A/N: All righty after treading my way through twitter fudgery and the mess that's become the Bamon tag on Tumblr, I've arisen with an update. A heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who has reviewed, added to your list of faves, and is now following this WIP that I have no clue how long it'll be or where it's going. Strap on a seatbelt, kittens.
Disclaimer: I disclaim. No copyright infringement is intended.
Two hours ago…
Brisk. That's what the air felt like and that's how quickly she walked through the concrete jungle, sky high heels tapping a beat, a signal to those loitering along the avenue that she was coming. She wasn't wearing much to shield her from the cold, or lascivious stares of men who clustered together in groups of three or four, or the lone wolf waiting for the perfect opportunity to howl.
Other women probably wouldn't strut through town alone this time of night, and if they did, they'd keep their eyes completely straight, hands buried deep in their pockets, footfalls steady and sure. No deviation whatsoever that could be used against them in the court of unwanted advances and crass catcalls that would one's self-worth into question.
She didn't need to wear a deadly or stern expression on her face that translated into "don't try it" in various unspoken languages. In her short tenure she had acquired something of a reputation.
Bonnie Bennett moved north hitting the main street, manicured fingers tucked into the fur-lined pockets of her leather jacket. The brisk air blew through her raven locks to which she tossed occasionally over her shoulder to make sure they didn't get stuck to her berry hued lips. One of the perils of long hair, but she missed the ticklish feeling of thick tresses brushing along her neck.
Up ahead, she spotted the rendezvous point. A 50's inspired diner brightly lit that looked out of place with the Victorian motif of surrounding buildings. The front entrance was surrounded by men twice her size wearing coats that were three sizes too big for their frames. She could see the red-orange embers of cigarettes as two of them smoked, while the others stood around, moving incessantly to stay warm.
Bonnie's verdant eyes shrunk momentarily, but she never slowed or broke stride. This would be the part most women would inwardly cringe, but not her. She would admit to feeling a tiny bit anxious. The rule of thumb stated: There was always that one special asshole that failed to read silent cues and would accost any woman of his choosing as if she should be pleased by his lewd attention.
The men's voices, who just seconds ago carried the boisterous lit of superiority, dimmed when they heard her approaching. A few shifted to watch her, one bold enough to lick his lips and eye her from top to bottom and back again. Her legs were exposed in her short skirt, but were housed in a pair of fuchsia fishnet hosiery. Definitely a far cry from her standard attire, but Bonnie planned it that way. Wanted something that would make an announcement that the old her was dead and buried.
As she drew closer, ignoring them, Bonnie looked at one guy directly. His face was skewered by the ball cap stuffed on his head, and the collar of his jacket was flipped up, but she had seen him enough around campus. To him she offered a smirk while he blindly pressed his forearm into the chest of the unidentified man standing next to him who inhaled a breath to start heckling.
Another moved quickly up the short path leading to the diner, and opened the door for her.
"Thanks," Bonnie muttered.
"Anything for you, queen," he replied back in a voice that actually made Bonnie slow her steps and take his measure.
He was cute in a 'I just pulled a double shift at the oldest auto body shop in town,' way.
Bonnie's feet hit stained linoleum. Her nostrils was overpowered by the aroma of fried food, coffee, age, and a sterilizing cleanser as a bus boy quickly wiped down a table that had been vacated just minutes prior to her arrival.
The inside of the diner was tiny, a postage stamp of a place that sold the usual American staples at a cheap price that offered flavor, diabetes, and hypertension within a single bite. But it was a beloved spot operated by an aged Italian man and his irresponsible nephew who spent more time flirting with anyone decent looking over the age of eighteen, but younger than fifty.
There were only seven booths total and three of those booths were currently occupied. Old men sat at the lunch counter, hunched over their meals devouring them as if they hadn't fed properly all day. One man in particular was holding an animated conversation with the lone waitress on call who smiled just as hugely, holding her slightly pudgy stomach, and swatting a tear away.
The heat in the eatery forced Bonnie to unzip her jacket but not remove it. She may have loved coming here when she had been a student, but the place wasn't the cleanest, and she certainly didn't want any stains to end up on her newly purchased outfit.
