AN: Very special thanks to my beta for sitting on the phone with me forever while I struggled to write two measily sentences. She's a rockstar.

Thanks so much for the amazing response to the last chapter. I hope you enjoy this one just as much.

Chapter Twenty-One - Meltdown

Fed up with story time, Damon downed the rest of his bourbon before setting the glass back on the tray with a loud thunk. Elijah's lengthy monologue had done nothing but give him time to dwell on his own near demise. There had been no insight into Klaus aside from the fact that once upon a very long time ago, he'd been on the receiving end of a bunch of vindictive witches and if that was supposed to make him feel sorry for the bastard, it didn't. Hell, he'd been royally screwed over by Emily Bennett and he hadn't turned into a psychopathic freak of nature bent on destroying everything in his path.

Well, okay, maybe he had, but he'd gotten over it before he'd done any damage that couldn't be fixed by an eternity ring.

There was also the not so small problem of Elena. She'd gravitated to his side during the course of the history lesson and now she was standing so close that he couldn't breathe without inhaling her scent. Every nerve in his body was acutely attuned to the places where she brushed against him and it was driving him crazy. He was relieved they'd figured things out and were no longer fighting, but if he didn't get a distraction soon he was going to throw her over his shoulder, take her up to his bedroom, and bury himself inside of her until they both forgot that Klaus, Stefan or anybody else in the world even existed.

And while that was highly tempting, it didn't exactly solve any of their problems.

"This is all fascinating," Damon interrupted, leaning against the bar. "But what the hell does it have to do with anything?"

"Damon," Bonnie hissed, glaring at him over her shoulder.

"What?" he replied, unperturbed as he brushed passed Elena on his way to face Elijah on the opposite end of the room. Keeping the long wooden coffee table between them, he continued. "What's the point of this trip down memory lane? Werewolf bites suck? I agree, but what does it have to do with killing Klaus?"

"Klaus didn't offer me the trade because he gave a damn about you, Damon," Stefan said, lifting his gaze from studying the pattern of the antique Persian rug on the floor. "He needed me for bait to lure Katherine out."

"Okay. Why?"

"I think he believes he's being haunted by Liliana and needs Katherine for a some kind of ritual to get rid of her," Stefan explained, leaning back against the cushions and draping an arm over the couch, loosely encircling the woman at his side. "He wants Katherine dead."

"Don't we all," Damon muttered, earning him a snicker from Elena.

"Think she's being haunted?" Jeremy asked, looking at Stefan. "What, you don't believe in ghosts?"

"I do," Elijah assured him. "It's just…in the thousand years since Liliana's death I've never once heard him speak to her as Stefan has. He's never even mentioned her. At the moment, however, what matters more is that we have something Klaus wants and can use it to draw him out."

"And once we've…drawn him out," Alaric said, speaking from the doorway just behind Damon. "What then?"

With that, all eyes fell to Bonnie. Damon waited, wondering if the witch had come up with an actual plan since the last time they'd spoken. Straightening in her seat, Bonnie lifted her chin.

"I can't re-curse Klaus," she admitted as Damon scoffed and rolled his eyes. Quickly, she added. "But I can make him vulnerable long enough for Elijah to kill him."

"Elijah? Really?" Damon raised a brow, casting a withering look at the Original. "Your big plan rests on Elijah's ability to get it done? Again?"

The Original cleared his throat. "I understand your skepticism, but-."

"But what?" Damon asked, glaring at him from across the room. "But you really mean it this time? Not good enough."

Alaric cleared his throat before the tension between Damon and Elijah snapped and one of them used the coffee table as a weapon. "I have a problem inviting Klaus back to Mystic Falls without some method to contain him. He's too powerful."

"We can use the tomb," Bonnie said immediately as if she'd been waiting for the excuse. "Trap him in there like Katherine."

"It's not spelled anymore," Damon said, earning him another seething look from the witch.

"I can re-spell it."

"How convenient."

