A/N: This chapter is different as it's told from Damon's POV. It's his intro. Enjoy.

Damon

Two a.m. was the hour I ripped inside my bedroom. Tearing off my leather jacket I flung it behind me with a very audible grunt, and with more force than necessary. My shirt soon followed. I fumbled with my belt, button, fly but eventually got my pants down to my ankles which I kicked them and my boots off.

Tonight like many nights in the past had ended in utter disaster. Kind of. Well, maybe. Fuck! I thrust a hand through my hair begging my brain to slow down and let me think one thought at a time. For someone who used to move at the speed of sound on my Bauers, everything was moving far too quickly to process. Yet if I stopped and committed too much time to thinking about what happened, my already swollen knuckles would cry even harder for more blood.

I shook my head furiously, muttered, and entered the bathroom.

I avoided looking in the mirror. Couldn't. The action required too much weight, making it a burden I refused to fuckin' deal with. Besides, mirrors reflected a perception of reality, but could it really be reliable? I wasn't in the best of moods to find that out.

Wrenching the faucet on full blast, I proceeded to scrub my hands, ignoring the sting of hot water hitting the open cuts on my skin.

Steam rose and condensation built on the mirror, skewering the image.

That's when I decided to look.

I didn't understand why I felt…panic or as close to panic as I had ever felt before. I knew what desperation tasted like. Acrid. Bitter. I knew the flavor of disappointment. Had intimate knowledge of lust. Knew the intricacies of deking out an opponent. But this, this whatever this was, I hadn't been acquainted with since facing my father after dropping out of college my final semester. What a fun time that was. Telling the old man I was being scouted to go pro and decided why the hell not. I wasn't good at much else anyways.

When I finally stopped scrubbing my hands, my cuticles were bleeding. Great. That kind of pain matched the kind that twisted my gut at the thought of what could have happened tonight if I hadn't made it in time.

It was over. She was safe. Nothing could get to her unless…

My Adam's apple bobbed but I told myself not to even go there. Don't open that door, and don't you fucking dare feel bad for what you did. You did it for her. There is no limit; there is no line you wouldn't cross to make sure she's safe.

Those were my thoughts and as I repeated them, that panicky feeling began to recede, and the vice around my lungs let the hell up. I told Stefan eons ago, it seemed, that I had no problems being the bad guy. I would be the one to protect our family and so far I was delivering on that front. However, my job would be so much easier if Sarah, my niece learned how to fuckin' listen.

It was over now.

Tonight could have been avoided if she hadn't let her sick fuck of an ex sweet talk his way back into her good graces. Men like him didn't change overnight or at all. Hell, once upon a time I bordered on being a degenerate just like him. I changed my ways, I liked to think. Therefore, that made me something of an expert, but to hear Sarah tell it I was out of touch. No. I was observant. I made deductions and it wasn't my fault those in my life disliked the conclusions I reached and how I dealt with them.

Why was it so fucking hard for her to move on? Why was she so intent on destroying her life?

The same could be said about you once upon a time, My smug mind questioned.

Not the point, I countered and turned off the light in the bathroom.

As I reentered my bedroom I stepped over my pile of clothes, pulled back the duvet, and climbed into bed.

The second my head hit the pillow for the first time in decades I wanted sleep to come immediately. A dreamless unconsciousness to whisk me into an endless black pit of nothing. Not to be had. The minute I laid on the bed my ears replayed the sound of Sarah's horrific scream. Blood curdling. Broken. The type that made my soul shriek.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.

She was never going to forgive me. Part of that inherent knowledge made me flip over in bed, knots forming in my empty stomach. One part of me didn't give a shit. We weren't friends. She was my niece. She was family. However, I cared about her and wanted her in my life since there weren't too many people occupying it who didn't have ulterior motives. Sarah would get over this, and realize what I did was the only course of action to take. It had been the right thing to do.

Then why the guilt?

A knock sounded on my door. Dammit, I thought he left.

"Go away."