Her feet continued tapping out a beat as she moved to the center of the restaurant, which really only took about three steps to get there. Bonnie hovered over the cracked, sea-green leather booth, and waited to be acknowledged by the man seated there in a sharply tailored suit.
He finally looked up and offered Bonnie a smile that she reciprocated. He held out a hand indicating for her to sit.
Bonnie folded her body into the padded seat across from him. Checked the surface of the laminate table before draping her elbows atop it.
"You're looking well," he broke the silence and reached for a packet of Splenda to add to his lukewarm coffee.
"Thank you. How's Abby?"
The man's soft brown eyes crinkled around the edges as he stirred his coffee. He took only a cursory sip and then made a steeple of his fingers. "She's staying out of trouble in case you were worried."
"I wasn't."
"I," the man stammered, "I understand things aren't exactly…copasetic between you two, but she is worried, Bonnie."
She nodded. "And she has my number just as I have hers if she's so worried she should learn to use it."
The man cleared his throat which did little to lessen the bite of Bonnie's words, "Shall we get down to it, then?"
"Yes," Bonnie said. "I have somewhere I have to be very soon."
Twenty-five minutes later, Bonnie was leaving, a bundled package held tightly under her arm. Her cell vibrated and she dug it out of her pocket. A slight smile curled her lips as she read the text message. She typed a response.
See you soon.
Forty minutes later, sound exploded in her ears as she arrived at the frat house bursting with people. Bonnie cleaved her way through bodies, her paranoia and anxiety rising like dough.
The setting was all too stereotypical as she covertly surveyed the place. Stressed out college kids drinking, carousing, kissing, dry humping, doing body shots or having debates. What Bonnie hadn't expected to see was a glowing Statue of Liberty in a corner with booze of some sort shooting from her tit. The atmosphere was cloaked in liquor and loose inhibitions. It would have made Dionysus proud.
She made her way through, doing her best not to touch anyone, side-stepping revelers as if they were poison.
"Bonnie Bennett," Tyler Lockwood slurred her name and staggered a bit from side to side as he headed towards her. It was somewhat comforting to see him inebriated reminding her of high school parties in the woods when the only thing they had to fear was being busted by the cops and Old Man Miller's shotgun.
They weren't as far from Kansas as Bonnie would have liked.
"Tyler," she said and didn't waste the effort of putting actual enthusiasm in her greeting.
He took a swig from a bottle and eyed her legs lasciviously. It took a minute for him to remember she had a face and gawked at it. "Not to sound rude but what are you doing here? This isn't typically your scene," he belched.
Bonnie's nose wrinkled. "As much as I would normally explain myself I rather save my breath. Don't fall and bust your head open, okay."
She tried to walk away but Tyler grabbed a hold of her wrist. "Wait."
Bonnie tensed.
Tyler vaguely noticed and quickly let go. "There's something I need to say to you."
"What?"
"I was a dick."
"Okay not really a revelation."
"I have...we're not close. We've never been close, but you've saved my life and I never even thanked you for it," Tyler filled his cheeks with air and blew it out. His obsidian eyes were glazed and he seemed to be putting in a hell of an effort to come off as sincere while being drunk off his ass. "Thank you…for everything."
A weighty pause passed between them. A lot could be said between two people who've known each other for as long as they have. Regrettably, their relationship was like a faulty plane. It never took off the ground and neither one seemed the least bit motivated to change it. Tyler would be that guy Bonnie forgot existed until his life was in danger. He probably viewed her in the same light. Sad and tragic, but it worked for them.
Bonnie broke the silence. "I guess you're welcome."
"I'm gonna be a cop someday, Bonnie. If you need me just call..."
"911 I got it, Tyler."
At that time Bonnie spotted her date for the evening waiting for her on the steps beckoning her with a megawatt smile. She forgot about Tyler, fought her way through the condensed horde, and felt insane relief the minute her fingers touched Cristiano's. He pulled her up the stairs as if she were drowning in quicksand.
