A/N: I apologize for the lack of chapters last weekend. Thank you, everyone, for being patient with me. :)
Mystic Falls | Summer 2024 – Spring 2025
The phone was ringing. Elena grumbled but the shrill sound wouldn't stop. Reluctantly, she opened one eye and saw mostly darkness. Who was calling at this ungodly hour?
"Yeah?" Damon grunted into the phone, answering it.
Elena would have liked to go back to sleep, but Damon's body froze and he sat up, suddenly alert, rubbing his whole face with his free hand. He was quiet for a few moments.
"I'll be right there," he finally said and hung up the phone.
"Who was that?"
"Someone from the fire department who's also on the council with me. There's a fire."
Now Elena was wide awake, too. "What? Where?"
"At one of my properties."
"The Boathouse?" Elena guessed as this was Damon's newly reopened restaurant. "Is anybody hurt?"
"No, it's the other one," he replied, meaning Lakeview Terrace which came as part of the deal and was a fancy name for a mostly dilapidated building that Damon hadn't decided what to do with yet. "And no, as far as they can tell, nobody was around."
"Thank god."
"Yeah."
"What happened?" Elena asked.
"I'm driving over there to find out."
He got out of bed and pulled a pair of pants from the dresser. Then he changed his shirt for a fresh one and came back to bed to kiss Elena goodbye.
"Be careful," Elena warned him. "No heroics."
"Promise," Damon replied and left.
He didn't return in time for breakfast, nor was he back by lunch time. The kids were already in bed when he finally came back home, exhausted and weary, hair sticking up in all directions because he'd been running his fingers through it a lot. He made straight for the shower, trailing a cloud of smoke-scented air behind him. He had kept Elena updated throughout the day though, so she knew what the extent of the damage was.
The building was more or less gone completely. What still remained would have to be torn down once the debris cooled and the air cleared. Thankfully, nobody got hurt.
Freshly showered and dressed in boxer shorts – he couldn't be bothered to put on anything else, so exhausted was he – Damon climbed into bed beside Elena. She immediately rolled towards him and pulled her arms around his shoulders. She kissed first his lips softly, then his cheek, his jaw. Even through the scent of shampoo and soap, Elena could smell the smoke in his wet hair. Not letting go of him, Elena rolled to her back and pulled his head onto her shoulder.
"Fucking wiring," Damon muttered into her skin.
"I know," Elena replied.
There was nobody to blame. Sometimes things like that happened to old buildings.
"You didn't do anything stupid, right?"
Damon snorted. "When have I ever?"
"Would you like a chronological list or an alphabetical one?" Elena returned and Damon grinned against her skin. He didn't think he had it in him to produce a smile today, but Elena always knew how to make his day better.
Her fingers threaded through his hair, lightly scraping his scalp and he almost purred. His eyes closed and he finally allowed his muscles to relax.
"Did you eat?" Elena asked him.
Damon nodded. "You?" he asked.
"Oh, you know," she replied lightly, "the kids and I had to go forage in the garden since you left us for an entire day. But thankfully Stefanie found a bag of mini chocolate bars in one of the kitchen cabinets, so we've been rationing them out for our meals."
And now Damon was laughing, shaking Elena and the mattress with his chuckles. He lifted his head to look at her and Elena placed her hands on both sides of his face.
Voice gentle and smile soft, she asked quietly, "You okay?"
Damon sobered and nodded. "Thank god it wasn't the Boathouse."
Damon had put a lot of money and time into the restauration of the building and the reopening of the restaurant. To imagine that it should all have been for nothing… He shook his head to dispel the idea.
Leaning up on his elbows, he reached for Elena's mouth. Elena opened up to him and he drank the comfort from her lips.
"Daddy?" a whispered voice interrupted them.
Damon sat up and turned just in time to see Stevie, Toto clutched under one arm and Noah's hand held in the other, approach the bed in the dark.
"You're back," she whispered happily and climbed onto the bed to smother him in a hug. Noah didn't say anything; he just plastered himself to Damon's other side. Damon would have bet anything that Stevie was the one who dragged him out of bed after probably hearing her dad's voice and Noah, as usual, followed his big sister without protest. Damon smiled and hugged both his children tightly, inhaling their clean, powdery scent.
