Chapter Eight: The Good, the Bad, and the Horny

Damon Salvatore

Slipping out of his suit and into a white tunic, Damon was in the staff changeroom giving his dick the complete opposite of a pep talk.

"Listen, you've been a champ, heads and tails above the competition out there, and I'm real proud of you – but you're benched for the next sixty minutes. I mean it. No action whatsoever. I don't care how often my brain waves you in, you damn well stay put, got it?"

No response. He hoped it stayed that way.

Damon exited the room and made his way to the one he was dreading: the Serenity Suite. Sixty minutes of oils, candles, aromatherapy... and a full-on naked version of the hottest woman he'd ever laid eyes on. But, on top of the non-pep-talk he gave his dick, he'd given himself an award-winning pep talk. He was determined he could do this. He was a professional.

He looked up at the bulb above the white door. It was green. Rose would have told Elena to switch it from red to green when she was ready.

Damon took a deep breath. You're a professional, he reminded himself, before opening the door and poking his head inside.

In the darkened room, lit by a dozen glowing candles, Elena was sitting sideways on the edge of the massage table, sipping on the glass of free champagne, her long brown hair flowing over her shoulders, her legs slowly swinging back and forth, covered by nothing but a white sheet held up to her chest, which draped down between her legs, barely touching the floor. Her back was bare, and she was not wearing any panties.

Damon shot back outside and quietly closed the door. He leaned back against the wall and puffed quickly through rounded lips; panic mode activated, like he was dodging the cops instead of a hot naked lady. You're a professional, you're a pervessional, you're a pervertional... you're a pervert, you're a pervert, you're a pervert...

He gritted his teeth: he was not off to a good start. She wasn't ready – not according to him anyway! Ready to him would have meant her being wrapped up in dozens of white towels looking like an Egyptian mummy, not sitting seductively with a thin bedsheet covering her front like they were on their damn honeymoon!

Damon closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, struggling to erase the mental image from his brain. He'd seen her ass, he'd seen her ass, he'd seen her ass...

His cock twitched. (Ass?)

Don't you even dare!

No way – he was not going down without a fight! He bounced on the spot, rotating his shoulders, clenching his fists, and stretching his neck to the side like he was hyping himself up for a boxing match. Get yourself together, man, you're not even through the door yet!

Finally ready, Damon knocked on the door before opening it a crack. Even though nothing but his chin and lips breached the doorway, he kept his eyes closed. "Make sure towels... there's towels... for your... grab some towels..." Stop saying towels! He cleared his throat. "When you're covered – decent – I'll come in."

"How many towels?" came Elena's voice from inside.

All of them. "As many as you like," Damon replied. "I'll work around them."

Seconds later, Elena called out, "I'm ready."

Damon stepped inside. Elena was lying prone on the massage table, her chin resting on her crossed forearms, her fingers pinching the stem of her now-empty glass, her naked skin looking like tanned silk... and draped across her hips was a small white towel.

One. One damn towel between him and that perfect ass.

He felt movement below. (Ass?)

I'm warning you! There's a champagne ice bucket in the room and I'm fully prepared to dump it on you!

As Damon made his way further inside, taking the glass from her hand and placing it on a nearby shelf, Elena offered him an ice-breaker smile and said, "You seem really tense... maybe I should be the one giving you a massage."

Oh, don't go there.

He gave her a tight smile. "I'm a little out of practice." It wasn't exactly untrue.

Stop looking at her! You don't have to look – you just need to touch all over her body without your dick finding out about it.

Damon turned and faced the wall, switched the outside bulb from green to red, and focused on the items on the shelves. The assortment of oil scents was hitting his nostrils, not helping with the sudden feeling of intoxication. He set the timer. His thoughts were all over the place. "Would you prefer bottom or top?"

There was a smirk in Elena's voice. "Bottom or top?"

Oh shit, was that what he'd said? Elaborate, now! He spun around to see her looking over her bare shoulder at him, pinching back a smile. He gestured up and down her body with a sweep of his finger. "I-I meant, like, w-where to start," he sputtered. "I personally prefer head."

OH. HELL. NO!