Bonnie snuggled into his warmth, the whisper of peppermint on his breath. He introduced her to his friends and then whispered in her ear if she wanted to go somewhere quieter. Bonnie gave him a dubious look as if to say 'where in the hell would there be a quiet place in this house?' He laughed at her unspoken words, but mainly at the expression on her face that brightened despite the dismal light.
"Follow me," Cristiano said like the spider to the fly, the wolf to the sheep.
They moved over to the wall side of the stairs since a group of guys were heading down. None of them passed up the opportunity to make a lewd comment to Bonnie who ignored them for the most part. Guys at parties, she learned, were far from sincere and only interested in hooking up. She was far from interested in obliging anyone. Unfortunately, one of them had been stupid enough to spank her ass. The stinging pain of that hit jolted up to her belly.
Bonnie saw red.
She whirled around, livid, and grabbed the asshole by his balls and squeezed, hard. The guy let out a yelp like a dog being hit by a car and bent over in an awkward attempt to lessen the grip Bonnie had on his baby maker.
Bonnie spoke directly in his ear but loud enough for those nearby to hear. "Do you know what I can do to your dick right now and I can guarantee it won't have you screaming in pleasure, but screaming to Jesus to save you. Don't you ever put your hands on me or another woman again without her consent. Got it?"
The guy wheezed, obviously in tremendous pain, if not by the fact veins were crisscrossing along his forehead, and he was turning a scary shade of purple in the face.
For the sheer joy of it, Bonnie squeezed again. "Got. It?"
A breathless, "…yes…" was his reply.
"Doesn't feel so good when someone lays a hand on you in a manner you don't want, right?"
"No," he croaked. "Leggo...please..."
"Bonnie, got damn," Cristiano exclaimed. "I think he's learned his lesson."
"For his sake I hope so." She released him none too gently and if it hadn't been for his friends he would have tumbled the rest of the way down the stairs.
Several people stared at her either in shock or amusement.
Touch used to be something Bonnie enjoyed and something she had gone an appallingly long time without. But the last few people who touched her had inflicted either physical or mental pain, and she wasn't here for anyone she did not approve of to touch her in any form that her mind construed as aggressive. Regardless of intent, there was a velvet rope and a guard surrounding her ordering people not to get any closer or suffer the consequences.
Cristiano lightly cupped her elbow, "Are you all right?"
Bonnie wasn't given the chance to respond for her name was called again. Her eyes took a twelve hour spin before landing on Elena.
Once the doppelganger made it to where Bonnie was, her gaze darted between her friend and the overtly handsome guy standing protectively behind her. It didn't take long for the pieces to fall into place in Elena's addled brain, and she was grinning goofily.
"Hey, pointless to ask what you're doing here. I'm glad to see you." Elena yelled over the music and covered up her mouth with a cup. She leaned forward, "He's cute."
"I know," Bonnie concurred demurely.
"Are you two...?" Elena let the implication hang.
Months ago, the two of them used to be able to carry out an entire conversation with raised brows and little twitches of their mouths, but that language was lost now. Or better yet, Bonnie wasn't up to decoding what Elena was basically broadcasting. Anytime she got within feet of a moderately to severely attractive guy, Elena would give her a sly look which loosely translated into: go for it. The last few times Elena had given her that look Jamie and Professor Shady Pants were the intended targets, and Bonnie needed no reminders of how both of those situations turned out.
"Elena, this is Cristiano. Cristiano, Elena," Bonnie introduced them.
The two shook hands.
"I'll meet you upstairs, Cristiano," Bonnie addressed him.
But Elena was quick to interject, "No, it's okay. I just wanted to say hey, not interrupt anything. We'll talk later. It was nice to meet you!"
"Ditto," Cristiano said, reached for Bonnie's hand and the two got missing upstairs.
Currently…
The man not known for his subtlety stood before her. She didn't view his presence as a gift or a hindrance but a marker of inevitability. He wasn't here because she was, Bonnie knew that. She had unfortunately run into his reason downstairs—the drunken mess that was Elena Gilbert.
A little over two weeks ago Damon had behaved like a total fascist. She had been beyond relieved to see him, shamefully relieved to see a familiar face in a sea of strangers. That relief soon turned into betrayal the minute Damon made his intentions known that he hadn't come to check up on her. That he wasn't there expressly for her in the way she had hoped. Nope, he had shown up with the last fucker on the planet she ever wanted to see, the both of them blocking her in. Trapping her in a narrow hallway.
