A/N: HELLO DARLINGS! I have company suddenly coming into town tomorrow so that means...EARLY UPDATE! And how cute was Paley Fest? SHEESH, talk about some sexual tension. Mm-hmm. So, on that note... ;)
Trogdor19, the coolest chick and beta ever, has a BRAND NEW ONE SHOT! WHOOOOO! BASED ON EPISODE 5X16! MORE WHOOOOOO! AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS? Delicious sexy times. HOLLA! Interspersed with such gorgeous writing that it makes me cry in shame and jealousy while I'm applauding like a proud mama. It's called What Words Can't Say and it's amazing! Go check it out and send her some review love, because the woman is gonna be living on an airplane this week and reviews help jet lag. Yep, that's the truth ;)
Enjoy!
Chapter 14: Shaky Starts
My head is pounding and my stomach is curdling, but I couldn't give two hints of a fuck because I'm wrapped around a peacefully sleeping Elena and it's worth every painful, horribly hungover moment.
Her back is melted into my chest and my right hand is tucked into the front pocket of the hoodie she's still wearing, and when I pull her a little closer she groans and shifts, rolling onto her stomach and then scooting further into me. I lay fully onto my back as she snuggles into the space under my jaw and it feels like my shoulder is out of socket from her using my left arm as a pillow, but her left arm is stretched across my stomach and her hand is clinging to my hip under my shirt and left arms are the best.
"You stink like bourbon," Elena grumbles and I run a hand down her hair, taking a deep, languorous breath.
"You smell good," I slur back and she scoffs.
"I probably smell like you."
"And I always smell good." I grin and it stretches into a yawn, opening my eyes just enough to see her lift her head as she looks around.
"What time is it? And why don't you have a clock in here?"
"Because I have a phone and it's the same thing and who cares?" I whine and reclose my eyes. "It's daylight. Daylight bad. Must sleep more."
"Okay," she agrees and drops her head back down on my shoulder, and I chuckle quietly.
God knows she must be as hungover as I am because we did some serious damage to that bottle of bourbon last night, and Elena is officially my new favorite drinking buddy. Because I get to make out with her more and more the drunker we get, and we are excellent at making out. Dr. Seuss would be so proud. We can do it in the kitchen or sprawled out on the floor, rolling around on my bed or even pressed against the door. Yes we can, Sam I am.
I played by her rules and the clothes stayed on, but that didn't stop me from daring to grab her ass or Elena deciding that the best way to drive me insane with payback was to climb on my lap and bait me with everything she's got. And she's got a lot.
The whole night is a blur of acting like we were drunken teenagers at a basement party, and every time things got a little too intense it was a frustrating pause to drink more and then do something embarrassingly stupid. Like proving I could moonwalk and then tripping backwards and spilling a shitload of bourbon all over my shirt. Or when she announced that she spent her entire childhood and a good chunk of her adolescence twirling a baton, so I unscrewed the club head off my driver and got a full reenactment of her routine. And it turns out that not only is Elena extremely flexible, but baton twirling is the sexiest thing I've ever seen because it was pretty much just some seductive mix of ballet and gymnastics while she expertly fondled a very long rod. Who knew?
I did end up getting her to watch Monty Python and she loved every second of it, especially the opening credits because she decided that llama was the funniest word in existence to say. And when she got her first taste of the genius of John Cleese as the Black Knight? She actually laughed so loud that my neighbors got pissed and started banging on my door, asking us to keep it down. That's when Elena decided to give me a heart attack by immediately asking them if they would sell her some pot.
I mean, yeah, I've had my suspicions of what goes on over there, but it's not like I'm just gonna come out and say it because those guys? They're a little intense. And they're probably packing something more threatening than a set of Callaways. But Elena? One smile and a perfectly timed giggle, a bashful tuck of her hair behind her ear and she scored herself a joint.
