What is life, when wanting love? Night without a morning; love's the cloudless summer sun, nature gay adorning.

- Robert Burton

Her hands raked though her hair nervously as she stepped onto the front porch of the Salvatore boarding house. She hadn't ever felt this nervous to see Damon. She knocked on the door twice then let her hand fall back to her side.

"Come in!" She heard him yell, and she pushed open the door hesitantly to be hit with the aroma of food. She smiled as she wandered through the house towards the kitchen, where she knew he'd be. He had his back facing her, but her mind raced back to the first time they slept together. The next morning he'd cooked her pancakes and she felt a sort of déjà vu watching him now. He turned to look at her and a large smile crept up his face.

Elena's hair was wavy and messy in a perfect sort of way. She wore a darker red lipstick and light boyfriend jeans with a simple white long sleeved shirt.

"Hi." He said, immediately stunned at her beauty for some strange reason. He'd always known she was gorgeous, but not being able to have her and touch her and be alone with her for this long made him realized exactly how beautiful she was.

"Hey." She stumbled over to the opposite side of the stove and grabbed a bar stool to sit and watch him.

"I'm making your favorite." He stated, stirring something in the pan rapidly. "Chicken Parmesan with gnocchi." He added, lifting a lid off a different pan to show her the chicken. She gave a soft smile.

"You know, I would have settled for pizza, you didn't have to make me dinner." Elena murmured softly, looking up at him with bright eyes.

"I wanted to." He said, finishing stirring and then moving to grab two plates and two glasses. He filled them both with red wine, and they got their food, moving to sit in the dining room which was dimly lit.

They carried out casual small talk through out dinner until Damon removed their plates. Elena sipped her wine until he returned, ushering her to the parlor where they sat in front of the roaring fire.

"I want to get something out." He said, turning his body to face hers. She pulled her gaze away from the fire to meet his icy eyes.

"Okay…" She said slowly.

"I love you more than I love anyone in this world. I love you more than I ever loved Katherine." His lip pouted slightly as he looked down at her doe eyes. "And I know you were worried about that, and I hadn't really realized it until I realized I was missing you. I'm not saying this because I want to get in your pants, I'm saying this because it was stupid to fall back to Katherine when you were angry with me and I know that. There are no lies or excuses that I can tell you for why I kissed her. And everything-" He stopped to try and find his words. "Losing you showed me that I don't want her, since meeting you, it's always been you." He stopped to take a breath and she didn't say anything.

Her face was blank and her eyes were watching him intently. She didn't know what to say. What did you say to someone who tells you that you're their entire life? That you mean that much to them. Nothing, which is exactly what she said.

She leaned in slowly, her forehead touching his for a few seconds until his hands grasped her face and her lips touched his ever so slightly. An electric shock ran through her body and she leaned in closer, one hand falling to his chest, the other playing with the fine hair on the back of his neck. He pulled away slowly to look at her face, to search her eyes for a hint of anything. That's when she removed his hands and placed them back in his lap, turning her body back to analyze the fire. His eyes never left her. Watching her eyes flutter open and closed, watching her perfectly plump lips rub red against each other. When she turned back to look at him she gave a shy smile, bringing her thumb to his lips to remove her lipstick from him. He smiled affectionately and bit her thumb lightly when it fiddled with his bottom lip.

Elena was almost in his lap now, and her hand fell from his face to his knee, where she looked down to, rubbing strange patterns on his dark jeans. All of her movements were so chaste and innocent that he brought her face up to look at his with two of his fingers.

"I never know how you feel. Tell me how you feel." He said, studying her face and biting his lip.

"I just did." She whispered, placing a hand on one of his cheeks and rubbing the pads of her fingers against the soft, pale skin there.

"Words." He said, drinking in the adoring look in her eyes.

"I never loved Matt Donovan, or your brother or Tyler Lockwood." She stated simply. "I'm seventeen years old and I don't quite know what love is. What love means. I've told you this before. I more than just like or adore, or enjoy being with you. Those seem like understatements. So I figured that's what love is. Love is me and you." She said, and it sounded sort of childish. Everything she was saying and doing felt childish and naïve, but he could see the strip of lust jolt through her eyes.

"Just say it." She shuffled in his lap so that she was kneeling on the couch between his legs. Both of her hands were on either side of his beautiful face. She looked down at him with her dark brown eyes and gave a slight smile.

"Damon Salvatore, I am in love with you." She whispered, rubbing circles on his cheeks. He smiled and leaned forward to playfully bite the skin just below her neck and she giggled innocently.

"Spend the night." He requested, looking up at her.

"No." She muttered bluntly. "I'm not that easy, Damon." She raised one eyebrow playfully.

"Come on…" He argued.

"I'm serious Damon. I want to take this slow." Elena said, sitting on the back of her legs so that she was at level with him.

