Chapter 4: In From the Cold

ELENA

The crackling of the fire is our soundtrack, the rest of the boarding house patiently silent around us. I resist the urge to curse and spoil the moment as I tug on the stubborn yarn that's managed to tie a whole new kind of knot around my knitting needle. I give up and close my eyes, letting my head drop back against Damon's soothing fingers. He obligingly stops toying with my hair and massages my scalp instead.

There's a whisper of paper as he turns a page, but his clever fingers don't pause in their ministrations and I feel my muscles start to unwind into the forgiving leather of the couch.

"I love these new couches," I say. "They soak up the warmth of the fire until I just melt into them like hot wax."

"Blondie knows her business when it comes to furniture. But don't tell her I said that."

I follow his gaze as it shifts to the flames, colors shifting and changing within their depths. Always familiar, and yet never quite knowable. "Warmth is a luxury for vampires." His voice is odd, pensive.

"Is that why you like bubble baths?" I tilt my head just enough that I can see him without interrupting the movement of his fingers in my hair.

He smiles wickedly at me. "I like them because they come with my favorite bath toy."

I snuggle closer to his side, disturbing the book he's reading. He marks his place with a scrap of dark lace and sets it aside, lifting me onto his lap instead.

"Why is it so quiet for once?" I rub my nose along the curve of his neck.

"Stefan and Caroline went dancing."

I pull back, the corners of my mouth turning down. "I want to go dancing."

Damon quirks an eyebrow. "With them?"

I make a face and he chuckles. "Maybe not."

My boyfriend scoops me up as if I weigh no more than a kitten and stands, spinning us before setting me on my feet and stepping into a bow that makes it look like 1864 was yesterday. He kisses my hand and peeks up at me, eyes twinkling with a mischief that is thoroughly contemporary.

"May I have this dance, Miss Gilbert?"

I tilt my head and pretend to consider. "It's rather forward of you to ask. We lack a chaperone."

He straightens and draws me closer. "And if I promise to comport myself only as a gentleman?"

My eyes land on the sensual curve of his lips and I have to swallow before answering. "I don't know if I'd believe it of you."

He raises our hands, folding mine securely inside his, the elaborate D on his ring winking in the firelight.

"When it comes to you, you could believe most anything about me." He strokes my bare arm as I place my other hand on his waist, my flesh tingling in a rush that goes all the way to my nipples. "Maybe not that I'd be a gentleman." His lips curve. "But most other things."

He sways with me and I struggle to catch my breath. It's embarrassing that he can do this to me after we've been dating for so long already. Every time he touches me, it's like I've been waiting years for it.

I press a soft kiss to his collarbone, tasting his skin with just the tip of my tongue. He edges his hips away from me. "Miss Gilbert, I'll thank you not to be taking liberties with my person."

I smile up at him. "I was just remembering our first dance in front of the fireplace. I was scared to death, coming over here after I told you how I felt and you didn't say a thing in return. But then you held out your hand to me and I thought that was it. I thought after that moment, it was all going to be easy."

I roll my eyes at how wrong I was.

His eyes darken, but his tone is teasing. "Did you just call me easy?"

I nip his lower lip in mock punishment and frown at him. "You ran all the way to Thailand after that, so I guess not."

He runs his tongue across his lip as if savoring the taste of my bite. "I could be easier, if you keep doing that."

I lean up on my toes and kiss him, stroking his tongue slowly with mine, because I know the way he likes it now.

I leave the kiss only to lay my head against his chest, dancing and cuddling and resting, all at once. He can make the simplest thing into so many things, this beautiful man.

"I'm in love with you," I admit.

I hear his breath catch, even though I've told him hundreds, thousands of times. "Good, because I wasn't going to let you keep using me for my body for much longer."

I laugh. "Sure you weren't."

I step back and sink into a jean-clad curtsey. "Thank you for the dance, Mr. Salvatore."

"You curtsy like a man." He smirks and I return it with a glare.

"I do not."

He places a hand on my belly and one on the small of my back and guides my movement. "Your corset wouldn't have let you bend at the waist, so you sink straight down. Use your knees instead."

Damon tips my hips forward and nudges my back straight, urging me lower. His fingers are brushing the zipper of my jeans and I feel a little thrill in my belly as he brings me back to standing.

"There. Better." He winks and turns away, heading for the tray of decanters. I watch him for a second longer, my normally sluggish heartbeat stuttering as unevenly as a human's. I don't need blood to make me feel alive. Not when I have him.