Turns out those smoke rings she blows so well? It's because Little Miss Moral was a major pothead in high school and she swears she hasn't smoked in years, but she could've fooled me because we blazed through that shit like pros. Afterwards we had a serious and long winded discussion about the reason she likes animated movies, and she was predictably offended when I told her they weren't as innocent as she thought. Segue into us on the floor with my laptop, me pointing out the dicks on the original cover of The Little Mermaid and her almost crying from feeling so betrayed by Disney.
Apparently, what it really comes down to is the romance. Guy on a horse saves the pretty princess, and she's a total sucker for it. I told her real romance was a guy that was willing to kill an endless amount of people and literally walk on broken glass just so he could save his wife from a bunch of thieves holding her hostage at her work's Christmas party, even though she's two seconds from divorcing him because she doesn't appreciate that he works his ass off all the time so he could take care of her in the best way he knows how. Elena swooned, and that's how I got her to watch Die Hard.
We only got about halfway through before she passed out, and I don't remember seeing the end of the movie so I must have followed shortly after, but it's quiet in the apartment so I'm guessing she must have woken up and turned it off at some point. We're also now mysteriously under my comforter, so she somehow managed that as well. Her mystical powers know no bounds.
Who knows what else happened when I was blacked out, but we're both still dressed so that's slightly encouraging. I'd probably kill myself if I had sex with her and not been able to remember it because based on that baton routine and her extreme aptitude at rolling her hips while straddling mine, Christ knows there isn't much else that I want to have permanently forged in my memory.
Except for maybe all of last night and so far, this morning.
Because she just yawned and shifted, drawing her leg up over my waist, and I can't resist smoothing my hand over her and lightly massaging the back of her thigh. I rock my hips up so I can rub my denim-imprisoned erection against her, moaning throatily 'cause fuck that feels good and I've been hard for something like eight hours now. I probably need to see a damn doctor because that is so not normal and it can't be healthy for my poor neglected cock, but such is life with Elena in my proximity.
"Don't start," she whispers and I whimper.
"You're murdering me…"
"You'll live," she tells me and I snort. And it makes my brain hurt. So much.
"Ow," I whine and she snickers, and then winces in pain. "You too?"
"Mm-hmm," she mumbles. "Does that mean last night really happened?"
"Which part?"
"All of it," she says quietly, and I nod. Carefully. "You are the worst influence, just like, ever."
"I hate to break this to you," I say and pull her a little closer, "but the drinking, and the smoking, was all your idea."
"Oh God, I forgot we got high," she says and I chuckle, and then immediately regret it. I swallow a burp and turn my head away from her to blow out a breath. "Damon, if you throw up on me, I'll never forgive you…"
"Back at ya."
I pry my eyes open and reach over to my nightstand, grabbing my phone. It's a quarter after ten and I was supposed to do something today…
It was fairly important, and it required an appointment, but I can't remember what or where or when.
I open my call log to see if that'll jog my memory and when I see it, I realize that I'm pretty sure my appointment was at ten-thirty. Fuck.
"What are you doing?" Elena mumbles and I shush her, pressing call and my head throbbing with every single ring until some overly chipper, wide awake and not deathly hungover chick answers, and I instantly hate her for it.
"My name is Damon Salvatore, I had an appointment at ten-thirty and I need to reschedule," I mutter slash slur.
"Sure thing, Mr. Salvatore," Perky McGee tells me and I grimace at her voice. "Did you want to come in later today?"
"Yes," I sigh and she rattles off a list of other options. "Noon is fine," I tell her and hang up in the middle of her cheerful goodbye, letting the phone slip from my fingers and fall on the floor.
"Haircut?" Elena asks and I wrap my arms around her, massaging my fingertips into her scalp until she's almost purring.
"Something like that."
Five minutes. Five minutes to stay here and soak this up before I need to move.
But I don't wanna.
Until I catch a whiff of myself and Jesus, I do stink like bourbon.
"Okay," I breathe and Elena flinches like I woke her up. "I am going to get up, and go take a shower."
"Okay," she tells me, but neither of us moves.