"It took two witches to bring it down and get me out," Stefan reminded her, though not unkindly. Damon glared at his brother – even hopped up on human blood he was still the calm one.

"I can use the same spell from the Masquerade, when we set the trap for Katherine," Bonnie said. "It'll be temporary, but that's okay, right? I mean, we're not looking to hold Klaus forever."

"Well, that's handy," Damon snorted in derision. "How would we get him in there? It's not exactly a tourist attraction."

"Isn't it kind of obvious?" Caroline piped up for the first time.

"What's obvious?" Damon asked.

"Weren't you listening to the story?"

"No," he said, glancing at Elena where she still lingered near the bar. He'd been much more focused on other things.

Caroline made a face at him and focused on Katherine. "We have something he wants. So, Katherine goes into the tomb and we use her as bait."

"Katherine will not go into the tomb and be used as bait," the vampire in question replied, rising from the arm of the couch where she'd been silent since they'd all gathered. Backing away from the group as a whole, she crossed her arms and for the first time in his life, Damon saw actual fear in her eyes. "I'm not going back into that tomb."

"Why not?" Damon smirked. "This is the first part about this stupid plan that I actually like."

Crossing the room in a blur, Katherine stopped in front of Damon, so close she was practically standing on his toes, but he didn't give her an inch. Nose to nose, she glared at him, declaring vehemently. "I am not going back into the tomb."

"If you want to save Stefan, you will," he replied, meeting her unblinking gaze. The room was silent as a battle waged behind the cold, dark eyes that he'd once been willing to die for. The soft clink of glass against glass broke the silence as Elena spoke.

"I'll do it."

"Once Katherine is in the tomb, won't Klaus know that it's spelled?" Damon asked quickly, hoping the rest of the group either hadn't heard Elena speak or would dismiss her insane suggestion without a second thought.

"I could wait," Bonnie said, thinking over the spell. "Until Klaus is beyond the door. It's not the easiest option but I can make it happen."

"I'm sorry," Katherine replied, placing a hand on Damon's chest and curling her fingers so her nails dug painfully into his chest through his t-shirt. "What part of 'I'm not going back in there' did you think I didn't mean?"

"Suck it up, Katherine," Damon taunted, wrapping his fingers around her wrist, and jerking her hand away. "Take one for the team for once instead of making all of our lives miserable."

"This is not my team," she answered heatedly, anger flashing in her eyes. Damon knew he was about two minutes away from being thrown through the open doorway behind him, but he didn't care. "And I'd love to know how you expect to get me in there, Damon."

He tipped his head toward the vampire hunter by the door. "Vervain darts work like a charm, don't they Ric."

"Katherine," Stefan said, rising to his feet. "This isn't like last time. You're not…the one we're trying to trap."

Katherine whirled around and Damon could have sworn he caught the hint of a tremor in her voice. "Don't you dare side with him."

"Guys, I said I'd do it," Elena interrupted, louder this time as she made her way to Damon's side.

"Do what?" Katherine sneered, glancing over her shoulder in utter dismissal.

"I'll be the bait," she insisted as Damon's dead heart dropped like a stone. "Klaus doesn't know I'm alive, right? He won't be expecting it. So, I'll pretend to be Katherine and lure him into the tomb."

"You'll pretend to be me?" the original doppelganger repeated, amused and intrigued.

"No, she won't," Damon said, grabbing Elena roughly by the arm in an attempt to usher her back to the quiet corner where she couldn't get herself into trouble. "No fucking way."

"Damon, stop it," she said, jerking her arm away and glaring at him. "Come on, you know I can do this. And it makes more sense because I can get back out of the tomb without Bonnie having to lift the spell."

"She's got a point," Ric said, earning him a withering look from Damon. The teacher shrugged. "I didn't say it was a good one."

"What is it with you and suicide?" Damon hissed, invading her space in an attempt at intimidation. "Why would you do this for Katherine?"

"I'm not doing it for her," Elena replied, crossing her arms and avoiding his gaze as she looked toward his brother. Damon closed his eyes as realization swept over him. Ofcourse,he thought. This was for Stefan. Goddammit.

