Authors note: So I was going to make this chapter longer, but then I got to the part I finished on and realised it was a good place to stop. Without giving anything away before you read it, I just wanted to say that we havent seen Elena show any kind of meltdown or breakdown about her situation but now that she's got a taster of the life she wants or the life she could have but can't have it, I just wanted to show how she deals with the fact that she would have to give her time up with Damon the moment Frank returns. So here we go! let me know what you think! And also, I just wanted to point out that the quote at the beginning, which is one of my most favourite scenes of all time which breaks my heart into a million pieces, inspired me with that particular moment between Damon and Elena. HAVE FUN :D xxxxxx

11

"How am I supposed to go on with my life, knowing what we had what we could've had?"

"No-one will know but me."

"Everything we did…"

"It never happened."

"It did, it did. I know it did. I felt your heartbeat. I'll never forget."

- Angel.

"You took the job?" Damon exclaimed in disgrace once he had followed Stefan's lead.

Stefan, now situated comfortably on his own office chair that was an exact replica of Damon's, turned his wrist to examine the time on his silver watch but Damon knew he wasn't actually seeking it. "That took exactly fifteen seconds." He revealed and lifted his eyes to meet with Damon's angered set.

"How could you take the job? Did you hear nothing I just said?"

"Oh, the part about don't take the job or the trust you part?"

"Stefan," Damon said in a low, serious tone. "You can't go to Paris."

"Why? Because it's a great opportunity for me, because I'll actually be making more money than I do right now?"

"No, I just have a bad feeling about this, okay?"

Stefan took a moment before drawling out a sound of sudden realisation. "Is this because we'll be in completely different countries?" he sniggered.

"What?" Damon frowned, not catching on.

"You're going to miss me." Stefan voiced his theory.

"Yes, I don't want you to go because I will miss you, oh so terribly." He said dryly with an added roll of his blue eyes. "Now will you stay?"

"Not a chance,"

Damon huffed petulantly. "How did you even accept the offer? Frank's away."

"I accepted it before he left." He explained.

"What? That was five days ago!"

"I tried to tell you."

"When?" Damon's voice unconsciously rose in reaction to his frustration.

"When Andie called you in the elevator, when you were masturbating in your office, when you just couldn't let the penis joke go, when you-

"Alright! No need to get technical." He snapped, turned to leave the office before remembering there was something important he needed answered. "When did he offer it to you?" Damon queried.

"Before you left for Paris," Stefan revealed casually.

He was afraid of that.

Damon swung the apartment door to a slammed shut, and practically tore his suit jacket off his shoulders and flung it onto the back of one of the leather chairs located in the living area of his apartment.

"Damon?" the sound of her voice coming from somewhere in the apartment caused the tension in his shoulders to immediately lessen. Then she appeared from the bathroom, clad in a small robe and his body eased completely. "I've been trying to call you all day, what's going on?"

He sighed and kicked off his shoes. "I think Frank's involving my brother in this," he motioned between them.

"But he doesn't know anything."

"He knows I want you, and by the unaffected reaction I gave in regards to his threat to take my job, which he was obviously prepared for, he had to have a back-up," he explained. "Guess this is his back-up plan."

Running a palm through his hair and proceeding towards the bed to flop lazily onto the soft mattress, Damon felt a plague of worries and thoughts possess him. Elena soon joined him on the bed, her hands wedged between her closed legs. "What are we going to do?" She asked in a small voice, her gaze remaining on the skin of her bare legs.

He blew out a harsh breath of air. "Honestly? I don't know."

It was the truth; he had no clue what he would do, or how he would solve this. But he had no choice but to figure it out, especially now his brother was involved. Still, he couldn't go ahead and figure it out until Frank was back from his hometown.

The escalation of her legs to a stand caught his attention, and there it remained as she moved across the apartment, allowing distance between them and dug both hands into her large black bag, pulling out a pair of her black leggings and a vest a few moments later. He already knew what she was doing, but still his mind wanted it confirmed. "What are you doing?"

"I'm gonna go back to my apartment." She revealed while gathering her curled hair into a bum atop her head, causing the robe to rise slightly, giving him an even better view of her.

"Why?"

"Because I promised myself I wouldn't get you involved in this," she explained and took a step back when he stood from the bed and closed the distance she created between them. "And here you are, smack dab in the middle of it, and so is your brother now."

Damon cupped her face and revelled in the way she leaned into it. "This isn't your problem to fix."

Then she looked at him, her eyes full of remorse and sadness. "Yes, it is." her hand reached up to rest over his, took it in a grasp and kissed the palm before allowing it to fall away from her and turned to pick up the clothes she had set to one side only moments ago.

"Elena," He brought her to a stop with the block his body provided. Holding the similarity to the moment she threatened to walk out of his office, he couldn't let her leave.

