Chapter 11: Master of My Domain

DAMON

"Stefan, did you borrow my pliers?" I call up the stairs.

"Uh," he pauses. "Maybe? Let me look around."

I smirk as I take the stairs two at a time up to the bedroom in his wing of the house. Kid takes the bait just as easily now as he did when he was ten and I told him the worms in apples suck up all the sugar so they're the sweetest part to eat.

"Wine, beautiful countryside…come on, you'd love it," Stefan says, continuing the conversation I just interrupted.

"The French Riviera is so 1990's," Caroline complains. "I used to watch movies about it when I was little."

"Is that where all my missing tools are ending up?" I ask with an artificial smile as I stride into his room without an invitation. "Because I'm about to start rubbing them with vervain."

Stefan's got his journal laid out across his desk and Caroline's bottom is perched directly in front of it like a cat who's jealous at the attention paid to paper products. He's ignoring her again for the moment while he digs through his desk drawer but I'm sure the ploy was working just fine until I showed up. "I borrowed a pair when the latch on my window was bent. They've got to be in here somewhere."

"What do you care? You've got like forty-two pairs of pliers, Damon." Caroline rolls her eyes. "And here's a clue. You're a vampire. Use your fingers."

"Oh, I do," I drawl. "Very well."

"El-ena!" she howls.

Stefan chuckles and she glares at him. "What is funny about your brother being disgusting?"

"Nothing. It's just that the third line of any conversation between you two is 'Elena!'" he says, imitating Caroline's indignant yelp to perfection.

"That's because Sergeant Pom Pom here thinks she needs a bodyguard."

"More like Rabid Animal Control," Caroline shoots back.

Stefan bites the insides of his cheeks, which doesn't do much to hide his smile. "What were you saying about a family vacation, honey?"

"This again? Barbie, we're not going to go play Vampire Brady Bunch on the French Riviera for shit's sake."

"Why not?" she says. "You're just as tired of Mystic Falls as I am and we are a family, and all your stupid Twilight and MTV Real World jokes aren't going to change that."

"The only thing we have in common with a real family is that we don't get along." I give her a sharp smile.

She makes a face at me but I ignore her, turning away to rummage through Stefan's dresser drawers.

Stefan chuckles. I ignore him too.

"What, you think he keeps pliers in his sock drawer?" Caroline asks, eyeing me.

"The last time I was missing the cheese grater, I found it next to his dress shoes."

"That's kind of a long story," Stefan says. "But it's not like I put it there on purpose."

"Caroline, is this about the wedding?" Elena strides into the room, the heels on her boots clicking on the hard wood.

I sneak a peek at her even though I shouldn't, because I love how long her legs look in those knee-high boots. Once I catch sight of tight calves under smooth, soft leather, it takes me a minute to remember what I was doing.

I blink and snap my eyes back to the task at hand, dropping a tiny plastic packet from my sleeve into my palm and ripping it open with a twist of my fingers, keeping my hands deep in the dresser drawer so my future sister-in-law doesn't catch a glimpse of what I'm up to.

"I told you Damon doesn't have to help with anything he doesn't want to and he doesn't have time to build you twenty tiny bridges," Elena tells Caroline.

"I do have time. I just refuse to spend it building useless shit."

"But without bridges, the ponds have no focal points," Caroline whines. "And it's symbolic of two things coming together and then I could have two little ponds per table connected by the bridges, which would work better with the 9-foot tables anyway because there's too much dead space in the center and the bridges they have online are all the wrong colors."

"Wait, we're arguing about bridges now?" Stefan stops hunting through his desk, looking confused.

I snap the drawer closed and open the next one, dropping the pliers out of my other sleeve and holding them up. "See, Stefan, I told you that you had them."

"Sock drawer?" Elena asks me.

"Shirts."

"Damon doesn't want to go on vacation with us!" Caroline complains.

"Where are we going?" Elena's eyes light up. "Ooh, we should go to the lake house! It's gorgeous this time of year and I haven't been there in months."

Caroline melts. "Oh, remember how much fun we used to have up there when we were kids? We were always tipping over the canoe and having to swim back to shore. And remember that one time when my mom thought we'd been targeted by sex predators?"

"Wait, what?" I snap, my satisfaction in my latest prank setup evaporating instantly. "What sex predators?"

"Elena was the sex predator." Caroline giggles.

Stefan frowns. "Is that like one of those experimentation things?"

"It's a long story." Elena blushes. "It's not important. Anyway, we should go this weekend. The weather's supposed to be nice and Jeremy's going with Matt and Kyle to that car show in Charlottesville anyway."

"I wanted to design my own swimsuits, so I had Elena cut peek-a-boo designs in most of mine," Caroline tells Stefan. "And my mom thought I was attacked by like, Edward Scissorhands or something."

He smiles. "Elena's not going to win a spot on Fashion Star anytime soon, huh? Still, I guess I'd better go with you to the lake house to protect you from pedophiles." He glances over at me, tilts his head, then shrugs.

I shake my head. "No. No way I'm going to go play Pin-the-Tail-On-The-Pine-Tree with you three. Send me a postcard."

"Come on, it'll be fun," Caroline says. "I promise I won't ask you to do the Cosmo quizzes this time."

"Fun is what the lake house is for two people. Boring is what the lake house is with four people. Especially when they all have supernaturally good hearing."

Stefan looks like he agrees with me, but he keeps diplomatically silent. Chickenshit.

"What, you can't go without sex for two days?" Caroline says. "Nympho."

Stefan's lips twitch and he turns to look out the window.