"They missed you today," Elena explained the obvious.
"You smell like can fire," Stevie told him.
"It's campfire," Elena corrected.
"Yes," Stevie replied, "and Daddy smells like it." She placed her head on Damon's shoulder, eyes closing already. "I want a cam-fire," she mumbled sleepily. "Can we make cam-fire tomorrow?"
"How about we talk about it after breakfast?" Damon suggested, gambling on the chance that she'd forget all about the idea once breakfast rolled around.
Not bothering ordering the children back to their own beds, Damon got comfortable on his pillow with Stevie sleeping between Elena and himself and Noah snuggled up under his arm. Damon sent a last regretful glance in Elena's direction at having their not-quite-plans-but-heading-there interrupted. He reached for her hand and took her fingers in his.
Closing his eyes, his lips slowly pulled into a smile as he realized something. "You're not going to jump up and run out of the room, are you?" he asked.
Elena, confused, stared at him, not understanding. Feeling her gaze, he looked at her and nodded towards their interlaced hands. "'Cause this time there's no ice machine outside to cool you down and frankly I'm too tired to chase after you tonight."
"Ass," Elena mouthed, not wanting to use the word in the presence of her children.
Damon just grinned and laid back on the pillow, surrendering to sleep.
Elena returned home from her shift at the hospital to find the house empty. Again. She sighed and pulled out her phone to call Damon. Ever since the fire, this had become such a frequent occurrence that she felt like it's been weeks since she had spent any significant amount of time with Damon.
He checked in with her several times a day, in between his appointments with insurance, fire department, lawyer, bank, and, as of late, an architect he'd hired to draw up plans for this new business idea. The problem was that this architect was located a few towns over and because Damon still objected to the idea of nannies or daycare, most of the time he would take the kids with him while he ran his errands. Which meant that, lately, Elena also saw far less of her kids than usual, as well. Which was a problem in and of itself, but mostly she kind of missed her husband. Her day sort of missed closure if it didn't end with her telling him a story from the hospital or him bringing her up to speed on anything from the progress of Dot's real estate hunting for Bar One (and Two and Three and so on) to what funny nonsense the kids had been up to today.
Right now, after a long day at work, she couldn't imagine anything better but to press her nose into his neck and just listen to him being creatively annoyed by the incompetency of the people he had to deal with.
She put her phone to the ear and let it ring. Damon didn't answer, but his voicemail did. Elena hung up without leaving a message. She sighed again. Making her way up the stairs, she went over her options in her head. There was the shoebox, of course. Elena was tempted to go and pick something from there. But as she pulled fresh clothes out of her closet to put on after her shower, she had a different idea and smiled. Opening the drawer that held most of her lingerie, she picked a set that she knew Damon particularly approved of and put it on.
Finding a spot and propping up her phone to angle the camera the way she wanted to took more time than she wanted to admit, but finally she had a few decent pictures to choose from. When she decided on one and typed out a message to go along with it, her phone rang, Damon's picture lighting up the screen. She quickly hit send on the message and then accepted the call.
"Hey," Damon greeted her, "I saw I'd missed your call. Sorry."
"You missed more than that," Elena replied.
"Huh?"
"Check your messages," she told him.
There was a pause where she assumed he did just that. When he came back on the line, his phone was husky, Elena was pleased to note.
"Elena," he almost moaned, "Fuck!" He sounded pained. "We… uh… we're… I'm… uh."
His voice sounded a bit farther away, like he was holding his phone away from his ear; like he was looking at the picture on the screen again maybe?
Elena grinned devilishly.
"Uhm," Damon still stuttered.
"I'll be waiting," she replied, putting some extra sultriness in her voice. "Right here. In this bed."
Damon cleared his throat. "On the way." The line disconnected and Elena released a quiet laugh.
It was nice to know that after all these years and two kids, a simple picture in an admittedly not-safe-for-work suggestive pose could still unravel her husband like that. Her ego sufficiently boosted, she finally headed for the shower.
"You know, those avoiding tactics of yours are getting really old."
"Uh-huh."
"I mean," Damon continued, "if you don't wanna be friends anymore, that's fine. Just tell me. I promise I won't make a scene out of it. I'll even try my best not to cry."
"Are you done?"