"On the count of three…"
"Seven," she mumbles. "Seven is better."
I laugh quietly, then smoothly roll her off me so she's on her back. She immediately turns onto her other side and burrows down under the comforter, and as I look at her dark hair fanned out over one of my pillows, I can't stop thinking that this should be so much weirder.
I finally get my feet planted on the floor and lug myself up with a groan, wishing for a moment that I was shorter because it's less body to haul around. But I still manage to stumble my way towards my closet and grab some clean clothes, and when I open the door to my bathroom I stop and smile. I peek back over my shoulder at Elena, happily snuggled in my bed.
"Any idea who drew a massive butterfly on my bathroom mirror out of shaving cream?"
"I blame that Rumpelstiltskin…"
"Van Winkle," I correct and she huffs.
"Whatever," she mutters and pulls the covers over her head.
I close the door and end up spending way too long under the hot water, but it does wonders for how shitty I was feeling beforehand. And when I finally finish getting to a publicly presentable state, I come out and it looks like Elena's still asleep. I slide on my boots, grab my phone and my keys, and crouch down next to the bed.
I pull the covers down so I can touch the tip of her nose, and she wrinkles it adorably.
"You awake?"
"No," she mumbles and I smile.
"I'm gonna go get some caffeine and breakfast and the entire city's collection of aspirin, and you're welcome to keep drooling all over my pillows, or feel free to take a shower, which I recommend." She opens her eyes and glares at me, and I wink. "There are clean clothes in the closet and towels in the bathroom cabinet, help yourself to anything else you need."
"You still owe me that pie recipe."
"Don't get me started on what you owe me," I smirk and she shoves at me.
"Go, I'm not showering with you anywhere within two miles of me."
"You say that now," I grin and stand. "No snooping," I tell her and head out the front door.
"Elena?" I call out when I get back twenty minutes later, and the fact that I'm doing it makes me feel a little like Ricky Ricardo and I'm due for having a panic attack any second.
But commitment anxiety gets bumped down a notch on my To Do list when she calls back, "Just a sec!" and then the bathroom door opens.
She's the cutest ambassador for the University of Texas I've ever had the good fortune of laying eyes on, decked out in a pair of longhorn-orange pajama pants, a gray UT hoodie, her hair twisted up in a towel and one hell of a smile behind what looks like…
"Is that my toothbrush?" I ask and she rolls her eyes at me. "Gross!" I laugh. "You could have cooties."
"Shut up," she mumbles and then goes back in the bathroom, rinsing out her mouth.
I bluntly watch as she pulls out the towel and then bends over at the waist to dry off her hair, and once she's satisfied, stands up and flips it back like she's in some 80's Whitesnake video. If her next move is to crawl across the floor in a further impersonation of Tawny Kitaen, I may hear myself asking her to move in.
"Enjoying yourself?" she asks cheekily when she catches me staring at her, running her fingers through her wet hair and twisting it around until she lets it hang in a single twist over her shoulder.
I take a drink of my coffee and shrug, heading into the kitchen and listening to her soft footsteps following after me. If you bring the coffee, they will come. I pop the top on the aspirin and pour two into her outstretched palm when she stops next to me, taking them with a generous sip of coffee and moaning appreciatively at the taste. She bites her lip and tilts her head when I start digging the food out of the paper bag, producing a whole bunch of breakfast tacos and more napkins than required by a preschool.
"These are yours," I tell her and pass her the ones marked as cheese, egg and potato, keeping the carnivore versions for myself.
"Thanks," she says quietly, smiling when she sees the labels and then she hops up to sit on the counter.
"Sure you don't want a little chorizo? Does the body good," I tease and she scowls in disgust.
"Yuk. No."
"Freak," I drawl out and take a bite of my favorite post binge cure.
And we eat for a few minutes in a nice, comfortable silence, before she decides to get right to the shit I was hoping to avoid.
"So," she says and takes a sip of her coffee. "I wanted to talk to you about something that we didn't quite get around to, with all the drinking and whatnot."