"Damon," Stefan ignored my grunted request and eased into my room.

"What about go and away do you not understand?"

"What happened tonight…"

"Stefan," the way I pronounced my brother's name like the threat that it was echoed through the room.

My little brother knew he was pushing, taking a risk, but he had thoughts he needed to share, get off his chest, purge. What happened tonight had been a total deviation of the pl—er agreement we had come to. Stefan could say he was surprised but he wasn't. He could even shamefully admit to being relieved, but he wouldn't. To say those things aloud, even while saying it in a dulcet tone with only me as his reluctant audience, still would have been too loud and someone could overhear.

Taking the hint I wasn't in the mood to rehash things, he left.

I released the breath I had been holding. I didn't want to hear Stefan preach, didn't want to feel the prick of his condemnation. I didn't even want to look at him because I knew exactly what I would find. I had gotten my point across too well and he didn't approve of it.

Closing my eyes, I willed myself to fall asleep.

I hadn't been in a fight in years and because of that my adrenaline was up. Of course my actions hadn't flown as under the radar as I would have liked come morning. Then again they would've if I didn't have a narc for a brother. Where's the fuckin' loyalty?

The first angry text message I received was from my lawyer. You put yourself at risk. Get your pretty ass to my office. NOW!

Yeaah, how about no.

Any other day I'd be happy to let Rose Marie chew my balls, but I had other things on my schedule that were priority over sitting in her eye sore of an office while she dragged my conduct for filth. Besides, no one involved was in any kind of position to press charges, but if it happened there was always a viable loophole. That's what I paid Rose to do. Get me out of shit I didn't want to be in.

I couldn't get out of the meeting I had with a team of gaming programmers. Immediately following that I was set to give a speech at an athletic training conference. In about twenty minutes, though, my assistant would be here to assail me with a list of demands on my time for the rest of the week. Dinners, appearances, meetings. The bullshit never stopped, and now that I was out of the league I was actually busier than when I was pro. Go figure.

Vivaldi played in the background as I expertly tied my tie while examining my appearance in the mirror. The same one I had a difficult looking into hours ago. One glance you'd never know what I had been up to last night. One glance you'd think you could tell me my life story and think you'd be right. But this mask hid things few would understand. This mask lied about my level of loneliness.

Hiro, my live-in bodyguard, knocked on the door to let me know the car was ready.

"I'll be out in five," I bellowed. Showered and dressed in Brioni I left the confines of my bedroom, headed downstairs to the kitchen were a glass of protein gunk Hiro made fresh every morning would be waiting to test my gag reflex.

Like always, I eyed the tall glass of whatever the hell was blended, took a breath, and swallowed without thinking too much. I could talk a lot of shit about this drink, but had to admit that whatever it was left me feeling energized up until seven, which was fine. I needed the boost, the natural high to get me through the day being that I was abstaining or rather, taking a sabbatical from what used to sustain me.

Pulling my lips back against my teeth, I dumped the empty glass in the sink, and chased the bitter aftertaste with a glass of water Hiro had also left out for me.

He popped into the kitchen. It always threw me. For a man his size how quick and quiet he could move. "Ready, sir?"

"Yeah. Let's go."

My cell rang on the counter right when I was about to pick it up. I stared at the name on the screen and froze. In seconds my heart was somewhere in my throat and my dry mouth was sandpaper. Frowning, it pissed me off the power, clout, weight that name still held over me but I wasn't going to succumb. I wasn't going to do anything about the acid in my stomach that I refused to call butterflies. I wasn't going to pay a single speck of attention to anything but moving my ass behind Hiro as he led the way to the underground garage where my car was idling. The whole time my phone continuously vibrated in my fist, and when it eventually stopped I was sliding across leather seats.

Alice Langhorne, my personal assistant since I retired, whipped her head in my direction acknowledging me with a nod while her lips moved a mile a minute on her Samsung. With her busy that gave me time to think, which I shouldn't. At least not what I was about to start thinking about.

My driver, a guy who simply went by the name Maddox pulled off and we were on the move.

