Chapter 14

February 1, 2014

Dear Elena,

Happy New Year! I know, I'm a month late, but welcome to 2014. I keep saying that I'll write to you more, but this time I have a really good excuse. To make a long story short, Lily tried to kill me and almost did. I was in the hospital for a few weeks but now I'm out and feeling better than I have in a while, actually.

There was an incident at the Christmas party and everyone in town knows about vampires now, so that's been interesting. We're all having to keep a pretty low profile.

I spent some time with my Mom, too. She hung around and took care of me when I got out of the hospital. It was kind of weird, but also nice. We actually did mom-daughter stuff like shopping and cooking. She's a pretty good cook, too. She showed me some of Grams's old recipes and I've been practicing on them. (Damon has been my guinea pig).

Speaking of Damon, I'm sure you want to know how he is. He's good. Maybe even really good. It's not like he's forgotten you or anything, but he seems okay. He and Stefan spend a lot of time together, especially when Caroline and I are in class. Matt is good, too. I've been making an effort to keep him included in our festivities. We're all having a "Fuck Valentine's Day" party on the 14th. Well, not really a party. We're going to dinner together and the five of us will be each other's Valentines. Damon thinks it's stupid, of course, but I think it's fun and cute. And Caroline told him he didn't have a choice, so you already know who won that battle.

Anyway, I've got homework. I promise (again) that I'll do better about writing.

Love,
Bon

...

Bonnie watched the clock as her class came to an end, anxious to get out of there and get ready for her Valentine's Date with everyone. As soon as the teacher dismissed them, she put on her coat and hustled out into the biting cold towards her car. She cranked up the heat and mentally catalogued everything her closet as she drove to the apartment. They were going to some fancy new restaurant in town and although she had a few nice things, nothing came to mind that would be appropriate. She thought about stopping at a little boutique that she and Caroline had recently fallen in love with, but she wasn't sure she had time to stop and shop, and then get dressed and do her hair.

So she went home instead, intent on finding something that would work. She was already running some outfits through her mind, when she swung open her bedroom door and saw a brand new dress lying on her bed. It was a long-sleeved gun metal gray dress with a few sequins sprinkled across for some shimmer. Bonnie picked up the dress and held it against her body and her eyebrows raised a little when she saw how short it was. She knew she would be tugging at it all night just to keep from flashing everyone. She turned it around and laughed a little to herself when she saw that the entire back was out. She laid it down again and whipped out her phone and called Caroline.

"Yes?" Caroline answered.

"Do you know anything about this dress in my room?"

"Maybe."

"Care, thank you, but you didn't have to buy me anything."

"You know I went through your closet and found nothing acceptable, so I took it upon myself to get you something."

"It's short."

"Don't bend over."

"There's no back."

"That's why you have sleeves."

Bonnie chuckled. "Well, thank you. Where are you?"

"Trying to get there. I'm running a little late, though, so just get ready without me. Damon's coming to pick you up anyway, and I'll meet you guys there with Stefan and Matt. Now hurry up and get all sexy. Chop, chop."

Caroline hung up before Bonnie could respond, which only made the witch shake her head. She tossed the phone on the bed and started the business of getting ready. After her shower, she wrapped a towel around her body and hummed as she brushed her teeth and washed her face. Her hair was relatively easy, as she applied bumps and curls and finger-combed until it was just right. She then pulled out a stool from under the sink and spread her makeup supplies along the counter. She was just about to apply it, when there was a knock on her bathroom door.

"Yeah," she called.

The door opened and it was Damon. Bonnie was about to say "hi" but her words got caught in her throat when she got a good look at him. He was dressed in a black suit, slim fit to his body. He wasn't wearing a tie, and his black button down shirt underneath was open a little. Bonnie knew that he could wear a suit, but there was something even more handsome about him right then. Maybe it was the beard that was neatly trimmed and created a dark and bold outline of his pale face. Or maybe it was the haircut he had gotten. Short hair on him was always her favorite.

"Hey," he said as he leaned against the door frame. "Nice outfit."

She looked down at her towel and held it a little tighter. "Ha, ha. You're early."

"I'm on time. You're late."

"I'll be ready soon."

"Mm."

Damon gave her the once-over and then pushed away from the frame and sauntered out. Bonnie shut the door behind him and then went back to putting her makeup on. She tried not to notice how her heart was beating a little faster and her palms were sweating slightly. Her body had been reacting to Damon like that for the past couple of weeks, ever since she got out of the hospital. She ignored it, at least when he was around, and tried to put it out of her head completely as she finished getting ready.

