smells like death.
#
She's grateful for the fresh air of the night that slips into the car through the half rolled down window, but it only gives her so much relief and she feels her limbs beg to stretch out in the awakening of a desire she barely managed to keep at bay the whole evening.
Her eyes turn to peek at her left, at the tight shoulders that perfectly stretch the material of his white, immaculate shirt. She can feel something melting in her stomach and dripping down, like a faucet that leaks no matter how she tries to turn it off. Her skin is warm and she touches the curve of her neck like she can press a pulse point and stop the blood for pumping so wildly, but all it does is make the lingering memory of Stefan's touch resurface and she has to swallow a purr as the radio airs a new song.
I fear the fever
Deep in my bones
It runs electric
It draws me home
Her eyes drop to the hand holding the manual brake. His knuckles are whiter then usual and she can't help but grin like she knows a secret.
"You shouldn't do that," he says, his tone composed and a bit dark.
"Do what?" she asks innocently. She sees him turn his face towards her as he keeps on driving. As long as his eyes are on her, she really doesn't care what happens and he knows that, can read it in the way her green eyes rest brightly on his features.
His hand grips the manual brake of his Porche tighter, and he takes a breath to calm himself down, but the air is intoxicated with the smell of her and addicting blend of incense, acacia flower, and her untainted arousal. Stefan pulls the car over the side of the street and his hands do not move as tries to calm himself down. She's a languid vision under the faint lights of the night, all lazily abandoned on her seat and to his eyes.
The look on his face is so intent, his breathing so controlled, that for a moment she think she wants to see his gentlemanly behavior slip away with his tailored clothes, for him to lose control and decency for her.
"Bonnie, I–"
But he can't complete his sentence, for she leans in and presses a kiss on his lips. It's just a little push and she's been pushing all night, so it works perfectly. Stefan groans. The kiss he gives her in response is bordering on aggressive. She can feel his teeth scraping her lips and delicately pulling at the tender flesh. Her legs press together in reaction, but his hands are still gripping the wheel, and the brake. Ever the protector, her handsome lover.
"You what?" she asks softly, trying to get a hold of herself. But Stefan only blinks and cups her face into his large hands to bring her lips against his own once again.
It knows the weakness
Deep in my soul
It keeps me hostage
I'm never alone
The kiss is deep and warm and she can't help but moan into his mouth. "I want you," she confesses, almost painfully.
Stefan's hand pushes back the hair from her face, falls down to her neck as he says, "I want you too," but her eyes drop, like she can't bear to look him in the face and he's confused. The night was going perfectly. Every minute of their relationship they've been on the same page, honest and raw and unashamed of their mutual desire, and she has no reason to avoid his eyes or her own needs now.
"Bonnie," he calls her name, using a finger to hook her chin up. Her eyelashes raise but her cheeks are red and there's still a look of embarrassment on her pretty face, and it manages to distract him from the effect she has on his own body. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong," she says, chewing on her lip.
In the darkness of the car he wants to be able to tell every shade of her truths so he grabs her by the waist and drags her close until she's sitting on his lap, her legs tucked to the side with his arms around her and her breast under his chin.
"You promised to be completely honest," he reminds her, in a patient, understanding tone, ignoring the hard pressing against the zipper of his black pants. Her fingernails trace the seam on his shirt, over his shoulders, feeling the taut muscles underneath as she nods, "I did," her heart pounding frenetically against her ribcage.
"So, you want me," he says, guiding her back to the words that made her retract into her own skin.
"Yes," she says, smiling above him.
"In which ways do you want me?" he asks, his curiosity awakened as one of his hands travel up to sink into her glossy curls. The texture is so soft and sleek. He wraps a lock around his finger.
"In all the ways it is possible for me to have you," she says, in a breathy whisper.
He can't help but smile at her words. The fact that they can so openly wallow in their cravings make his gums itch and his spirit roar.
"You know we can arrange that," he says, reaching up to kiss her mouth, again. Bonnie presses herself down against his chest to carve herself into him, her hands grabbing his shoulders almost desperately.
