A/N: Chapter is rated M.

Thank you so much to those of you who took the time to review Ch. 2. Your feedback means so much to me.

And thank you to my brilliant beta, secretindulgence 24, who has managed to drag my muse out of hibernation with her patient, skillful encouragement. If you haven't read her story It Starts With Goodbye, go read it already! =)

Chapter 3

In the space of 30 minutes, his grim little bedroom had been turned into Home for the Holidays. In place of his sleeping bag, an air mattress had been inflated and draped with a cheerful combination of green sheets and garish red bedspread. A stuffed reindeer perched on an overstuffed pillow, surveying the room with its fixed, beady eyes. A carpet of scattered pine needles brightened up the concrete floor and freshened the stale grave air that had all but seeped into Damon's skin by this point. A small plastic Christmas tree added to the improvised festivity, perched in the corner and adorned with a few popcorn strings and a silver star. Battery-operated Christmas lights blinked sequentially, strung haphazardly along the walls wherever there was a place for the strand to catch,. Their cheerful multicolored glow led Damon's astonished gaze toward the ceiling where silver tinsel streamers caught the light and gleamed.

"For your heart."

Elena's soft voice dragged Damon out of his reverie. He turned on his heel and discovered her standing just behind him transformed as completely as the grave. The muddy jeans and sweatshirt had vanished, replaced by a scoop-necked, off-the-shoulder crimson dress with black lace trim and a matching wrap.

Her hair was swept up in a loose chignon, exposing the graceful line of her neck. Gold dust glistened on her collarbone, highlighting the small, sexy divots. In a graveyard created specifically for demons, she looked angelic.

"Do you like it?" she asked hopefully, holding out a long-stemmed glass that was a twin to one in her left hand.

He stared at her for a long moment, searching for the right way to say thank you without violating the boundaries she'd imposed between them.

"I like it too much," he finally said quietly. "This ..." He waved a hand around them. "It's uh ..." he cleared his throat and looked away, "probably the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."

Before she could say anything-before she could step into his line of vision and shake him so that once again he couldn't coherently speak, Damon went on. "I don't know how to reactto it, Elena."

Without looking, he knew she had the usual baffled frown she got whenever he did something that pushed her beyond her comfort limits.

"Thank you always works for me."

"Yeah ..." He turned back toward her, unable to muster up the strength to play the same old tired game again. Sweeping his gaze across her with slow deliberateness, Damon shook his head. "You don't want me to thank you. Trust me."

She let out a frustrated huff. "Why not?"

Damon sighed at her deliberate, defensive naïveté.

"Because you won't be hearing the words, Elena." Reaching out, he took both glasses from her and set them on the floor a safe distance away. Retaining his grip on her hand, he laced their hands together, folding his long fingers around hers all the while watching the slowly dawning expression on her face. He nodded grimly, using their interlaced digits to draw her close to him, to wear he could look down into her face and murmur, "If I say thank you," he trailed his thumb along her jawline, gazing into her eyes, "you'll be tasting the words as they slip from my lips" he touched his mouth, then pressed two fingers to her soft lips, "onto yours."

They were right there and she hadn't pulled back yet. All he had to do was lower his head a fraction of an inch ...

When she spoke, so close, her own words drifted over his lips. "Damon ..."

"Don't." The word was a lone plea for her to take it easy on his heart for a change.

She pressed their entwined hands to her chest. "I'm not saying no."

He didn't dare read into that. Hope had been brutally slaughtered between them one too many times. "But ..."

Elena lowered her head and clasped their hands with her free hand, idly tracing Damon's knuckles with apparently no notion of what the light touch was doing to him. Finally, she raised her gaze to his again, her brown eyes glinting in the soft Christmas light. "I'm saying ... not yet."

Damon let out a disbelieving half-breath and Elena smiled slightly.

"This thing between us ... Damon ... I can't deny its existence."

"Two years says otherwise," he blurted unintentionally. After the words were out, he couldn't bring himself to apologize, even though it hurt to see he wince.

"Ouch." Elena sucked in a breath, then exhaled heavily. "I deserved that. Okay."

Finally, she pulled away, leaving Damon stranded alone in the middle of the Christmas finery while she paced, her injured ankle dragging slightly beside its mate.

"Stefan and me ... from the looks of everything, we're at a dead end that I can't seem to find a way to get by." She toyed with a low-hanging strand of tinsel. "I want to try, but he keeps putting roadblocks in the way, and I'm tired." Elena glanced over at him, sadness and frustration replacing her previously expression. "Sometimes ... a girl just wants something easy. Why can't anything ever be easy?"

"Elena." He laughed dryly at what she seemed to be implying. "If that's the yardstick with which you're measuring Salvatore soulmate possibility... when I said I was easy, I definitely didn't mean that way."

"But with you it's more honest," she retorted, a trace of anger now lacing her speech. "Unless you're plotting world domination by unleashing a tombful of vampire zombies ... you don't keep secrets from me." She picked up the stuffed animal and glared at it dangerously.

Trying to lighten the black mood that he himself had created, Damon warned, "Back away from the reindeer slowly."