Set off triggers like dominos falling.
Tonight there was no narrow hallway. There was no Kai. It was just him. Damon. Staring at her unlike anyway he's looked at her in the past.
It was the little nuances his eyes feasted on. The way the wind subtly blew her now long midnight hair across her cheeks, cheeks that were full with a rose undertone, tickled the corner of her mouth that usually could be found tilted upward marked with a crescent line. Her long eyelashes fluttered and sheltered irises that were sometimes as green as blades of grass, and other times were the color of olives. In firelight they blazed hazel-green but overall were alluring, spell bounding.
Her face, Damon soon learned wasn't the only distracting thing about Bonnie. Her attire, what he could now see was a mini dress composed of cashmere fabric. Right below the scoop neckline was an inverted triangle shape of sheer material that displayed the hills of her breasts.
He swallowed and the sound echoed in his ears.
"What are you doing here, Damon?"
Those words took him back to when Bonnie first spoke them. The smile on her face, the relief in her eyes that she held back with a slightly furrowed brow. For that one moment, Damon had forgotten his purpose in leaving the quiet solitude of his home to crash a rave as he stood only feet away from her.
This time around no smile graced Bonnie's cosmetically enhanced face. She didn't appear upset or bothered just…indifferent. That made Damon blink. He had been her favorite person, her rock—an unusual position for him, and one he didn't realize how much it meant to him. But that favor lasted for a night before he deliberately sent an incendiary in the form of Kai, her tormentor, sailing right into her path.
Kai had been tongue-tied, nervous, unable to effectively articulate his remorse for hurting Bonnie while Damon had been impatient for him to spit it out, provide proof that he had changed. Of course he hadn't believed Kai was suddenly Mr. I'm Sorry because those feelings came courtesy of magically devouring his brother. They were counterfeit emotions, and the only thing Kai wanted to do was eradicate his own guilt. Point. Blank.
Standing in front of Bonnie now, someone so small in stature but with a presence that made her gargantuan and everyone around her insects, Damon could understand Kai's nervousness. Both of them had hurt Bonnie, used her. And when their assiduous plans hit brick walls and they needed a Bennett that's when they switched tactics, attempted to get on her good side. But the damage had already been done.
"Now he wants to be nice, start over, sound familiar?"
"Um," Damon licked his lips and darted his gaze to the intruder, though technically that was him.
He was good-looking if you were into the tall, dark, and European type, and could have been the doppelganger to soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo. They even shared the same first name, how cute Damon thought cynically. "Can you give us a minute?"
Cristiano deferred to Bonnie who hadn't looked away from Damon. "Sure," he started to leave but Bonnie held up a hand stopping him dead in his tracks.
"Wait," she turned to him finally, gracing Cristiano with a warm, beguiling smile he instantly returned. "In case I don't see you before I leave I had a really fun time tonight. Thank you for hanging out with me."
"I did as well and it was no problem. Believe me," he reached for Bonnie's hand and kissed her knuckles. Soon after he excused himself.
With Cristiano gone, the bass from the music making the floorboards jump, Damon rubbed his palms together.
"You were saying?" Bonnie folded her arms over her chest.
"Witchy," he drew out the word and cleared his throat. "Don't you have a rule against having fun at parties? I should be the one asking you what you're doing here."
She gave him a sly appraisal that probably would have made kings prostrate themselves at her feet. "I was invited, and I had nothing else on my schedule. I can't hide away forever, Damon. If I'm going to get used to being back then I need to get used to being around people."
"Yeah, but a party, Bonnie?"
She shrugged, "If Caroline still wants to act normal for her," Bonnie snorted, "even with her humanity off, why is it such a big damn deal for me to want to attend a party? Even if the idea of being around people makes my skin crawl? We all cope in our own messed up ways, right?"
Damon remained mute because he didn't have a good enough argument lined up, and plus he saw little point in arguing with the truth.
"And as you can see," Bonnie continued and sidled closer to Damon, "I'm not exactly partying am I?"
