"Bend your chest open so I can reach your heart.
I need to get inside, or I'll start a war.
Wanna look at the pieces that make you who you are.
I wanna build you up and pick you apart.
Let me see the dark sides as well as the bright.
I'm gonna love you inside out."

Inside Out: The Chainsmokers feat. Charlee

I didn't think much about the woman Kol had brought back to our hotel room with us. I was so focused on reminding myself that I couldn't kill her that I didn't let any other thoughts come bubbling to the surface.

She had to survive. Kol would be much closer this way, better able to stop me from killing her.

The moment Kol had the door closed, I turned back to him and took a deep breath. I watched him slide out of his jacket and began to do the same. "Okay, so you swear to me that you're not gonna let me kill her?"

The love in his eyes was answer enough, but he answered me anyways. "I wouldn't do that, Darcy. I know what happens if you do."

"Even though . . . even though it would make me hurt less?"

He closed his eyes for a moment, taking a steady breath that helped him move past the things I was saying out-loud. "Emotional pain is harder than physical, Darcy. I won't let you kill her, though you should probably hurry because she's getting undressed."

"What?" I spun around immediately, and sure enough, the girl was already barefoot and stumbling around, trying to grab onto the zipper of her dress. That was all I needed to see, and I turned back to Kol, my eyes rounded fully. "Why is she getting naked?"

"I'm assuming because we didn't compel her to come back with us, only asked, she assumed that we need a third person for our Valentine's Day fun," he said, and his smirk widened, brightened the already burning depths of his liquid golden chocolate eyes. "I could be wrong, but I don't think I am."

I didn't hesitate to speed across the room, to try and stop the girl from getting naked. I didn't imagine that I was quite as jealous as Kol, but that didn't mean I wanted some random girl getting naked in front of him.

Three was just a crowd to me, nothing more.

The girl didn't even seem fazed by the fact that I just appeared in front of her, and with a drunken giggle, she grabbed onto my face and kissed me. It didn't last more than a second because I managed to understand what she just did and pulled away, but that didn't mean she didn't try again.

"I've never kissed a girl before," she said, but her eyes didn't stay on me. "And I can't remember a time where I slept with anyone that hot either."

"Yeah, and you're not going to tonight either." I grabbed onto her face, hard enough that she stopped trying to move and just stared at me, looked right into my eyes. "Don't scream. Don't be afraid, and don't move."

If I wasn't a vampire, the way I tucked her hair behind her neck might've been taken as a provocative action, but it wasn't about that. I had learned to tune out the sound of heartbeats, the blood, but that was exactly what I needed to hear, to focus on.

It was loud, pounding in my ears as if it was my own, and I could feel the blood rushing to my face. The fangs poked through painlessly now, once they had done it the first time, but I knew what I looked like.

I couldn't smell whatever perfume she wore, couldn't smell the hint of sweat from whatever she had been up to before this point. All I could smell was the blood beneath her skin, moving through her veins at a steady pace, simply because I told her not to be afraid.

I could've stood there all day, but it was getting harder to not taste her for myself. Eventually, there was so much saliva in my mouth that I had to swallow it back, and I didn't hesitate any longer.

I sank my teeth into the very place that Kol had taught me, the best place to get the most blood from. The warmth was unlike anything else, and somehow it tasted better than the blood bags ever could. It was like eating a fresh apple compared to a nearly rotten one. Sure, it would satiate the hunger, but it didn't compare to that juicy and crisp apple, straight from the tree.

There was more than blood in her system, however, and it was becoming apparent the more that I drank from her. I could taste it as its own taste, somehow. I could taste the fresh blood, but I could taste whatever alcohol she had in her system. It was a lot, a dangerous amount even.

I ripped myself away from her and turned back to Kol, my eyes wide. "She's got borderline alcohol poisoning."

The smile on his lips didn't make much sense to me in the moment, but he crossed the room, sank his teeth into the other side of her neck. I didn't know how long I had actually fed from her, but he didn't for very long, just a few seconds.

He ripped himself away with more ease than I expected, from the blood crazed maniac. Not killing me was one thing, but her? That was something else. She didn't matter to him at all, yet he didn't kill her.

"She's drunk," he agreed. "But barely. It's not a dangerous amount. Do you remember the first night we snuck away for a couple days? You were drinking tequila, and I could taste it. That's all I taste in her system as well."

"Oh." The rush of the warm blood, straight from the vein, had me feeling pretty giddy, in a way that I didn't really want to think about. It was a good feeling, but I was afraid to feel it. If I enjoyed it too much, what was to stop me from wanting more from the vein? From drinking and becoming blood crazed until someone died?

