"As long as I can feel you holding on,

I won't fall, even if you said I was wrong.

I'm not perfect, but I keep trying

Cause that's what I said I would do from the start.

I'm not alive if I'm lonely,

So please don't leave."

The i8 didn't seem as if it could support the weight of two people on the hood, not without messing up the shocks. Kol didn't seem to care either way, as the place we had parked overlooked Richmond in a magical way. It was something that he wasn't going to let concern for his nice car get in the way of.

The wind made the air unforgiving, foretelling the winter to come perfectly, but I was as warm as I could be, wearing both my wool coat and Kol's blazer. He assured me that vampires don't get cold, and that was the only reason I actually took it.

For someone who wasn't a gentleman, he sure played the part well.

"What are you thinking about?"

We had been looking over Richmond in silence for a while, but it was a soothing silence. Somehow, the silence made me feel more relaxed, relaxed enough that I wasn't even remotely nervous around Kol anymore.

Silence brought us closer, showing me the true comfort I felt with him, better than words ever could.

Why was this happening if this was wrong? If Kol and I weren't compatible, if there wasn't even the slightest possibility of something more?

Surely fate wasn't that unkind . . . was it?

"The future," I said, without any other answer besides the truth coming to mind. The smell of rain filled my nostrils as I pulled a sharp breath in, allowing my eyes to move away from Richmond and over to the man who had somehow weaseled his way past all logic and sanity in me.

His eyebrows pulled up, exposing more of the warmth in his eyes. "The future? That's a vast subject. It could mean anything."

"Why did we have such a magical night if that's all it would ever be?"

"Maybe to remind us that there is good in the world, that there's hope," he said, his brows furrowing now as he studied every part of my face.

I shook my head. "I can't believe that."

"Why?" he asked, but once the word came out, he let out a humorless breath of a laugh. "I forget that you're only eighteen. You haven't fully experienced how cruel life can be sometimes."

"My parents were killed after a freak accident, running them off Wickery Bridge and almost killing my sister," I said. "My entire life has been spent getting sideways glances while people whisper freak behind my back, at the same time my almost identical twin sister is basically worshiped at every turn. I guess things could always be worse than that, but maybe it's a good thing nature fucked me out of eternity."

"Eternity has so many possibilities ahead, so many different things you can learn and explore," he said, but his eyes never tore away from me. "One day, something life changing comes along and makes all the empty years and loneliness worth it."

I shook my head. "I know there's good. I know there's hope, but I can't believe that's all this is."

"What do you think this is?" he asked.

"Endless possibilities," I murmured, and even though what I wanted to say made me nervous again, talking about the real feelings that were undeniable anymore, I kept my eyes locked in his. "Forever or a fire that might burn out quickly. It's far too soon to say, but I'd like to find out."

His eyebrows furrowed. "What if we fall in love with one another?"

"Then we'll get to know what it feels like," I said, and the smile that pulled on the corners of my lips was automatic, a reflection of the bliss I felt inside. "Maybe we'll get hurt, or maybe we won't. Maybe we'll finally be able to decide who's right."

"Right about what?" he asked, but as he asked the question, his hand moved over to touch mine. It was a simple gesture, but it made the inside of my body both calm and frantic. That alone was astounding.

"If love is strength or weakness."

His eyes drifted away from mine and down to my lips, which were pressed together as my eyes moved to study his face as well.

There were many different ways I saw this night going, with both good and bad endings, but at this point, all I could see was one ending, and ending that started with a first kiss.

"So what happens now?" he whispered, with no shame about the location of his gaze. "Would you like me to take you home? Do you want to stay here longer? The night is yours, darling. We can do whatever you would like."

As he was finishing his last sentence, the softest rain drops began trickling down, freezing the side of my face before I got a chance to answer—if I even had an answer.

The night was mine . . . to do whatever I wanted. Did that mean him, too?

I never thought I'd be the girl to sleep with someone on a first date, but my time with Kol was limited. At any time, his brother could find him, or the people around me could find out who he was.

Not to mention, I wanted to explore this with him, this complete and intimate relationship. Maybe with the idea of forever in mind, jumping straight into bed was a bad idea, as it left nowhere for the relationship to go.

All it could do is grow, into something deeper and more eternal.

The rain picked up, and Kol jumped off the hood, onto the forest clearing he had parked at. He was on my side of the car in a second, holding a hand towards me to help me off.

The dress on the slick, now wet paint of his car caused some resistance when sliding off, but I got off. He pulled the door open for me, and I could feel him pulling on my arm, an attempt to get me into the car.

Another idea occurred to me, in the moment, and it was too sappy and cliché to ignore it. If I was gonna have the best first date possible, I had to take every opportunity to make it that way, the kinda first date that would make my friends jealous.

When I was grey and old, married to a man who took care of me, I could always remember my first date, with an Original vampire.

I squared my shoulders and looked up at him, loving the way his eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I remained outside of the car. "You know what? Let's be cliché."

I expected him to ask me what I meant, but I didn't give him the chance. My hands grabbed onto the side of his face, along that chiseled jawline, and with enough force to get him on my level, I pulled his face down to mine. With my clumsy, human nature, I pulled his nose right into mine, and though my cheeks burned, with the cold rain stinging against the skin, I didn't let it stop me from correcting my error.

Just moments before my lips found his, I took in the scent of his cologne, the soft skin underneath my fingertips. If this was going to be nothing more than a memory someday, I wanted to remember every part of it, from the way his skin felt like velvet to the way his cologne took me to a gutter nearby—a hint of woody flavor mixed with whatever they put in men's cologne to make it smell so damn good. If it had a name, it was probably just straight sex appeal.