"I might shed a tear, when I'm all alone, in the dark, and nobody's watching. But other than that, I'll be fine."
"Drama queen."
Damon laughed. "So, when are you finally gonna come meet my son? It's been over a year."
"I know, I know," Bonnie replied, the guilt in her voice apparent even through the speakers in Damon's car.
It wasn't as if it was by choice. Last year, Bonnie and Enzo as well as Dot and Deja were all supposed to come to Mystic Falls for Christmas – a big family meetup. But due to a snowstorm in the greater Seattle area all flights in and out of the city were cancelled and it had been virtually impossible to get another one since it was the holidays and millions of people were traveling across country. In spring, when Elena had to use up her vacation days, they had planned to go to Seattle for a couple of days, but then Stevie caught the chickenpox from a kid on the playground and half a week later so did Noah and they had to cancel those travel plans.
The big joint party for Stevie's second and Noah's first birthday Bonnie and Enzo had to pass on because it was a busy time for Enzo's night club this short before the surrounding schools let out for the summer. And also, Bonnie had just started her new teaching job and couldn't really ask for a few days off yet.
"You know," Damon said, "he's gonna think I made you up."
"Talk about me often, do you?" Bonnie gloated.
"Someone has—" Damon began but stopped, slowing down the car as he spotted someone walking by the side of the road. "Hey, can I call you back?"
"Sure," Bonnie replied. "Everything okay?"
"I'm about to find out." Damon hung up the phone without explaining and let the car roll to a stop.
Lowering the passenger side window, he leaned over and called out, "Not a spot I'd pick for a stroll but you Gilberts are a funny folk, I've come to realize."
"I'm not in the mood for your jokes today, Damon," Jeremy replied.
"What happened to your wheels?" Damon asked, looking up and down the road as if expecting to find Jeremy's car parked here somewhere.
"Back at the Boarding School. Claire picked me up; we went for lunch and she was supposed to drop me off again."
"But…?" Damon prompted.
Jeremy sighed and finally let himself climb into the passenger seat, slamming the door.
"But nothing," he replied, heatedly. "Halfway on the way back, we got into a slight disagreement and she threw me out of the car."
"What did you do?"
"Nothing! Why do you assume I did something?"
Damon mostly ignored the question with two raised eyebrows. He asked, "What was the disagreement about?" he put the car in gear and slowly headed towards his former home.
"It wasn't even a real disagreement, dude," Jeremy began. "I just very soberly explained to her why it wouldn't work between us. You know, beyond what we already had going. That she was better off without me."
"That must have gone over well," Damon muttered under his breath.
"You think? She steps on the breaks all of a sudden, points to the door and tells me to get out. She wouldn't even let me reason with her. Just, 'get out of my car!'"
Damon covered his chortle with a cough and smirked behind his hand. He suddenly very much liked Claire.
"And I'm like, 'We're in the middle of nowhere,'" Jeremy continued meanwhile, "and she goes, 'It's only three miles if you cut through the cemetery. You'll be back long before nightfall.' Can you imagine?!" Jeremy raged.
"Vividly," Damon replied.
"Oh, shut up. You're not helping."
Damon briefly glanced over. "So, you'd rather walk then?"
Jeremy shut up then and slouched in the passenger seat, sulking.
"Listen," Damon said after a brief pause, the humor gone from his voice. He so rarely let go of the ever-present sarcasm, that the lack of it now automatically made Jeremy listen up. "If you really believe that that girl will have a better life without you, then I won't be the one to tell you otherwise. But if you imagine your future – ten, twenty years from now – and all you can see is her face? Then you better crawl and gravel at her feet and beg her to take you back 'cause being a martyr fucking sucks."
Jeremy let this ping around his head for a while before he answered, "You broke up with Elena because you thought she was better off without you."
Damon scowled at long-repressed, painful memories. "Which is why I consider myself an expert on the topic," he bit out. "Trust me, Little Gilbert, there are no winners in this noble sacrifice of yours."
For a minute or so, they continued to drive in silence.
"Can you let me out here?" Jeremy asked in a much calmer voice than before.
Damon looked at him quizzically.
"I think I need the walk to clear my head and think."
Damon nodded wordlessly and slowed to a stop once again.