"I want you to teach me–" she starts when they break their kiss, closing her eyes tight so that the darkness will help her confess what she can never bring herself to say. "I want you to teach me how to…pleasure you, with my mouth." She says against his ear, lower lip brushing his lobe.
The very words burn her lips. She's ashamed and thrilled and scared all at once. And he's silent.
She counts the seconds in her mind and they pass by without a word.
"Why?" he asks, making her open her eyes in confusion and pull back and look at him.
"What?" Her old fears try to kick in but her hands tighten on Stefan's shoulders to hold them back.
"Doing that to you…" he starts quietly with a grin, his eyes lost like he's recalling the moment, "Burying my face between your legs, my tongue between your folds," he says, nonchalantly, like he's explaining the metric of a poem, "taking every drop of your arousal and making you come on my mouth – that is something I need for myself," he explains, sincerely, bluntly. "I'd like for it to be only about you, but it's about me, too. About the Ripper that wants to possess the life of you, take all you have so that anyone else that touches you after me will have nothing. Do you understand?"
Her reply is a simple nod.
"But you never wanted that before, with anyone. Maybe you were even disgusted at the idea," he says, reading her. "So, what's your reason now?" he asks her, one finger pressing down on her plump lower lip. "Why would you want my cock in your mouth?" His eyes fixed to hers.
When she seems at loss for words he smiles up at her. "I've just explained to you, with commas and periods, what it's like for me to eat you out. Your desire is not something to be ashamed of. You've just caused me a perpetual erection. You should actually be proud. So, you can tell me."
Bonnie grins, leaning him to kiss him before she says, "Sometimes I'm just…hungry for you. For all of you, and I don't know what to do." And it brings her back to her nightmare. Was it all some Freudian shit about her sexual desires? The image seems to linger in her head. She tries to shake it off, lighten up the moment, be reasonable about it.
"It's the dark moon talking," she says.
"Is it?" he asks, curious at the sudden turn of the conversation. "Tell me about it."
She doesn't know if it's just a way to help her relax or if he's truly interested in magic, but she's glad she can share this with him. "Tonight there's a dark moon upon us," she explains. "It's the lunar phase that happens when the moon lies between the earth and the sun. At this time the dark portion of the moon faces almost directly toward the earth so that the moon is not visible to the naked eye."
"Interesting, but why is the moon responsible for the fact that you want to go down on me?" He asks, looking every bit like a student trying to expand his knowledge. It makes her laugh.
"That's because it's a time to magically remove obstacles and anything that may be blocking us from what we want. On a much deeper level, it represents those things about ourselves that we keep hidden in shadow."
"And what it is that stops us from getting what we want?" he asks, hooking one finger in her strapless bodice, trapping his digit between the fabric and the plump flesh of her sweet, heaving breast.
The only obstacle he can see, now, are her clothes and they come off with splendid ease.
"Whatever it is, I want it gone," she says with her breathy, lust-ridden voice, watching his ministrations.
It wants to kill you
It wants to tear you apart
It wants to thrill you
This vengeful love that I've got
Wants to consume you
Then spit you out
"Is this a spell, Bonnie?" Stefan asks, his face lowering to capture the nipple that he's just freed from her bodice between his lips. He closes his eyes while he tastes her skin, like she has a new flavor every time his tongue gets to touch her.
"Maybe it is," she says. Her skin is tingling all over as his wet lips close around her nipple. Her hands are at the base of his neck as she watches his mouth work it to stiffness. Oh, she knows better than to try and play with magic during a dark moon. It has a will and a life of its own and the best of them could be squashed by their own hands; but, if she could, she would heal the fractures that crack their lives, make them free. Bonnie wishes she could.
He pulls down the other side of the bustier, his hand grabbing and squeezing her soft flesh. "What is it that you truly want, Bonnie?" Stefan looks up with eyes darkened by desire. The breath of him blows softly on the supple skin of her taut, wet nipples and she shudders. She can feel an animalistic need trashing under the quietude of his gentlemanly manners, and she's the only prey that can placate his need.
