I know it's been a while, and I'm probably only going to be able to update once a week now because I have so much going on right now in my life. Anyway, this is picking up from where the last chapter left off.
Enjoy their little date!
Chapter Twenty-three
When Rebecca and Damon got to the club they got in rather easily; Damon didn't even have to compel the guy at the door. He'd said he knew the guy, so that was probably the reason.
The inside of the club was made up like an old 70s café - red leather booths and stools at the bar; the floor was black and white - checker patterned. There was a strobe light that made Rebecca dizzy until she got used to it. There were already people on the dance floor and Rebecca was relieved that it wasn't packed too tightly.
Damon watched as Rebecca's face lit up at the scene she was taking in. He'd known she would love it, but watching the delight on her face affected him more than he liked to admit, even to himself.
"You like?" he teased.
"More than like. I didn't even know they had places like this, or I probably would've come here sooner."
Rebecca grabbed his arm and he let her drag him onto the dance floor.
Hot Blooded by Foreigner was playing, and Damon smirked as he got a delicious idea. He put his hands on either side of her waist and pulled her close.
"Do you trust me?" he whispered into her ear and was blown away when she looked in his eyes and he could see the trust in hers. She didn't even have to answer out loud. He hadn't done anything to deserve it, but she gave it freely anyway.
He wasn't used to people trusting him - most people thought there was something iffy about him even without knowing he was a vampire - but if Rebecca was willing to after everything that had happened, he wasn't going to turn it away and he wasn't going to take advantage of it. Trust was a gift that he didn't try to get people to give him because half the time he didn't even trust himself - he knew what he was capable of so he figured he didn't deserve it anyway.
Damon put an arm around her back to keep her steady and gently wedged her legs apart so that one of his own was between hers and one of hers was between his. She looked down a little, but then met his gaze again.
"Relax, it's just a dance," he teased. "I promise. I won't even mention anything else tonight."
She nodded, uncertain. She wasn't exactly sure she wanted to do this; she didn't really know what she was doing. She relaxed slightly when Damon began guiding her hips, teaching her how to roll them just right so she could meet with his. He was . . . teaching her how to dirty dance?
She blushed at the thought, but didn't want to stop. She was with Damon so society's rules didn't have to apply right now. She didn't have to hide who she was when she was with him; he didn't care if she wasn't completely polite or proper or ladylike. She was just herself.
She brought her hands up to lock around the back of his neck so she'd have better balance and smiled as they both loosened up more. She was sure Damon had been wondering if she was going to go through with this. As it was . . .
"I can't believe I'm doing this in public," she said, biting her lip shyly. "But I'm suddenly glad I'm not wearing a skirt."
"Mm, me too. I'm not sure I could keep my hands to myself if you were."
"Right, well, right now it's not your hands I'm worried about."
"Oh? Is it . . . this?" Damon asked, deliberately rolling his hips and brushing his leg against the apex of her thighs.
Her eyes closed briefly and she nodded. "I think I like it more than I should."
Then she did the thing she always did when her word vomit took control, and she scrunched up her nose. Damon just watched, amused, and brushed against her again.
"Tell me to stop and I will," he said into her ear, but she only began rolling her hips now.
She was pressing against his leg, which had been his goal anyway, and letting herself get lost in the rhythm of the music and the sensations of the very intimate dance they were sharing. Damon could hear her heart racing and her breathing become faster and faster. He was picking up the scent of her arousal now and he didn't know if he should stop her or let her keep going. She was going to frustrate herself because of her no sex rule.
But then again, he liked watching her like this. Her mouth was open in surprise at the pleasure this simple act was causing, and her eyes were almost closed. Her teeth were closed over her bottom lip like she was scared it was going to try to run away. She was, in that moment, the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
As for Rebecca, her core was throbbing with a familiar ache and her body was getting warmer and warmer by the second. She'd been aroused before - mostly thanks to the beautiful man she was dancing with - so she knew what was happening. A heat was building in her belly and it got stronger and stronger every time her hips rolled to meet with Damon's.