"I know it sounds bad," Elena sighed with relief after Damon finished recounting his afternoon with her little brother, "but I'm kind of glad?"
"I thought you liked Claire?"
"I do!" Elena hurried to amend.
Jeremy had brought Claire as his date to the kids' birthday party back in June and Elena had instantly taken a liking to her, but she had also been concerned. Claire was as sweet as they came.
She was a little bit shy; probably because she was still so young – fresh out of grad school and barely a year into her first real job. She'd joined the city council after learning that none of the teaching staff were part of it and she felt the rights of the students underrepresented, especially when the school budget was the topic of discussion where she fought fiercely for her students.
She was Mystic Falls born and bred, but had spent the last several years of her education out of state and Elena was uncertain how much of the supernatural stuff she was in the know about. She was particularly timid around Damon and Elena had caught her watching him suspiciously a few times which made her think that maybe Claire wasn't as naïve and oblivious as the rest of the Mystic Falls residents seemed to be. She'd probably heard the stories growing up.
But she had taken to Stefanie and Noah immediately and Stevie liked her from the start, which made Elena relax a little. Her only concern remained that maybe Claire was a little too docile? She wasn't sure if Claire could be assertive enough to stand her ground with someone like Jeremy who, admittedly, inherited the Gilbert stubbornness.
But as Elena listened to Damon, she realized her concerns were misplaced and her fears unfounded. It appeared that Claire could push back if needed. And with Jeremy, it was definitely needed.
Several hours later, after the kids were in bed and Elena and Damon had stretched out on the sofa, making vague plans of maybe, possibly moving the evening to the hot tub, the doorbell rang. Elena and Damon looked at each other before Damon went to open the door.
A bedraggled looking Jeremy stood on the porch, still wearing the same clothes he had this afternoon.
Damon looked him up and down and Jeremy stood there like a wet blanket and let it happen.
"Jer?" Elena called, stretched over the back of the couch. "What happened?" She came over and stood next to her husband.
"I went to apologize, like you told me," Jeremy answered, nodding at Damon.
"I didn't tell you to apologize. I told you to grovel. Did you have a speech prepared?" Damon looked him up and down once more. "Tell me you at least showered before you went over there. Did you at the very least get some flowers?"
If anything, Jeremy sagged even more in his clothes.
Elena elbowed Damon in the side. Then she gently lugged her brother upside the head and lovingly called him an, "Idiot." She grabbed his arm and pulled him inside with her.
On his other side, Damon threw an arm around his brother-in-law. "Amateur," Damon muttered, shaking his head disdainfully and mussing up Jeremy's hair. "Let me give you a lesson in proper groveling."
A few months later, Elena returned home after picking her kids up from Caroline's. Caroline called it cousins bonding time, but even though Lizzie and Josie liked Stefanie and Noah, they were too far apart in age to have many similar interests. Sometimes Elena still worried that her kids spent too much time around adults and not enough with children their own age. But she knew better than to bring up the daycare idea again with Damon. At least Stevie and Noah had each other, she repeatedly told herself. And they were close enough in age that the differences barely mattered.
For the first time though she wished they had a big family with a ton of uncles and aunts and cousins and nieces and nephews.
As if the universe had heard her, only a few hours later her phone dinged with a message.
"Hey guys, I know it's still a bit early, but you wouldn't happen to have plans on New Year's Eve already, would you?"
Elena frowned at her phone and the cryptic message from Jeremy.
"Why?" she texted back.
Damon stopped behind her chair and leaned in to read over Elena's shoulder just as the phone dinged with Jeremy's reply. It was a picture, the close-up so blown up, it took Elena a moment to process what she was seeing. Damon snorted a moment before it clicked in her brain.
She quickly typed out, "OMG! Is that a ring?!"
"You finally grew a pair," Damon spoke behind her and Elena turned, only then realizing that, while she was busy typing the message, Damon had gone ahead and called her brother. "Congratulations. To the fiancée, I mean. For having the patience of a saint." He cackled at whatever response Jeremy gave.
Elena motioned at Damon. "Give me the phone."
But Damon just grinned and took a step out of her reach. "Ssh, I'm talking to Little Gilbert."
"Damon!" Elena exclaimed. "He's my brother, I get to congratulate him first."