Once she was satisfied with her makeup, she went to her room and looked at the dress resting neatly on her bed. She peeked into the living room and saw Damon on the couch, so she closed the door to her bedroom and dropped her towel. She fished through her underwear drawer for a thong and slid it up her legs. Considering that the back of the dress was totally out, she knew a bra was out of the question. She lotioned her body down and then held up the dress and stepped into it. There was just enough room to slide into the material, and once her arms were in, she did a few adjustments and checked herself out in the mirror.

The dress fit her like a glove and stopped at her upper thigh. She turned and saw that the back was cut so low that she could actually see the top of her thong, so she briefly debated with herself before she reached underneath and took it off. In all her years on Earth, she had never gone completely without underwear and the thought was as thrilling as it was naughty. She put her hands on her hips and decided that she looked hot. A surge of confidence went through her, and she carried that with her as she put on her shoes, grabbed a clutch and adorned herself with earrings.

"Okay, I'm ready," she said, once she went into the living room.

Damon looked up from the TV, his mouth open to say something smart, but he stopped when he saw her. His blue eyes took in her face first, and then he not so subtly checked out the rest of her. He blinked a few times and feeling a little emboldened, Bonnie turned around to give him the full view.

"What do you think?" she asked.

"I think there are some pieces of your dress missing."

"Funny," she said dryly. "It looks good, right?"

She wished that she could control the completely erratic rhythm of her heart as she waited for his response.

"Are you wearing panties?" he asked.

Bonnie's eyes widened and she scoffed indignantly. "Excuse me? What kind of question is that?"

"Well, that dress covers only enough of your ass to not be obscene, and I'm not seeing how you could have anything on under there."

"Wow, so it's obscene? You're saying I look cheap or something?"

"No," he said, holding up his hands in defense.

"Then what are you saying?"

"You look..." He waved his hands around in front of him and nodded a few times, but never said anything else.

Bonnie rolled her eyes and grabbed her coat off the back of a chair. "Whatever. Let's go."

She yanked her arms through the sleeves of her coat and impatiently looked at Damon, who hadn't moved. He finally got up and put on his own coat and followed her out. She walked ahead of him, mostly because she was annoyed and kind of hurt that he didn't at least tell her she looked good, which she knew she did. He could be such an asshole sometimes that she wondered why or how she could have even developed a crush on him.

She got to his car before he did, but he opened the door for her. She didn't thank him as she slid into her passenger seat and put her seatbelt on. When he got in, he started up the car and let the heat run for a minute before he pulled off. They didn't speak but Bonnie could tell from the way he was flexing his fingers on the steering wheel that he wanted to say something to smooth it over. They were actually at the restaurant before any words were exchanged between them again.

"We're early," Bonnie said. "Do you want to wait in the car for everyone else, or should we go inside and let them know we're here?"

"We can go inside," he said. Bonnie reached for the door handle to let herself out, but Damon leaned over and grabbed her hand. "Hey."

She met his eyes. "What?"

"You don't look obscene. Or cheap," he said. "You look very..." He stalled and waved his hand again like she was going to know what he meant. When she didn't help him out at all, he sighed and said, "pretty. You look very pretty and outrageously hot, okay?"

Bonnie didn't want to smile, but she couldn't help the incessant tugging of her lips into a big silly grin.

"Thank you," she said. "Was that so hard?"

"It was, actually."

"You realize that your tongue won't burn off if you give me a compliment, right?"

"It might."

"Well, for the record, you look quite handsome."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"Oh my God," she muttered, as they got out of the car.

Damon went around to her side and put his hand on the small of her back as they walked inside. He gave his name at the reservation desk and they barely waited a minute before their waiter appeared and led them to a two-person table, somewhat secluded from the rest of the tables. There was a bottle of wine and and a lit candle already set up for them.

"May I take your coat, madam?" the waiter asked as he helped Bonnie slip it off her shoulders.

"Uh, sure, but this table is too small for our party," she said. "There will be five of us."

The waiter folded her coat over his arm and shook his head. "The reservation for Salvatore was just for two, madam."

He flitted off somewhere into the restaurant, leaving a confused Damon and Bonnie behind. They both eased into their chairs as the realization of the situation hit them at the same moment.

"I'm going to kill Caroline," she said.

"Only if I don't kill her first," Damon said.

Bonnie called her so-called best friend, who answered on the second ring.

"Helloooo," she sang.

"Where the hell are you, Stefan, and Matt?" Bonnie asked lowly as she looked at Damon for backup.

"Oh, sorry, I got caught up. And Matt had to do a double shift. And Stefan is...sick."

"Sick? Really? He's a vampire and that's the best you could come up with?"

"Yeah, I should have thought that through a little more."

"Did you seriously set this up so it would just be me and Damon?"

"Guilty," Caroline said, a little too gleefully. "And I bet you look so hot right now. You're welcome, Damon," she said, knowing that he could hear.