"You're not doing it for anybody."

"Can she do it?" Stefan asked before shifting his gaze to Elena. "Can you really convince Klaus you're Katherine?"

She gazed coolly at Stefan as she tipped her head toward Damon. "Ask him."

"Damon?"

Betrayal coursed through him as he stared at his brother. "Are you so far gone that you're willing to hand Elena over to Klaus on a silver platter?"

Stefan held his gaze. "Can she do it?"

Narrowing his eyes, Damon studied Stefan and Katherine as realization made his stomach drop to his feet. He'd managed to ignore the closeness between them, but now as they stood united in the middle of his goddamn living room, it hit him with a startling clarity. Whether she knew it or not, Katherine's love for his younger brother was no longer one-sided.

And that bastard was willing to sacrifice Elena to keep Katherine out of harm's way.

A sense of injustice swept over Damon, eroding the peace he'd found that afternoon in the kitchen. Human blood or not, Stefan knew, he knew, how Damon felt about Elena and he was still willing to sell her out. Floundering, he looked to her, his eyes drawn to a glint of silver around her neck that he hadn't noticed before. The small, circular lump beneath her shirt, just over her heart told him all he needed to know.

She was wearing that goddamn necklace again.

"Yeah, she can do it," he said dully, backing away from them. Elena watched, the triumph and gratitude on her face quickly being replaced by confusion as he made his way to the door.

"Damon, what…where are you going?"

"I'm not watching you die again," he said, slipping behind a mask of cool indifference even though everything in him was raging at the unfairness of and futility of his entire fucking existence. Addressing the whole group, he said what they all had to be thinking, even if they wouldn't admit it. "This is not a plan. This is suicide and I'm done with it."

Turning around, he left the room before the look of confusion in Elena's eyes turned to hurt and she suckered him back in.

On the surface, Damon's exit had changed nothing, but Jeremy felt the undercurrents of unease rippling through the room, growing in strength with each minute he was gone. Keeping one eye on Elena as she circled closer and closer to the exit, he tried to pay attention to Bonnie and Elijah's semi-private conversation.

"What I don't understand is why Klaus needs Katherine," Bonnie said, furrowing her brow in confusion. "I mean, it's not that hard to stop a haunting."

"I'm afraid I don't know," Elijah admitted, shrugging his shoulders in a way Jeremy found disconcerting considering his old fashioned manners and formal suit. "I tried to contact Liliana, but I was unsuccessful."

"Wait, what?" Bonnie demanded, staring at him in shock. "You couldn't contact her?"

Elijah shook his head as Jeremy looked between his girlfriend and the thousand-year-old Original. "Is that weird?"

"Yeah, it's weird," she nodded, briefly turning her wide eyes on him. Addressing Elijah again, she asked. "Did you have something that belonged to her?"

"Yes," the Original said, smiling indulgently. "I've summoned a ghost or two in my time, Bonnie."

"Of course you have," she murmured, looking down at her hands. Rolling his eyes, Jeremy checked on Elena again. She was leaning against the doorframe, playing with the pendant of the vervain necklace Stefan had given her. When did she get that back? Seeing her wear it again surprised Jeremy. He was all for their unwritten "survive and forget" rule when it came to inflicting harm on one another, but the fact that Stefanhad attacked Elenawas so bizarre, he couldn't think of it in the same way.

Letting Bonnie and Elijah talk magic for a moment, Jeremy shifted his gaze to Stefan. The vampire was as oblivious to his sister as she was to him, talking quietly with Katherine on the opposite couch. Jeremy couldn't tell if the older vampire had calmed down since it had been established that Elena would be the one playing Klaus-bait, but her face wasn't all veiny and vamped out, so he considered that a plus.

Jeremy wasn't happy about Elena offering herself up as the sacrificial lamb, but having known her for almost seventeen years, he knew there was no point in arguing with her once she set her mind to something. He would have thought that with all of the time Damon had spent with her these past few weeks – hell the past year, really – he'd have picked up on that fact. Then again, maybe he had and he just didn't care. Smirking, he decided that that sounded much more like the one hundred and fifty-year-old vampire he knew.