"Stop hogging family members. He's my brother too. Anyway, I was congratulating her, not him." Into the phone, he said, "Nobody's fighting over you, Little Gilbert. You must have heard wrong."
Faintly, Elena heard her brother laughing through the phone.
After exchanging a few more well-meaning barbs with Jeremy, Damon finally passed his phone to Elena. She squealed, probably popping Jeremy's eardrum. Damon wandered off, leaving the two siblings to gush in private.
About a month after the New Year's engagement party, Claire and Jeremy learned that they were to become parents in the fall and Noah and Stevie would soon have a new cousin to play with.
"So, how was the wedding?" Dot asked Damon the next time they spoke to each other.
"It was a wedding. There were vows, there were drinks, there was music."
"Gosh, you make it sound so romantic, I can't wait till it's my turn," Dot replied with an extra dose of sarcasm. "How come you're missing in most of the group pictures?"
"What pictures? And where did you see them?"
"Uh, there's this thing called Instagram."
Damon's mind flashed to Jeremy and Claire's wedding a week prior.
"Are you crying?" Damon whispered as they stood to watch the bride walk down the aisle. Despite being five months pregnant, Claire looked radiant and Jeremy almost vibrated with nerves as he watched his bride. Matt, as Jeremy's best man, whispered something in the groom's ear that made him relax a little.
"No," Elena replied but there was definitely a watery quality to her voice.
"Is it for your brother or for our daughter?" Damon asked.
Claire and Jeremy had asked if Stefanie could be their flower girl and Elena and Damon were unsure if she was up for it. But despite her not quite three years, she seemed to understand the gravity of the situation and played her role perfectly. The only hiccup, if it could be called that, was when she paused as the organ started to play to turn around and look up in wonder and listen.
"Pretty," she had whispered in awe, then nodded to herself and continued down the aisle to the chuckles of the assembled guests.
A few moments later, Stevie, her petals all spent, returned to the bench where her parents were.
"Mommy, did you see the big piano?" she asked, voice still awed.
"I did," Elena replied, leaning down to her daughter. "But it's called an organ."
"It makes really loud music," Stevie said.
"I know," Elena replied. "Maybe we can go see it up close later," she suggested. "But we have to be really quiet now and wait until the wedding is over, okay?"
"Okay," Stevie agreed and climbed onto the bench to better see the bride and groom.
Elena's eyes followed her daughter's and she watched her brother and Claire smile happily at each other. She sniffed again. Damon pulled out the handkerchief from his breast pocket and passed it to her.
"I'm not using your handkerchief to wipe my face. It's too expensive."
"Isn't that what handkerchiefs are for?" he asked her and prodded her side until she took the proffered item.
"They just look so happy," Elena muttered between sniffs.
"Yes, they do," Damon replied, for once without a hint of irony or sarcasm in his voice.
When the minister motioned for the guests to sit down, Elena slid closer on the bench and hugged Damon's arm. He placed a hand on her knee and adjusted the arm around his son on the other side.
It was a bigger wedding than Elena's and Damon's. Jeremy was well-known in the town and had lots of friends and connections as did Claire through her family as well as her job at the school and her seat on the city council.
After the party was well underway and everybody had a few dances and drinks in, he sat down to enjoy a minute's rest and a cool drink. Elena appeared at the table a few minutes after he sat down, holding a glass of champagne in one hand and Noah on her hip with the other. She passed their son over to Damon and sat down.
"Have you made all the rounds yet and said hello to all the people that expect you to say hello to them?" Elena asked, apparently checking her makeup in the wide base of the shiny candleholder that were placed on each table. He didn't know why she bothered; she looked amazing, as always. The short black and white polka dot dress and contrasting dark red lipstick made her look like an artsy femme fatale and the artfully tousled hair added to that particularly seductive fell-out-of-bed look. Or maybe it was just Damon's imagination running wild.
"I believe so. Why?"
"Can I have you to myself now?"
"Depends on what you have planned, I guess," Damon replied with a smirk. He suspected he knew where this was going, if he judged Elena's heated gaze correctly.
"I hear there's a few rooms above this ballroom, for out-of-town guests and such," she said, with a wink.
