Chapter 11

Elena flipped onto her stomach and glanced at the clock beside Damon's bed. The red digital display told her it was ten past one in the morning. After they'd blown off Alexis and Marc, they'd come back to the hotel and had spent the past three hours in bed together. She felt relaxed and sated as he kissed and caressed her shoulder, but she knew it was time to move.

"Where are you going?" Damon asked, as she sat up.

She had given in to his idea of sleeping together, while this attraction blazed between them, but she still wasn't sure exactly how it would work. They needed to have some boundaries between them, and that meant not sharing a bed all night. Keeping work and pleasure separate was essential for her to continue to do her job well. She would have to balance their new sexual relationship with their working one, and to do that she needed to be in the right frame of mind to think properly; something she struggled to do around her client.

"We have early flights tomorrow. I should get some sleep."

"So sleep here," he told her, pulling her back, so she was lying next to him.

"Damon,"

"Mmm,"

He'd climbed on top of her now, his arms braced on either side of her, holding her in like a cage. She shifted her legs so that her legs were on the outside of his.

"I won't sleep if I stay here. Oh, God, that feels…"

She couldn't talk as his tongue came out to flick her earlobe before trailing open-mouthed kisses down her neck.

"You can't leave yet," he murmured against her neck, "we're not finished."

Just how many more rounds did he have in him tonight? At least one more, judging by the way his erection was now pressing against her entrance. All she'd need to do is tilt her hips and he'd slide right inside her.

"Condom," she reminded him.

He looked at her briefly, before swearing softly.

"I have more," he told her, "but they're in my case."

"Then we should stop."

"Yes," he said, resting his forehead lightly against hers. "We should stop."

Damon wasn't ready to stop. She had been about to leave, and he didn't want her to go yet. It had taken so long for him to get her into his bed and now he didn't want to let her out of it. Waiting for her to be ready, and wanting her all the time, had given him an appetite for her that wouldn't be curbed any time soon.

Elena waited for him to move, but he remained completely still.

"It's not going to hurt if I just kiss you a little bit longer."

He kissed her hungrily, felt her spread her legs even further apart, allowing him better access to her. He could feel her entrance growing slicker with desire as he kissed her. She moved slightly underneath him and he felt his manhood push into her ever so slightly. They both groaned.

"Damon…"

She looked into his eyes, and he felt his heart clench a little. She made him feel lost. She made him feel out of control. He was swelling more and more for her with every second that passed; the throbbing need to possess her again, almost driving him out of his mind. His whole body felt far too hot, far too tight, as her body beckoned his.

"You feel too good," he told her.

Elena knew they needed to stop, but she wanted him to keep going. Even now, her hips were oscillating ever so slightly, while his body was literally trembling from the control it was exerting to not thrust into her. He trailed hot kisses over her jaw, her neck, and when his tongue traced her collarbone, she moved a little, sliding a little bit further onto his length.

"Elena," he panted, "we have to stop."

"So, stop then," she told him breathlessly.

"I don't want to," he told her.

"I don't want to either," she admitted.

He kissed her again, and as their lips devoured each other and their tongues mated, overpowering instinct overrode common sense and her hips tilted upwards ever so slightly. The change of angle was all it took for him to surge into her very wet heat. Elena gasped as she felt him fill her completely. Neither of them moved, as they locked eyes.

Damon knew this was beyond stupid, but he could feel her muscles tightening around him and after using condoms all night, feeling her like this, without a barrier between them, was beyond pleasurable.

"Elena."

"Just don't come," she told him.

If he didn't take it slowly, he would be in danger of exploding very quickly inside of her. He moved with her, extra slowly, but slowing his movements down only made it all the more sensual and erotic as they watched each other. His shaft stroked her sweet spot each time his body entered hers, and he could feel her panting hotly in his ear. Her excitement was increasing with every stroke, and when she begged him to go faster, he couldn't deny her what she wanted.

"Damon," she cried out, as she tensed around him.

She was holding onto him so tightly when she reached orgasm, that he had to stop moving again. Her arms were around his neck, her hands tangled in his hair, and her legs were wrapped around his hips, pulling him deep inside her center as she contracted around him. Her moans and her body had him on the edge of spilling inside of her. As soon as her grip on him loosened, he exited her body and rolled onto his back. He was about to finish the job himself when Elena sat up, moved down his body, and took him into her mouth. She finished him off quickly with her hand and her mouth.