Caroline catches sight of his quietly shaking shoulders and plops her hands on her hips. "What? What's so funny?"

"We didn't have to soundproof the house because I was a nympho," I say. Elena smacks me in the arm and sighs.

"Oh, didn't we?" Stefan interjects, eyebrows raised.

"I'm just saying, in terms of abstinence, I hold the record in this house."

"Not any time lately." Elena crosses her arms in a way that looks unmistakably smug.

Caroline's eyes gleam like she's going in for the kill. "Care to put some money on that, Salvatore?"

"You know, I hate to say it, but I'm with my brother on this one." Stefan leans back in his chair and shakes his head fondly at his fiancée. "No offense, honey, but you'd never last two days."

She shoots him a glance that makes me wince. "Oh really?"

"She'd last longer than Damon." Elena comes over to stand next to me and gives me a playful bump with her hip.

I smile down at her. "That sounds like a bet to me."

"You better believe it," Caroline agrees. "Boys against girls."

Elena frowns. "Wait, does this go until somebody gives in?"

"I say we start when we go to the lake house this weekend and if everybody makes it until the end of the weekend then we'll re-assess," Caroline says.

"So wait, no physical displays of affection at all?" Stefan asks. "What loses you the bet?"

My brother is smarter than he looks. I give him an approving smile and he winks at me behind Caroline's back.

"I say everything that would count as first base or beyond," Elena says. "And whoever initiates it loses."

"And wins." I wink at her.

"So what, are you going to buy us an orphanage when we win?" Stefan asks the girls.

"It can't be money," Caroline decides. "But what should we give the winner?"

"Whatever they want." Elena shrugs. "Within reason."

"You're going to give Damon Salvatore a blank check for whatever he wants from you?" Caroline scoffs. "You've got to be kidding me."

"I'd give him a blank check before I'd give one to you, Caroline Forbes," Elena bristles. "And besides, I have no intention of losing." She lifts her chin and smiles at me, the light of triumph already in her eyes.

I flare my eyes at Caroline, feeling smug, and tug fondly on a lock of Elena's hair. "Cocky much?"

"I'd think twice about giving me a blank check if I were you." Stefan links his hands behind his head.

Caroline snorts. "Like there's anything you want that I'm not already giving you."

"TMI, Care." Elena laces her fingers through mine and tugging me into the hall. "Friday. It's on."

"Thursday," Caroline calls back. "We'll call it a three-day weekend."

"Wait, what day is it?" I ask, suddenly concerned.

"Monday."

I shrug. "Game on. But you girls are going to wish you'd offered to buy us an orphanage." I throw a glance back toward my brother and he nods with the hint of a smile before Elena leads me out of the room. "You kidnapping me?"

She slants a look at me through her eyelashes. "You resisting?"

"Staunchly." I swing her up into my arms and flash us to my room. She kicks the door shut and wriggles out of my arms and before I can say 'blank check,' she's got me backed up against the door with no shirt on. "Ah, this is a ravishing kind of kidnapping." I grin. "My favorite."

She traces the line of my throat with the tip of her tongue, which divides my attention neatly between hoping she's thirsty and wondering why I'm such a masochist that I haven't yet replaced all my pants with the painless button-fly models.

Elena growls and shoves me across the room and down onto my bed, pinning my hands above my head and flashing me a threatening glimpse of her fangs. Spots dance before my eyes for a second as all the blood in my body heads abruptly south and then she grins and narrows her eyes playfully at me. "I just want to know one thing, Salvatore."

"Identity of the shooter on the grassy knoll?"

"What you planted when you were pretending to look for pliers."

I chuckle. "Sharp eye, grasshopper."

She's still got a firm hold on my wrists, but I raise my head and nuzzle underneath the hem of her shirt, worrying the top edge of her jeans with my teeth. She giggles and presses closer and I reward her with a touch of tongue. She gasps and her hands loosen, but I'm not interested in getting free.

"Promise to keep my secrets?"

"Mmm, conflict of interest," she mutters.

I set my teeth in denim and open the button of her jeans with a practiced turn of my head, tugging firmly until the zipper separates and I can breath a kiss against the bow at the top of her panties.

"You're supposed to be on my side," I whisper to the bow.

"Aahhhhungh," the bow groans back.

I smile and bite the bow. Carefully, so I don't tear it off, but hard enough that my teeth scrape Elena's belly. "Can I trust you?" I murmur.

"Mmm-hmm." She nods vigorously enough that I can feel the movement all through her body.

"Powdered adhesive on the ass of all Caroline's panties."

Elena gasps, then giggles. "So that's why you wanted to know what day it was. How long until the glue wears off? We're never going to win the bet if you basically glued her into a chastity belt."

I nip the bottom edge of her belly button. "Eighteen hours. We'll be good to go by Thursday, if she hasn't glued my balls to the chopping block by then."

Elena abandons my wrists to let her hands roam over my chest and I relax back into the bed, my skin humming happily everywhere she touches me.

"So what are you going to ask for if you win?" She peeks up at me while she unbuckles my belt.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" I tuck my hands behind my head so I have a better view of the way her chocolate-colored hair pools across my belly. "What are you going to ask for?"

She prowls back up to my lips and steals a kiss.

"You have to be my sex slave," she purrs into my mouth. "For a full month."

I groan and roll her underneath me, my hands slipping under the edges of her unfastened jeans to taste the curves of her hips. Because of course she'd pick the one thing guaranteed to make my competitive nature waver. "Woman, you play dirty."

She licks her lips and gives me a smile that promises things I don't even have names for. "You better believe it."