After the fire had claimed the old lakeside villa, Damon had rebuilt it as an event venue, complete with a ballroom, garden, and a small gazebo overlooking the water. In a place like Mystic Falls that wasn't short on events, parties, and celebrations, a place like this truly came in handy, especially the attached catering service was in high demand. The addition of rooms to the upper floor had been an afterthought, but had proven very useful already. During the final stage of the renovation, it housed the out-of-town workers, and for big events like today's wedding, those rooms could be rented out to visiting guests.
"I know," he said. "That's where Bon Bon and Enzo are staying."
"Well, I just thought," Elena said, "we should probably go check and make sure that everything is alright up there and, you know, up to par for the demands of our guests."
"That does sound like a very considerate thing to do," Damon answered, nodding with an overly serious expression on his face. "Too bad we didn't hire a babysitter," he pointed out.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Elena gave back, "Just glancing around, I see a ton of them."
Damon shook his head at her, but he grinned at her brazenness.
"Daddy, Daddy," Stevie's excited voice rang out and a moment later she appeared on Damon's other side. "Come. Uncle Zo is making music and you have to dance with me."
Enzo, after months of trying – first in Seattle and then every single day during their entire visit – had always declined Damon's help to facilitate a connection between him and Stevie. He wanted to win her over on his own, fair and square.
"Just play for her, man," Damon had told him. "Girl likes music."
After a bit of resistance, Enzo had taken Damon's advice to heart and finally played for Stevie. That seemed to break the ice because Enzo was now Stevie's favorite uncle.
"Daddy can't dance with you right now, angel," Elena replied before Damon could. "But I've seen your uncle Jeremy over there and he was all alone. Go tell him you want to dance with him."
"And don't let him get away with just one dance either," Damon added. "You deserve at least two."
"Three," Elena inserted.
"Three," Damon repeated with a nod.
"Okay." Stevie grinned and nodded. She was off a second later.
Damon met Elena's self-satisfied gaze across the table and nodded to Noah on his lap. "Not much of dancer, is he?" he said to Elena, indirectly asking her what she planned to do with their son, so they could disappear for a little while.
"Noah, sweetie," Elena addressed her son, "remember the swans we saw out on the lake?"
Noah nodded.
"Auntie Caroline said that they have babies now. Do you want to go see them?"
Noah sat upright, all at attention now. He loved animals. No matter what kind, what size. His fascination with anything that flew, crawled, slithered, and such, was endless. "Yes," he breathed, too excited to manage more than a whisper.
Elena took a quick look around until she caught Caroline's attention. Motioning her closer, she quickly explained the situation and ignored Caroline's suspicious looks as she waved them off.
Damon looked nothing less than impressed. Elena dusted off her shoulders and leaned back in her chair, looking smug.
"I always knew you were amazing. But your talents exceed even my wildest expectations," Damon told her.
"Mh," Elena said back. "Want me to show off some more of these talents?" she asked him suggestively.
Damon laughed heartily and got up, leaning over Elena's chair and boxing her in with his arms. "God, I love the ever-living daylights out of you."
Elena bit down on a grin. "Romantic," she drily commented.
"Oh, was it romance you were looking for?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Not exactly; at least not right now."
Their lips met in a quick but dirty kiss before Damon pulled her up and onto the dancefloor. He twirled Elena masterfully, weaving between the dancing couples while inconspicuously inching towards the exit. Once there, they quickly made their escape.
Here, outside the ballroom, the area was empty. Not guests milled about and Elena immediately seized the opportunity to paw her husband's chest, hands slipping under the lapels of his suit jacket and fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. Her history with Damon's shirt buttons was tragic – more often than not those encounters resulted in the death of Damon's shirts, so he grabbed her hands and directed them to a safer spot.
Never breaking their kiss – she tasted like champagne – Damon moved them towards the stairs. Elena tripped on the first one and grabbed Damon's shoulders for support. "Oops," she said and giggled.
Damon reared his head back a little bit and squinted at her. "Dr. Salvatore," he asked, voice as scandalous as he could make it sound. "Are you drunk? At your own brother's wedding?"
"No," Elena intoned and immediately amended, "just tipsy."
"From two glasses of champagne?"
Elena shrugged and Damon suddenly understood why. He felt stupid for not realizing it sooner. Elena had stopped breastfeeding a few weeks before and after close to three years of non-stop nursing and almost three and a half years of abstinence altogether, her tolerance was completely shot.