"Maybe if you tried again," Bonnie said, pulling him back into the conversation with talk of casting spells and summoning ghosts. "If I was there I could channel the Power, make the summoning stronger and more specific."

As usual, Jeremy's protective instincts spiked at the idea of Bonnie doing anything even remotely in the neighborhood of dangerous. "Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, you're taking on a lot already, you don't want to burn yourself out before we even get Klaus into town."

"Jeremy, maybe if we can talk to Liliana, we can get a better idea of what Klaus wants," she explained, her voice just the slightest bit annoyed. Turning to Elijah, she angled for support. "Knowledge is power, right?"

"Yes," the Original replied carefully. "But I have to agree with Jeremy. Liliana…as much as I'd like to see her, is irrelevant to our purpose. Whatever business has prompted her to reach out from the other side can remain a mystery."

The other side… Jeremy shifted uncomfortably as Elijah's innocent choice of words reminded him of Vicki and Anna. He hadn't talked to them much lately, but he'd seen them. Every once in awhile, one or both of them would flash across his vision, scaring the crap out of him until he remembered this – seeing ghosts – was his new normal.

"I don't need babysitters," Bonnie insisted, clenching her hands into fists against her thighs. "I can do this. It's a simple spell."

"Wait," Jeremy said suddenly as an idea came to mind. "Maybe, you don't need to do a spell."

"Jeremy," she said, the warning tone in her voice making it very clear that he was crossing the line from over-protective and sweet into annoying.

"No, you don't understand," he insisted. "I mean you don't have to. I know somebody, well, two somebodies, who can find her for us."

"What are you talking about?"

This was definitely not how he'd pictured telling his current girlfriend that he was being haunted by his exes. Taking a deep breath, he decided to follow Damon's advice and take one for the team. "Well…ever since you brought me back…I've been seeing ghosts."

Elena waited until Alaric had left his sentry position at the doorway and Jeremy had quit watching her like a hawk before slipping out of the living room. Searching for Damon, she checked the library across the hall before methodically working her way, in a clockwise pattern, through the rooms on the first floor. Logically, she knew it made very little sense to check the formal dining room and the kitchen, but the plan gave her time to figure out what she wanted to say – or more appropriately, what she wanted to say first.

Loving someone and wanting to punch them in the face at the same time was an intense cocktail of emotions that Elena was experiencing for the first time. Given the way Damon had fought Bonnie's plan every step of the way, she hadn't been surprised that he'd been opposed to her offer to act as bait, but the way he'd shut down and walked out had been more extreme than she'd expected. She couldn't wrap her brain around the notion that he'd bail – not really – but the very idea that he might notbe there was enough to turn her mild anxiety over the plan into full-blown panic.

Absently, she wrapped her fingers around the heavy pendant that felt at once familiar and foreign, where it rested against her chest. She'd put it back on out of habit and self-preservation. The conversation between her and Stefan had been necessary, but painful, and even though neither one of them had uttered the actual words 'it's over', Elena knew a break up when she felt it. Part of her wished she would have come clean to Stefan about what had happened between her and Damon, but even though he'd given her the lamest apology in the history of relationships for what he'd done to her, she still couldn't throw his brother in his face.

Not that I haven't done worse to Damon, she thought, cringing as she finally came upon the study. Pushing the door open, she peered into the darkness. Moonlight barely penetrated the tall windows, leaving the room cloaked in thick shadows.

"Damon?" she asked, speaking for the first time because, despite the absolute silence of the dark room, she was certain he was there. Stepping through the door, she groped for a light switch before remembering that, like most of the rooms in the old house, there was no overhead lighting. Her temper spiked at the inconvenience and that urge to punch him returned full force. "Stop hiding, I know you're in here."

A low chuckle sounded to her right, cutting through the quiet like a cannon blast. To anybody else, it would have sounded menacing. To Elena, it just sounded pained…and sad.

