Elena Gilbert stepped out of Damon Salvatore's shower and reached for her towel. She looked around the bathroom. Even though it was a sunny August morning, the room was minimally lit. The only light in the space shone in from a small window on the eastern wall and several tiny sconces in the ceiling. The majority of the walls were painted a dark cream color, with the exception of the grey stone slabs that formed the walls next to the seamless glass shower. A white standalone tub sat atop dark grey floor tiles. The entire room exuded masculine elegance, and Elena forced herself to admit that it perfectly suited Damon's personality.
Elena shook her head at herself as she toweled water droplets off her lean body. She still couldn't believe that life's circumstances had forced her to use Damon's shower for the entire week. Mystic Falls' water company called her yesterday to inform her that her neighborhood water line sprung a large leak during the middle of the night. The water company decided to turn off the neighborhood water supply for the duration of the week it would take to repair the leaky pipe. Elena had racked her brain trying to think of places she could shower for the next seven days, but everyone she thought of with an available shower was away for the week. Aunt Jenna and Alaric Saltzman, her history teacher, were vacationing together at the beach. Jeremy, her younger brother, took summer art classes two hours away in Richmond. Her best friends, Bonnie Bennett and Caroline Forbes, were away at cheerleading camp. Matt Donovan and Tyler Lockwood, her main male friends, had to lead a weeklong football retreat in the mountains, and they'd convinced Stefan Salvatore, Damon's younger brother and her former boyfriend, to join them. Apparently Damon Salvatore was Elena's only friend left in Mystic Falls with an available shower for the week.
Elena felt more than a little unnerved when she came to that conclusion. She also felt similarly anxious when she arrived at the Salvatore boarding house that morning, her shampoo, soap, towel, and work clothes packed neatly into her faded brown messenger bag. Ever since she and Stefan amicably broke up with each other several months ago, Damon had upped his attempts to seduce her. His attention both annoyed and amused Elena. She'd never admit it, but she enjoyed the dramatic way he always appeared from nowhere. What she didn't like was the way his hands shot tingly arrows down her spine every time he "accidentally" touched her. Elena was hesitant to explore the romantic side of her relationship with Damon. She knew that she liked him, but she happened to be single for the first time in a long time, and she felt powerful from being completely self-sufficient. The fewer complications she had in her life, the better.
Damon Salvatore was definitely a complication.
His choice to remodel every bathroom in the boarding house that week except for his own one? Complication. The deliberate smirk on his face when he told her that she'd have to use his bathroom that week? Complication. The flutter in her heart at the sight of that knowing grin? Complication, complication, complication.
Elena tightly wrapped her towel around her body as she padded out into Damon's bedroom. She'd made him promise – multiple times – to not peek in on her while she changed, but she clutched her towel to her chest as she searched the room for a certain blue-eyed vampire lurking about. She didn't trust Damon to keep his promise. Damon had serious boundary issues, and he tended to cross the lines of impropriety at the worst possible moments. Elena still hadn't quite forgiven him for the time he snuck into the girls' locker room at school after her gym class and pulled her into a running shower stall with him. Sure, they'd both been fully clothed and sure, nothing happened, but Elena was forced to wear Caroline's bright pink sweatsuit the rest of the day because her clothes were completely soaked, all thanks to Damon. Ever since that incident, Elena made sure to keep any occurrences of being around Damon and water to a minimum.
Once Elena looked through every possible hiding place in Damon's bedroom and discovered that they were all Damon-free, she walked over to his bed and sat down next to her satchel. She rummaged through the bag and pulled out a peach lingerie set, a conservative teal dress, and a pair of worn beige pumps. She'd rediscovered her love of writing during the school year and had spent her summer interning at Mystic Falls' newspaper. The editor was a former patient of her late father, Grayson Gilbert, and as such she'd allowed Elena to write several profiles of local town businesses. Today Elena had an interview lined up with Matilda "Milly" Tomkins, the elderly owner of Milly's Floral Shop. Although Elena missed the comfort of her standard jeans and sneakers ensemble, she understood the importance of dressing professionally on these interviews. She also secretly liked the way her legs looked when she wore high heels, so she didn't mind donning a nice dress and pumps on interview days.
