Damon throws a blanket over Elena's shoulders as they watch the EMTs load Logan Fell into the ambulance for transport to the hospital. The Virginia State Police are finishing up their investigation.

Logan will have police guards stationed in his hospital room until he's medically cleared after which he'll go to jail to await trial. Elena suspects he'll be considered a flight risk so she doubts he'll be allowed to bail himself out.

Damon glances over at Liz who is giving a statement to the police with Matt hovering over her. She's shaken up and aside from some irritation from the handcuffs, she's otherwise unharmed.

"I was scared," Damon admits to Elena as he brushes a strand of hair behind her ear.

"I'm sorry. It's a good thing you weren't there when I entered the scene of one Chicago bank robbery. I had nine hostages in that one."

"I would've lost my mind." Damon laughs as he shakes his head.

"Miss Gilbert?" Captain Gerard, the division commander approaches them. "Thank you for helping us." He offers his hand.

Elena shakes his hand. "I spent many years doing hostage negotiation. I'm just glad I could help and that we got both Liz and Logan out of there without anyone dying."

Marcel nods. "Indeed. It doesn't always end this way."

"Are we free to leave?" Damon asks, his eyes drifting from Elena's to Marcel's.

"Have you given your statement?"

"Yes, I have," Elena confirms.

"Captain Gerard," comes from behind them and he walks away with a wave as he departs.

Damon presses his palm against the small of her back, urging her forward. "Let's go home."


"Do you want me to drive you back to the boarding house?" Damon asks Elena as he turns off the gravel road onto the highway.

"No, I want to go home with you." Elena rolls her head to the side to look at him.

"Okay." He gives her hand a squeeze as she turns to look up at the stars lighting the sky. There are times in the daytime, under skies of blue, Elena thinks of those faraway stars and how they'll return after the shadows blend into the dark.

Elena lowers the window enough to let the wind blow through her hair. She's been in much worse situations than tonight had been...still it takes time for the adrenaline to leak from her body. She is sleepy and the muscles of her face relax, releasing the tension of the last few hours. With her head resting against the window, she pulls the blanket Damon gave her up to her chin and closes her eyes...


"Elena..." comes softly beside her and a palm cradles her cheek.

She opens her eyes slowly and smiles to see Damon crouched down on her side of the car staring at her. "Sorry."

"You don't need to apologize. Let's get you inside." He helps Elena to her feet and together they enter his home.

"The guest room is the second one upstairs," Damon tells her as he locks the front door.

"Which one is yours?" Elena's eyes blaze with fire as she meets his stare.

"Top of the stairs on the right." Damon's blue eyes burn just as brightly.

"You coming?" Elena's eyes twinkle as she starts walking back toward the staircase. She kicks one shoe off, then the other. When she puts a foot on the steps, she tosses her blouse at him and unbuttons her jeans...With a seductive lick of her lips, she unhooks her bra, and slowly lowers the straps down her arms...

Damon's mesmerized as he watches her do a striptease on her way to his bedroom. He turns off the porch and downstairs lights before he practically gallops up the staircase and stops in the doorway at the sight of her.

Elena is standing on her knees in the middle of his bed, her head tilting to the side and her hair cascading over impeccable breasts.

"Take off your clothes," she tells him.

"Whatever you say."

The way she watches him shed his clothes causes his adrenalin to burst through his body.

He'd love to have her down on all fours with him behind her but...she's still healing from her rib fractures.

"I want you, Damon."

"Oh yeah...for how long?" he teases.

"I think you know the answer to that."

There is a moment of pause and hesitation tugging somewhere in the back of his mind.

"Are you sure, Elena? I don't want to cause you any pain."

"I won't break," she says softly, shifting slightly on her knees.

He walks slowly over to the bed and leans forward, putting all his weight on his flattened palms. He places a kiss on the skin just below her belly button and whispers against her thumping pulse, "Promise you'll tell me if something hurts."