"You…look different," he changed the topic.
"It's what I was going for," Bonnie ran her nails through her long, sewn-in locks. "I felt it was time for an upgrade. You like?"
Of its own volition, Damon's hand was reaching out to cup her face, but he slammed his hand back to his side. He fretfully cleared his throat. "I called and left you a voicemail. Did you not get it?"
"I got it."
Damon's head jerked at the news. "So you didn't feel like returning my call, taking me up on my offer of an apology do over?"
"I figured you were calling because there was something else you wanted from me. Another favor," Bonnie pivoted in her shoes and headed over to the railing of the small terrace. "Wanting to re-apologize had merely been the bait. I wasn't falling for it," she stared at him over her shoulder, "again."
Taking one bold step for supernatural kind, Damon stepped outside joining Bonnie on the balcony that overlooked the backyard.
"I know I have a bad habit of only calling you when I need something, but this time around I just wanted to talk to you," and Damon lightly grabbed her wrist to shift Bonnie to face him. "I owe you."
She shook her head. "I'm not running a tab though I should. If I did, you and your brother would owe me hundreds of thousands of dollars. Really, the man who doesn't like apologizing what else is there for you to say? It's not going to erase what you did. And an apology at this point is more to assuage your guilt than anything else. I'm not interested in letting anyone off any hooks."
"Bonnie, I get that but I need you to realize that I realize that without you…"
Her warm fingers were suddenly pressed against his mouth and for one harrowing moment, Damon forgot how to think.
The hue of her irises deepened to emerald. Damon wondered if the allure he felt rising within was similar to what Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan felt toward his third wife Mumtaz Mahal, and out of that allure and deep affinity but also grief at her passing the Taj Mahal was built. If this turned into anything he was in deep shit.
"I don't want to hear from here how sorry you are," Bonnie trailed her little fingers down his jaw, neck, over the fabric of his snug T-shirt and stopped until her palm rested on his left pectoral. "I want to see from here how sorry you are. Your heart."
He couldn't control it. With Bonnie touching him and all, his nipple got hard. Matters weren't helped when she brushed the pad of her thumb across it that sent a jolt of pleasure straight for his cock.
Damon eyes widened, "Bonnie?"
The young woman in question pulled her hand away. "You should go. I'm sure Elena is looking for you."
Those words were like taking a bucket of ice water straight to the face. Just like his mother's inability to remember her name, Damon had forgotten Elena was at the party altogether.
"I'm not going unless you're coming with me," Damon asserted.
"I'll be all right."
"If this is in reference to Cristiano, sorry, but I doubt you know the guy all that well. What kind of a friend would I be if I left you here with some tool, who more than likely, just wants to get in your pants?"
"At least someone wants to."
Again, something unpleasant exploded in Damon's head. He was in Bonnie's face in a nanosecond. He was fairly positive he was giving her his notorious crazy eyes. "Excuse me what? Bonnie you're not…actually thinking about…no," he forbade sternly.
She balked, "What do you mean 'no'?"
"You're not like that."
"Not like what?"
Damon saw himself tap dancing into a room filled with landmines and mouse traps, but he couldn't seem to stop himself. "You know what I mean."
"What am I not like, Damon?" the prodigious witch persisted. "Any number of females stumbling around this place hoping to get hit on by someone mildly attractive with the option of being, well maybe not fucked senseless, but close enough? I'm not a eunuch."
"I know you're not I only meant…you're not…um…"
"Go ahead and say it. I'm not like Caroline and Elena where guys trip and fall all over themselves to be with them. I may have grown up in small town Mystic Falls where pickings are slim. So are you trying to say I'm not beautiful enough…"
"Oh shut up, will you! You're beautiful!" Damon had no idea why he was yelling and getting mad but he was. "You're stunning!'—Bonnie blinked—"You're probably the most appealing woman I've ever met, and I'm sure every straight and bisexual guy here wants to bend you over the nearest table," he told himself to calm down and take a breath. For once he listened to his own advice. "Bonnie…I just don't think it's the right time for you to jump into anything."
"Who said I'm jumping into anything? I'm not going home with Cristiano because Cristiano is gay."
