Author's Note: This isn't for everyone! Thank you for the reviews/author alerts/follow alongs, I truly appreciate them! :)
She starts sleeping with Damon toward the end of autumn. Everyone must know, but so far, shockingly, no one's asked her about the obvious shift in their dynamic.
(Not even Damon.)
Unlike the incessant questions regarding Her Choice, no one seems to want an answer from her now. Which is just fine with Elena. But just in case, if Bonnie or Caroline ever decide to move on from probing looks and and vague comments, she has an answer ready.
He's not her boyfriend.
Elena's not sure how that would even work, really, because her concept of 'boyfriend' and the reality of Damon Salvatore seem mutually exclusive to her. On the other hand, she hasn't exactly let herself think about the situation much, either. She's good with the way things are between them.
They're friends (better than before) and they fuck (better than she'd dreamed) and he's the worst (best) secret she's ever tried to keep.
She knows it won't last. (Good things never do.)
Elena loves him, in a lot of different ways, but she's not ready for the unending everything that would come with opening up to him anywhere other than her own bedroom in the dark of night. She knows it isn't fair of her, but he doesn't seem to expect fair from her, either. The best thing he gives her (besides his blood and mouth and cock) is his silence on the subject.
So far he hasn't pushed for more (yet) and if everyone continues not to ask (unlikely) she can keep right on not thinking much about it. Sleeping with Damon means she no longer has to worry about the possibility (inevitability) of sleeping with Damon. The space in her brain reserved for stressing out about the unrelenting tension between them has now been freed up, which is good because she has plenty else to worry about.
Honestly, if she'd known what an absolute relief it would be to just get it over with, to finally quit wondering and know, she doesn't think she would have resisted him so hard for so long.
The first time had happened the way it was always going to happen. He'd goaded her into a fight and she'd taken the bait (knowingly, gladly). He'd come over while she was alone and they'd argued over something stupid. She can't even remember over what, exactly. He'd kept at her, pissing her off, riling her up until she was so mad at him (so wet for him) she'd vamped out and leaped for his throat.
His blood had hit her tongue, thick (warm) coppery (Damon's), and there was no turning back after that.
They'd spent the rest of that beautiful, crisp October afternoon shut up inside her darkened bedroom, fucking (and fucking) and then not fucking. He'd left, at her request, half an hour before Jeremy was supposed to get home from work.
But he hadn't stayed away long.
Waiting until Jeremy was asleep, he'd come back the next night, the night after that and nearly every night since. In the weeks that followed, Elena had discovered that there were two urges she didn't know if she'd ever be able to get a grip on: her unrelenting thirst for blood and her overwhelming hunger for Damon.
(She can't help thinking sometimes of that old Reese's commercial about two great tastes that taste great together.)
For the most part, she calls the shots, deciding both what they do and when it ends, because that's the only way she can handle what they're doing, what she's allowed to happen here.
Damon does his best to follow her shifting desires, guessing how she wants it before she can form the words to ask. Sometimes he gets it wrong (goes down on her and lingers far too long when she really just wants him to hold her down and fuck her). Sometimes he gets it perfectly right, like when he somehow just seems to know when she wants him to lie still (and shut up) so she can take her time exploring every inch of his body. With her tongue.
(And, on occasion, her fangs.)
Some nights he doesn't bother with trying to sort out what she wants. Some nights, he shows up with an attitude, or drunk, or both, and she's pretty sure he's been fighting with Stefan (but she never asks, nope). Those are the nights he's a little less eager to let her set the pace, when his touch is rougher and his mood doesn't ease until he's done some biting of his own.
Like last night, when he'd woken her with cold hands and a kiss that tasted like bourbon, and she'd tried to figure out what he'd needed (for once).
He'd fallen asleep afterward, drifting off effortlessly into a deep, sound sleep with his head on her belly and her fingers in his hair. She'd envied him the ease. Elena suspects some nights that might just be the part he likes the most, the part he craves - the silent aftermath, those long, lingering moments when they've parted but can't let go of each other. (Except it might be her who feels that way, which would explain why she waits longer and longer to wake him each time it happens. Hmmm.)
In the morning, she waits until Jeremy's in the shower to quickly strip her bedding as fresh memories flicker through her mind.
(blood running in thick rivulets down the side of her throat, his hands smearing her breasts with it, leaning in to lick blood and sweat off her slippery nipples as she rides him)
Wadding the sheets into a scrunched-up ball, she hurries downstairs to toss them immediately into the washer. It doesn't matter that Jeremy's suddenly stopped barging into her room unannounced anymore (for some odd reason), or that laundry is always and forever the last thing he cares about. She wants all possible evidence (of what she feels for Damon) gone in the bright light of day.
She's learned to soak the sheets in cold water and detergent first, so the blood (Damon's fangs sinking deep into her inner thigh, oh God) will wash easily away.
He's not her boyfriend.
(Or maybe this is what 'boyfriend' means to her now.)