Oh . . . Wait . . . Damon! She was in a club! She was acting this way in public. She froze against him, almost whimpering because the heat - the fire - in her stomach was still burning, and she hid her face against his chest. She was embarrassed that she'd let herself go like that.
"No one's judging you here, Rebecca," Damon's voice came through loud and clear. "Look around. Everyone's doing the same thing we were."
He tipped her chin up and watched as her eyes took in the people around her. She relaxed a bit and he smiled at her innocence; it was refreshing. He wondered if she even knew what she'd been working toward before she'd rudely interrupted herself.
Then he idly thought about how sensitive her body must be to be able to get off from dancing. She was probably one of those girls who could cum many times, one right after the other. He'd have to see before they actually slept together, because there were so many fun possibilities if that were the case.
Anyway, don't think about that, Damon told himself. Not tonight at least.
They danced a few more times before Damon went to get them drinks. Rebecca picked a semi-private booth in the back and waited for him to come back. She still had adrenaline coursing through her veins from that first dance; she wondered if Damon had done that on purpose.
"So, having fun?" Damon asked, putting her drink down in front of her - she had wanted a strawberry daiquiri. "Oh wait, of course you are. You're with me."
Rebecca laughed. She would never admit it out loud, but she loved the fact that he talked about himself like he was God's gift or something. It was very entertaining. She would just tell him that he was full of himself and move on. Besides, he wasn't as vain as he pretended to be.
Rebecca sipped at her drink, happy that she could only slightly taste the alcohol in it. There wasn't even enough to get tipsy off of, but there was enough to take the edge off.
"So . . . Serious question now," Damon said. "Should I leave you alone for the next month so you can study?"
"You better not leave me alone," Rebecca said with a mock-stern voice. "I'm gonna be spending time with my friends still, so I can spend time with you too." She smiled a little. "Besides, we both know that now that you have me you won't be able to stay away."
Damon arched a brow but didn't say anything. He took a swallow of whatever he was drinking and shook his head.
"What?"
"I think my cockiness is rubbing off on you."
"You're cocky; I'm confident. There's a difference." She shrugged a little. "Though to be fair to you . . . It's not called being cocky if you can back it up."
Done teasing now, she looked at him without any silliness. "I'll never be too busy for you, Damon. I promise. If I ever make you feel that way just grab me and shake me a little. You'll have my full attention then."
After two more drinks and a few more dances Rebecca just had to pee - damn alcohol. That was her cue to not drink anymore - if she'd been drinking alcohol, which she had, then once she started peeing she knew she'd be making frequent bathroom stops for the rest of the night.
When she got back she stopped for a second because her Slayer radar was going off. Another vampire was here, but the alcohol in her system seemed to be making it harder to place where exactly the vampire was. But, to be honest with herself, she wouldn't have been able to just pick out the vampire anyway. There were too many people and she could only sense the general direction in which a vampire was. But since there was a crowd . . . There were too many people to choose from.
She became aware of a few guys looking at her - she'd never noticed before so she didn't know if it had happened in the past, but it was happening more and more now. She'd noticed that women had been looking at Damon, too, which she got. She would've suggested they get their eyes checked if they hadn't looked because Damon Salvatore was definitely eye candy. And he knew it and enjoyed it.
She began to make her way back to Damon and she used a little of her strength to move through the crowd. She almost slipped into the booth beside him; she blamed the alcohol. That was her story, anyway.
Damon laughed as he watched her clumsiness and she stuck her tongue out at him.
"Lightweight," Damon teased.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I haven't had 145 years to build up a tolerance for hard liquor."
Damon had to admit he liked the banter thing they did. At least he wouldn't get bored; the things she said - especially the comebacks she came up with - surprised him.
Not that Damon had really looked for one, but he'd never met anyone like her - not even with the long life he'd had. Most people were predictable, it didn't matter how many people one had in a room, most of them would react to a situation in pretty much the same way. Rebecca didn't react the way other humans did, and it wasn't just the Slayer thing. When he'd come to Mystic Falls - he remembered coming for Katherine and he was so, so glad Rebecca had fixed that - and she'd let him in then, too. She'd genuinely given him a chance and she'd had this 'I trust you until you give me a reason not to' thing, and it wasn't easy to get trust from other people. He remembered he'd sincerely liked her even before the spell that had gone wrong - or right depending on how one looked at it.