"Oh."
"Yes oh. Hayden on the other hand is not."
Bonnie watched as a vein began to bulge from the middle of Damon's forehead. A vein that hadn't been there moments ago.
Amusement lit up her entire being.
Damon questioned with a raised brow, "Who is Hayden?"
"A graduate student I met last year at a campus event right before I went bye, bye, bye. We ran into each other last week and well," she grinned saucily.
Damon's nostrils flared at the implication, "And where do you plan on going with Hayden? Matter of fact, where have you been staying?"
"I was wondering when you'd get around to grilling me on where I've been storing my broomstick," Bonnie sunk her hands in her coat pockets. Damon snorted at her joke. "After walking in on you and Elena and then Stefan and Caroline fucking that same night…" she shivered in slight revulsion, "I had nowhere to go but then I remembered."
"Remembered what?"
"Just think really hard, Damon. Where would someone go for room and board in a place like Mystic Falls that has zero hotels?" and then he watched as her eyes trailed over to the open doorway.
Damon turned and saw what held Bonnie so captivated. He felt himself about to sneer but stopped in time. The bastard filling up the threshold had to be the illustrious Hayden, insert last name. Perpetually tanned, serious features, deep set hazel eyes, five o'clock shadow and goatee, haircut low to his scalp, obviously lived at a gym.
The dark-haired vampire leaned closer to Bonnie and practically hissed, "I know you haven't been staying with him."
She gave him a funny look and walked around Damon. She sashayed over to Hayden who didn't take his eyes off of her.
"Hey, beautiful," Damon heard the guy say with a slight accent. Was he Canadian?
"Hey," Bonnie said softly. She didn't touch Hayden but he leaned down and kissed her temple.
The two men glowered at one another. With Bonnie caught in the middle she looked at Damon briefly but said to Hayden, "I'll be down in a minute. Can you wait for me?"
He winked, "You know I'm at your service."
Bonnie didn't say anything, just watched as Hayden strolled down the hallway, turned a corner, and disappeared from sight.
"Well aren't you Miss Popular tonight."
Those words were spoken closer to Bonnie's ear than she expected them to be. Facing Damon, she was unsurprised to find him towering over her. His face still twisted with anger, of which she didn't understand, and another emotion she couldn't name. Strangely she wasn't put off by Damon's misplaced anger. Quite the contrary, Bonnie found it hilarious.
"Seriously, Bonnie where have you been living for the last two weeks?"
"Use your Jedi vampire skills and find me the traditional way. Ciao."
She left in a flourish and a muscle in Damon's jaw ticked. "Flamin' witches."
Not soon after Bonnie's departure, Damon fled, manhandling a more than drunk Elena into his car that thankfully hadn't been towed. His hand strangled the steering wheel as he broke the sound barrier to reach his home after as he dumped Elena off at her dorm room ignoring her protestations and grabby hands. His mother was still up by the time he slammed the front door of the boardinghouse shut.
Damon hesitated before taking a step inside the living room. Lily was curled up on the couch flipping through a worn copy of Call of the Wild his favorite book.
"Damon?" Lily lowered the book to her lap. "What's the matter? You look vexed."
That's because I am, he wanted to say and knew if he did he'd have to explain why, and Damon had no appetite to go there.
"It's not important. I'm going up to bed."
"Your brother stopped by a few hours ago."
"Oh really?" Damon spat caustically. "What did he want?"
"If I had to take a guess…spoiling for a fight. He's restless which means he's fighting his humanity, and he's looking for any destructive outlet that will feed into what he believes is his true self."
Damon rolled his eyes. He wasn't in the mood to wax poetic about the nature of vampires, either. "Yeah, well next time he stops by could you, I don't know, take a switch to him or something? I'm tired. Good night."
He would be the first to say the only things he cared about were his girl, brother, if there was bourbon around, gas in the Camaro, and now his mother was added to the list. Yet some faint part of Damon hissed he was a liar and a gotdamn bad one at that. Otherwise, if the aforementioned things were his only concerns then why wasn't he sleeping? Why was he staring up the ceiling thinking about tonight, his conversation with Bonnie, and why he felt compelled to see what she was doing?