Alice dumped a stack of photos with my smiling mug on them in my lap and handed me a Sharpie.

She mouthed, "For the benefit coming up," and picked up her conversation on the phone not missing a beat.

Mindlessly I began signing each one. Willfully I thought of her.

Meeting her changed everything. EVERYTHING.

It's interesting you think you know who you are once you find your calling. Wrong. She proved I didn't know shit about myself.

I could still see it. The way our bodies collided. The slosh of bourbon that flew out of my glass that doused her feet.

Murder had burned from her eyes as she attempted to shake the offensive liquid off her deliciously cute toes. I fumbled an apology, immediately whipped out a handkerchief, sank down to my haunches, and dried her feet right there in the ballroom. In that moment a strange sense of calm washed over me that I had never felt before. It was almost therapeutic wiping her feet as gently and thoroughly as I could. Hypnotic to the point I heard nothing else.

When I looked back up at her the heat that danced in her eyes that promised castration had dimmed, was replaced by what I could now categorize as promise. Back then I didn't have a clue what she may have been trying to convey. With her feet as dry as I could get them, flushed with embarrassment, I got to my feet, and attempted to apologize once more.

She propped a hand on her hip and said, "I've always wanted to know what that felt like."

A divot formed between my eyebrows as I cocked my head to the side. I was lost. "Wanted to know what, what felt like? Having your feet accidentally soaked in twenty-year-old bourbon?" I snorted.

She smiled then, bit into her full bottom lip. A full bottom lip that matched her dangerous curves. I gulped. Everything about her screamed she was out my league. She appeared to be type of woman who wouldn't be impressed if I told her I played hockey for a living and not as a hobby. I whipped out that card to seal deals and seven out of ten times it worked. NHL players were not as easily recognized as football and basketball players and that was fine with me. My face alone got me all the ass I could ever need. Being a professional sport player added another layer of prestige, but it wasn't always needed.

For that woman I knew without having to ask I'd need at least a Bachelor's to get her phone number.

Upon first glance, she looked ordinary. Thinking back to that first night I wasn't immediately struck stupid the minute my eyes landed on her, but I couldn't deny she was attractive, even if her attractiveness was cosmetically enhanced. Yet her beauty was in her sun-kissed almond skin, her confidence, her smile.

She cleared what little distance had been between us and practically whispered, "Having someone bow at my feet."

I should have been offended by that, but the total opposite happened. I grew rock hard in seconds, must have been a new record for me because my heart dropped out of my chest and landed in my cock. That's how hard it had pounded that night. Needless to say I aimlessly followed her around with my eyes for the remainder of the evening. I hadn't even gotten her name until later. Three weeks later.

Pursuing her wasn't easy. She flung around dumbass excuses in why she didn't want to date me: you're too young, I'm too busy with work to even say 'hi' to a guy, you just want to fulfill a fantasy.

I did but not the one she thought and one I hadn't even come to terms with yet. As I matured, I realized something was missing or that I wanted something I was too ashamed to ask for.

She saw me for what I was that first night. She tested me. Pushed me. All but made me her pet.

And I loved every fucking second of it.

But she left. Never told me why. Never contacted me again. A year of my life dedicated to her every whim and she walked out of it like I didn't mean shit to her. But I supposed she left me with something.

That need was strumming once more. And all it took was a single phone call. Christ.

I sat straighter in my seat. I was starving. I'm not speaking of the kind of hunger you suffer when you've gone more than three hours without eating, but another kind of hunger where the flavor I needed on my tongue was that of leather.

Whatever your proclivities may have been there was a genre for it, and I hadn't touched mine in close to a year.

"Have you heard a single thing I said, Damon?"

Alice's shrill voice cut through my thoughts. I cast a sidelong glance and resumed staring aimlessly out the window. "I heard enough."

As the car bumped along I called Sarah to see how she was doing, to hear her voice, to know I hadn't been sliced out of her good graces. Typical, it rolled to voicemail.