Afterward, Elena kissed his stomach before resting her head on it. She felt him stroke her hair while they lay there silently, and her eyes began to close. If she didn't leave now, she would never leave. Finally mustering the strength to stand, she got out of the bed and started to get dressed.

"Is this how it's going to be every night?" he asked her, sitting up.

"Is what how it's going to be?"

"You leaving my hotel room at some ridiculous hour of the morning."

He didn't sound or look happy, and she wondered for a moment if what she was doing was wrong, before she reminded herself that she had as much say in this as he did, and that her sleep was important. She couldn't function if she wasn't sleeping, and staying in bed with him would not lead to the sleep she needed.

"I would prefer the hour to not be so ridiculous, but I don't think I should stay here until morning."

"You said you'd do things my way."

"I did. I thought that meant sex, not sleepovers."

Damon didn't know what to say; didn't know why he felt so upset by her wanting to leave. Normally women didn't leave before he was finished with them; but then normally he was finished with them fairly quickly. He knew he should consider her leaving a good thing. If she wanted to keep it to sex until all hours of the night and then walk away, he should be happy with that. He couldn't offer her anything but sex anyway; and not using a condom was pretty stupid.

"Are you on birth control?" he asked her.

"Yes," she said. "But I only just started a few weeks ago. It should have kicked in, but…"

"But we should be careful," he finished for her.

"Yes."

They'd both lost themselves in the moment. Pregnancy wasn't the only thing she should be wary of and he was surprised she would be so trusting with him. She walked over to the bed and kissed him, and he pulled her onto his lap, so he could kiss her more thoroughly.

"I'll see you when your flight comes in tomorrow," she said to him, hopping off his lap.

"Another book signing, right?"

"Yup. Sick of them yet?"

"Getting there. At least now I'll have the nights to look forward to," he said to her, raising an eyebrow, wanting to hear that they were still on the same page when it came to that.

"I'm giving in, Damon. I told you that."

"It's about time," he told her, giving her ass a playful tap as she turned around. She swatted him in return.

"Goodnight, Elena," he called as she opened the door.

"Goodnight, Damon," she called before she shut the door behind her.

One week later, Elena shook her head at the air hostess who was asking her if she wanted anything. The only thing she wanted right now was to be in New York City already. She should be there helping set up the, "Meet the Authors" function Damon would be attending over the next few days. Instead she was in a plane sitting next to her client, who was happily flicking through the romance novel she'd bought at the airport before they departed. He frowned as he read pages from the middle of the book. Elena could only assume he'd found a juicy bit.

"This is very descriptive," he said loudly.

She took the book off him, ignoring the looks of the passengers behind them, and whacked him softly on the arm with it, before slipping it into her bag.

She wanted to blame him for this, but this was her fault. She'd let herself become too tired. Even now, her eyes felt gritty with fatigue. After leaving Damon's room some time after two am for the past six nights, Damon had insisted he come to her last night. That would have been fine, except they'd both fallen asleep and she'd slept through her alarm this morning. When she'd finally stumbled out of bed, she'd been accosted by him in the shower and now…now they were here.

She couldn't stop what she was doing with him now. One, Damon probably wouldn't let her, and two, she didn't want to. This couldn't happen again, though. Without thinking, she pulled a piece of scrap paper and pen out of her bag and started making a list of 'rules' for this relationship she was having with him. Maybe if she followed this list, she wouldn't end up here again. She just stopped to read her list over when Damon whipped it away from under her.

"What do we have here? Elena, what is this?"

"I think it's pretty self-explanatory," she told him, reaching for the paper.

Damon held it out of her reach while he read through her list of rules. "Why do you need a list of rules?" he asked her.

"You weren't meant to see them," she told him, trying to grab the piece of paper from him again.

Damon shook his head. The woman had it all wrong, and he was going to have to teach her how to do this. "I know you've never done anything like this before, but you're going about it the wrong way."

"I didn't realize that there is a right way and a wrong way to ruin my life," she said to him, annoyed by the fact that he'd seen her list.

"Well, there is; and you're not going to ruin your life."

"It's just a few rules so that what happened today doesn't happen again."

"It was worth it," he told her with a smirk.

Of course she blushed. "We missed our flights."

"I got us new ones; better ones, and we're flying together."

Elena didn't tell him she didn't want to fly with him. She needed to be doing her job right now, and they needed to limit their affair to sex, and sex only.