He didn't understand why I was hesitating, so as the lids of my eyes fluttered closed, he closed the distance between us and pressed his lips to mine.

My mind didn't even have time to process how the kiss made me feel, though my body began reacting in less than a moment. Just as I started to burn in the most painless of ways, he pulled away from me.

It felt like he had choked me, ripped away my ability to breathe when he pulled away, but the pain in my shoulders that followed shoved away any protests I might've had, with Kol's hands pressing me back into his car.

The look in his eyes was completely new, though it resembled the way he watched me Thursday, commenting that the dress I wore was more form fitting than the others I had worn thus far. That was all he said, but his eyes had a deviousness that implied more than even his words did, setting off a set of reactions that, at the time, I hated.

Now, seeing that look but amplified, with more than just his imagination running wild, there was an undeniable desire curling down to my pelvis. Suddenly, my hair wasn't the wettest part of my body.

His lips grabbed onto mine again, taking control himself so there was no more awkward bumping of noses. Suddenly, I understood every reference I'd ever read in stories or seen in movies. I understood each strange reaction, each person that seemed to just melt away.

Every part of me dissolved into him, in the most innocent of ways for the time, and I thought that touch had been magical before: magic was redefined with his lips against mine.

My body was no longer pressed back into the car, as his arms slid around me and absolutely crushed me into him. This was just the second taste, but it was enough to make me realize that I could never really get enough of this, enough of this sensation with him.

Kissing Damon, amid our drunken night, had been fun. It had been wild and something crazy and spontaneous, but this was so much more than that. It was true passion, something that I wondered if other people got to experience before in their lives.

Every other kiss in my life was wrong. This was the only thing that was right.

The blood coursing through my veins was throbbing, with both passion and desire, and my heart suddenly felt as if it might explode. Air was coming into my lungs, through my nose, but it felt like I wasn't breathing, in the best of ways.

Until he ripped his lips away from me, giving me a sense of emptiness that I couldn't explain, I didn't realize the warmth I could feel throughout my body was all just in my head. The truth was, the October rain had chilled me right to my core, and when his lips were no longer on mine, it was painfully obvious just how cold I was.

"Shit, Darcy, please get in," he murmured. "I could stay here all night doing this, but not at your expense."

My clothes weren't completely soaked yet, but my hair was pretty wet, with water dripping down my face and probably ruining my makeup. On most occasions, I would've been worried about being on a date with ruined makeup, but my first date was with an Original vampire who could probably see every flaw through the makeup anyways.

He had the door closed behind him the moment he got in, and now that we were safe in the warmth of his car, which he turned back on, he could allow himself to express the things inside that the kiss had brought out.

It made sense to be everything to me, but that was the same things I saw in his eyes, the things I felt inside. It was as if it was his first kiss, his first real experience like that, and I couldn't begin to explain that.

He had mentioned never falling in love before, but was there really no one before that he even wanted to do more than sleep with?

The idea that I was a first for him was euphoric, and it was the reason I didn't give him a chance to ask what now. It was the reason I climbed into his lap, despite the small space between his body and the steering wheel.

His breaths were very sharp while I bent down, looking for the buttons on the side to move the seat back. They were down there alright, but it took Kol working with me to push it all the way back into the back of the car for me to have the room I needed.

His lips grabbed onto mine the second I was situated and comfortable, and his hands were everywhere on my body, holding me against his own like he was afraid to let go. That was how I felt, with my lips against his like this. If I stopped kissing him, would he disappear? Would I wake up from this dream?

It hadn't really felt like a dream before, even if it was nothing I ever dared to hope for, but right now, in this world changing moment of kisses and passion, a dream was the only way I could explain it.

Wouldn't that be horrible? Waking up the night after I had let the Originals out of the coffins, only to find that none of it had been real.

To be honest, I probably wouldn't get out of bed ever again.

Just to remind myself that this was very real, I pulled away from him and allowed myself to catch my breath, though my lips were still parted and very close to his. There was a fire in his eyes that I hadn't seen yet, not as brightly as it burned, but it only ignited the fire within me.

"I was told to make you work for it," I breathed, the skin of my lips barely caressing his with each word.

His hands stopped roaming over my body and instead gripped down wherever they were, which just so happened to be my lower back. "Mmm. Am I gonna have to work for it?"

"Let's go back to your place and see."

A/N: Hey guys! You are all so amazing. I wasn't expecting this kind of response to my story, but I'm glad y'all like it!

The lyrics at the beginning are from the song Perfect by Hedley. They're another new band I've found recently that I really love.

Anyways, I have up to chapter 24 written, though the outline for this entire story is already all done. It's a total of one prologue, thirty chapters, and one epilogue, with a sequel planned. I think this will be the last chapter I post today, however, so I can make sure to stay ahead and have more to put up for you guys. I'm notorious for stopping mid-story, and I don't wanna do that. I wanna get started on the second part hopefully tomorrow or the day after that, but I think I'm gonna post only one or two chapters a day.

Enough of my rambling. Last thing I will say is that the next chapter gets a bit steamy, and I apologize in advanced if my smut is too detailed or horrible. I'm not the best at writing it, and when my little sister read this chapter, she actually told me, "Wow. That was . . . detailed." So I tried to make it not so in your face but still hot at the same time? I'm rambling again, but smut comes in the next chapter.

Read, review, and enjoy. :)