Elena laid all of her work clothes in a neat row on Damon's bed. She loosened her grip on her towel and let it pool next to her ankles on the floor.
"Even better than I remembered."
Elena's eyes shot wide open as she crashed to the ground. Her fingers fumbled around for the ends of her discarded towel. Gripping the damp fabric tightly in her hands, she wrapped it around her body, stood up, and spun around to face the door.
"Damon!" she yelped. Her eyes filled with a combination of fury and embarrassment at the thought of him seeing her naked without an invitation. "You promised that you wouldn't peek!"
Damon shrugged as he casually leaned against his doorframe. He looked as if he'd just stumbled out of bed, even though Elena knew he'd been away from his room for hours. Sleep tousled his inky black hair, and he wore nothing but a pair of silk boxers. An easy, drawling smirk spread across his face as watched Elena's eyes wander to his bare, toned chest. "I lied." His eyes appreciatively roamed over every inch of Elena's body, across her bare feet, up her long legs, around the defined curves of her waist and breasts, along the line of her collarbone, and finally settled when his admiring blue eyes met her indignant brown ones. As he strode towards her, she took matching steps backwards. The motion caused her scent to roll off her in waves that crashed upon Damon's nose. He stopped, closed his eyes, and inhaled. The aroma of her herbal shampoo blended with the fragrance of her honeyed blood. Elena smelled positively divine, and Damon's desire for her formed an aching pool low in his gut. His boxers suddenly felt constricting, and Damon inhaled several deep breaths to will himself down.
When Damon finally opened his eyes, he saw Elena staring directly at him. Apprehension filled her face. "What are you doing?"
"Smelling you." He took another tentative step towards her. It would be so easy to rip the towel from her grasp, throw her onto his bed, and make endless love to her. Her naked body lay within his grasp. His blood begged him to touch her.
Elena took several additional steps away from Damon so that his massive bed stood between them. His eyes expressed everything he ever felt and wanted, and right now his eyes harbored a raw, reckless glint.
Major complication.
"Smelling me?" she repeated, hoping to distract Damon from his wild thoughts. He nodded and licked his lips.
"Your blood smells like honey from the hives that grew near my house as a child." Damon's voice became soft and distant as a distant expression filled his eyes. "Stefan and I played by the beehives when we were younger. We dared each other to steal honey from the combs. Sometimes we succeeded, sometimes we didn't. The only thing that mattered was that we could occasionally get away with doing something seemingly forbidden."
Damon's eyes refocused on Elena. When he spoke again, his voice was low and rough. His meaning was unmistakable. "The taste of honey is always worth the price of beestings, Elena."
Shivers raced down Elena's spine as she realized the full extent of Damon's statement. He wanted her, blood and body, and he would continue to endure her rejecting stings in the hopes that he'd eventually be rewarded with her sweetness.
Elena stood up straight and tried to ignore the new, wobbly feeling in her bones. She attempted to infuse authority into her voice. "Damon, I need to get dressed for work."
"So get dressed." He hopped onto his bed and leaned back into the mound of plumped pillows. Elena gave him an incredulous look.
"A little privacy, please?"
Damon shook his head. A sly grin covered his face. "Don't be such a prude, Elena. Besides, it's not like I haven't seen you naked before."
"You haven't seen me naked before, Damon," Elena retorted. Her fingers held an iron-strong grip on her towel. Thinking of something, she glared at Damon. "You haven't been spying on me in the bathroom any other times, have you?"
Damon bolted upright in his bed. He grimaced and ran his hands through his hair. "Calm down, Elena, I'm not a pervert. If you want to be technical about it, this is the first time I've seen any part of you naked. But," he continued, suggestively waggling his eyebrows, "I have seen your doppelganger naked many, many times. I think it's safe to say I know exactly what you look like underneath that flimsy little towel of yours. However, I certainly wouldn't mind if you chose to give me a little reminder."