I blink and reclaim my place on the warmed leather of the sofa, determined not to act like an infatuated idiot. Damon glances at me, and I busy myself with my knitting needles.

"You're not half old enough to knit."

"I will be by the time I finish your scarf." I poke at the knotted lumps in the two inches of scarf I've managed so far. Everybody said knitting was supposed to be relaxing and I definitely needed that after my transition, but it's not working out so well.

"Take your time. I'm going to need seventy or so years to adjust to the idea of wearing something that ugly."

I gasp, wrinkling my nose at him. "My scarf is not ugly. It's painstakingly…unique."

Damon raises his eyebrows. "Yeah. Painstakingly…something."

He takes a sip of his drink and immediately spews it toward the fire.

I forget my irritation and leap off the couch, scanning the room for signs of an enemy before I blur to his side.

"What is it? Is it vervain?"

"Worse." He wipes his mouth, looking thunderously angry. "Apple juice."

I frown. "Apple juice? I thought you got it out of a decanter."

He goes back to the tray, opening each bottle in turn and sniffing them. "Apple juice. Goddamn her!"

I bite my lip, trying to stifle a laugh.

"She mixed it into my liquor so that I didn't notice the smell right away." His expression is pained as he touches one of the smaller decanters. "This was a fifteen hundred dollar bottle of Scotch. I don't even know if any more of that year's distillation still exists."

He shakes his head, still staring. I wince and stroke his back hesitantly. "That's pretty low, even for Caroline. She probably didn't know how expensive it was."

"The fuck she didn't." He sounds less upset than I expected. Normally, we'd be to the sweeping-up-broken-glass portion of the evening by now.

"What did you do this time?"

Damon smirks, setting down his glass. "Swapped out her precious solitaire for a gen-u-ine cubic zirconium off the Home Shopping Channel."

I gasp, my hand flying to my mouth, though it can't stifle a giggle. "Damon, you didn't! You're lucky that wasn't vervain. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that nobody makes my girl cry." He casts one more half-disappointed, half-admiring look at his ruined liquor collection.

Tears spring to my eyes. For me? Just because I was being so silly that one day, crying in his bathtub after Caroline and Stefan got engaged?

"You're going to, if you're not careful." I grab him in a tight hug and try not to sniffle against his shirt.

His hands drift down to cup my bottom. "I bet I can make you smile again," he purrs.

I press closer to him, excited by his tone and the hard planes of his chest.

Damon's hands creep under the hem of my shirt, his thumbs brushing the inner curves of my hipbones, just above my low-riding jeans.

I feel a little lightheaded, so I hang onto his broad shoulders for balance, tipping my head back so I can see his eyes gleaming with a protective kind of heat.

"I'll just bet you can."

# # #

DAMON

I pause beside the couch, watching my girlfriend sleep. The firelight casts golden, flickering shadows across the luscious curves of her bare breasts. I hate to cover her up, but I don't want her to be cold. As a vampire, it won't hurt her, but she can still feel the chill.

I brush my knuckles across her smooth belly, satisfied with the temperature of her fire-warmed skin. Her hand shifts restlessly across the half of the couch that I just vacated and I touch her hand, waiting until she quiets before I move again.

I pad toward the kitchen without bothering with clothes, enjoying the languorous pull of well-used muscles. It's the closest a vampire gets to tired without being wounded, this satisfied lassitude that drugs my overactive mind and quiets the world around me.

I open the hard-to-reach cupboard above the fridge, smiling to myself. Caroline thinks she's clever, but I hid my best bourbon in here before I pulled my last prank on her. I'd have put the Camaro in storage, too, but I don't think she would duplicate her pranks. Since she already cost me a world-class detailing after she filled it with Count Chocula, I figured my car was safe. My three favorite first editions and my best leather jacket are now in the safe in the library, too. The one Stefan doesn't have a combination to.

The Waterford crystal decanter twinkles in the low light when I take it out of the cupboard, and I smile as I pull the stopper and tip it toward my glass. Nothing happens.

It is two-thirds full. I frown and attempt to pour again. The level of the liquid doesn't budge. My eyes widen and I give it a shake, watching the amber substance wobble. Just like Jell-O.

No fucking way.

I stare at the world's most expensive Jell-O Jiggler, my fingers slowly tightening on the crystal.

This is war.