The "whatnot"? If that's what she wants to call pinning me to the bed and sighing my name down my throat, or stroking her tongue against mine and biting my bottom lip while holding me to her like she was afraid I was gonna disappear. But yeah, talking is kinda hard to do when both of us are enthusiastically partaking in a whole bunch of high-voltage "whatnot."
"Mm-hmm," I mumble and gather our trash, throwing it away.
She pauses for a moment before quietly asking, "How did you find me last night, Damon?"
I smirk at her. "You weren't that hard to spot."
She arches an eyebrow in that frustrated-disappointed look I'm too familiar with, and I take a sip of my coffee.
"You came to get me, didn't you? Because there's no way that you normally leave all your lights on and TV blaring and an entire pizza untouched when you go out for the night."
"Maybe I do," I shrug, and she throws her hands up in exasperation before hopping down from the counter. She turns to walk away and I carefully catch her wrist, waiting until she faces me. "I was at home when I got a call from Mason," I admit. "He was…concerned."
She drops her chin and shakes her head, then looks back up at me and squares her shoulders. "I can take care of myself, you know. You don't have to worry about me."
"I know," I nod. "And if you had wanted me to leave, I would have. I was also fine with you taking care of yourself when that prick had the balls to touch you." She winces and I slide my hand around to the small of her back, pulling her a little closer against me. My other palm gently cups her check, my voice dropping lower. "But I needed to make sure that you were safe."
"Okay," she says quietly, and I nod once.
I let her go and pick up my coffee, leaning back against the counter and watching her fidget for a minute. "Caroline looking for you yet?" I ask lightly, and that loosens her right back up.
"Yeah," she smiles. "Three missed calls, four texts."
"We better get you home before she sends out a search party." I wink and she laughs softly, heading off to grab her dress from where it's hanging up in the bathroom.
And when she comes back out and I lock the front door behind us a minute later, the whole thing is just oddly surreal. I mean, last night was fun and we kinda just went with it, not holding anything back, but I have no clue where we go from here. And it's making me feel like a twelve-year-old needy girl because I'm not sure whether this is something we're going to do again or if she's going to revert right back to the "sometimes friends" label we keep throwing at each other, or if that's a line that I'm going to be desperate to re-establish once the buzz from the night wears off. I don't really want to be with anyone else, but she's not exactly asking for my phone number either.
Honestly, I'm not sure if I know how to do this. Date Elena. As in, possibly considering attempting a relationship and that word makes me twitch like fucking crazy and what are we going to do at work now? There's no issue with company policy because the company doesn't care as long as we're not going at it while we're supposed to be taking calls, but I don't know what Elena's policy is anymore. Am I allowed to just kiss her whenever now? I doubt it. Even though I want to.
What I do know is now that I've stopped thinking with my dick, I'm seriously glad I didn't sleep with her for one very specific reason. It hasn't been that long since I've been tested but I'm definitely due, and even as careful as I am, things happen. I feel fine, seem fine, and I've always prepared myself for the possibility that one of my test results could be returned with a big bold "Positive" because it's just part of the deal, the risks I knowingly take with how I choose to live my life. But Elena doesn't roll those dice and the thought that I could have unknowingly passed something to her if we had slept together makes me sick to my stomach.
I won't touch her until I'm sure.
The worst part is that I have no idea how I'm ever going to tell her if something is wrong. She'll never look at me the same way again, but I have to be honest with her. And I can't help but to think that once again, Ric was right. She's so much better than this, than me, and she doesn't deserve to have to deal with this crap.
"Contemplating the best way to fix the national debt?" she says, and it brings me back into awareness.
I glance over at her, looking right at home in the passenger seat of my car, and I flash a smile. "Maybe…"
"You okay?" she asks quietly. "You've spent the last ten minutes looking really, really stressed."
"National debt is stressful stuff," I tease, pulling into my usual parking spot outside her apartment and she turns to face me a little more. I don't even remember the drive over here. That's disconcerting.