It didn't work.

Tossing the toy aside, Elena sank down onto the air mattress and clutched the pillow to her chest. "You treat me like a doll you have to protect from choosing, but then you also hold my feet to the fire and force me to make tough decisions. You're harder and simultaneously ... easier."

"Oh, well, now you're just making me sound slutty." Strolling over to her casually, he sat down beside her, feeling the air pockets in the mattress shift.

She butted her head into his shoulder miserably. "Damon."

"Elena."

"I don't know what to do," she whispered. "No matter what, somebody winds up being hurt."

He fought the urge to put an arm around her. At the moment that just seemed like a brotherly thing and he was suddenly desperate to emphasize the fact that he was so done with being the vampire version of Jeremy. Instead, he nudged her chin up and gave her the full measure of his gaze, hiding nothing. He let her see it all-the love, the hurt, the despair at always being overlooked, and he knew that she saw when she tried to pull back from the intensity. He held her shoulder lightly, refusing to back down this time.

"Just tell me what you want. I'll give you anything, Elena, even if it means leaving so you can start over with Stefan-"

"Don't leave!" The exclamation was sharp and unexpected. Elena got to her feet and looked down at him, her eyes suddenly glistening. "Damon ... I need you."

"You need me or you need my help?" he asked bluntly, hating the tears he'd caused, but equally determined to see this through to the finish. When he finally emerged from this damn tomb, it was going to be with a fresh perspective.

"You promised you would never leave me again."

"Dammit, Elena." He got to his feet too, anger rising at the accusation on her face. "Don't dodge the question! I can't do this back and forth anymore, no matter what I promised. You have to tell me where I-where we-stand. Do. You. Need me?" he repeated, emphasizing each word with an acid punctuation mark. "Or is it just my unique set of skills that makes me worth keeping around? Tell me, Elena. Is my ability to kick ass the only reason you're playing graveyard Saint Nick, instead of being with your friends on Christmas Eve?"

"I'm down here because I want to be!" Elena snapped back, suddenly animated. "Damon, you're my friend. I promised I wouldn't leave you and I actually keep my promises. With Jeremy in Colorado, there's nowhere else I'd rather be this evening. Do you want me to leave?"

"What I want to do is kiss you," he retorted bluntly, going for broke now that they were having this conversation. "Like I did in the motel before I realized you were using me as a guinea pig for your feelings. I want to kiss you, Elena, until you stop fighting every small advance we make and stop questioning everything. I want your skin to ignite, your breath to stall in your chest, your heart to stop beating and still nothing will stop us kissing until you become a direct extension of my body."

She looked him directly in the eye. "Then kiss me."

They stared at each other in astonishment, words hovering between them fragile as spun glass. Before they could fall to the floor and shatter this dream, Damon pulled her hard against him. Elena's hands framed his face as his created a cage around her narrow waist ensuring that she could not escape. His lips parted to take an overwhelmed breath and she took advantage, slanting her mouth over his so that instead of inhaling air it was Elena he breathed in. Her bottom lip slid in between his and he drew it lightly between his teeth, grazing the sensitive flesh and reveling in her immediate intake of breath.

Damon slid one hand up to her jaw, cupping it between his thumb and forefinger to better angle it, but she was the one who deepened the kiss, bypassing the barely parted seam of their lips with her tongue. His groan was lost in translation, swallowed by her slow, sweet tease along his sensitive teeth. In retaliation he pulled away to kiss the slope of her neck. Starting just underneath her jaw, he worked his way down the slender column of her throat pressing open-mouthed kisses, teeth grazing the tender skin.

"Mmmm ..."

Elena's breathless moan was more arousing than anything in the vampire's long memory except for maybe her accelerated heartbeat. He lingered at the carotid because it was such a sexy little spot and because hearing the rush of her blood was like taking a direct hit of something off the street. Drug-like, the sound bypassed the blood-brain barrier and spilled over his synapses, setting off a chain reaction down his spine. As if she sensed this, Elena's fingers tracked their way down his back and dug in, anchoring herself to him.

He worked his way back up to her mouth, pausing to kiss each flushed cheek and fluttering eyelid, his hunger growing with every whisper of Elena's need.

She pushed against him, her uninjured leg twining around his, rocking her hips into his. Belatedly remembering her hurt ankle, Damon slid a powerful arm beneath her backside and scooped her up. Automatically her legs wrapped around his waist, the dress sliding up so that the thin satin of her panties settled flush against the seam of his jeans, the intimacy triggering a moan from Elena and a feral growl from Damon.

"Elena."

He slammed them back into the tomb wall, her thighs coming to rest firmly on his left forearm while his right dragged the neckline of her dress down until her arms were partially pinned by the elastic. Goosebumps covered her skin from the chill of the tomb, a sign of cold that Damon sought quickly to eradicate with the warmth of his tongue.

Elena's hands pushed in between them seeking the waistline of his jeans so she could free his shirt. Her fingertips were far from nimble, bordering on desperate as they pushed and pulled at the fabric futilely until Damon, busy tasting every inch of her shoulders, chuckled.