He remembered those itty bitty things about Katherine only because it had intermingled with his thoughts of Rebecca. He knew that he'd been in love with Katherine before, but he also knew now because of the spell that Katherine was a bitch and liked ruining things that were good.
Rebecca had rewritten history a little, seeing as to how he was here for her now, and he didn't really remember what had happened originally, what had made him love Katherine especially if she'd compelled him to begin with.
"There's another vampire here," Rebecca whispered. "Can't tell who it is because of all the people, but whoever it is, they just got here."
Damon gave the room a once over because Rebecca was with him. Vampires could sense Slayers just like the Slayer could sense vampires. Whoever it was, though, could just be there to have a good time like he and Rebecca were. No harm, no foul.
He'd be careful just in case, though, since Rebecca was with him and was a little too drunk to take care of herself. Though, now that he thought about it, a drunken Rebecca trying to fight would be a sight to see.
As he looked around he saw many people looking their way - guys hating him and girls hating Rebecca; he just smirked and moved onto the next person, taking in their body language. Most where just hormonal time bombs wanting to get laid.
Rebecca and Damon danced to a few slow songs and Damon could tell Rebecca was perfectly content to never leave the safety of his arms. To be perfectly honest, it felt nice to him, too, just to be here with her. To feel something other than emptiness. Damon knew that both he and Rebecca were jagged puzzle pieces, but they fit together perfectly. They were both a little twisted - or, in his case, a lot twisted - but that was okay, too.
They were at the club for at least three hours; they didn't leave until after eleven, and they would've stayed longer, but Rebecca's dad had given Damon a strict home-by-midnight rule. It was better than ten, she guessed.
The road was semi-deserted since most everybody was inside one of the clubs or bars along the street. Damon was taking care of the bill - she didn't know if that meant he was paying for it or compelling the bartender to think he had - and she intended to wait for him in the car. But since things hardly ever worked out the way she wanted them to . . . She didn't get to wait.
She was grabbed from behind before she could even register there was a vampire around and was in a back alley in less than a second. It had happened so fast nobody human would've been able to see it. A hand was covering her mouth, too, so she couldn't scream or make much noise at all exactly.
Meanwhile, in the bar, Damon was in the middle of paying the bartender when this bad, wrong feeling came over him; it was like this pit was growing in his stomach. He didn't know how he knew, but he did know that something was horribly wrong with Rebecca. He somehow knew she was in trouble.
He hurried outside and his fear was confirmed when he found his car door had been left open. He looked around almost frantically and focused his hearing outward to see if he could hear anything. All he could hear was the music from inside the club and some mumbling from the people around him.
He grabbed the leather bag Rebecca had brought with her and slammed the car door shut. He went to the places he would've taken a victim, his mind aware that there had been at least one more vampire in the club they'd just been in.
He knew Rebecca wouldn't have just gone off on her own, so the logical conclusion was that she'd been forced to go with someone. They were in Richmond and there were hundreds of little places a vampire could've taken her, there were hundreds of places a human could've taken her too.
There was a sound of scuffling like trashcan's being thrown to the ground, and he rushed toward the noise. He got there right in time to see Rebecca fall on her ass. There were two vampires and she had gone to swing at one to punch him; she'd been off by about six inches and she'd attacked the air.
He would've laughed if the two vampires hadn't been getting ready to pounce. Rebecca's leather bag weighed heavily in his hands, reminding him that he had weapons to dispose of these two, and he had two stakes in his hands before he even realized what he was doing. He took out the one closest to Rebecca, who was getting up now, and was just getting ready to stake the second one when Rebecca grabbed his arm.
"Wait! I know him," she said.
"So, he was gonna kill you!"
"I didn't say you couldn't kill him, I told you to wait." She shoved the vampire up against the wall. "You were one of the two vampires who were left at the warehouse that night."