"You're freaking out, aren't you?"
"No…" I lie.
"Damon," she sighs at me. "It's fine. I know what kind of guy you are and I'm sure this morning was a little weird for you, and I appreciate everything you did in trying to make me comfortable, but honestly? Last night things got a little carried away and we can just go back to-"
"Can I pick you up later?" I interrupt, and when she blinks at me a few times, I tilt my head at her. "Unless you're busy. You busy?"
"No," she tells me and I smile.
"Okay. I gotta go take care of some stuff, but that should give you a few hours to get some sleep, read a chapter or two in a trashy novel and then burn all your Disney movies, and I'll pick you up around…say four?"
"Are you sure?" she asks doubtfully, and I roll my eyes.
"Look, if you don't-"
"Four's great," she rushes out, and we both kinda stare at each other for a second before I shake my head with a laugh, hooking a hand behind her neck so I can pull her close enough to quickly kiss her.
I pull back with a smirk, and she blushes.
"'Bye," she whispers timidly before getting out of the car, and I blow out a breath as I watch her half-jog up the stairs while wearing my clothes.
Now for the hard part.
Fuck, I'm so late.
Everything at my doctor's office took forever, along with some bullshit errands like picking up my clothes from the dry cleaners and then trying to speedily clean my apartment because it was a wreck after last night. Then I had to deal with Ric getting all butt hurt when I called to tell him I couldn't hang out, but I forgot that I promised I'd help him work on Jenna's brakes today and I think that was the fastest I've ever done four sets of brake and rotor replacements while he ragged on me for being more concerned about going on a date than getting drunk with him. After that it was stopping by my mom's which never goes as quickly as I need it to, and now I'm pushing four thirty and yeah, late late fucking late.
I park in front of Elena's apartment and I'm nearly running up the stairs, and it's hot as hell today and the miniscule breeze isn't helping with the fact that there's now a bead of sweat running down my spine under my shirt. I take one second to blow out a breath, swiping my forearm across my forehead, before knocking on the door.
"You're late," Caroline tells me when she opens the door, and I groan.
"She pissed?" I ask and step inside, and Caroline snickers as she closes the door.
"No, I think you did her a favor," she says, going to reclaim her spot on the couch in front of what looks like a show about super yachts. I arch an eyebrow and take a step towards Elena's room, but I pause when I see the half-finished model airplane sitting on the kitchen table. Who are these girls?
I shake my head, wondering if they've got a separate closet they keep their Legos and toy dinosaurs in. I continue to Elena's room, and her door is open and it sounds like she's in the middle of having some war with her closet, and I rap my knuckles on her doorframe.
"Yeah," she calls out and I step inside her room, opening my mouth to say something that I now can't even remember, because my words evaporate when I see her.
She's in a strapless pale-blue dress I've never seen her wear before and it's showing leagues of smooth skin; all of her neck and arms and shoulders and oh yeah, that delicious collarbone, until my view is impeded by the sweetheart neckline that's not actually showing anything, but the arc is getting my heart to thud and thunk and sputter and race.
The rest of the sky-colored fabric is molded perfectly to her chest and stomach, highlighting the delicate curve of her waist until it hits her hips and then begins to float and flutter down to her knees in the best taunt I could imagine. My gaze continues dropping down the rest of her long silky legs right to her barefoot feet, and her toes are newly painted in the lightest shade of bubblegum pink I have ever seen and my mouth is watering.
I clear my throat, and she narrows her eyes while propping a hand on her hip and then pointing a pair of shoes at me.
"If this isn't appropriate that's your fault because you have no idea how hard it is to get dressed when you have no idea where you're going."
I snort. "Being a chick must suck."
"I am not a 'chick,' and don't call me that," she says and I roll my eyes, stepping forward and snatching the pair of shoes out of her hand. "Hey!"
I hold them above and behind me so they're out of her reach, snaking an arm around her waist and yanking her against me.
"You didn't get a haircut," she says confused and I shake my head, letting the shoes slip from my fingers and crash on the floor.