"You're not exactly the spontaneous type, are you?" he asked her.

Spontaneity had been a luxury she couldn't afford when her parents had died. She and Jeremy had been forced into the foster care system, and she had been entirely focused on trying to keep her and Jeremy together. Then she'd been working and studying, and trying to keep Jeremy in line once she became his guardian, and now…now she wanted to be spontaneous, but she didn't always remember to be spontaneous; or maybe she'd simply just forgotten how to be.

"I haven't always had the opportunity to be," she told him.

"Well now is your chance."

"I thought that's what we were doing," she said to him.

"No, you're tying to control this."

"If I'm trying to control anything, it's the risk of losing my job."

Damon thought she needed to loosen up a little bit, and he was just the man to make his buttoned up publicist let loose. He needed to teach her how to have fun.

"You can't apply rules to something like this," he told her.

"I thought all men care about is sex," she said to him.

"What's your point?"

"My point," she said, finally managing to lean over and grab the piece of paper from him, "is why do you care if I make a few rules? I gave in. We're having sex. That's what you want. Why does it matter if I want to be careful while doing that?"

She didn't tear up the piece of paper like he hoped she would, instead she folded it neatly and slipped it into her handbag.

"It's not in the spirit of things," he said to her, starting to become annoyed as she used his logic against him.

"You're trying to control the spirit of things," she told him.

"You decided to do things my way. My way is the no rules way. If you're going to do this, you should enjoy it," he told her, pushing a piece of her hair behind her ear.

He wasn't the type to make speeches, yet here he was, trying to convince his publicist not to impose limits on their sex life. She was looking at him now all doe eyed and innocent, leaning towards him with her elbow propped on the armrest casually. He could see her trying to make up her mind whether she should follow his advice, or whether she should go ahead with her own plan.

"I am enjoying it," she told him, blushing again. "You know that. It's just that I haven't done this before and…"

"And you thought that making rules would help," he finished for her.

"Yes," she said, frowning.

He took her hand and traced his finger over the palm of her hand.

"Well, I have done this before…"

"I know…"

"So why don't you throw your rules out the window, and let me be your guide?" he asked her, brushing his lips over the palm of her hand.

"I'll think about forgetting the rules," she said, a little breathlessly, "but I can't be late again."

"Fine, now give me the list so I can rip it up."

"I think we should keep the last rule," she told him, handing him the piece of paper.

Out of all the rules on her list, the last rule was the one Damon liked the least. He didn't want to impose a time limit on what they were doing.

"What happened to letting things run their course?" he asked her.

"I know, but when we get back to Mystic Falls…well, it will be even more dangerous. Besides, by then we'll have been having sex for three weeks. Surely that's long enough for things to have run its course?"

Damon didn't know if it would be, and putting an expiry date on what they were doing actually made him feel desperately afraid that it wouldn't be long enough. After just seven nights in bed together, he thought it could take months for him to stop needing her the way he needed her right now. Yet he knew she was right, it would be more dangerous when they were in the same town as Katherine. He wasn't sure there was much he could do about Katherine either. If he broke up with her now, she'd be suspicious and she'd find another way to go after Elena. He didn't like feeling helpless when it came to protecting the woman next to him.

"Damon."

He looked up to see Elena pointing to the piece of paper she'd given him.

It was only then that he realized he'd shredded the piece of paper into something resembling snow, and it was about to go everywhere.

"Do we have an agreement?" she asked him.

"Consider it a tentative agreement," he told her, "that I can choose to re-evaluate at any given time."

In other words, Elena thought, he might not be finished with her by the time they got back to Mystic Falls. She knew from the expression he was wearing right now, that he wanted her again. He let the paper drop from his hands, before he reached out and cupped her chin in his palm, bringing her lips to his. As soon as his lips touched hers Elena felt need explode inside her; a feeling she was fast getting used to. She shifted slightly, allowing him better access to her mouth.

When they finally pulled apart, Elena wondered, what if she wasn't finished with him by the time he realized he was done with her? She couldn't think about that; she just had to focus on the fact that what they were doing was about sex and nothing else. When it was time to walk away, it was time to walk away.

Hours later his publicist was in a frenzy trying to sort out some last minute problems with the venue they'd arrived at. Damon listened to her phone conversation with Elijah. She was speaking calmly and her voice was controlled, but he could tell from the expression on her face and the way she was pacing, that underneath she was panicking. When she hung up, she turned to him.