Damon looked at the vampire anew. He wasn't more than a few months old as a vampire; he couldn't be or Rebecca wouldn't have been able to shove him so easily.
"Who hired you?" she asked.
The vampire didn't answer so Damon shoved the stake into the vampire's side.
"We're only gonna ask one more time and then I'm gonna get testy," Damon said, and watched Rebecca scrunch her nose up in disgust at his interrogation technique, but she didn't say anything against it. She may not have been happy with it, but she knew they needed answers.
"Now, who hired you?"
"And why did they want you to steal what they sent you for?"
Rebecca couldn't believe she was part of this. Torturing someone for information. She kind of hated herself for it, and she was glad she had a few drinks in her; she might not have been able to deal otherwise.
"No one knew you were going to be there. We didn't want you to get hurt. Wrong place, wrong time."
Damon twisted the stake enough to cause a few seconds of pain and the vampire clenched his jaw, but the vampire part of him emerged and began fighting back. Predator instincts; vampires don't just give up.
"He'll kill me if I tell you."
"What d'you think we're gonna do if you don't?" Damon asked, voice losing the usual nonchalance it usually held. Rebecca had nearly died that night at the warehouse and probably would've if he hadn't gotten to her in time.
"Who is he?" Rebecca asked. "The way you talked he doesn't want me dead, so why did you attack me?"
"We need those books. He needs them. To study you, learn about you."
"Why?"
The guys shrugged his shoulders. "I don't ask him about his business, you know. And you can go ahead and shove that stake wherever you want, because I'm not telling you anything."
"Are there more of you? Do you know where I live?" Rebecca asked.
It terrified her, the thought of her putting everyone she cared about in danger just because she was the Slayer.
"There will always be more of us," the vampire said. "But no, we don't know where you live; we were surprised that you showed up here tonight."
Rebecca didn't know if he was being honest or not, but she knew he wasn't going to be useful anymore, so she nodded at Damon, letting him take the reigns now. She knew this vampire had to die, because if he were to stay alive he would just go running to tell the boss about her and neither she nor Damon would allow that to happen.
The vampire probably wasn't entirely innocent, but she was sorry he had to die. All he'd wanted was the books he'd tried to steal at the warehouse and hadn't succeeded in doing.
She locked eyes with Damon again and this time he was the one who nodded. It was so infinitesimal that she barely caught it. She knew he wasn't sorry for having to kill the vampire in front of him - he had to die; they both knew it - but he might've been a little sorry for her having to be a part of it.
Rebecca watched as the vampire mummified and turned grayish. She took out her cell phone and dialed the sheriff's number; she knew if she wanted Liz to trust her that she'd have to let her in on some of these things. She felt Damon's eyes on her as the sheriff answered. Rebecca wasn't sure, but it sounded like she'd just woken up.
She told Liz where she was and then Liz, in turn, asked her to wait there until she arrived. She'd take care of it, but she needed to talk to her about what had happened.
"Okay, I'll be here. Could you tell my dad that I'll be a little late coming home? He wanted me there by midnight, but that's just not gonna happen now."
"I'll just bring him with me."
"Okay, but subtly, okay? Because Tina doesn't know about any of this."
"Got it."
She hung up and turned to see Damon was squatting down beside the now dead vampire, patting over his pockets.
"What're you looking for?" she asked.
"Some kind of ID, driver's license or something. I want to know who he is."
"Why? It's kind of a moot point now, isn't it? He's dead and I'm sure he's not carrying the name of the guy he's working for in his wallet. What do we tell the sheriff about this, anyway?"
"The truth? The vampires attacked you and now they're dead," Damon said, shrugging indifferently. "I was here and I helped.
Rebecca nodded. "Okay. Did I tell you about the vampires? Or did Zach tell you, or did you just find out tonight?"
"Mm . . . tonight. Then you explained."
"Kay. Well, maybe you should be more panicked then. Normal people would probably be going into shock right now."
"I don't do shock. Never have. I'm good." Damon eyed her carefully. "You?"
"What?"