"What's with you and your no sex rules?" He asked annoyingly. "Do you torture all your boyfriends like this?" Damon kissed the corner of her lips sweetly.

"Only the really bad ones." She smiled, and he gasped, playfully tackling her backwards onto the floor in front of the fire. He looked down at her with scolding eyes, pinning her hands on either side of her face.

"Take that back." He said in mock anger.

"I refuse!" She screamed and he leaned in to bit the skin on her neck. She kept repeating the phrase and he kept biting her softly, careful not to actually hurt her. Damon didn't need sex. Right now, he was in heaven.

The movie was awful. Caroline had regretted picking it, a really bad chick flick that tried to incorporate comedy and drag racing. Just awful. When she and Stefan left the theatre he pulled her in to link arms with her. They walked silently to the coffee shop across the street, where they both ordered what they wanted and Stefan insisted on paying. Caroline hadn't been treated this nicely since… No, not even his brother had been nice to her. Damon was only nice to her when he wanted something. Mostly just sex.

"So, why'd you decide to finally call me up?" Caroline asked with a sly smile, taking a seat across from Stefan.

"I don't know." Stefan shrugged but when she gave him a look he expanded. "Damon kicked me out of the house for his date with Elena so I figured I'd finally ask you out. I have to admit, I kind of had a crush on you when you were dating my brother." Stefan laughed nervously.

"Really?" Caroline asked amused, looking into his dark green eyes.

"Jeremy stop it!" Bonnie cried underneath his body. She erupted into a fit of giggles when he began to tickle her to death. She shook and squirmed under him, attempting to push him off but the effort was futile. He didn't budge.

"Jeremy!" She squealed, finally crawling out from under him to tackle him back on the bed. Bonnie was thankful for the great relationship she and Jeremy had. They loved each other, she was certain of that, and watching Elena's bumpy relationship with Damon was sort of a wake up call. Two people who loved each other so much could go through so much pain and still be in love. She had no concerns about Jeremy now. He was awake and healthy and she was so thankful for that.

"Ow, Bonnie! No hitting." He flinched from her minor aggression and chuckled. He let the dark skinned girl gain the advantage but he'd never tell her that he did this all the time when they were wrestling or chasing each other around the house. She finally got tired and collapsed next to him, pressing a sweet kiss to his shoulder.

"I love you." She said quietly. He turned his face to look at her and smile.

"I love you too."

"So what now?" Elena had been trapped under Damon's hold for a few minutes now, being attacked by tickles and bites and kisses. His face was slightly serious but she could see the playfulness in his eyes.

"What do you mean?" She asked, looking up at him curiously. Her arms were still above her head although his hands were no longer pinning them there. He straddled her waist lightly his hands playing with the material of her shirt on her stomach.

"What are we? What is this?" He asked, placing both hands flat on the floor beside her tiny body. She couldn't do anything put lie there, trapped by the confines of his toned body.

"We're back to normal. Back to Damon and Elena." She smiled, moving her arms to grip the back of his neck and pull him down to her so that their foreheads rested against each other.

"I can't pretend that I don't want to be near you again. I can't fight anything anymore. I love you, and I want to be with you." Elena whispered, and his lips descended on hers slowly. His body met hers, perfectly shaped for each other. He moved against her, settling to where his forearms were placed beside her face and his legs rested on the outside of her small body. Her hands were tangled in his hair, her lips fused to his passionately. It wasn't just a whisper of a kiss anymore; it was his lips pressing hard against his, his tongue tasting her lipstick.

She was perfect in everyway. There wasn't one thing he didn't love about her. The way her groans were lost in his mouth, the way her hands in his hair sent a shiver down his spine. The affects of her body moving slowly against his, and although they were both fully clothed, the fact that they felt so close, like nothing was separating them. He wanted this forever. He wanted her forever. This was so simple to him. He loved her, she loved him. At the moment, his mind was so lost that that was all he could think. Her lips were toxic, the smell of her lavender body wash and the vanilla fragrance that was tangled in her hair made him weak. He pulled back from her lips reluctantly so that he could stare at her. Her swollen red lips and flushed cheeks. The way she smiled up at him, her hair a complete mess, the way she brought her hands to wipe away all of her lipstick off his lips once again. She was perfect. Elena brought her arm up to wipe away her own lipstick then moved to bring his face back to hers.

"Now can you spend the night?" He whispered against her lips and she let out a giggle.

"Nope."

Thankyou for everyone that reviewed. I've been reading them and they all made me smile. I seriously doubt my writing skills sometimes while reading other fics and then I read your comments and they make me happy. This was a bit of a filler chapter. Showing all of the couples together and interacting a little, and I know it's short but the chapters will get back to their normal length soon. About the bet, don't worry, no one forgot. && Elena's birthday was in chapter 17.