"I just…"
His eyes never leave her, though his hands go back at massaging her breasts and he lets out his tongue to play devilishly with one stiff bud.
"I just want you," she says, the dull ache between her legs almost louder than her voice, forcing her to rock against the hardness she feels against her thigh, and she runs a hand though his hair, softly gliding her fingers along his scalp. "No bounds. No inhibitions. Just you, Stefan."
"You will have just that," he promises, "I will give it to you, and you'll take it all, won't you?" he asks pressing his forehead against her collarbone, breathing in the sweet scent of her arousal.
"Yes, Yes," she almost chants, eagerness meeting his eyes.
"All of it," he continues, resolved like he's seen her take off the safety of a gun, "But I won't hide it anymore. Everyone will know you're mine." His deep hypnotic voice guides her, stimulating her sex to close on something that's not there, yet. "You are mine. You'll know that you are. I'll give you what you need, Bonnie, and when you're not able to take it anymore, I'll give you more. You understand that?" he adds, his handsome face fierce and ruthless. "This is how it is." And it sounds threatening in the most tantalizing way.
Bonnie whimpers above him, trying to concentrate on the throbbing feeling under her thigh, on the thickness that will fill her to the hilt. Her voice can barely carry the words when she asks in a moan, "You promise?"
Stefan's eyes are dark and she can't find the end in it, can't see what hides behind the blackness – the passion, the lust, the adoration that she knows she just saw a mere reflex of – it's like a dark hole that's about to swallow her whole. Oh, she's Alice, and she can't help herself but follow the bunny down that hole.
I fear the fever, fear the fever
Can you feel it now?
"I swear."
#
When he comes back, Elena is wearing pink lace underwear and an old cardigan he doesn't remember her ever wearing. Her hair is falling over one shoulder as she massages her neck with both hands, her mouth twisted in a frown. She looks a bit like an upset child.
He's had a few drinks, and she's looks so inviting with her legs tucked under her, so maybe he can do this. Maybe he can lose himself inside her and never find his heart again. What does he need it for anyway? He promised her forever, and his promise counts more. He might be a monster, but a monster of his word.
"How are you feeling?" he asks gently.
"Like my boyfriend snapped my neck," she replies, clearly irritated. It doesn't take much imagination to know who did this to her, and it's insulting. Her neck still feels sore and she had to take a shower to clean off the dirt from the concrete where she'd laid.
"I was trying to stop you from doing something stupid," he admonishes her patiently.
Patience has never been Damon's forte, but the weight of the guilt he feels keeps every other emotion trapped at the bottom of his damaged soul. Bonnie has danced upon it in her stiletto heels.
"What's so stupid about trying to protect my friend?" she asks, indignant. She can brush away Stefan's words so easily because she knows better, she knows the truth. He's fooling himself if he thinks he can break away from her. He's wounded and desperate and hardened, but he's still hers.
"She doesn't need your protection," Damon says, sitting on the edge of the toilette table with his arms crossed over his chest. He'd like for this conversation to be short so that he can get rid the thought of her and what it arises.
"She does. She just doesn't know. Otherwise, what reason would he have to hide what they're doing?" she asks, her voice almost shrill. "You know that I'm right. I'm the love of his life and he's just doing this to hurt me!" And it's working, and she can't stand it.
She can't help but see the way he held Bonnie under those faint lights and remember the way he used to hold her when he was her everything.
"He cares for her," he says, shaking his head, "If he's not stupid, he actually loves her," because he can't imagine otherwise. Wouldn't it be ironic if their relationship was lust-ridden and the one loving her was left watching them burn each other from the outside?
"He doesn't, and you know it, too. He's using her to alleviate his pain," she says, recalling his own words, trying to make him see the reality of the situation one way or the other. "And probably to spite you for taking me away from him," she stands from the bed, opening her palm on his chest and staring at him in the eyes.
She's close, and beautiful, and she smells familiar. She smells so nice his mind tries to drift away from her, until she speaks again.
"I know you think the same, and you love me so much you're trying to shield me because the truth of it can only upset me," she explains, in a lulling voice, "He's hurting himself, and dragging Bonnie down with him, and when she sees the truth, it will destroy her."