"I know you're still pissed but call me, all right. We're still family even if you hate my guts right now. Call me back, Sarah," I hung up with a partially defeated sigh.

I could feel Alice's raised brow and curious look.

"Everything all right?" my assistant tentatively inquired.

"They will be eventually."

"Sheesh…your hand…what did you…nope who did you beat the pulp out of last night?"

"No one that matters."

"Damon," Alice reproached.

I glared in response. Unfortunately it failed to scare her off like it would have done to anyone else with a shred of self-preservation. I never pretended to be a nice guy or inherently evil, but press my buttons and I was liable to hurt you in the fastest way possible. Character flaw.

"Do you know what you are?" she launched into a lecture I've heard more times than I could count.

"Jesus be a fence."

Alice ignored me and ticked things off with her fingers. "A role model for players still in the league, a figurehead to a generation of hopeful future hockey players, and last I checked a humanitarian. Unless there was another blue-eyed dark-haired man who spent two weeks helping to rebuild houses in the gulf after the latest hurricane ravaged the area. You can't go around getting into random fights with idiots."

"Look," I raised my voice, "it wasn't a random fight and it was one that was long overdue and needed. Rose is abreast of the situation trying to keep it contained which I have my little brother to thank. I know I can't go around hitting people off the ice, but when it involves my family, I don't turn a blind eye to shit that's not right."

"And fighting makes things right?"

"Fighting is sometimes the only language someone knows. I was merely speaking that asshole's language. Now drop it."

My phone buzzed again cutting off any rebuttal Alice might have come up with next. It was her calling again. I couldn't go there. Not now. Not ever again.

I thrust my thumb on the ignore button and handed my phone to Alice.

"Don't give that back to me unless Sarah calls. Otherwise, keep it until the day is over."

She denied me seven years ago when we met. I was going to take pleasure in returning the favor. Even if it killed me. Something better was out there for me. I just had to be patient and not cave.

Never cave.

I was probably gonna cave.

The day was over and my blood wouldn't stop pumping. My birthday was in six days, and this year I was actually dreading it. I was turning thirty-one.

Birthday wishes were already rolling in. Calls from friends, associates, business people I had only met once. Everyone wanted to know where I'd be celebrating and I dodged those questions because I wasn't feeling it this year. The partying, getting drunk off my ass waking up with a blitzed memory, no thanks. I said goodbye to my twenties and was waiting for my mid-life crises to come and shake up my usual routine.

Shucking my suit for my running gear, I grabbed an energy drink out of the fridge, and took the elevator to the lobby. Those who were running enthusiasts would rattle off the benefits of pounding the pavement, but I wasn't a running enthusiast. I hated it but it did clear my mind if nothing else. I had made it through the day only thinking of her a hundred thousand times to my usual half a million. Five miles would serve as an excellent punishment.

By the time I made it back my body was screaming and my stomach was full of air that my lungs lacked. But that slight discomfort wasn't enough. I had weights up at my place but I liked the gym in my high-rise better. Doing some reps would probably put me down for the night.

"Damn," I cursed when I saw the elevator doors closing. Risking catching a cramp and hobbling like an old man, I sprinted for it and jabbed my hand through, cringing in expectation of the doors actually sealing shut on it.

They rebounded and opened fully. Thank fuck for that and, taking a step inside, I muttered that four-letter word again for an entirely different reason.

I'm thirsty and sore for an entirely different reason, too.

I swallowed and heard my pulse in my ears.

It was like the night I met her but probably a thousand times worse.

The one thing my slowly malfunctioning brain could compute was…She's simply…breathtaking.

Dammit Salvatore you've seen girls before, get a damn grip, I said to myself like I'm actually going to listen. But she's not a girl I amended. She's a Venus. She's philosophy and science. A sonnet; or I'm just damned hungry and the meal I wanted lied between her thighs. I got over my ineptness and sauntered on the elevator with her like my heart wasn't attempting to pound straight out of my chest.

This was fucking strange but the jolt I had been waiting for.