"I don't know," he joked while continuing to kiss her and move them further up the stairs bit by bit. "I don't feel right taking advantage of a drunk woman. Maybe we should just go get you a cup of coffee or something."
Elena pulled her mouth away from his neck and said, eyes glinting dangerously, "Just try. I dare you."
Damon laughed and with a burst of strength and speed that stemmed mostly from Elena's urgency and the developing pressure in his pants, he pushed them through the door of the room closest to the landing. He knew no guest was staying there, because it was the room he usually used as his office when he had some work to do while waiting for deliveries and the like.
The door had barely fallen shut behind them when Elena's hands went for his fly and loosened the belt buckle. The fasting and zipper of his pants followed in quick succession. A moment later, her hand circled his already half-hard dick and began pumping it. Damon wanted to lean in to kiss her, but she pulled away with a teasing smile and pushed him. He dropped heavily into the desk chair, hands immediately reaching for Elena's hips but she slithered out of them as she sank to her knees in front of him.
"Oh, there you are," a voice behind Damon's back called out on an exhaled sigh. Damon whipped his head around to see Shelby, Claire's wedding planner. He hadn't even heard the door open.
"I've been looking everywhere for you," the wedding coordinator continued, oblivious.
Damon's blinked, and blinked again. Elena's hand continued to work him and thoughts had grinded to a halt.
"We need everyone downstairs for photos in ten."
"Photos?" Damon managed. Hadn't they already done the photos part? Damon honestly couldn't remember right now. His brain decided to disengage from the situation. Elena, however, had not. Her hand on him tightened and Damon bit his lip, surreptitiously reaching down to grab her hands and keep them away from other parts of his anatomy.
In his quest, he entirely missed Shelby's reply.
Elena, bereft of her ability to touch Damon, let her lips do the work. Her mouth descended on his erection and Damon released an involuntary "Ah—," quickly morphing it into an, "uhm," and following it up with, "I just need to, uh, uhm, take care of something. Urgent. Uh… business," his mind supplied.
"In the middle of a wedding?" Shelby replied, but thankfully her attention was back on the ever-present phone in her hand, no doubt checking the schedule for the next item on the agenda.
"Yep," Damon replied, trying to keep his breathing under control. Elena did something sinful and probably illegal with her tongue while mouthing the tip of his cock and Damon grimaced. "Something unforeseen came up," he pressed out between tight lips.
"Well, don't take too long, okay?"
"Yeah, we'll uh… come… I mean, I'll be right there. Just a – ah – a minute."
Satisfied, Shelby left. Damon immediately let go of Elena's hands and pulled her up by wounding fingers into her short hair. Thankfully, she'd chosen to wear it loose today.
"Fuck," he breathed against her lips before pressing his mouth to hers. The kiss was bruising and demanding.
When they pulled apart, Elena was grinning. "Yes, please," she replied.
His fingers reached under the skirt of her dress, finding her wet already. "I used to be so innocent and well-behaved before I met you. You're a bad influence on me," Damon said, making Elena throw her head back with laughter.
He twisted his fingers, turning the laugh into a moan.
Her panties were quickly discarded and Damon turned her around and pulled her down on his lap. He brushed her hair away and kissed her exposed neck while his hands worked to lower the zip of her dress. Once accomplished, he pushed down the straps and reached around to her front to cup her breasts. He groaned because she felt so amazing. Soft, and wet, and hot.
"Damon," Elena moaned.
"Yeah, I know," he replied, because he knew what she wanted.
He stood up and pushed Elena's upper body down on the desk. Stepping up behind her, he moved her skirt out of the way and slid in again. Elena grabbed the edge of the desk when he started moving in earnest.
One of Damon's arms wound around her middle so the edge of the desk wouldn't cut into her hips with every thrust, the other one moved down her leg and around, and up the inside of her thigh. Knowing, they didn't have as much time as they would have liked, Elena unclenched one fist to help herself along. They both reached her center at the same time. Fingers tangled together, they worked to make her come. Damon followed only minutes later.
Once his body stilled, he pulled out and dropped back into his chair. Elena didn't move. Face pressed to the cool desktop, she opened one eye and looked at Damon. He let his eyes sweep her form.