Elena nods as she grows more aware of the gathering moistness between her legs.

Her breathing grows erratic as Damon strokes his hands lazily up her midriff to palm her bare breasts, her nipples hardening into tiny buds at the erotic feel of skin against skin. She wraps her arms around his neck, burying her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck as he gently strokes the back of his fingers around the outside edges, the tops, and ever closer and closer to her aching nipples.

"Touch me, Damon," she whispers in a husky voice, rubbing her hips against his. "Please…"

"I would rather taste you…"

Elena trembles under his hot, liquid gaze for a moment. She runs her hands up his arms, across his shoulders, along his whisker-roughened cheeks and chin. His eyes are as dark as a storm as he catches her hand and kisses the inside of her palm. She shivers as his mouth continues to the inside of her wrist, her elbow, her shoulder, to the hollow at her throat before zeroing in on her lush lips.

Damon tears his mouth free to taste the curve of her neck and shoulder before moving to her breast. He laves the tightened nipple with his tongue.

"Damon," she cries out, arching her back. Never has she wanted someone as much as she wants him. His mouth continues to taste and sample her body, finding a sensitive spot behind her knee, inside her thigh, at the curve of her hip. He makes her ache. He makes her want. He's driving her mad with desire before he slips his finger down to tease the bud at her center. All the while his insatiable mouth continues to make love to her breasts.

The fire inside her continues to build under the slow, steady strokes of his fingers and his mouth. He is taking her body as he has already taken her heart.

"I can't wait much longer…"

"I don't want you to…" Elena reaches up to pull Damon to her but suddenly freezes.

"Oh, my God…"

"What?" The muscles in Damon's arms trembled as he levers himself up and off of her. "Did I hurt you?"

"No…it's just that…" She blushes slightly. "I mean, I'm not taking anything…"

Damon smiled crookedly as he reaches into the drawer of his bedside stand and takes a small foil packet out. "I would normally let you do the honors, but I don't want to embarrass myself."

After protecting Elena, Damon sits back on his haunches. He gently spreads the damp petals of her womanhood, stroking them again and again with the thumb of each hand. He favors her clitoris with firmer and faster caresses until Elena throws her head back on the pillow and clutches the black satin sheets in a white knuckle grip.

Just as she's about to go over the edge, Damon shifts his weight and enters her, filling her with one fevered thrust.

Uncontrollable waves of satisfaction roll through Elena as she winds her legs around Damon's waist.

He can feel her body throbbing around him and smiles as her nipples soften against his chest.

"You're ahead of me," he croons, slowly and provocatively withdrawing from her warmth. When she groans at the loss of him, he plunges back into the warm velvet of her body.

As Damon moves his pelvis in slow, insistent circles, Elena's eyes fly open when the strong tingle once again begins to build in her lower body. Her soft panting breaths keep rhythm with the more rapid pistoning of his hips. She digs her nails into his shoulders as a blinding, pulsing wave of pleasure floods through her.

Damon's entire body shudders as his release reaches its peak.


They make love slow and hard into the early hours of the morning. She is an incredible woman, always letting him know how good he feels inside of her with sweet sounds and small smiles behind heavy-lidded gazes.

He's never felt such possessiveness with any of his lovers. There was a hint of it when he was with Katherine all those years ago but it's incomparable to what he feels now.

Long after he falls from inside of her and curves around the side of her sleeping body, Damon finds himself staring at her beautiful face. She stirs under his stare and rolls over to tuck her face under his arm and soon he feels her soft puffs of breath against his skin.

Damon never wants to give this up...


Elena climbs up the stairs and walks down the hallway into her room at the boarding house. She opens the closet door and her face falls. She glances at her suitcase which sits waiting at the foot of the bed.

But that isn't what she's dreading...This is the first time she doesn't want to have to say goodbye, not to Damon.

Sighing, she starts taking clothes off of their hangers.

This is his home.

Not her home.