Damon threw his forearms over his head, burying his face in his biceps, groaning in exasperation as he listened to Elena's stifled laughter in the background. This was not happening! What the hell was wrong with him?!

"This really isn't going down well for you, is it?" Elena contributed teasingly.

Oh, great, now she was adding to the innuendos – he may as well hand her back that fire poker and let her finish the job the easy way. Damon allowed his arms to fall to his side, sighing. "Sorry, I've got a lot on my mind."

"A girl?" Elena asked gently.

There was no pulling the wool over the eyes of female intuition. "Something like that," Damon admitted, turning to look at her as she tugged the sheet over her chest and propped herself sideways on one elbow.

Elena dropped her eyes nervously. "A girlfriend?"

Was this her way of asking if he was single? Holy shit, it was, wasn't it? He chuckled softly, shaking his head. "No, no girlfriend."

"But you're worried about massaging me because of another girl?"

Taking a deep breath, Damon knew there was only one way he was going to get out of this: honesty. "No, I'm worried about massaging you because you are the girl."

Elena's eyes paused on his, creases appearing between her eyebrows. "What?" she gently asked, like she wasn't sure if she'd understood him correctly.

Running his hands down his face with a groan, Damon stepped forward and crouched beside the massage table, eye-to-eye with Elena. He needed to tell her. Not tell her everything, of course – he didn't have a death wish, and there was a lot of hot candle wax and tiny flames in the room. "I'm... attracted to you," he confessed.

Elena's eyes widened slightly, her lips rounding. "Oh."

He gave her an apologetic smile. "Yeah, so as much as I'd like to go ahead with this, it wouldn't be fair to you." Sure, draw the line now, and not at stalking her, you weirdo. Damon was pretty sure that criticism just came from the part of his brain that controlled his genitals, so he let that one slide. They were obviously teaming up against him. "I can return your voucher, and book you in for another time, but not with me... because while I can control what goes on here..." He flared his fingers, wiggling the tips. "... I can't control what goes on in here..." He tapped against his head. "... at least, not with you. You deserve to know what a man is thinking before he puts his hands on you."

Elena let out a heavy breath. "Wow, well, thank you for being honest with me, Damon, I really appreciate that."

He watched her big brown eyes drift up and down him curiously, her head tilting to the side as she studied him, no doubt wondering what animalistic thoughts had already passed through his mind about her. He was extremely lucky she was so understanding. She'd made the whole process much easier than he –

"Continue."

His eyebrows shot up. Erm... say what now?

He couldn't have heard that right.

But Elena was scooping her hair away from her bare shoulders, turning her head away, and flattening herself down on the massage table.

Damon blinked slowly. "Continue?"

"Continue," she confirmed, shimmying herself into a comfortable position.

"I just told you I'm attracted to you."

"And I appreciate you telling me," Elena answered. "Continue. You can start anywhere."

Damon's jaw bobbed up and down, trying to generate a response while still trying to compute exactly what she was saying. It was no use; his system had officially crashed. He had to accept that the impossible had happened: he was free to fantasize about her all he wanted. She'd greenlit that production, and now the real Damon didn't know what to do with himself because the imaginary version was running around his head setting up the stage, testing the sound quality, and positioning the camera angles.

But he had to move at some point – he couldn't just stand still, looking like he'd malfunctioned.

Backup mode activated while waiting to reboot, he puffed air through his lips, turned around to where the oils were, robotically picked two off the shelf, and reset the timer. He set it for thirty minutes so he could evenly split his time between her upper and lower body. "Continue," he muttered to himself, still in disbelief. "She wants me to continue." He pocketed the oils and headed back to the massage table.

After his slip of the tongue, he decided he was not going to start with head. Hands or feet seemed innocent enough. He stepped closer to her hands. Smooth, feminine, slender... perfect for wrapping around his –

Feet. Feet, it was.

He headed to the opposite end of the table and grabbed the controls for the hydraulic lift. "You might feel a little vibration," he warned.

"I didn't realize that was part of the package," she teased.

He smirked, pressing on the controls, slowly raising the table. "St-op it," he teased back in a long, lingering warning. Releasing the button at the right height, he returned the device to its hook. "But since you brought it up – it actually does have a vibrate function... and a heat function... and so many multifunctional sections and attachments I could construct a treehouse out of this thing."