"What happened to our 'Fuck Valentine's' dinner?"

"Well, Damon can be your Valentine and since I won't be home tonight, you can have the whole apartment to accomplish the 'fuck' part. I want all the details tomorrow! Bye!"

She hung up and Bonnie was left to stare at Damon, who was blinking a lot again and clenching his jaw. She wasn't sure whether he was mad, or embarrassed, or maybe...turned on?

"Yeah, I'm definitely gonna kill her first," he said.

"You know why she did this," Bonnie told him. "She has some stupid bet with Stefan that if you and I hook up or whatever, he'll buy her some shoes."

"She won't need shoes if she's dead."

Bonnie groaned and contemplated how to handle the situation. One on hand, she was truly irritated with Caroline (and possibly Stefan and Matt, once she figured out their roles in it) about the ambush blind date with Damon. And on the other hand, she wasn't nearly as irritated as she should have been because there was something kind of exciting and nerve-racking about it. Although she and Caroline hadn't discussed it explicitly, she was sure that Caroline knew that her feelings for Damon had changed towards the romantic and that she would never make the first move.

"Could I get you something to drink?" the waiter asked as he appeared at their table again. "Shall I open the wine for you, or perhaps some champagne or a cocktail?"

Bonnie looked at Damon, who appeared undecided about the whole thing, and she sighed and shook her head at the waiter.

"I'm sorry, there's been some kind of mix-up. I don't think we're staying."

The waiter's face fell in disappointment but before he could respond, Damon spoke up.

"We're staying," he said. "Just give us a minute."

The waiter bowed and left them alone, and Bonnie raised an eyebrow at Damon.

"We're staying?" she asked.

"Yeah, why not? We're here, we both look hot..might as well have dinner and a few drinks."

It was Bonnie's turn to blink.

"But it's just you and me," she said.

"Yeah."

"Alone. Together. In a restaurant."

"Yeah."

"Doesn't that kind of...feel like...a date?" she asked.

Damon shrugged. "Yeah. I can think of worse things to do on Valentine's Day than go on a date with you. Unless you're the type of girl who talks about her cats all through dinner."

Her lips quirked into an unwilling smile. "You know I don't have cats."

"You might have some squirreled away somewhere."

"Ha. And that's another reason this can't be a date. A date is the chance to get to know someone and you already know everything about me."

"Not true."

"Yes, it is. You do realize that over the past two years, we've spent an inordinate amount of time together, right?"

"So? You have secrets hidden away in that naughty little witch brain of yours."

"I promise, I don't."

"Hmmm."

Damon arched his eyebrow in that troublesome way that let her know he wasn't going to let the matter drop. The waiter returned and uncorked the wine and poured them each a glass. He took their orders for appetizers and once he was gone again, Bonnie held up her glass in Damon's direction.

"To us, on our fuck Valentine's Day," she said.

He clinked her glass. "I'll admit that I know the basic friend things about you," he said, totally disregarding the toast. "Favorite color. Favorite TV shows. Happy memories, sad memories, blah blah blah. But what I don't know are the really interesting things."

"Interesting things like...?"

"Your favorite sexual position."

Bonnie had just managed to swallow her wine before his statement, and she narrowed her eyes at him.

"Seriously?"

"What? We're on a date. People on dates talk about sex."

"Not respectable people on their first date."

"So let's get disrespectful," he said with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

"You're a pig," she said. But she kind of smiled.

"So are you gonna tell me how you like to have your bread buttered or do I have to guess?" he asked.

"Oh please, you're going to guess no matter what I say."

"True," he grinned. He sat back in his chair and sipped his wine, eyeing her like it was the first time he'd taken a really good hard look at her. His intense gaze made her squirm a little in her chair but she worked up the strength to stare right back at him. "Part of me says you like to be on top because you're such a control freak," he finally said.

"I am not a control freak."

"You're a grade A control freak, Bon-Bon. And chicks like you either like to be control freaks in bed, or..." He arched his eyebrow but didn't say anything immediately, which she knew he was doing to make her anxious. And damn it if it didn't work.

"Or what?" she blurted out.

"Or," Damon said, leaning across the table and lowering his voice a little. "You like to drop all your bossiness at the bedroom door and let your partner have his wicked way with you." She hoped that he couldn't see the way that her cheeks flushed, but she knew he could when his devious grin only widened. "Seems like you're in the second group."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

She managed to veer the conversation away from sex and onto other, less dangerous, topics. Pretty soon, she forgot that they were even on a "date" and it was just the two of them, talking and laughing and bickering like they always did. Dinner was delicious and they hung around for coffee. Bonnie didn't even realize how late it was until the waiter was gently telling them that they were closing for the night.