Damon gestured to the vampires. He wanted to know how she was with the torture session, apparently.
"We needed answers," she said, bringing her arms up to hug herself. "We didn't get what we wanted, but we got enough for now."
Damon was having an internal war. Should he pull her close or let her deal with this on her own. He knew that when she had her arms wrapped around herself it meant she wanted someone else to be doing it instead, but since she'd watched him torture somebody . . . Would she want him to be the one to comfort her?
"I mean, it was bound to happen sometime, right?" she asked, her voice full. "I need to get used to these things because chances are it's gonna happen again, right?"
Damon, not being someone who believed in false comfort, just nodded and decided he didn't give a damn about making her deal with it on her own. He wrapped his arms around her and she didn't resist when he pulled her close; she wrapped her arms around his waist and he felt as she locked her hands together behind his back.
Even though Damon knew she was stressing about the two vampires, Damon was more worried about the fact that somebody wanted to study Slayers - hence the attempted theft at the warehouse - and that there were vampires working for whoever it was. Probably not a human. Another more powerful vampire, maybe, or a witch. Or would it be warlock, since the vampire had used the word 'he'.
Though it might not be a he; the vampire could've been lying. But whoever the boss was, he or she was obviously worth dying for.
Once Sheriff Forbes got there, along with Rebecca's father, the first question was why they were there.
"I had noticed that Rebecca seemed really stressed out and I brought her here," Damon answered. "We both like to dance, so . . ."
His gaze swept over to Rebecca. Her eyes held some intense emotion that was almost too painful to see. He recognized it as self-loathing since he had some experience in that department. Rebecca didn't like hurting people - yeah, she enjoyed the physical outlet of fighting, but she never really wanted to hurt anyone. And when she was fighting she usually went for the kill quickly; she didn't draw out the agony any longer than completely necessary.
Rebecca's father was checking Rebecca over for wounds and it seemed to make her uncomfortable; from what she'd told Damon, her dad wasn't that attentive. Or he hadn't been, anyway.
Robert was moving Rebecca's head from side to side, pushing her hair out of the way, as if her neck was the only place a vampire would've bitten her. Rebecca put up with it for about thirty seconds and then she tugged away.
"I'm fine, Dad. I fell on my butt, not my face."
Sheriff Forbes asked for the story and got their version of it. Mostly truth: Damon had come out after paying the bill and had heard the fight, and since there were two he intervened. Rebecca had told him what to do and then had explained what had happened. But he was good; no trauma.
Robert thanked him, though, for looking out for his little girl. Damon almost smirked when Rebecca rolled her eyes at Robert's use of those words. She was probably fighting back the need to tell her father just how much she wasn't his little girl. The only reason he was even becoming involved in her life at all was because of the Slayer thing.
Damon cleared his throat when he felt it tighten and then mentally kicked himself. What was wrong with him lately? It was almost like his switch wouldn't work for him when he wanted it to, which didn't make any sense; it had always worked before so . . . What was so different about it now?
The truth of it was that seeing Rebecca with her father reminded Damon of his own father. He'd been great to Stefan, who had gone out of his way to keep their dad happy, but hadn't been good to Damon at all, because Damon had learned at an early age that nothing would satisfy his father except for perfect obedience. Damon had known he wouldn't have lived up to those expectations, so he hadn't even tried.
Giuseppe Salvatore had always thought of Damon as irresponsible and insolent, but the fact was that he just hadn't wanted to live like his father. He'd known about Katherine's vampirism before she'd started compelling him to do things for her, a fact that he hadn't been able to remember until after he'd been killed, but he hadn't judged her because of it. He was fairly certain that his human self would've tried to help her even if he hadn't thought he'd loved her, because, if Katherine had left him and Rebecca alone, Rebecca would've tried to help. It would've made him help just so he could make sure nothing happened to Rebecca.
Jeeze, I'm becoming just as bad a Stefan, he berated himself. Snap out of it!
Rebecca had been watching Damon's face very carefully because he'd suddenly - very suddenly - looked completely sad, heartbroken even, and she didn't understand why. It didn't fit the situation at all, and she could just feel that something was off.