Steam practically erupted from Elena's ears. "I don't know what I should be more upset about, Damon: your complete lack of respect for other people's privacy, or the fact that you think you know everything about my body just because you were intimate with Katherine!"
"If the shoe fits, honey," he shrugged, resting his hands behind his head. Elena glowered at his smug expression.
"So you think there is absolutely nothing unique about Katherine and my bodies at all? That I don't have a scar that she does, or that her left foot is slightly bigger than mine? Nothing?"
Damon smirked at Elena, a wicked gleam in his eye.
"You could always drop that towel again and let me honestly appraise the situation." Damon chuckled as Elena threw one of her beige heels at him and missed his head by three feet. He rolled off his bed and danced out of his bedroom with a spring in his step. He loved it when Elena got fired up about something, although he didn't understand why she was so riled up about being compared to Katherine. Katherine was a huge bitch, but she had a smoking hot body. Elena's personality was nothing like Katherine's, but he could tell that her figure was equally stunning. He hadn't meant to walk in on her today, but he could now officially confirm that Elena's backside was lush and round and absolutely fantastic.
Damon lived for the day when Elena willingly revealed her entire body to him.
As soon as Damon left his bedroom, Elena ran over to his door and slammed it shut. She locked the door handle and dropped her towel, angrily pulling her panties up her thighs. Who did Damon think he was, first stealing a peek of her naked body, then having the gall to claim that he knew what every inch of her naked body looked like? Elena despised the fact that she and Katherine looked exactly alike. Katherine caused the Salvatore brothers so much strife back in 1864, and Elena hated knowing that she shared a face with the person who brought so much grief to their lives. Elena wanted to find a physical difference between her and Katherine so badly, just to prove to herself that she and Katherine weren't exact doppelgangers.
After her run-in with Damon this morning, Elena longed to find that difference more than anything. She wanted to rub it in his face.
Elena fastened her bra around her back and stared at her body in Damon's full-length mirror. She stepped closer to the glass and scrutinized her body for any unusual marks. The Salvatore brothers healed all of her recent injuries with their blood, so no fresh scratches adorned her body. No, if she had any marks of physical differences from Katherine, she would have received them before she met Stefan and Damon.
Elena carefully scanned every inch of her skin. She started at her arms, her elbows, but saw no distinctive features on them. Her eyes traveled down to her toned stomach. She gently placed her fingers over her ribs, prodding the thin layer of skin that lay over them, but nothing stood out to her. Her hands slowly crept down her waist until they rested on her upper thighs. She pushed her flesh around, desperate to find something, anything that distinguished her from Katherine.
Her eyes rested on a dark figure on the inside of her right thigh. Confused, she spread her legs apart to give herself a better look at the blotch. A smug smile spread across her face as she gently outlined the darkened flesh with her fingertip.
Elena had forgotten about her signature birthmark.
The heart-shaped mark, or her "love mark" as Stefan once called it, was the size of a square centimeter. It was several shades deeper than her olive skin, and all the sun Elena had soaked up this summer only accentuated that difference. The mark was centered on the upper portion of her inner right thigh, a mere inch away from her feminine core. Elena's face flushed as she recalled the countless times Stefan had focused his...attention...on her birthmark when they made love. Her skin was especially sensitive in that area, and the feel of lips and fangs against that part of her flesh created some of the most violently euphoric sensations Elena had ever experienced.
Elena certainly planned to torture Damon with that piece of information.
A sunbeam shone into Damon's room as Elena skipped over to his bed and eagerly pulled her teal dress over her shoulders. The rediscovery of her birthmark replaced the fury she felt towards Damon with a smug satisfaction. He thought he knew what every inch of her body looked like, but Stefan had assured Elena that her heart birthmark was one of her completely unique features.
Elena grinned as she zipped up her dress, slid into her pumps, and brushed her long hair. She shoved the clothes she'd worn over to the boarding house in her messenger bag, zipped it up, and walked out of Damon's bedroom. She bounced down the stairs with a spring in her step. Her first taunting words to Damon rested on the tip of her tongue.