I was doing everything you're not supposed to do on an elevator. Standing too close, looking at her from the corner of my eye. In my defense I was trying to remember every single little detail. The most significant. The color of her eyes. Green.

"Excuse me," I said as I stretched across in front of her to press the button for the gym level.

I knew I should carry my sweaty ass to a corner, but for whatever reason my legs failed to cooperate. It's been twelve months, maybe even longer since I've experienced that punched drunk feeling, being high without the drugs, warm with the kind of heat only generated between two people who were strongly attracted to each other.

I blinked slowly like I was taking a snap shot and the blood pumping furiously through me went silent before roaring back with a vengeance. In those five seconds where we openly stared at one another, it felt like the first time anyone's really looked at me in weeks. Really looked. I grinded my molars together because I was being ridiculous. My muscles grew taut and I wondered if she could feel it. Feel me. I wondered if she liked it.

The elevator came to a stop on my floor. I wanted to say something. Anything. But from the stiffness of her shoulders, my closeness freaked her out. I couldn't blame her and I wanted to apologize, my tongue however lost all ability to form words.

The rush of air that flew inside once the doors opened was my signal to move, which I did. Like a fuckin' robot. Right, left, right, left.

"Have a good evening," I managed to say turning just enough to get one last look.

I took two more steps and then slumped against the wall. Actually I fell down to my ass. Bringing my knees up I propped my elbows on them, hung my head, breathed.

Who was she? My trembling hands wanted to know.

She wouldn't budge from my mind. Wouldn't leave me alone. I closed my eyes, I saw her face. Inhaled the air, I smelled her scent. I'm here in my bedroom fucking another woman, but I'm imagining she's her. Not old her but new her. I had another run-in with new her. That encounter rivaled what I was currently doing.

Flesh smacking against mine centered my thoughts only periodically, but it wasn't enough to silence the multitude of voices in my head.

I had yet to reach that threshold where pleasure became pain. Then again this was only the first round with Kara who could fuck for hours, one of the few women in my sordid history who could keep up with me.

All too soon my body stiffened. I released a week's worth of pent up frustration in a jet of come that butted up against a latex sheath.

I had to pinch my lips brutally from calling out another name. A name I had forbidden myself from ever speaking aloud, but really a name I didn't even know. Kara screamed, which I won't lie made me come again even if the aftershock registered a 2.0 on the Richter scale. She twitched and jerked and slowly climbed down from her orgasmic high, a soft smile on her flushed face.

Winded, I paused for a second before sliding out of Kara's wet heat. I slowly eased the condom off my softening dick, and the euphoria that just crashed into me vaporized and I was back to feeling moody and restless.

This fuck had been a total waste of my time. Reminded me I was aging and was no closer to achieving any real measure of happiness. I balled the sheet in my fist repressing a silent scream. I wanted to feel something after this gotdamn week, and I felt nothing but frustration.

Climbing off the bed, I dumped the soiled condom into the trash bin and prowled inside the bathroom to shower.

"Damon," Kara whined.

For now I ignored her, pretended I couldn't hear over the roar of me relieving myself in the toilet.

"You do this all the time," her whine turned into a complaint.

I flushed and started the shower, took two steps and I was in front of the sink reaching for my toothbrush.

Kara took it upon herself to join me, leaning her tight body along the doorframe. She's a beautiful woman, but nothing outside of a product of my preferences. I loved women of all shapes, sizes, ages, but doing Kara was more habit than anything else. Did I feel slightly bad for using her? Not really because she was using me too.

Yet she had that look about her that she wanted more, probably envisioning me as hubby number two. Yep, Kara's going through a nasty divorce.

I had nothing against marriage. She wasn't my 'type'.

"What is it, Kara?"

"You're…not yourself tonight," she informed. "You were quieter than usual at dinner, and several times while we were together it almost seemed as if you were picturing I was someone else. Tired of me already, Damon?"

