Like A Virgin: Deleted Scene from Love Thy Enemy, Book 2 of the Desperate Love Trilogy

Author’s Note: This was supposed to be a scene sometime before Damon’s Dream Date, and before Damon and Elena have sex for the first time. I decided to go a different way with Damon’s reaction to Elena wanting more time, but I am sad I never worked Meredith back into Desperate Love- she’s a fun character to write for.

Deleted Scene: Like a Virgin

DAMON POV

I step out of the shower and grab my towel, drying off with disinterested efficiency. I’m losing joy in my gorgeous bathroom since I’ve been taking so many frigid showers with just myself for company, trying to keep my reaction to Elena under control in the least fun way possible.

I don’t know what the hell to think about it. I know she wants me. Even without a human heartbeat she can’t hide her arousal, and she doesn’t try to. Every time we’re alone, we can’t keep our hands off each other. So what the hell is she still stalling for? She knows I love her, so there is no way she is worried that it is just about the physical for me. And she’d have to be a couple braincells short of the April Young IQ standard to think I’m not attracted to her.

I thought once I got her to admit that she loved me, that the rest of what she was thinking would be pretty easy to predict. But nope, not so much. All that good communication garbage she’s been feeding me is useless too, because if I ask, that’s pressuring her.

Is there any way she’s a virgin?

She used to stay over here a lot, but Stefan and I have our rooms at opposite ends of a large house for a reason. I’ve heard them doing…something, but I guess it might not have been sex. I glare at myself in the mirror. I think I need to take wire brush to my cerebral cortex.

Could she have had her whole ‘epic love’ with Stefan without sex? He’s such a prude, he’d probably love the self-flagellating purity of that.

I smirk humorlessly. No wonder he went on a Ripper binge.

Can I just ask her if she’s a virgin? If she isn’t, she might think that’s what I want. That’s the problem with women. They second-guess you and they are fucking incomprehensible, so before you know it, you’re six layers deep in a black hole of what-if and seriously contemplating taking a Cosmo quiz to get answers. There’s a reason I only go in for uncomplicated distractions.

I’ll feed my fingers to a wood-chipper before I’ll buy reading material that advertises blow job hints, but I need some advice. From a woman.

If Elena’s out, that leaves Bonnie and Caroline.

Fuck that kamikaze shit.

Bonnie will say I’m disgusting no matter what I do, and Caroline will be all supportive and understanding and then she’ll secretly confide our conversation to everyone in town. I consider Liz for a second, but it has been so long since she got laid that she’s not my go-to choice for relationship advice. And she married a gay dude. Not her fault, obviously, but it implies a certain obliviousness.

Nope, I’m on my own.

I make a decision and type a quick text.

DAMON: Wanna play trading post, Dr. Bloodjacker?

Two hours later, I’m in her office, rolling up both sleeves.

“I just need one,” she protests.

I smirk. “I’m not a delicate little human. All I need is five minutes with a nurse in a closet on my way out and I’ll be good to go.”

“You can’t–” she protests.

I hold up a finger. “Ah-ah! Rule number 1, don’t tell a supernatural being what they can and can’t do. Rule number 2, this blood doesn’t get its superpowers from sprout and soy. Get over it. You had no problem stealing blood for your purposes and neither do I. You just happen to be lucky that I am willing to offer, since the devil is going to develop a taste for Fudgsicles before your vervain-happy ass is going to catch me by surprise again. Which brings us to Rule number 3.”

She raises an eyebrow, unfazed. “I’m sure I’m going to love this.”

I smile. This is why I came here. I see what Ric liked about her dry, bullshit-free personality.

“Everyone that gets my blood gets a mandatory 36-hour observation period in the hospital. Irregardless of their insurance status. Understood? And none of that against medical advice checkout bullshit. You knock them out if you need to but you don’t let them leave.” I give her a hard look. “We’re not going to have another Elena incident. Understood?”

“Understood,” she says without hesitation, and snaps on her gloves, setting up a blood bag on either side of me. “So what do you need from  me?”

I look at her gloves. “Doctor patient privilege.”

“You’ve got it,” she says, swabbing the inside of my elbow with an alcohol pad.

I raise an eyebrow. “Seriously? You know we can’t get infections, right?”

Meredith looks down and cracks a smile. “Right. Habit.”

“So, I have a rhetorical question.”

“And I don’t have all the time in the world.” She slides a needle into my vein with one efficient movement. “So start talking and start bleeding because when one stops, so does the other. I’ve got a full floor of patients waiting on me out there, and the sick trump the eternally healthy in my book.”

“Good to know where we stand. No wonder you fell for Ric when he was dying twice a week. I can get Stefan to gut-stake me and come back, if that would move me up in the queue.”

She readies another needle. “Waste all the time you need to, Salvatore. I didn’t realize public speaking made you so nervous.”

I narrow my eyes, so pissed that I just spit it out without any explanation. “Can you ask a girl if she’s a virgin?”

“Shit, Salvatore, I’m your dead drinking buddy’s girlfriend, not your mom,” she says, then takes a look at my face, which is making it clear that I’m about to relocate these needles from my body parts into hers.

“Sorry. That just caught me off guard. Why do you- but who?” She stops, and I can see her connecting lots of dots that I suddenly realize I don’t want her thinking about at all. I reach for the needle in my arm.