So, while her dad and the sheriff were taking care of the two bodies, she went to him. She didn't speak; she just looked at him, concerned. His jaw clenched and his expression became closed off. He was in one of his moods apparently, so she didn't push.
"Rebecca, come on, we're going," her dad called to her and she frowned. She gestured for him to wait a second and he nodded and went with the sheriff to her car.
Rebecca grabbed Damon's hand and she half-expected him to jerk away, but he didn't. She assumed that meant that whatever was wrong, it didn't have anything to do with her.
"Hey, I don't know what's wrong, but I'm gonna leave my bedroom window unlocked tonight if you need me, okay?"
Damon nodded and tried not to feel the jolt of relief at her loyalty but felt it anyway.
She kept hold of his hand until she was out of reach and then had to let go. He still had his hand held out for her as she walked backwards a few steps, and she knew she must still look worried, but she didn't voice her concern.
As she got to the car that the sheriff and her dad had arrived in she randomly thought about what could've been on Damon's mind that had upset him like that. She hoped whatever it was that he would deal with it in a non-violent way.
She wondered if she maybe should've stayed with him, if she'd been there maybe . . . Maybe he would've felt better sooner. Or, hell, it might've made him feel worse.
Who knows, she thought, getting comfortable in the backseat of the cop car.
When Rebecca got home, her dad told her that her aunt had been in bed when he'd been called away. That was good; she didn't have to come up with an explanation as to why she'd been escorted home by the sheriff.
"Are you all right? You were awfully quiet on the way home."
Rebecca shrugged as they made their way into the house, turning on the light in the living room as they went.
"Just worried about Damon. After everything that happened, I don't think he should be alone. I know I didn't wanna be when I found out."
Rebecca found that the lie had come out easier than any had previously in her life - maybe because she was speaking in half-truths.
They sat silently in the kitchen for twenty minutes, the only light coming from the living room lamps. Her eyes had adjusted a while ago and she could make out all the minute moves her dad made. He was nursing a beer and she was nursing a cup of strong coffee.
"I'm supposed to go to Bonnie's sometime tomorrow. She's been wanting to hang out for a while now and with everything that's been going on . . . I just haven't had the time."
"That's fine," her dad said.
She had to keep herself from telling him that she hadn't been asking for permission; she'd only been giving him a head's up so he wouldn't plan on having her do anything else.
"Then I'm going to see Jeremy. He needs homework help or something."
Plus, she wanted to see if he was okay since Damon had erased his memories.
"Then on Sunday, I have to train. I've been slacking there lately."
She downed her coffee and placed the cup in the sink, ran water in it, and then sighed. "I'm gonna go to bed now. Sorry I had to make you leave the house so late."
"Glad you had the sheriff call me out."
"Sure, uh . . . Bed. Good night. Don't drink too much."
She wasn't used to being affectionate with her dad because he wasn't affectionate with her, but she gave him a hug anyway before going to brush her teeth and retire for the night. She'd noticed lately that her dad wasn't drinking as much, and she wondered if he'd done it before because he'd felt lonely with the information he'd had planted in his brain. Speaking of . . . She still didn't know anything about how he knew any of this. She'd have to find out somehow.
After her nightly routine was over she went to her room. Since Damon wasn't there she only wore a T-shirt to bed. A long one that came down almost to her knees. She turned her little TV on and kept it down low so that it was only background noise and fell into a fitful sleep.
At the boardinghouse, Damon was sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace just watching the flames dance. He hadn't thought about his dad in a long, long time and everything about his idiot of a father came rushing back.
It had hit him hard; and then he couldn't find his damn humanity switch like it wasn't even there, or like it was broken or something.
Damon was aware of Stefan pacing upstairs and it was slowly grating on his nerves. Shouldn't he have been asleep already? Or at least he could have been doing something other than pacing.
"You're gonna burn a hole in the floor if you're not careful, Stefan," he called out.
There was a slight pause in the pacing, but then it started up again. Apparently his brother wasn't able to take a hint.