"I'm not hiding," Damon said, the unmistakable sound of glass on glass echoing through the room as he set what she imagined was an expensive crystal tumbler of even more expensive bourbon on one of the antique tables.

"Then why are you in the dark?" she demanded, looking in the direction of the sound as she held her hands out in front of her and took a step forward, stubbing her toe and nearly falling over a winged back chair she could have sworn hadn't been there the last time she was in the room. "Shit! Ow."

Damon flicked the switch on one of the many Tiffany lamps scattered around the room as Elena rubbed her sore toe through her shoe. Scowling, she glared at the smirk twisting his incredibly inviting lips. "You couldn't have turned that on before I almost killed myself?"

"I don't need the light to see, Elena," he reminded her, picking up his glass and taking a large swallow. Gesturing with it, he pointed at her. "And I have given up on trying to keep you from killing yourself."

"So, you're not over it then," she said, standing straight and closing the distance between them. The lamp was little more than decorative and the low wattage bulb barely penetrated the stained glass, casting strange shadows and colors across his face.

"Over what?"

"Your little temper tantrum," she shrugged, taking the glass from his hands and sipping the mystery alcohol. It burned going down, but the warmth was stronger and smoother than usual. Definitely the good stuff. Licking her lips, she didn't miss the way his eyes were drawn downward or the way they'd darkened when he met her gaze again.

"Is that why they sent you after me?" he asked, raising a brow. "To lure me back to the Suicide Squad?"

"No one sent me, Damon," Elena said, sighing in exasperation. "I came on my own."

"Why?"

"Are you serious?" she demanded, shoving the drink back at him hard enough to make the liquid slosh over the edge of the glass and onto his fingers. "You can't…you can't just bail."

"Watch me," he replied, lifting one shoulder as if her impassioned decree wasn't worth the effort of a full shrug. "I don't want any part of this."

"But you know I can do it," she insisted, wishing she'd succeeded in formulating some kind of speech while she'd been fruitlessly searching empty rooms. She didn't relish the idea of facing Klaus as Katherine, but she knew it was their best option. "God, for once, I wish I could be something other than this liability that has to be protected."

"Who's stopping you?" he demanded, slamming his glass on the table with more force than before. Taking a step forward, he forced her to crane her neck to meet his eye. "If you want to kill yourself to save Stefan, go right ahead. Just don't expect me to be there cheering you on."

"Stefan? This isn't about Stefan," she said, frowning in confusion. "Why would you even think that?"

With irritating familiarity, Damon deftly slipped his fingers beneath the pendant hanging from her throat and held it up to the light. Elena's stomach flipped like she'd been caught doing something wrong as his icy blue gaze bore into her. "Who isn't it about?"

Elena stared at him, trapped between hating him and wanting to do whatever it took to permanently erase that wounded look in eyes. Damon had found the stupid necklace and given it back to her so many times, she'd stopped thinking of it as merely a gift from Stefan. Instead, it was a symbol of her humanity, the vulnerability that she and everyone else had worked so hard to protect – Damon above all others.

He didn't know that though, and on some level Elena had known that seeing her wearing it again would cause him pain.

Her anger spiked, however, as she snatched the necklace away and turned toward the door. He had no claim over her, in fact, he'd explicitly said that what had happened between them changed nothing, that it was a mistake. Where did he get off being offended that she was wearing a freaking talisman against vampires when she was stuck in a house full of them? Lifting her chin, she glared over her shoulder. "This is about killing Klaus, Damon. Why do I even have to-."

Suddenly, she was being grabbed from behind, one strong, solid arm locking around her waist to pull her flush against a familiar, male body. With his other hand, Damon grabbed the pendant and ripped the necklace off, throwing it to the floor where it skittered into the shadows. Before she could utter a word of protest, he'd pulled her head to the side, baring her neck.

