He came to the party to get his amulet.

He left empty-handed, bewildered, and, frankly, pissed right the fuck off.

It’s not the first time he’s been slapped. It’s not the first time he’s been kissed.

But it is the first time he’s been slapped, then kissed.

He cradles his jaw. She’s not human. No human can pack a punch like that and leave a vampire sore a good ten minutes afterwards.

What is she?

He touches his lips. She’s not human. No human can kiss like that, with the searing lips and the tongue and the breathiness, and the… Jesus!

Imagine what her blood tastes like.

The more he thinks about it, the more pissed off he becomes. He went there to get the amulet. It was right there in front of him.

He wants to storm back in there and take it by force.

Take her by force?

But he kind of… doesn’t want to. Not yet, anyway.

It was mindblowingly simple. Foolproof.

But apparently not witch-proof.

He was going to go in there, find Caroline, get his amulet back, and celebrate his undeniable awesome by sucking a stranger dry on his way home. And then maybe check on Vicki. Show her the ropes.

Or terrorize Stefan. Just because he saved his life doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to rearrange his brother’s pretty-boy face. He doesn’t want to be responsible for bringing about the apocalypse by retconning his carefully constructed character traits into something resembling—perish the thought—nice? The very word makes him want to kill something.

But Caroline didn’t have the amulet. She gave it to the other friend. The Not-Elena. The cheerleader one with the Bambi eyes and the furrowed brow and the worried stare. She was never on his radar before now.

Annoying.

Plan B: Glamour the shit out of her and then take the amulet back.

When he stared deep into her eyes and proposed a series of increasingly vulgar things he could do to her that they’d both enjoy, if only she’d slide that pretty amber gem off her pretty little neck and hand it over, pretty please, it didn’t once cross his mind that it wouldn’t work.

Lighting won’t strike twice, or some other asinine saying, right? The whole Elena mindfuck debacle was an admitted disaster.

This was exponentially worse. 

She hit like a girl, all wrist and no hip.

Still hurt like a mother, which shocked the hell out of him, thank you very much.

And then she kissed him, like it was the most natural thing in the world, smacking a vampire in the jaw and then wrapping your hands around his neck. He mentally checks himself for whiplash.

He could have broken her.

He chose not to. She amused him.

He tasted the liquor on her tongue (the tongue that did sinful things) and let it slide. She was far too interesting to force into submission. Especially when she could, very possibly, beat the crap out of him if he tried.

He didn’t want to stick around and find out.

So it’s almost two in the morning and he’s amulet-less and kind of cranky. He’s also frustrated. Confused.

Intrigued.

Once she sleeps off that hangover he’s certain she’ll have tomorrow, she probably won’t remember him. But he’ll definitely remember her.

It’s the first time he’s been bested at his own game. It’s the unsettling feeling in his stomach that tells him that it might not be the last.