Still, it was getting to me, and I giggled, much like I had that night. I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him, for the moment forgetting about the drunk compelled woman next to us.

His hands rested on my hips, but there was the restraint of someone who hadn't forgotten our current setting. He let me kiss him, though, and got very much into it, even when I licked the blood just inside his mouth.

Actually, that bit turned him on more, almost made him lose control of himself.

"I feel . . . very dizzy."

Kol ripped himself away from me, his eyes widened. "Right. Shit. Sorry." He bit down on his wrist and put it against her mouth, and though she didn't understand, she didn't pull away either. "Darcy, you compelled her to be still, so you have to do this."

"Right." I grabbed her eyes with mine. "Forget everything that happened. Forget us entirely. Get your shoes and go home. Get some rest."

She bent down to grab her shoes from the ground, and she left, just like that. It was almost like watching a robot walk away, and that was sad. It was . . . I was becoming everything I hated Elena doing to Jeremy.

A warm breath tickled the side of my neck, and all the bad seemed to just float away. This was part of being a vampire, and I knew it wouldn't be easy. I knew I would have to do things that I didn't like, but someone was alive. If I had to compel her to forget so she had a chance to live, maybe there were reasons compulsion was good.

"Mmm. Now where were we?"

I spun back around to face him, and my fingers rushed through the buttons of his shirt. It was like our first time, or the first time in a long time. In truth, it hadn't even been twenty-four hours, yet we couldn't slow down. We couldn't get undressed fast enough, at least until I was in nothing but the lingerie and the stilettos, which Kol was more than happy to leave on.

Lips moved with unbridled fervor, across exposed skin, and our breaths were wild and heavy but somehow in sync.

It wasn't until I was pressed back into the bed that it caught up to me, what I had actually just done.

"Kol!"

His eyes were wide when he ripped himself away from me. "What?"

I loved seeing him stare at me this way, so lost after being suddenly ripped away from the things he had longed for his entire existence, even without realizing it. "I didn't kill her."

"You didn't." Though his eyes were burning, his smile was soft, and he leaned closer to me, to press himself against me. "I knew you wouldn't, love. You were so concerned that she had alcohol poisoning that you shut off the monster in you. I know you feel a bit out of your element right now, but you, Darcy Gilbert, are still you. You can absolutely do this whole saint eternity thing."

When I grabbed his lips with mine, something began taking over, something I had never really experienced before. There had been times where I had the urge to be on top, to sort of take control of things, but this was different.

I had him on his back, with his arms pinned by his side, and I couldn't even understand what made me do that. I didn't mind it, actually found it kind of exhilarating to see him beneath me like this, pinned down by me like this . . . and it was only made better because he loved it.

His eyes were wide, but his lips parted, quick breaths coming out that were in tune with the lust this action brought out. It was easy to see how much he liked it from the way his eyes burned, and even though I didn't know what brought it out in me, I was gonna take full advantage of it.

"Be still."

His body squirmed beneath me, but his hands grabbed onto my hips, pressing me into him with nothing but the thin fabric of my panties keeping us from full skin to skin contact. "Can't do that, love."

I put more pressure onto his lips, but I couldn't stop the large smile that was coming out, the one that didn't fit the mood at all. It was some of blood high. It had to be, but all I could feel was giddy, an increase of the desire for him. Everything heightened was somehow heightened even more, and it hard to be forceful when I was so elated.

I groaned. "Damn it, I suck at this."

"It's both adorable and extremely hot to watch you try, though." His bottom lip disappeared between his teeth, and his moved beneath me again. "I am all for you continuing to try, though I will warn you that I am not the submissive type. I prefer to be in control of things."

"Hmm." I used magic to hold his wrists against the bed, and I leaned back away from him. "How can I be both? I really enjoy being dominated, but I don't know. This seems fun."

"Because you're not like anyone else in the world, Darcy Gilbert. Because you're you."

It wasn't the first time he had said that to me, but with the rush of all that happened in such a short time, I was kissing him again, fiercely. He tried to move his wrists, pulling against the magic restraints, but it didn't work. That frustrated him, and since he couldn't actually get himself free, he used his teeth to grab onto my bottom lip, as if it would give him some sort of control of the situation.

I was able to rip myself away because he would never bite down so hard that he tore through my lip, and I sat up on him, far enough away that I could take in the view of my work, of his pinned wrists and the almost feral look in his eyes.

This was proving to be quite a wonderful Valentine's Day after all.

A/N: Ten more chapters and then the epilogue. :)

I have the prologue for part 3 written, as well as some of the outline. I'm still working on it, and I'm trying to finish it before I end up losing my momentum in this story. I hope that won't happen, but it does, unfortunately.

I will see this story through, however.

Read, review, and most importantly, enjoy. :)