"I have to go and sort this out with the MTA administrators," she told him quickly.

As he watched her walk away from him, he found himself admiring the tight curves of her body, but her body wasn't the only thing he found himself admiring about her. She worked hard, and now he was making sure she played just as hard. He could see she was tired. Perhaps he needed to ease up on her just a bit. She gave herself over to him so completely when they were in bed together, that it was just so easy to keep taking. Guilt washed through him as he wondered if perhaps he was taking too much.

Elena was pacing in her hotel room on the phone that night, when she received a text message from Damon.

Small problem. Can you come up here?

Elena tried to concentrate on her phone call and not on the fact that Damon probably had a big throbbing problem that he needed 'help' with. Once she hung up she rubbed her eyes and wondered how much more of this she could take. She was so incredibly tired, she needed a new word for tired. She wasn't taking care of herself and she was going to burn out if she wasn't careful. Worse, she'd dropped the ball today. Every problem that had arisen today could have been dealt with if she'd taken her scheduled flight this morning. She was making mistakes; Elijah wasn't happy, and she hoped he didn't decide to follow through on his threat, and send someone to keep an eye on her.

She should stay in, get some take out, and have an early night. Normally she and Damon started their evenings at about eight o'clock, but it was only six-thirty now, and he already wanted her to come up. She didn't know if she could do a marathon sex romp with him tonight. Reaching a decision, she called Damon.

"Hey," he said. "Did you get my message?"

"I did. Is it an emergency, because I thought I might stay in tonight and try and get some sleep."

Damon looked around the room he was standing in. "Yes, it's an emergency, Elena. Come up, and you can go back after you've sorted it out. If you still want to."

Elena hung up with a sigh, before grabbing her purse and heading out the door. When she knocked on his door, he answered it quickly. The first thing she noticed was that it his room looked dark.

"Hello, Elena," he stepped aside to let her in, but not before she noticed his lips twitching with amusement.

"What's the big emer…?"

She stopped speaking when she walked into his room and found dozens of candles lighting up the room. Then her gaze wandered to the table in the corner of the room where she could see a bottle of wine and at least ten boxes from Wong's Chinese Garden.

"What's this?" she asked, turning around to him.

He passed her a blood red rose, surprising her further.

"It's just dinner," he assured her. "I know you're tired. You can eat and go…if you want."

Her look of gratitude was all the thanks he needed. He motioned her over to the table, where he pulled out a chair for her.

Elena laid her rose down on the table beside her. The food in front of her smelt delicious and reminded her that she'd had nothing more than an apple to eat for breakfast, all day.

"Hungry?" he asked her.

"Absolutely," she told him with a smile.

He filled her glass with wine and piled her plate with food. "See if you can get through that," he said to her.

"Is that a challenge?" she asked him.

"It is, Gilbert. Think you can handle it?"

"Oh, I can handle it," she assured him.

He gave her a slow grin and she smiled back at him. As Elena picked up her chopsticks, she acknowledged how nice it was to have someone waiting for her at the end of the day; someone who knew she'd had a bad day, and cared enough to make sure she ate. They kept the conversation light, but Damon made her laugh, and he was intelligent, and she found herself enjoying his company. A lot. Sharing her evenings with someone, and having someone to come home to, was exactly what she wanted. It felt so natural and right with Damon that she had to remind herself that he wasn't hers.

"Have a bath with me," he said to her, after dinner.

"I'm not sure…"

"Just a bath, Elena. It will help you sleep."

"Okay."

She should have said no, but the wine had relaxed and mellowed her, and a bubble bath to ease her aching muscles sounded terrific right about now. They had been sitting in the bath for around ten minutes; Damon giving her a hot wet deep kiss, when they both heard a knock on the door.

"Room service?" she asked him.

"No," he said, making a face. "I didn't order anything."

He stepped out of the bath, wrapped a white towel around his hips, and made his way out of the bathroom. Elena carefully stepped out of the bath, wrapped a towel around her, and knotted it between her breasts. She'd just walked out of the bathroom as he opened the door.

"Katherine."

The surprise in his voice, and the fact that he had the door angled so Elena couldn't see the other woman, were the only things assuring Elena that she hadn't just been set-up.

"Hello, Lover. Did you miss me?"

A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. So, I know this chapter may have been a little different to what you were expecting, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway. These lovers have some interesting times ahead of them. Think you know how Katherine turning up will go? Bet you don't ;) Thanks for reading, and please review.