“Never mind. I have places to be and a lot of people to kill.”

Quicker than I gave her credit for, she grabs my hand. “No, stay. You know what? Let’s do this doctor-patient style and that way I can pretend I don’t know any of the people involved or anything about them and I don’t have to taint my brain by considering the implications.”

I nod tightly, fighting an inconvenient urge to bite her. A year ago, I would have. But a year ago, I didn’t ever need advice. Or an all-hours on-call doctor on my side. Plus, Ric-proxied-by-Jeremy would give me way more hell than I want to put up with.

She pauses, organizing her thoughts.

“Yes, you can ask. You should always be open about sexual history.” She glances at me. “Maybe I should mention that it matters a lot how you ask. I’d go for a caring approach. Like, I just want to know where you’re at,” she eyes me suspiciously. “Try to make it not sound accusing, or condescending.”

“Your confidence in me is awe-inspiring,” I say snidely, wishing I would have foregone all of this. I can go on enjoying the hell out of second and third base for the next few decades without breaking a sweat. Blue balls are a lot less painful than this conversation.

“The real issue probably isn’t if she’s a virgin or not,” Meredith says, snapping off her gloves and using her extra few minutes to re-order the papers on her desk, multi-tasking with ease. I bet she was top of her class in med school. “It is really about you wanting to know why she hasn’t hopped into bed with you yet. This may be news to you, Damon, but some people wait to have sex with each other, because there are things involved other than hormones.”

“Considering that I’m voluntarily saving dozens of lives that you can’t, you could dial down the judgment a notch or ten,” I snap.

Her no-nonsense expression slips for a second but she tries to hide it behind her hair. I scowl down at the blood bags. So much for diplomacy. I’m striking out all around today.

“Wow, so you and I aren’t great at the heart to heart thing.” She shoots me a flinty look. “But I am trying to help. So why don’t you cut me a break on the sugar-coating and I’ll give you what you need and you give me what I…need.” Her voice hesitates slightly before the last word.

Yup, I jumped on her hot button. Top of her Ivy-League-Class doesn’t like to admit she needs help to keep her patients alive.

“People sometimes wait for sex to make sure it is really going to work before they take that step together,” she says. “So she might just be worried that it’s all going to fall apart, for whatever reason.” She keeps the judgment out of her tone on that one, but it still makes veins threaten around my eyes. Her jugular is looking very…ripe.

“She might not be ready for that level of intimacy with you. Or she might just be nervous about her body, or her skills.” Meredith meets my eyes, keeping her face neutral. “I’m not trying to be snide here, but your reputation does proceed you. If I know Elena, she wants to know that she’s not just another in a long line of girls.”

I stare incredulously at her. “I’ve risked my life for her about twice a week since I met her. I’m pretty sure she knows she’s not just another girl to me. If I did that for every one-use-only distraction, I wouldn’t have lasted a year, much less 146 of them. And I thought we were pretending that you aren’t way too caught up on my business.”

She shrugs. “Why bullshit?”

I glare, but can’t comment, since that’s exactly why I’m here.

One of the blood bags is full, and she disconnects it. “Keep that out of sight,” I tell her. “The color is wrong.”

She shoots me a look. “Don’t tell me my job, Salvatore. Anyway, if I were a betting kind of girl, I would bet that she’s intimidated by your, ah, level of experience.”

I leer at her. “Did you just call me a slut, Dr. Bloodjacker?”

“Yup. I know it and she knows it. And I bet she’s not keen on being compared to some of your shinier trophies. Convincing her that she’s different is probably what you’ve got to do.” She removes the other needle and the hole heals immediately, but she slaps a Dora the Explorer Band-Aid on anyway. I peel it back off and toss it in the trash.

“Glad that’s your problem and not mine,” she says unsympathetically. “Thanks for the blood. Now get the hell out of my office.”

I almost laugh. “You’re welcome.”

I shrug my jacket back on and head for the door. I’d thank her for the advice, but she doesn’t deserve much thanks for name calling and judging me. I can get that for free all over town.

“And Damon?”

“What, did you leave something out? You haven’t insulted my mother yet, and I’m still holding out for the cheap shot about Elena pulling off the brother switch. Also I haven’t said a word about the irony of asking relationship advice from a woman who shot her boyfriend ‘for his own good,’” I say, giving it air quotes and lots of eye-flaring emphasis.

“Be careful with her,” Meredith says seriously. “She’s young, and she’s a nice girl.”

I stalk back across the room, not stopping until I’ve got her pinned against her desk. Her hand heads for her lab coat pocket and I catch her wrist.

“No,” I say through gritted teeth. “You say what you want about me. I do exactly as I please and I will never waste a second of my unlimited life span worrying about what you think about it. But when it comes to Elena Gilbert, I do the right thing. No matter if it fucks me over, no matter who it kills.” I jerk my head toward her just to watch her flinch.

She recovers quickly. “That’s what I wanted to hear,” she says calmly.

I can hear her heartbeat, so I know I just dumped a car-load of adrenaline into her system. She’s not stupid. But the chick has balls.

I toss her wrist away like it’s garbage and give her one more searing look before I stride out of her office without breaking a single thing, including her judgy little neck.

“You’re welcome, Ric.”