"Wow, I can't believe we stayed that long," she said as she pulled on her coat and they walked out of the restaurant together.

"Well you know what they say," Damon said. "Time flies when you're spending it with a sexy man."

Bonnie snorted. "Yeah, that's how the saying goes."

He held her door open for her and once they were settled into his car, he put the gear in reverse but didn't move. He turned to her and asked, "you want to go dancing?"

"Uh...sure. But I'm not sure that this dress is really dancing appropriate."

"It'll be fine if you aren't dropping it like it's hot."

She laughed. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. You realize that not all dancing is of the bumping and grinding variety, right?"

"No, grandpa, I didn't realize that. Are we going to do the Waltz or something?"

"Or something," he said with a smile.

He drove them to a little hole in the wall place a few miles away, and when they went inside, Bonnie was surprised that the atmosphere was really nice. The place was dimly lit with comfy sofas and barstools settled around a small dance floor. There was a little bar off to the side, but the main attraction was a young woman, maybe college-aged, playing a baby grand piano. Next to him was a guy playing the saxophone and the music they played together immediately struck a chord with Bonnie.

"Oh my God," she said, unable to stop the sad smile on her face. "This reminds me of my dad."

Damon frowned a little. "Oh...well we can go. I didn't mean to make you upset."

She grabbed his hand to keep him from turning around. "I'm not upset," she said. "I like it. It reminds me in a good way."

He led her to an empty loveseat close to the musicians and after Bonnie shrugged off her coat, Damon disappeared briefly to get them some drinks from the bar. They sat together in silence, sipping their drinks and enjoying the music. When Bonnie finished hers, she nudged Damon with her shoulder and said, "you promised me dancing." He gulped the rest of his bourbon and then stood up and held out his hand. She took it and they found themselves in the middle of the dance floor.

Since nobody else was dancing, they had the whole floor to themselves. Damon put his hands on her hips and pulled her close to him. Bonnie wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his chest, and they danced. Neither of them kept track of how long they swayed, and Damon only stopped moving after Bonnie had stifled a few yawns against his chest.

"Okay, Judgey, it's time for you to pack it in."

"No, we don't have to go. I'm having a good time." And then she yawned.

Damon smirked. "Well if you're nice, maybe we'll do it again sometime."

He held out his hand for her, which she took, and they walked out of the lounge with their fingers intertwined. Bonnie tried not to read too much into it. After all, they were friends who'd had fun hanging out together and she was in high heels and he was just being nice. He could be sweet sometimes, when he felt like it. But even with those thoughts, she really couldn't stop the fluttering in her chest or stomach and the gut-twisting knowledge that she was kind of crazy about him.

Her eyes were on his hand the entire way home, and she was almost relieved that he had to keep his hand on the gear so she wouldn't have to endure the sweet torture of his thumb rubbing her skin throughout the ride. They both kept their hands to themselves on the slow walk to Bonnie's apartment. When they got to her door, she stood in front of it while Damon stood about a foot away, facing her.

"Well, that was fun," she said.

"You say it like you're surprised," he smirked.

"No, I'm not surprised. This just isn't how I was expecting for the night to turn out."

"And would you say that this is better or worse than your expectations?"

Bonnie smiled. "Better."

"I am to please."

They smiled at one another and what should have been awkward, post-date silence was more like excited, anticipatory post-date silence.

"Do you want to come in?" she asked at the same time as he said, "I'll let you go to sleep." She smiled and he smirked.

"I do want to come in, but you look like you're about to fall asleep on your feet," Damon said.

"I could make it through a movie," she contested.

"You'll be drooling on me before the credits even start." He stepped a little closer and tucked some of her hair behind her ear. "And besides, if I come inside, I won't want to watch a movie anyway."

His tone lost all playfulness and his gaze was suddenly that intense Damon stare that seemed to hypnotize every woman that fell prey to it. Bonnie's throat went a little dry and her heart rate increased, especially when the scent of his Old Spice wafted from his chest to her nose.

"What will you want to do?" she asked, so quietly that only a vampire could hear it.

He gently took her cheek in his palm and leaned down so close that his lips were almost on hers.

"Bend you over every surface in that apartment and make sure Caroline thoroughly earns those shoes," he whispered.

Wetness immediately spread between Bonnie's legs and she was left completely speechless, even as he removed his hand and kissed her forehead.

"Night night, Bon-Bon."

He walked away from her, seemingly unaffected by his effortless seduction, while Bonnie watched him until he disappeared out of the apartment breezeway. She blinked a few times, just to be sure that she was awake and that the exchange had really happened. When she had control of her faculties again, she pulled out her phone and texted Caroline.

I'm either going to kill you...or kiss you.