"That's how fast it'll be," he said, the words whispering intimately over her flesh, soothing the stinging pain from where the chain had cut into her neck, as he pressed his cheek to her crown. The rough treatment was meant to terrify her, but after an entire day of accidental touches and looks that would melt the polar ice caps, his hold sent an instant erotic charge through her body. Her hands rose, closing around the forearm across her chest, but she didn't try to pull it away. "The second Klaus figures out that you're not Katherine – and he will – you'll be lucky if he kills you quickly."

"Damon," she gasped, her anger slowly dissolving into a passion of a different kind.

"If you're not, he'll play with you first," he said, trailing his knuckles down the side of her face to the base of her throat. "Torture you, taste you…make your last moments so unbearable it'll be the stuff of legends just because you defied him and didn't die the first time."

"He won't find out," Elena whispered. "He thinks I'm dead, he won't expect it. Just like the vampires in the bar-."

"You think because you fooled a bunch of drunken idiots you can deceive a fucking Original?" Damon demanded, tightening his hold and almost pulling her off of her feet. Elena could barely breathe around her racing heart and his iron grip, but she only offered a half-hearted struggle as the erotic tension surged between them.

"I don't have to fool him forever," she replied softly. "Just…just long enough for Bonnie to set the trap." She paused, losing her train of thought as she gave in and allowed her body to relax against his. Allowing some of her fear and desperation to slip into her voice, she added huskily. "But I know I can't if you're not there."

The confession hung in the air – blatant emotional blackmail – but Damon wasn't playing fair either. Muttering a curse, he buried his face in her throat as she let her head fall back against his shoulder. No longer meant to threaten, his hold on her became an intimate embrace as his hands moved over her body. Elena sighed as she lifted an arm to thread her fingers through his hair.

"Elena…I can't-," he murmured, his lips brushing over the vein that he'd fed from and making her tremble. Lifting his head, he dragged his mouth up to her ear and whispered. "I won't watch him kill you again."

Elena closed her eyes, as his lips blazed a heated trail across her cheekbone to her temple. There were reasons why this was a bad idea – she was supposed to be mad at him and he thought what happened between them was a mistake; the house was full of people who didn't need to know that she couldn't be alone in a room with him for more than five minutes before physically aching to feel his hands on her bare skin; she and Stefan were over, but Damon didn't know that and she needed to tell him what wearing the necklace really meant. These reasons and a million others were why she shouldn't be pressing against him as he slid his fingers below the waistband of her jeans.

Intent on stopping the inevitable by telling him at least one of those very important things, Elena tried to ignore the way his ragged breathing matched her own. Opening her mouth to speak, she failed them both by simply uttering a broken plea. "Please, Damon…I need you."

She hadn't meant she needed him to kiss her, but when his lips found hers, she moaned and clenched her fingers in his hair as she kissed him back. Opening her mouth for him, she tasted the bourbon he'd been drinking mixed with the danger and heat that had been there in the motel. Although it had only been two days, she realized she'd been starving for him, for this connection and it pushed all other thought out of her mind.

Anxious for better access, Elena twisted around, wrapping her arms around his neck and practically climbing up his body in an attempt to get closer. Damon's hands were in her hair, clenched into fists around the long strands as he backed her into the wall. She gasped as her back made contact, and he took the opportunity to blaze a trail of open mouthed kisses down the column of her throat. When he finally came back to her mouth, she kissed him eagerly, biting his bottom lip in reproach for not playing fair.

The sound he made in response – a low moan into her mouth that vibrated straight to the core of her being – almost made her come right then and there.

Sliding one hand down her body, Damon grabbed her leg, lifting it to his waist as he thrust against her, bringing them impossibly closer. So close, she could feel every inch of his arousal through the barrier of their clothes. Crying out as a wave of pleasure robbed her of breath, she opened her eyes to find him staring at her. Frozen, she stared back as the reality of what they were about to do – again – cut through the haze of desire. Taking a deep breath, her breasts grazed his chest, sending an erotic pulse from her tight, sensitive nipples straight to her very hot, very wet center. "You said this was a mistake."