Damon was up and dressed with his keys in his hand. It wasn't until he was opening the door to his car and climbing behind the wheel that he paused and frowned.
Was he really going to do as Bonnie said and blow the dust off his tracking skills to find her? His cranked engine pretty much solved that mystery.
Mentally, Damon began the process of elimination to find the little witch. Whitmore was out. He didn't think Bonnie would want to live with Tyler and Matt. He knew her old home had been put up for sale; her grandmother's house had been sold a long time ago. The Gilbert's place was ash, and Bonnie was right, Mystic Falls didn't have any hotels, not upscale ones. However, if someone from out-of-town was looking for a fairly decent place to lay their head, they would be directed to the B&B run by that old senile spinster Ms. Flowers.
Fifteen minutes later, Damon parked across the street from the Tudor style house. It had been given a fresh coat of paint from the last time he dabbled on this side of town. New flowerbeds, the lawn expertly mowed. Every single light was turned off, but that didn't stop Damon from listening.
He climbed out of his car, inhaled deeply and caught Bonnie's scent. Damon vamp sped to the B&B, spotted Bonnie's car parked in the graveled lot with four other vehicles, but that didn't mean she was actually locked away in one of the rooms. She could still be with Hayden. At least he knew where he could find her, and that she was relatively safe. Not much of anything happened in this area.
Just as he made the decision to leave before he started feeling stupid, Damon took a single step when his ear caught the distinct sound of bedsprings groaning immediately followed by the sound of a moan.
The timbre of the moan was not alien to Damon. He'd heard it before. Several times whenever he cooked something Bonnie didn't automatically say sucked or she hated. Damon ordered his feet to keep moving, and his mind not to even go there. What she did was her business and none of his concern, but the snooper in him couldn't resist. Plus this was possibly one of those rare instances where he wanted to be proven wrong.
So he found himself creeping to the opposite side of the B&B, head craning backwards eyeing a partially open window on the second floor. There was no tree nearby for him to climb, and technically he didn't need an invitation to get inside the hostel. That meant he could break in, and pray he didn't set off an alarm.
Damon remembered vampires had amazing abilities, could do things with their bodies that defied gravity. It would definitely be, in his case, mind over matter to crawl up the side of the house, or jump up to the roof and then scale down. Would that be doing too much?
Fuck it, Damon shrugged. If anyone saw him they'd confuse him with a man-sized lizard as he scuttled up the siding of the house making nary a sound to startle the sleeping visitors.
He paused outside of that partially open window thankful there was enough darkness around to conceal he was being an unapologetic Peeping Tom. He looked over the sill.
Damon almost fell backwards.
Bonnie was there. She wasn't alone. She had just tossed her newly acquired long hair while her hips moved in a fashion that made it no secret as to what she was doing.
Her naked back was to him, naturally. The bedsheet dipped down low enough for him to see the dimples above her plump ass. And when he saw the globe of her backside, blood rushed straight to his head. The smaller one.
Seeing enough, Damon jumped down and blinked several times to erase what he saw, but of course that only seemed to make those images enlarge in his brain. He sprinted, ready to bolt but remembered he had driven.
He was in his car burning rubber down the road uncaring if he woke everyone up.
Spent and smiling, Bonnie kissed Hayden's forehead. He was sound asleep. His breath occasionally tickled her fevered skin. Lithe fingers swooped across his face that he didn't feel nor detected something had happened.
Bonnie critiqued what she had done. Hayden's chestnut hair had lengthened to inky black strands that covered his forehead and almost touched his shoulders. His eyelashes now fanned against pale white cheeks. His nose became less button and more aristocratic, lips curled into an ironical twist and were now rose in color.
Hayden's eyes momentarily opened before sealing shut once more, but it had been enough of a peek for Bonnie to catch a glimpse of glacial blue.
Settling deeper into the mattress she sighed and went to sleep.
Chapter end.
A/N: Bonnie up to some mischief? If any were curious about who I imagined to play the parts of Cristiano and Hayden, I indeed used soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo for Cristiano, and channeled Taylor Kitsch for Hayden. If you want more, let me know. Thanks for reading!