She giggles quietly when I brush her hair back over her shoulder and duck my head, nudging the shell of her ear with my nose. I inhale her greedily and she smells like blackberry and vanilla lotion and a little bit of my body wash from her shower this morning and a growl rumbles out of my throat, my cock instantly hard.
"You look incredible," I whisper over the bare skin of her neck and she squirms a little.
"That tickles," she laughs softly and my hand on her waist tugs her hips tighter into mine, my lips trailing a line across the top of her shoulder until I gently nip at her. "Don't start," she warns breathlessly, but her fingertips are hooked through my belt loops and her thumbs are tracing the angled ridges between my stomach and hips, following them all the way down until they dip into my jeans before she pauses like she's scared to explore any further.
"Your fault," I chuckle quietly and leave a long kiss of a promise on her skin before I lean back enough to see her eyes. "You can't wear stuff like this and expect me not to go all crazy."
"I don't think you have any settings other than crazy," she tells me, her voice more than a little raspy, and I arch an eyebrow at her.
"True."
I brush my lips against hers and taste the line of her mouth with my tongue, and it's like flipping some secret switch that I'm just starting to recognize because she suddenly squeezes her arms around my neck and can't seem to kiss me deep enough, and I couldn't be happier about it.
She's a maze of triggers I don't understand, but I desperately want to know them and I could spend the rest of the day doing nothing but figuring out which stroke of my tongue is getting her to cling to me like this, or whether it's from my hand buried in her hair or my knee sliding between hers or maybe all of it together or something else entirely that I'm not even recognizing because I know that flavor but my brain isn't working and I just can't find the word…
Fuck it. I have to know.
In a minute.
If I can stop kissing her.
But I'm not counting on it.
"You taste amazing," I mumble when I finally pull back enough to sigh my words over her lips. "What is that?"
"Peppermint," she breathes with a smile, and my eyes roll back with a moan before she's kissing me again and yep, that's what it is.
I don't even like peppermint. But Elena tastes like candy canes and the mental image of her seductively beckoning me with one while wearing a Mrs. Claus negligée is just fucking slaying me.
I hitch one of her legs around my hip and when she moans hungrily at my fingertips tickling the back of her thigh, that would be about the time I just say fuck it and pick her up completely, both of her legs wrapped around my waist with my hands grabbing her ass under her skirt and it's boyshorts all the way. My favorite.
I'm in the middle of a very serious internal argument with myself over how badly I need to shut her bedroom door and how much I don't want to stop touching her and the fact that I really, really want to lay her on the bed so I can undress her when one of her hands slides from my neck to unhook the first button of my shirt, and secret door number I-lost-count it is: urgently stumbling forward until we're stopped by her back roughly bumping into the dresser that's almost as tall as I am.
"Ow," she breathes and I chuckle.
"Sorry," I whisper and go back to rocking my erection against her while one of my hands dares to touch the inside of her thigh and we're wearing way too many goddamn clothes.
Her hand slips under the back of my shirt and she giggles softly. "You're kinda sweaty," she grins and I thrust against her again, getting a delicious gasp for my effort.
"Late, ran the stairs," I tell her quietly and nip at her lip. "And it's hot as hell outsi— Shit!" I burst out and damn near drop her. "We gotta go, like, now."
"What?" she squeaks, and I groan as I set her down.
"Elena, believe me I want nothing more than to continue this, but we have to go."
She blows out a frustrated breath and smoothes out her skirt. "Probably a good idea anyways."
"Don't be like that," I wheedle, then squeeze her hips. "I swear I'll make it up to you later, if you let me."
She crosses her arms. "No, it's fine. What are we doing?"
"We're getting your shoes and your purse and whatever else you need and then we are running out the damn door."
She huffs a laugh and goes to tuck her hair behind her ear because it's all messy from my hands, and my attention catches at a mark on the inside of her upper arm that I don't remember seeing when we worked out together. It's not quite a scar, but it's…something.