Damon rolled his eyes. "That meant I wanted you to stop."
He knew full well that Stefan could hear him; he just wasn't listening. So there Damon was, sitting alone in front of the fire. He wasn't sure when exactly being alone had started to bother him again, but he was only acknowledging it now. He was sure it had something to do with Rebecca just like everything else that was resurfacing did.
He also knew full well that Stefan was a little jealous - not because of Rebecca; that would've caused more problems, Damon was sure. No, Stefan was a little jealous that Damon had a girl that wasn't afraid of the vampire thing. Elena had told Stefan that she couldn't be with him - she would never tell anyone his secret, but she couldn't be with him just the same. It was due to Rebecca that Damon wasn't upstairs bragging right now.
It was close to two o'clock in the morning, so he knew he shouldn't, but Rebecca had specifically told him that if he needed her he could come through her window. And he did need her for the simple fact that being in her presence made him feel better, less alone, and, for the first time since she'd disappeared in the past, alive - she made him feel alive and more human.
Which is stupid, he told himself, because I'm not human.
And Rebecca was human . . . And beautiful . . . And brilliant. Scary, sometimes with the way she reacted to things, but brilliant nonetheless.
He ran to Rebecca's house faster than he could drive, and stopped when he reached her window. She'd left a small crack in the window so he opened it and jumped in gracefully. She was sleeping now, covers pulled up almost over her head. One hand was curled underneath her cheek and her long honey-blond hair flowed over the pillows.
Damon didn't know what it was about her, but she made all his nerve endings come to life, and, even though it excited him, it terrified him, too, because that meant it would be easier for him to lose control with her than with anyone else.
Her skin had an unearthly glow to it due to the TV flickering between colors and it mesmerized him for a second. He felt drawn to her, pulled by some invisible thread that bound them together. He wanted her - all the time - but he knew he couldn't have her right then. She wasn't ready for such a relationship leap and at that moment, were he to wake her, it would be a leap and not just a small step.
It felt like they'd been together longer than they actually had been due to all the things they'd faced together recently. And he said 'together' because he'd realized that since Rebecca was with him he didn't have to be alone anymore; he didn't have to only rely on himself.
He went to lay beside her, knowing she wouldn't mind it if she woke up to find him there. He barely touched her, but she immediately curled against him and threw an arm over his middle. Then she hummed in contentment and he smiled at the knowledge that she seemed to know he was there even though she was sleeping.
Throughout the night Damon kept an ear out for her dad and her aunt like he always did when he stayed the night. A couple hours after he'd fallen asleep - even in sleep his hearing was better than the average human - he woke up because the bed was shaking.
He grinned when he realized it was because Rebecca was kicking at the covers, which had somehow wrapped itself around her legs. He helped her get free and she became still again. But he realized she was only in an oversized T-shirt. Her sun-kissed legs were completely bare and her shirt had ridden up to reveal white lacy panties.
Really? Why does she hate me?
He vaguely wondered if the hair between her thighs was the same color as the hair on her head, but he banished that thought as soon as it had entered his mind. It was not the time to be thinking about that.
He let his gaze travel upward and stopped at the small peaks of her breasts and noticed she wasn't wearing a bra. That wasn't the least bit helpful, he noted.
Then he looked at her neck, long and slender, her pulse pumping along healthily. He knew he couldn't just wake her up so he could feed, but ever since he'd attacked her the day she'd let him out of the cellar he'd been craving her blood. He was just glad he had enough control not to take her whenever he wanted.
He closed his eyes and focused on relaxing every part of his body, otherwise something bad would happen, and drifted back to sleep. Only this time he was the one who had his arm around her.
He couldn't believe he'd forgotten how good it felt just to be with her, to be beside her. Time had obviously tainted his memories of their time together in the past. But he guessed it didn't matter because he had all the time in the world to make new memories
Okay, so . . . what do you think? I was aiming for sexy with the dance at the beginning, but it might have come across as awkward instead. LOL. I have no idea. Leave a review if you want. I can't get better if I don't know what I'm doing wrong.