Rolling closer with his chair, he grabbed the panties he'd removed from her earlier and used them to wipe off the excess between her legs, then leaned in to kiss her most private place. He leaned back in his seat again, but not before letting his tongue slip out to have a sweet taste.
A shudder ran through Elena who released a sound from feeling so hypersensitive.
"Sit up for me?" Damon asked, voice low.
Elena rolled over and did just that, smoothing out the dress skirt around herself, back straight and hands crossed over her knees, posture perfect like she was a princess in front of dozens of paparazzi. But then she dropped the pose and grinned, leaning back on her arms. She spread her legs and looked at her husband. Damon smiled in response. He liked that she knew him just as well as he knew her. He leaned in again, this time wrapping his arms around her thighs and pulling them over his shoulders.
Elena had to bite her lip to keep her moans inside when she felt his tongue. And then his teeth came into play and she released a helpless little scream despite her best efforts – or because of his.
After he made her come a second time, he rose up to fix his clothes. While doing up his belt, he glanced over at Elena who still hadn't moved.
"I think they're looking for us," he said with a smirk.
"I know."
"Can you stand up?"
"Can you stop asking questions I don't know the answer to?" she returned.
Damon laughed and pulled her upright, taking over the task of righting her dress. He spun her around and had just finished zipping up her dress when a knock at the door made them freeze. Elena turned to face Damon and he put a finger to his lips, motioning her to be quiet.
"I know you're in there," Bonnie's voice called through the closed door. "Both of you."
Damon grimaced.
"I'm counting to five and then I'm coming in," Bonnie warned, "so you better cover up anything you wouldn't be comfortable sharing on Instagram. One—"
Damon checked himself and Elena one last time before he pulled open the door. He glared down at his best friend.
Bonnie met his stare, cool and unimpressed. Her eyes scanned them both up and down. When she was done, she shook her head and said, "What is it with you guys and weddings? Do you have no self-control?"
"Why do you assume that we—"
"Don't even finish that sentence," Bonnie cut him off. She very pointedly stared at a spot on his collar. Damon strained his neck to see. He obviously hadn't noticed before, but there was a massive imprint of Elena's lips in dark red lipstick right there on his white collar.
"Oops," Elena commented, not sounding like she really cared all that much. It might've been the alcohol.
"We're about to take pictures. How are you going to cover that up, huh?"
Damon thought quickly, then grabbed Elena and placed her half in front of him, effectively covering up his wardrobe malfunction. He grinned proudly at his best friend.
Bonnie rolled her eyes and turned towards the stairs. "I can't with you," she muttered as she walked away.
"Love you, too, Bon Bon," Damon called after her retreating back.
"Yeah, yeah," came Bonnie's reply.
Damon felt Elena chuckle beside him.
Downstairs, Elena and Damon tried to mingle between the assembled guests but it seemed like their immediate family had been waiting just for them. To avoid everyone's stares, Elena pretended to look for her children. Stefanie wasn't hard to spot as she and Ric's twins were spinning around in a circle to some music and Noah had scrambled out of Caroline's arms as soon as he saw his father. So Elena had really nowhere to look but to meet the judgmental eyes of her friends, though nobody actually looked surprised.
Matt just turned to Jeremy and said, holding his palm out, "Pay up," but otherwise barely spared them a glance.
For a moment, she was afraid to meet Jeremy's eyes and worried that she and Damon had ruined his wedding, but her brother seemed more annoyed at losing a bet than anything else. He pulled a bill out of his pocket and slapped it into Matt's palm.
"Easiest twenty bucks I ever earned. Thanks, guys," Matt said.
Elena was about to blush but then she noticed the bride glancing between her and Damon and slowly coming to a realization about the situation. Instead of being angry or annoyed, Claire turned to her newly wedded husband and very drily said, "If that's not us in ten years, I'm divorcing you."
"Heh," Damon cackled smugly in Jeremy's direction and added, "I like her."
"I'm thinking about uninviting you from my wedding," Dot mused aloud. "I just know you're gonna pull that same shit at my wedding as well."
"Well," Damon replied, "make it interesting then. So we don't have to go and see to our own entertainment."
At first, Dot glared at him through the camera, but then she nodded. "Challenge accepted."