She sounds apprehensive, and looks angelic, and it all fits perfectly in the idea he has of Elena "He's doing this because of me, and I don't want to be the cause of her pain". Angelic and perfect. It all fits perfectly and not at all.
Her words seem to scratch at his brain.
"What did you say?" he asks, a familiar emotion rises inside like a wave though he can't understand why.
"We both need to look out for Bonnie," she says, and he realizes it's the first time she bothered to say her name "Because he's only using her to alleviate his pain."
"I'm just looking out for Bonnie because Elena would be upset knowing that my brother used her to alleviate his pain, and probably to spite her for dumping him for me."
"And he'll–" she begins.
"You should know I'm not one to pass on the opportunity to mess this up for you, not when you're out of your mind and dragging Bonnie down with you."
"Drag her down with him," Damon finishes. She still smells nice, and he can recognize the scent now. Can give a name to it.
"You think the same," Elena nods, like finally someone is starting to make sense again.
For Damon, everything makes sense now.
He looks at her almost in awe, takes a lock of her hair in his hand and slides it down to the tips. She grins at the gesture, thinking he's getting aroused. He's unable to believe he's fallen for the same woman twice.
If she wasn't so clumsy he could believe her to be Katherine.
"You knew it," he says, looking up at her with a sneer, letting his hand fall away.
"What?" she asks, confused.
"You knew about them already, didn't you?" he asks. "I wanted to shield you, but you knew already and you did this…" he says, taking a step away to put space between them. "You changed your look to remind him about what he loved about you."
He's irked and amused by it all. He played himself with her, and she shared in the fun.
"No, Damon, I did this for you," she tries to say, afraid of the growing distance. He loves her. He's supposed to love her, no matter what. "You love me like this."
"You mean, I love what you aren't?" he asks sardonically, "What you never were?" he asks again, "It's the first thing you got right, today."
"That's not true, Damon," she insists, shaking her head, "I just wanted us to remember how it was in the beginning, what brought us here, together."
"You've heard us speaking," he says, tensely, "You heard me and Stefan, and you didn't tell me."
"What there was to tell? You were so good, Damon. You wanted to protect me and I wanted to let you do that," she insists with a touched smile. "The way you always put me first has made me fall desperately in love with you, can you blame me?" she asks him, all flattery.
"Then why are you wearing Bonnie's cardigan?" he asks, looking down at what she's wearing on top of her pink bra, pulling at the fabric with his fingers, indifferent to the swell of her breast.
"We always borrowed each other's clothes…I like it…" she says with a shrug.
"You smell like her," he says, "You wear her clothes," he adds, "And you fake an innocence I'm wondering if you ever had in the first place."
"You know me," she says with a pained expression, like she can't believe he actually doubts her.
"Do I?" he asks. "Did I ever?" he presses her. "I saw what I wanted to see. You were so kind to me…" he says with a soft smile that does not reach his eyes, "I thought if I pushed hard enough you would love me. You didn't have the heart to be cold towards me. I could always scrap together enough of your forgiveness to make you forget what I did and make you feel for me. But whenever my reason would tell me to stop being a fool for you, your look would linger, like a sign that I didn't need to let you go, that I only needed to stick around a bit more and you would come to me in the end."
"Because deep down I knew we were meant to be, though I wasn't ready to admit it," she explains.
"Because you liked having me eat from your palm, though you couldn't let go of my brother," he corrects her, coldly. "Even now, you can't let go of him. Or me, for that matter. And you try to trick me between your legs," he says with a malicious grin, pulling at the fabric of Bonnie's cardigan.
"You smell nice, Elena," he says, "You smell just right," he adds, leaning into her to speak against her lips, "so, maybe we could give it a go, for old time's sake," he concedes cruelly. "It wouldn't be the first time I think of her while I fuck you." And Elena pushes him away, angrily.
"Or maybe not," Damon decides, turning his back and leaving, not bothering the slam the door behind him.
#
Note: The song I used in this chapter is "Fear the Fever" by Digital Daggers.