“Pity, huh?” Everyone in Mystic Falls knew about his temper; in high school, if someone pissed him off during football practice, they usually ended up laid out. There wasn't malice in her tone, though. Tyler knew that it was part of the game. The slight glint of mischief in her eyes; or the way her lips curled into a teasing smile. “That sounds like a emotion, Lena.” He wasn't trying to delve deeper than that; everything that had happened, and the flood of feelings she was going to be hit with, they'd deal with that when it happened. He wasn't looking to be the catalyst for it. “It sounds dangerously close to one.” Just a little something added to show that it was still meant to be fun between them. Fun...could that even be possible? A large part of him was still seething over Klaus and Caroline. Like a stack of TNT just waiting for someone to light the fuse. She was the needed distraction; but calling Elena a distraction and nothing more was an insult to what she had meant to him through all of this.
The shaky way that she breathed out and swallowed afterwards was a boost to his confidence; though most would say his ego didn't need to grow any, it was nice to know that he could have that kind of effect on her...especially when she more than did the same to him. He never imagined that Elena Gilbert would be the one to drive him crazy, but she did. It just never seemed like it was going to be in the cards before. Had she always been hot? Yeah, of course. Now their connection actually had a real spark to it. Something palpable. “You sure about that?” He wasn't questioning her, really, he didn't doubt that the kiss had carried more weight behind it than just a means to get away from long enough to make her escape. She didn't need to have her flip switched in order for him to feel what she had put into the kiss. Brief, but hard. You couldn't really mask passion, or fake it, no matter how much you tried. No, for that short moment, Elena had been his. And it would have been a lie if he claimed that it hadn't been on his mind more than a few times since.
His hand had been comfortably resting on the small of her back; now it had slid down further, coming to land on her hip, which was...as perfect a fit as Tyler could have imagined. Giving a small squeeze, she was pulled closer, until there was next to nothing between them. A bold move; considering where they were, but he couldn't claim to care if anyone was paying attention to them. The sound of the music and her voice could drown out the rest of the world. So did his heart beat; strong and fierce, pounding, for her...because of her. He'd never been good at holding back though, had he? He didn't really hesitate in things. He just went with it. If he wanted something, he took it. “Because I think...if it wasn't just a game, you'd kiss me here.” There was an obvious hint of challenge in his voice; why wouldn't there be? Testing boundaries was part of his nature; it wasn't some attempt to take advantage of Elena and her fluctuating emotional state. He'd been a dick before; but he trusted her to know he wouldn't go that far.
But Tyler also didn't leave things up to chance; maybe she would kiss him there, in the middle of the bar, out in the open...he just didn't plan to leave that on her shoulders. He wasn't submissive; he didn't wait for others to act in order to gauge what he wanted to do. He just did it. Tilting his head, he leaned in, stopping right before their lips met. It was torture, that small pause, but it was to prove a point, in some ways. To show her that he was in control; he was doing this because he wanted to. Another squeeze of her hips and then he leaned in even more. It was slower than the first kiss they met; lips only just brushing across one another, staying like that for a few seconds that felt like an eternity...and then deeper, more contact. Demanding. Let someone stand and look at them. It didn't matter, he wasn't going to stop.