Damon read the Mystic Falls newspaper as he lay reclined on the sofa in front of his fireplace. He heard Elena's footsteps on the stairs and looked up as she came into view. His breath snagged in his throat. He loved it when she wore her fitted professional dresses, loved the way her breasts and backside filled out the fabric in a way that made her so alluring. She looked put together, cool, and collected. All his body screamed at him to do was rush to Elena's side, scoop her up in his arms, and spent countless hours ruffling that composed look of hers in every room of the boarding house.
Damon clenched his hands into fists as he struggled to banish the naked image of Elena from his mind. He watched her stride to the kitchen and emerge several minutes later with a filled water bottle in her hand. She looked at him with a coquettish smile plastered across her face. He felt confused. She'd been so mad at him fifteen minutes ago, and now she smiled at him as if she knew every last one of his secrets. Something had changed, and Damon hated that he didn't know the source of her grin.
Damon shook his head to clear his thoughts. He straightened up on the sofa and smirked at Elena. "Did you see the full moon this morning? The view was spectacular."
Elena rolled her eyes as she walked towards the door. "Thanks for letting me borrow your shower, Damon."
"Maybe next time we can save water and shower together," he offered, waggling his eyebrows. "I hear it's a great way to save the planet."
"Not a chance."
"Oh come on, Elena, you don't want all the fishies and the...polar bears to die, do you?"
She raised a single eyebrow. "Polar bears?"
"Yes, Elena, polar bears. Cute, cuddly white balls of fluff that you're condemning to their doom just because you're squeamish about me seeing your diddly bits." Damon placed his hands behind his head and reclined. "Would it really be that bad if you saved a polar bear during the process?"
Elena marched towards the front door and opened it. "I have to go to work, Damon."
"Have fun with Milly," he teased.
"Will do." Elena stepped outside of the house and turned around to face Damon, who'd walked her to the door. "By the way Damon, did Katherine have any birthmarks?"
His forehead wrinkled as he pondered the question before quickly shaking his head. "Nope, none. And believe me," he said, leaning towards her face, "I'd know."
Elena inwardly released a whooping cheer. Damon knew nothing of her birthmark. She forced a nonchalant expression on her face as she shrugged. "Huh."
Damon's eyes narrowed in suspicion. Elena's offhand remarks always possessed hidden meaning. "Huh? What's "huh" supposed to mean?"
Elena shrugged again as the smile she'd contained burst onto her face. "I'll see you later, Damon."
He grabbed her hand and pulled her to his body. He hadn't put on a shirt yet, and his skin burned where it touched hers.
God, he needed this girl.
"Do you have any birthmarks, Elena?" Damon playfully asked, tenderly rubbing the back of her hand with the soft pad of his thumb. He smirked as a quick tremor coursed through her body as she tugged her hand from his. Elena wasn't indifferent to his advances, and both of them knew it.
Elena mentally chided herself for letting that brief, pleasurable shudder escape her defenses. She rubbed her fingers across the hand Damon touched, desperate to wipe the unwelcome tingles away. These prickles were another unwanted complication in her life courtesy of the shirtless, smoldering vampire standing across from her.
"You tell me, Damon," Elena abruptly said, forcing the mischievousness back into her voice. "Since, according to you, Katherine and I look exactly alike, surely you'd know the answer to your question." Satisfied with her response, Elena spun on her heels and strolled to her car. She unlocked the car door, tossed her bag on the passenger's seat, and slid into the driver's seat. She slammed the door shut and turned the key in the ignition as she released an uneasy sigh. As she drove away from the boarding house, she stole a glance at the front door. Damon stood there, exactly where she left him, with a baffled expression on his face. Elena chuckled. She almost felt bad for him, but she quickly pushed her pitying thoughts from her head. Damon loved using his body to fluster her and make her uncomfortable.
A little taste of his own medicine wouldn't hurt him.
I originally wanted this story to be a one shot, but inspiration struck and boom! Birthmark developed into a story! What do you think? How do you think Damon will react when he learns about Elena's birthmark? Your reviews will be welcomed with open arms!