"Of you, no," that's what my mouth said while everything below my neck had a difference of opinion. I only managed to finish what I initiated because of thoughts of her. New her who scared me half to death when her nose started bleeding after she tripped and literally landed face first in my crotch.

"Liar," Kara accused and smiled. Her smile took a lot of effort to come off as convincing.

She sauntered into the bathroom in all her naked glory, stood behind me, and draped her arms around my torso. Kara nuzzled her cheek into my back, and I couldn't deny a tingling sensation crawled down the length of my body. Thankfully it didn't redirect to my junk. The stirrings of intimacy were trying in vain to wrap around me, but my inward pessimism drove them off.

The need to be alone was rising and my hospitality had minutes of battery life left.

"It's okay," Kara tried to reassure me but I think more so herself. Women were astute in knowing when they were about to be dumped, ditched for what a man perceived as something better. She knew the end of our fling was imminent.

"What's okay?" I questioned out of a sick need to hear her make a case for herself.

"That you're ready to move on. I never had any notions of this lasting beyond a couple of fun nights and hot weekends. We have history, most of it good, but even I know somethings have to come to an end at some point."

I vigorously brushed my teeth. From our positions it made it impossible to see Kara's eyes, but I heard the threat of tears coming loud enough.

"Kara, there's no one else in the picture," I said after spitting sudsy reside from my mouth.

"Yet," she tacked on.

I said nothing to refute that and went back to brushing. She knew me. Knew my tastes varied as much as my business pursuits.

Her arms dropped and she stepped back. I was finally able to close that last hole in my impenetrable bubble.

"I just hope whoever she is," Kara began, "she knows what she's getting herself into. You've broken your share of hearts, Damon Salvatore. And you know what they say about karma. Many are anticipating the day your heart suffers the same fate as theirs."

I snorted and spat out another wad of sudsy toothpaste.

"Happy Birthday," Kara said as she waltzed out of the bathroom closing the door behind her.

By the time I got out of the shower Kara had dressed and left. I was thankful for it. I appreciated the birthday sex; however, I was done feeling the residual emptiness that flowed once my hook up for the night bounced.

Fuck. One phone call from her—old her, and it had my head screwed up.

"Boss, you have a visitor," Hiro came knocking.

Grimacing, I pulled on a shirt and my pajama bottoms though I should be getting ready to head out for a night of bar hopping with my old teammates. Running the towel through my hair, I cracked open the door. "Who is it?"

"One of your neighbors delivering something from Miss Josephine."

Perfect.

"I'll be out in a minute."

Five minutes later I swaggered my way to the living room where the scent of cheesy noodles hit me far after I caught the distinct fragrance of…perfume. Miss Josephine was constantly trying to hook me up with other female tenants in the building like I was her grandson and she wanted some great-grandkids. I allowed it because shit who didn't miss being mothered every once in a while. But I would have to talk to her about this. She couldn't be inviting strangers to my door. That just wasn't cool.

I heard a gasp before I saw who was standing in my living room. I pretended not to though my curiosity was itching to see who it was. Flicking my towel on a nearby chair and turning my head ever so slowly, I felt my jaw drop though it didn't move a single inch. My nostrils flared, my chest stretched the limits of my shirt as I inhaled, and heat blasted in the palms of my hands.

We just stared. Like we did on the elevator though the intensity had gone up a notch, several if I'm being honest. Wave after wave of feeling crushed me and it took everything I had not to launch myself across the room to touch her.

She was it. I knew it. Like I knew Stefan was my brother, black was my favorite color, and hockey had been my calling. I knew she was what I needed. How could she not be with the way I was feeling? Anxious, excited, terrified, aroused.

She told me her name. I told her mine. I saw the ring on her finger, and though it gave me pause in the end it wouldn't even matter. Fate was gonna happen either way.

Bonnie Bennett would be my dominant.

A/N: Did we likely? Being in Damon's head is a difficult place at times. Being in a guy's head can be difficult so I hope I did his POV some semblance of justice. Thanks for reading. Please show this struggling fanfic writer some love in the comments section. XOXO!