Dropping a hard kiss on her flushed, full lips, he helped her out by undoing the buckle of his belt, his fingers tangling with hers momentarily as she shoved the waistband back and slid her palms onto the flat abdominal slope beneath.

"Gahf ..." he gasped incoherently, her soft, warm hands against his cold hard skin unexpectedly firing his nerves like a dynamite chain reaction.

It was her turn to laugh, stealing multiple kisses as she moved up his chest with deliberate slow intention.

"Lena ..." Damon groaned as she smoothed her palms across his pectorals. When she raked her nails teasingly across his nipples, he lost the plot completely and forgot all about his intentions to save her pretty dress. One quick yank and it shredded, sliding down her skin like silk to puddle somewhere at their feet, where it was immediately trampled.

Boosting Elena higher on his forearm so that her demi-cup bra was easier to reach, Damon locked eyes with her and dragged the full width of his hand down the valley of her breasts, all the way down to the juncture of her legs. Her eyes widened as he slid his hand beneath the elastic waistband of her panties, while simultaneously using his teeth to drag aside the black lace fabric of her bra aside until the peak of her left nipple was exposed, immediately pebbling in the cool air.

She called his name halfway deliriously as he teased her with fingers and tongue, above and below, until his own body was screaming with the need to feel her skin to skin. Unwilling to ruin his brand new shirt, Damon managed to somehow keep kissing Elena while undoing buttons, shrugging the garment off and tossing it onto what he hoped was the mattress. In response she reached back and undid her bra, leaving nothing between their upper bodies.

For one long moment, they both stopped, staring at each other, an emotional layer between them falling by the wayside at the same time their clothes did.

When they kissed again, it was initially with soft wonder, then with savage intent, teeth colliding, pinpoints of blood appearing on Elena's lips when Damon's fangs grazed them. He licked the drops away, sucking gently at the tiny wounds he'd created. She didn't seem to mind, raining hard, hungry kisses of her own all across his torso, her shallow half-breaths filling the small chamber and matching his own erratic breathing. They sparred, jockeying for position-his mouth hungry on her small, full breasts, hers attempting to explore his chest in similar fashion, unafraid to use her human teeth to get her way.

When she nipped him particularly hard at one point, Damon's head jerked up from the breast it had been lavishing attention upon and glared daggers at the woman he loved. The laughter in her eyes filled him until it overflowed, spilling over as pure, primal passion.

His own eyes narrowed in warning, his voice somewhere between a growl and a snarl. "I could eat you."

Her response was classic Elena-surprising, needy, demanding, even while it offered her up as a willing sacrifice to another's whims.

Lips swollen from their kisses, she leaned in and placed her mouth next to his ear. "Please."

The husky note of need snapped Damon's last measure of self-control. Staggering backwards, he somehow managed to get them to the bed even as Elena did her level best to distract him with suddenly soft, sweet kisses raining down all along his shoulders and biceps.

When he felt the mattress at the back of his knees, he groaned with relief and let them fall backwards, careful to brace Elena's body with his. The mattress wasn't nearly firm enough for his liking, but it was sturdy enough for her to climb on top of him, her knees framing his thighs.

Lifting his hips, he helped her divest him of his jeans so they were more evenly matched in terms of attire. Elena wasted no time in retaliating for Damon's earlier teasing, her every touch having an incendiary effect, until he was afraid that for the first time in centuries he might actually lose control too quickly.

Taking control of the situation, he caught her by the waist and dragged her up until her chest was at mouth-level for him. Encompassing her backside with both palms to keep her from escaping, he suckled and nipped each breast in turn, Elena's cries and wriggling raising the temperature in the room until they were both sweating, a thin sheen coating their bodies and lubricating the slow side of skin against slick skin.

The hotter their bodies got, the slower Damon went, easing them into a sultry, dark dance with each slow swipe of his tongue and tender caress of his hands. Elena's breathing became a sob as he showed her physically what he'd spent years trying to tell her verbally.

Gentling her frantic movements, Damon smoothed her damp hair back from her face, fingers lingering at the curve of her cheek.

"It feels like I've loved you forever," he said quietly, needing her to know even if it was hopelessly, dangerously revealing. He traced the line from her ear to her chin and back again, then took her face in his hands and kissed her very softly, his own emotions heightened to the point of breaking. "Even before Katherine, somehow ... Elena. You were the woman in my dreams."

Elena's wide brown eyes were soft with emotion. "It feels like I'm just waking up after years of being asleep."

Damon grinned slowly as he turned their bodies so she lay beneath him. He helped her remove the remaining scraps of clothing between them and allowed her to guide him to her, his lips hovering over hers as he slid inside.

"Rise and shine."

Moving in an automatically natural, passionate rhythm, they woke each other from the respective nightmares of their past lives. The edge came closer and closer, the one they walked every single day, but this time they didn't skirt it. Bodies and hearts intertwined, Damon and Elena stepped off the cliff together and tumbled headlong into whatever lay beyond the clouds of their dreams.

Next chapter: The morning after ...