"Your words," Damon said, swallowing as he struggled to pull air into his lungs. He'd slipped a hand under her shirt, caressing the smooth skin of her stomach as he spoke. "I was just borrowing them."

"Wait, what?" she demanded, doing her best to keep her body in check as her hips threatened to move against his of their own accord and only failing a little. "I never said that."

"You did. To Caroline," he insisted, resting his forehead against hers and keeping his mouth just out of reach. "You said you'd made a huge mistake."

Blinking, Elena struggled to recall the conversation she'd had with Caroline at the motel – the only one she'd had with anybody regarding what had transpired between her and Damon – and a sinking horror swept through her as she realized what he'd heard.

And more importantly, what he obviously hadn't heard.

Framing his face with her hands, she forced him to look at her. "Damon, I wasn't talking about us."

"What?" he demanded as his eyes widened in disbelief. The stone that had been weighing on her heart melted away, leaving her giddy.

"You really should have stayed for the whole conversation," she gently chided as she traced his lips with her thumb. A misunderstanding, she thought, wanting to laugh. It had all been a misunderstanding. "I meant it when I said I didn't regret being with you. The mistake was the timing."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to be like Katherine," she said, tears pricking at her eyes even though she was the farthest thing from sad. "I don't want to play you and Stef-."

Kissing her before she could utter another word, Damon used his mouth on hers to pull at the deepest parts of her being and push all coherent thought from her mind. She'd never been kissed, consumed, like this, but she had no problem kissing him back with equal passion. This small confession among the mountain of truths she still had to share, had released a piece of his heart she hadn't known he'd been holding back.

Damon lifted her other leg and she wrapped them both around his waist, needing no further encouragement to forget everything and everybody else and lose herself in him. Breaking the kiss, she stripped her shirt over her head and tossed it carelessly aside. Her skin was already on fire, but when his lips skirted the swells of her breasts, his tongue dipping below the lacey edge of her bra to tease her flesh, Elena was certain she would melt. Making quick work of the buttons of his shirt as he worked his way back up to her mouth, she frantically fumbled to undo his belt.

"Elena!" She barely heard her name through the haze of desire, but Damon's sharper senses picked up on it and the amazing things he was doing with his lips and tongue came to a sudden stop.

"Elena, where are you?" the voice – Caroline's, her brain dimly registered – called again, closer to the slightly open door of the study.

Muttering a few colorful threats as to the various ways he planned on killing her best friend, Damon buried his face in her shoulder. Letting her head fall back against the wall, Elena swallowed and tried to catch her breath. "I'll be right there, Caroline."

"Sweet. Jeremy just told everybody he can talk to dead people and he's going to try to channel Liliana…or something," Caroline continued as Damon straightened, and helped her ease her feet back to the floor. Elena's legs felt like jelly, but they managed to support her. "Are you coming?"

Meeting Damon's eye, she raised a brow. "Apparently not."

"What?" Caroline asked as Damon smirked and grabbed her shirt from the floor.

"I'll be there in a second," Elena called, listening to her best friend's footsteps echo off the hardwood floor and fade as she made her way back to the living room. Pulling her shirt over her head, she ran her fingers through her hair as Damon buttoned his again. He went for his belt, but she beat him to it, fastening it for him before she curled her fingers around it and added in a whisper. "You will be too, right."

Damon sighed in defeat, briefly closing his eyes. "You know I'll be there."

"Thank you," she replied, leaning in to kiss him again, but he caught her face and held her at bay.

"Elena…" he sighed, closing his eyes and burying his fingers into her hair. "If you kiss me again we'll never get out of here."

With effort, she let go of his belt, nodding as she took a step away. Despite how badly she wanted him, they had more pressing things to worry about at the moment. "When this is over, when Klaus is gone, we finish this conversation, okay?"

"Elena, survive this stupid non plan and I'll do anything you want." Damon promised, holding her gaze for a moment before tipping his head toward the door. "Let's go see what's up with Haley Joel before Caroline busts in here and drags you out by your hair."