"Please don't make this harder than it already is." She almost pleaded.

"It's already as hard as it possibly can be." Damon corrected, inching his body into a close proximity of hers which he knew would undoubtedly unnerve her, because it had the same sizzling effect on him.

If it wasn't such a serious conversation, he would have chuckled at the relation his comment had to his growing erection that had begun standing to attention ever since he got a peek at the black panties she wore under the robe. Not that it was true; he could definitely manage to get harder than he was at this very moment, and there was a few ways it was going to, all of them included her.

He leaned in ever so slightly for their lips to meet but not fully connect, his entire being to electrify at such a simple touch. "Not if we walk away now." She suggested, her lips catching his as she spoke.

"I can't walk away," he replied. "Can you?"

He didn't need an answer; her eyes told him the unspoken words.

Finally engaging their lips in a heated kiss that seemed to run through him and end at the tips of his toes, every nerve between burning with the same desire he felt each time they came together. He took her small moan as an invite to entangle their tongues in an erotic dance, his need for her taste equivalent to a man starving. She nipped at his lower lip and he broke from the kiss, dropping his line of sight to her robe-covered breasts and eventually pushing the material apart to expose her body. As he ran his eyes, and hands, over every inch of her, she rid him of his shirt and began working on his pants.

Before she was done, he seized her into his arms, dragging her towards the bed and lowering both their bodies onto it. Damon held himself up with the aid of his elbows, effectively drinking her in, the dishevelled hair, the lust-filled eyes. She unexpectedly reached up and traced the side of his face with a simple touch of her fingers and smiled. Allowing him to stumble onto the realization that he wouldn't be able to let her leave on Wednesday, that he wouldn't be able to let her leave ever, not unless she convinced him it was what she wanted.

"Why do you stay with him?" Damon asked softly, running the tips of his fingers along the length of her bare back as she fit perfectly into the side of his equally naked body, her arm strewn across his chest and her leg entangled with his. She took a moment to lift her head from its rest on his chest and look him directly in the eyes, before quickly returning it.

"He takes care of me." She replied, the contents of her breath tickling his bare chest along with the soft feel of her hair blanketing his shoulder. Silence coated the apartment for a few moments before she added. "It's not always bad."

"It's not?" He asked in doubt.

"No, he's just… misunderstood. He doesn't want to be alone."

"You're defending him?" He cocked his head up in surprise and watched as she inclined hers to allow his gaze access to run over her face.

"No, of course I'm not defending him." Elena answered defensively before continuing. "I know what it's like to be completely alone, it's painful."

"So you let him trap you so he doesn't have to be alone?" He sat up, disconnecting their flesh as he climbed from the bed.

"It's not like that,"

"Then what is it like?" He exclaimed angrily.

"I owe him everything, Damon. You didn't know what life I had before he came along."

He huffed while rummaging through the top drawer of his chest of drawers, finally retrieving a pair of joggers and pulling them swiftly on. "Then why don't you tell me?"

"I can't," she told him weakly and hung her head.

"Because of him?" he accused.

"No, not because of him, because I'm not ready, I can't relive it, I can't have people know." Her obvious upset made him instantly soften and return to her side on the bed. A soft brush of her hair from her face with his hand made her look at him, the sadness evident in her brown eyes. He wanted to kick himself. He was supposed to be making her happy, not almost bringing her to tears. "Can we not fight?" She asked in a whisper.

Damon smiled. "We can do that."

Their arms simultaneously went around one another and their bodies lowered back into the warmth of the mattress. He wanted to know, he wanted her to tell him everything but the need to spend their last day together without fighting overpowered his curiosity for the details of her life and her entanglement to Frank.

Damon sighed as he slipped out of his jacket and tossed aside his shoes. He had spent the entire day wondering if he could sneak back to his apartment and be with Elena. But of course, his work load had other plans. The soft spray of the shower behind the closed bathroom door was picked up by his hearing, giving him the ammunition to make the assumption that Elena was taking a shower, and he smiled mischievously to himself. He was definitely going to join her.

Pushing open the door, he was welcomed by the thin layer of steam while making quick work of discarding his shirt. Then his eyes landed on something he had least expected. The glass door to the walk-in shower was open, enabling him to make out the small shape of a fully-clothed Elena sat upon the ceramic floor, directly under the spray of the water.

"Elena, what-

His voice was overflowing with concern in response to the sight before him. Only when he moved closer did he notice the shade of red surrounding her eyes and the blankness they revealed.

"Elena, what's going on?" He reached into the shower to turn the knob but she held up her hand to stop him, her flesh catching his. Ignoring her attempt to stop him, he twisted the shower to off.