"You sound very proud of that," Elena observed. "Let me guess: you were the one who purchased it?"

"Better than that," Damon said, taking one of the bottles out of his pocket and dabbing the oil on his hands. "I was the one who designed it. Attempting to convince Rose to buy one was how I discovered she was having financial trouble, and we went into business together."

"So, you were the savior to her Rose and Savior?"

"So to speak," he confirmed. "It's my surname." That was the closest hint she was going to get – it wouldn't take a genius to link his real surname back to Stefan.

Damon gazed at Elena's feet, and he slid a hand under one of her ankles. His eyes rolled up into his sockets – yep, foot fetish unlocked. Slowly bending her leg at the knee, he pressed a lever with his foot to drop the calf support attachment. He stood in place of the attachment, propping her ankle high on his chest, her toes at a concerningly suckable distance from his mouth.

Touch but don't look, he reminded himself, and definitely don't suck anything!

That was a weird take on the phrase.

He felt more comfortable knowing that Elena was aware of how he felt, but just because there was an entire cavalry of blood waiting for further commands at the base of his dick, it didn't mean he wanted a sixty-minute hard-on. He had to prove to himself – and certainly to her – that he had full control over all of his appendages – and that included his dick. It could be done, especially now the fear of the taboo was no longer hanging over his head.

She was fine with it. She was fine with the way his palms were now slowly gliding up her calf, his thumbs rounding over her ankle and pressing with firm strokes into the sole of her foot. She was fine with one hand continuing to work against her foot while his other hand slid back down her soft skin towards her thigh, and –

"Mmmmm," Elena moaned pleasurably.

Oh shit! She was more than fine.

(Calvary! Advance!)

Oh, no you don't!

Getting on his toes to raise his groin to the level of the massage table, he slammed his cock painfully against the edge, pressing deep, cutting off the circulation and bringing tears to his eyes. Some of the cavalry had made it through and misconstrued the sudden pressure as the presence of a cock ring, leaving him with a semi, but if he sustained the pain for long enough, he could end this battle victorious.

He hoped. Unless he developed a BDSM kink along with his new foot fetish.

Elena lifted her head over her shoulder. "Are you okay? I felt the table move."

"Perfect," Damon strained through his teeth, trying to urge some blood back to his brain so he could form an excuse. "Just hit my knee on the table, I'm fine."

She raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like a design flaw."

"Yep," he agreed, no less strenuously. "I'll work on that." He continued warming streaks up and down her leg, which had her practically purring like a kitten, and he realized this was going to be the longest sixty minutes of literal dick-slamming torture. If he didn't find a way to cover the unintentionally arousing sounds she was making, he'd be waddling like a penguin for the rest of the week. "Would you like some white noise on? Rain? Ocean waves?" Pneumatic drill? Low-flying helicopter?

"No," Elena hummed blissfully.

"Music?" Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes –

"Nuh-uh," she responded, "but I wouldn't mind talking a little."

Yes! Talking! A perfect distraction! "What would you like to talk about?"

"Do you know anything about the man who purchased my voucher?"

Uh-oh!

Fortunately, nothing had saved Damon's dick from repeated bruising quite like coming up with excuse after excuse to Elena's questions. She didn't give up easily but, in the end, he'd managed to make it sound like Rose and Savior had an Area 51 level of secrecy over its clientele. There was still the occasional satisfied sigh of pleasure in her words as he continued to massage her, but his mission to keep his alter ego a secret helped divert his focus away from the heavenly feel of her silky-smooth bodily parts.

Except her buttocks – which he remembered she had ticked so fiercely the pen nib had pierced a hole in the form. There was no escaping it; she would not allow it. So, when the time came, Damon had a plan to fold back half the towel – without looking – and keep his attention on the wall the entire time.

Now the time was upon him. His eyes were on the wall... his breathing was calm... the towel was folded back... his hands were sliding against her ass...

And the little egg-seekers in his balls suddenly turned into the Village of the Damned, all alerted in suspicion of why the person they trusted was suddenly straining to keep focused on a brick wall instead of the tempting ass beneath his hands.