One blouse at a time, she begins to repack her suitcase.

Heavy footsteps thud behind her.

"Packing?"

"Mmm hmmm." Elena drops a top as she slides it off the hanger. Strong hands wrap atop hers on the silk sleeve. "Elijah says it's time to come home. He has another case for me."

"You are home."

Elena doesn't have the strength to turn and look into his eyes. She can hear the pain in his voice. "This isn't my home, Damon."

"It could be." He spins her around to face him.

Elena steps away until her back is flat against the wall.

Placing his hands on either side of her body, he pins her in place. "Stay."

"I can't."

"I don't want you to leave, Elena." His hand strokes her cheek and leaves a fire in its wake.

Her lips part in a sigh as she gives up resisting.

Placing a hand low on her waist, he pulls her against him. She feels the evidence of his desire through his denim jeans.

She stretches, waiting for the touch of his lips. His mouth attacks hers, and her desire for him is clearly palpable through the kiss.

His free hand travels up her back and tangles her hair and he loves the way the locks curl around his fingers like satin. Deepening the kiss, he moans against her mouth, and he feels her cheeks curve in a hint of a smile. Damon slides his tongue between her lips and claims her mouth.

Hungrily.

Possessively.

He presses more firmly against the back of her head and is pleased when her tongue darts out from between her lips, doing battle with his as she seizes her chance to explore him.

Her legs begin to shake, and he places his knee between her legs to support her weight. "In a hurry?"

Elena shakes her head. "Damon, we can't. I have a plane to catch. I was kind of hoping you'd take me to the airport."

Damon scrubs his palm down his face. "I don't want this to end, Elena."

"I don't want that either but I live in Chicago, you live here."

"I hate this." Damon wraps her in his arms and hugs her possessively.

"Me, too. Believe me, I do. I love you, Damon, so much but I have to go home...at least for now."

"I know..." He kisses the top of her head and removes his arms. "I'll be downstairs when you finish packing," he states as he turns and walks out of her room.

After collecting her toiletries from the bathroom, she drops them in her suitcase and zips it up. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Elena loses herself in thought. Her heart clenches viscerally in her chest at the very idea of leaving him.

Elena vacillates between staring at the ceiling and the open door.

It's time to go.

Sighing, she rises, picks up her bag, and begins the long march down the stairs.


"Thank you, Damon, for driving me to the airport," Elena says as she watches him lift her suitcase out of the trunk.

"There's nothing I can say to make you change your mind?" he asks as he sets the bag down on the sidewalk.

Elena swallows hard as she raises her eyes, but they don't get any farther than his lips. She realizes that he's staring at her mouth, and he moves closer. She sighs his name as his lips touch hers.

When a passerby brushes against her, they part and Elena's eyes begin to glisten.

"This isn't over, Elena," Damon states with conviction and he grips her fiercely. "I love you too much to just end it here."

"Damon," she says softly as he releases her.

He takes her in his arms, his chest tightening at the automatic way she wraps herself around him, and without conscious thought, he finds himself pressing his lips to the top of her head, breathing in the fresh, clean scent of her hair like it's the last time he'll ever get to touch her. She feels so petite against him, but then, she always has.

Damon wonders how he'll do this, how he'll ever make himself walk away...and yet he knows he has to let her go.

It's time to go.

"Goodbye." Damon slips back into his Camaro. The next thing he knows, he's back inside his car, turning on the ignition. Yesterday, his world made sense – now it has turned on its side, and there doesn't seem to be any way to right it.

"I love you too," Elena whispers softly. Tears begin to trail down her cheeks as she watches him drive away, maintaining her stare until his Camaro is no longer visible.

Taking a deep breath in an attempt to regain her composure, Elena picks up her suitcase, enters the terminal, and loses herself in the hustle and bustle of the airport crowd.


Thanks, everyone.

Chapter title: "Leaving on a Jet Plane" by John Denver.

Have a wonderful day and weekend. See you next with 15.