I tilt my head and she delicately clears her throat, lowering her hand and clasping them behind her back.
I smile comfortingly and run my knuckles down her arm, then gently pull it forward so I can look more closely at the mark. "This is new," I tell her quietly and she nods. "You hurt yourself?"
"No," she says and blushes. "It's, um, it's my birth control."
"What?" I laugh and she playfully tugs her arm out of my grasp.
"What do you mean 'what'? It's an insert so I don't have to remember to take stupid pills. I thought we were in a hurry?"
"More than ever," I say darkly and she rolls her eyes at me before going to pull a white cardigan off a hanger.
"Are you always late for everything?" she asks sarcastically as she threads her arms through the sleeves, not noticing me dropping a folded piece of paper on her nightstand as I pick up her cellphone and put it in her purse. I narrow my eyes at the photo of the blond guy I still haven't gotten the scoop on, but fuck him. He didn't just have her legs around his waist and her hands unbuttoning his shirt, and that's going to have to keep me satisfied for now.
"Better than being early," I tell her, grabbing her shoes off the floor and then snagging her hand, towing her out of the room.
"Jeez, slow down," she laughs as I lead her hastily towards the front door. "'Bye, Care, I'll be back lat-" she starts, but doesn't get a chance to finish before I shut the front door behind us. "Rude," she scowls at me when we pause outside so she can slip her shoes on her feet.
"You cool with dogs?" I ask as I hand her the purse, and she tilts her head at me as she slings it over her shoulder.
"Sure, why?"
I whistle loudly and Rascal jumps out of the car through the passenger side window that I kept rolled down for him, bounding up the stairs towards us. I step in front of Elena before he can tackle her to the ground in a spastic and happy hello, and she giggles and shrieks when he slams into me and knocks me backwards into her.
"Back off, dork," I scold and nudge him back down, his tail wagging like crazy and tongue hanging out of his mouth. "Rascal," I say seriously and he barks at me once, and when I arch an eyebrow at him he sits down at attention. "This is Elena."
I bring her out from behind me, curling her protectively into my side with my arm around her waist so he knows I won't tolerate anything but him being extremely careful with her.
"Elena," I smile at her, and she is completely lit up. I knew she'd love him. "This is Rascal."
"Hi Rascal," she says sweetly and he licks his lips, fidgeting a little like he wants to jump on her.
Yeah buddy, believe me, I know.
"Shake," I mouth at him and make the hand gesture down by my side where she can't see, and he extends a paw out to her.
"Oh my goodness!" she giggles and shakes his paw, and I love my dog.
"Stop flirting with my girl, we gotta go," I tell him, and he barks at me before turning to trot back down the stairs, both me and Elena following behind him. Until he starts to clamber his way back in the car through the open window, and my heart stops. "Don't scratch the paint; just wait for me to open the damn door!"
"Stop being so bossy," Elena admonishes and I roll my eyes. "So, where are we going?"
"The real question," I say smoothly, opening the passenger door for her, "is does it even matter?"
She smiles and then tilts her head at me, biting her lip. "Nope," she tells me and then pops open another button on my shirt, sliding into the car while I'm pretty much stuck in place from shock.
"Minx!" I laugh.
"You love it," she says confidently and I shut her door, walking around to the other side.
Woman has me pegged, because I absolutely do.
A/N: *happily sighs and melts because they are too adorable for me to function* Been LOVING all of your reviews, and guys? We're at 750. SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY TIMES YOU HAVE TOLD ME YOU THAT YOU LOVE THIS STORY AND I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO THANK YOU ENOUGH. I'm getting choked up just thinking about, not exaggerating the littlest bit. Just as a check in, remember that 22 chapter count I mentioned? Bump that up to 24. And now I'm being poked and tickled about adding an epilogue, so we may see 25. How's that work out for y'all? ;) Too much? Well, okay then...
*big hugs and kisses and jars of peanut butter and unicorns and all sorts of happy fluffy shit for you because you guys are the best*
-Goldnox