Damon gritted his teeth, wondering if the little white-headed children in that movie were a metaphor for the mind-controlling shits gathering against him in his testicles right now. So, this was how Gordon Zellaby felt in the end: grappling with the weight of his decision, desperate not to crack under pressure, committed to concentrating on nothing but a damn wall. If Elena turned her head, she'd probably see something similar too: a desperate man with sweat gathering on his forehead, close to breaking point.

By the time he'd rounded the table and started working on her other side, that wall in his head was already crumbling. Tingles were coursing throughout his body, his eyes kept drifting downwards, her heavy breathing was ringing in his ears, and he'd long given up trying to keep his rock-hard dick under control.

Spoiler alert: that movie ended in an explosion... and if that thirty-minute timer didn't go off soon – the halfway notification signaling him to proceed to her upper body – then he would also end in an explosion.

"Damon...?" Elena's honeyed voice hummed.

Oh, sweet lord, this was not a time for her to start saying his name like that!

Blissfully unaware of his agony, she sighed softly and continued. "Would this be a totally inappropriate time to ask you out?"

He officially malfunctioned.

The words hit him. His hands slipped. His fingertips accidentally swiped through her ass crack, ringing up the last of his decency through a metaphorical cash register, his dignity now fully spent. Elena jumped up onto her elbows with a surprised yelp at the unexpected sensation. And Damon turned away, leaning against the wall with his hands, dropping his head in shame. If there was one saving grace, at least the humiliation had killed his hard-on.

"I'm so sorry," he groaned. "That really surprised me."

"Not as much as it surprised me," Elena responded.

Damon slowly shook his head. "That was so inappropriate."

Elena gathered the sheets from beneath her, covering her front, as she sat upright on the massage table, facing his back. "Me asking you out?" she asked cautiously. "Or you swiping my ass?"

Damon straightened and turned around, facing the gorgeous, honeymoon-style, bedsheet-wrapped Elena again. She tilted her head, her long hair flowing to the side, looking like she was waiting nervously for the answer to a genuine question. "Swiping your ass, obviously," Damon declared. "My hand slipped... there was the oil... and the question... I just..." He sighed. "I'm sorry."

Elena looked down, smiling coyly, kicking the long, dangling sheet with her feet. "So, I can ask you again?"

Damon took a step towards her, his eyebrows drawn together. "You still want to ask me?"

Elena bit her lip, beckoning him closer with her finger. "Maybe I'll whisper it to you this time," she said, "so I don't startle you."

Damn, this woman was a temptress. But he found himself taking another step, and another, and then Elena reached out and made him take the final step by pulling him in with his tunic. They were almost eye-to-eye. She reached to the side of her legs and pressed a button on the controls.

The table's height quickly deflated, leaving her face-to-face with his groin.

Damon smirked, his eyebrows raised, tilting his head at her while she leaned forward scrambling to identify the buttons in the darkness. "I take it you were aiming for the button that brings you up?"

"I honestly was," Elena insisted, a hint of urgency in her tone.

Damon reached down and brushed her hand aside as he pressed the correct button for her.

Comeon, comeon, comeon, comeon! he thought impatiently as she slowly started to rise.

He let go of the button the moment their faces were level. With one hand still grasping her sheet, the other pulling at his tunic, she leaned close to his ear.

This really shouldn't be happening in his place of business, he realized. It could ruin its reputation.

"I'll try not to startle you again," she whispered, her voice husky, "otherwise, you might accidentally kiss my lips."

His eyes widened and a smile spread across his face. To hell with his business – he could build a new business!

She drew her head back, her brown eyes gazing seductively into his. She took a breath and began her question, "Damon S –"

Driiiiing!

That blasted thirty-minute timer!

Damon had a sudden urge to draw a pistol at lightning speed, like in a Spaghetti Western movie, and shoot the damn thing off the shelf for ruining the moment. Instead, he had to listen to his new nemesis ring out.

Elena lowered her head and chuckled. Finally, the ringing stopped, and her head shot up. With a deep, sobering breath, she said, "Would you like to spend the last thirty minutes getting a coffee?"

"I'd love to," he replied. Then, smirking, he added, "So, you're done torturing me?"

Elena raised an eyebrow teasingly at him. "For the moment."