"I haven't cried in so long," she said in a voice as lifeless as her eyes. "Now I can't stop, I don't know how to make it stop." Then she broke, right in front of him. Tears fell freely down her makeup stained cheeks and her face dropped into her opened hands.

His mind drawing a blank on what to do, Damon allowed his bare feet to take him deeper into the shower, dipped down and twisted on his feet until his back met the tiled wall and his rear took its place next to her. He gathered the curtain of hair and waited for her head to lift from its burial in her hands. After a few moments she did exactly that. "It's not enough time."

Under normal circumstances, he would have asked for an explanation, but he already knew what she meant. "It's not enough time," her sobs mixed with the repeated statement forced him to frame her face with his hands and touch their foreheads together.

"Shh, it's okay." He soothed.

Her head shook fiercely. "I have to go back to my apartment tomorrow, pretend like nothing's changed. How can I?"

Unable to find any words, Damon interjected the tears that travelled down each side of her face with a swipe of his thumb

"I don't want to drown anymore." She wept.

Honestly, this wasn't what he was expecting. Especially not from her, she was a steel cage when it came to showing her emotions; he had figured that out after just a few weeks since their first meeting. Now it was six months later, and it was the first time he had seen her cry, or bare more than a small hint of vulnerability. He wanted to urge her to leave Frank, but now wasn't really the appropriate time for that conversation so instead, he leaned in and kissed her, deep and slowly as she whimpered into his mouth and he tasted the salt of her tears that had soaked into the seams of her lips. Her fingers found their way into his hair in attempt to pull him even closer, to which he had to unfortunately resist. Breaking the kiss and hooking his one arm under her knees while the other wound around the middle of her back, he lifted her from the soaked shower floor and proceeded through to the main of the apartment.

Damon placed her down on the bed, and silenced her with the pad of his fingers when she began to voice her worry of the sheets getting ruined. Keeping their eyes locked, he slipped his fingers into the top of her pyjama shorts and dragged them from their rest on her hips, down her legs and onto the floor then returned back up her body to rid her of the soaked vest. Left in only her matching cotton black underwear set that also clung to her skin for dear life, he quickly removed them before rounding the bed in aim for his chest of drawers and grabbing the first items of clothing he could get his hands on; a V neck black t shirt and joggers.

Elena helpfully lifted her arms up for him to slip the t shirt over her head and curtain a large portion of her damp body. When he took one of her ankles to help her into the joggers, she shrugged him off and slid a hand around the back of his neck, effectively pulling him back up to her level, his hands on her bare thighs as his body was wedged between her legs.

"I don't want this to end tomorrow." She told him.

He ran his fingers along her cheekbone then into her wet hair, their eyes burning together in a roaring fire of blue and brown. "We'll figure something out." He assured.

"What if we can't?" she asked quietly.

The use of the term 'we' was enough to make his insides sizzle.

"Then we go to plan B."

"What's plan B?"

"I'll tell you when Plan A doesn't work out." Damon smiled devilishly and stood from his knees, taking his hand from her in the process.

"Wait," She took hold of his hand before it escaped her and rose from the bed to a stand directly in front of him. "You're wet too," she pointed out.

Following her gaze that formed a blazing path of desire down his body, he noticed his shirt clung to the perfectly defined lines of his muscled torso, handing him the hint of her obvious suggestion. His eyes met hers again; the hungered look evident in both. She extended a hand to begin unfastening each button of his dress shirt and peeled it down his arms, letting it hit the floor before leaning forward and placing an open-mouthed kiss to the slight damp of his chest. He let out a heavy breath as her mouth found its way down his torso, outlining each of his abs with her tongue as she dropped to her knees and began working on undoing his pants.

"Elena," He grabbed onto both of her hands, stopping them from slipping into his pants. As much as this was exactly how he wanted to spend their possibly last night together, he couldn't help but be wary of her vulnerable state. He didn't want to take advantage of her in any way.

Brushing off his hands as well as his wariness, she returned to her mission into his pants and took the hard length of him in her hand. A soft groan escaped him in response to the skilful rub of her hand up and down his erection, and the collection of the pre-cum from the tip of his penis aiding her in doing so. She hooked the fingers of her free hand into the top of his pants and pulled them down his legs, then much to his delight, she kept a firm grip on the base of him then leaned forward and took the tip into her warm, wet mouth. The only disadvantage of this situation was that he didn't have anything to fiercely grab onto. Lowering his eyes to watch her while revelling entirely in the feel of her taking all of him into her mouth, small flicks of her tongue against the tip forcing him to take a firm hold on the top of her head. He had to figure something out, because he wouldn't be able to give this up. And it wasn't just about the sex, he could get sex anywhere, yet he didn't want it from anywhere, or any woman, he wanted it from her, for the rest of his life.