Caroline had braced herself before this. She knew what she was in for-she knew every inevitable and long-desired touch from him would burn slowly through her like a wild fire, exhilarating, but with such pain and sorrow the dark burnt marks and charred debris of her soul would last for years or even centuries to come.
She'd braced herself for all of it, but as Klaus' hand so casually landed above her elbow, his thumb caressing her like his voice did with her ears, her breath still hitched.
When her eyes turned from where their bodies touched to his somber face, her 18-year-old self stared out through them, and Caroline felt an overwhelming pang deep in her chest.
He was explaining the painting to her, talking about the ever-present topic of time and eternity. His other hand gestured in passion, his face dimpled in a small fascinated smile, the parade of Mardi Gras in the streets of New Orleans flowing alongside them like a colorful yet soundless river, as the only sound resonating through her senses was his soft voice, his steady heartbeat, and the tiny frictions between his finger and her jacket.
Caroline stared at him together with her teenage alter-ego, comparing notes as they filed all his features into their combined memory. He was still beyond handsome-the gift of youth never abandoned him through the years. He was the immortal of the immortals after all.
But she could still detect the traces of aging, the less clean-cut line of his jaw and the more troubled curves of his eyes. The thousand years he'd trudged through had taken their toll. Vampires or hybrids, they healed from wounds, cracks of bones, severed limbs-but never time.
Oh yes, time. She knew enough about that without the help of a painting, however exquisite it may be. No painting could compare to them-the masterpieces, the evil spawns of time itself.
She heard him talking about how time grew, like a living thing of its own mind, and she thought how accurate that was. Only that for humans like the painter so obliviously sitting before them, it grew beside him silently as an onlooker, not unlike a mere oak in his backyard, shedding its leaves once he had run his destined course.
But it grew into her, thousands of stealthy roots slithering into her veins, its invisible branch protruding from her rib cage one inch a day.
Caroline wondered if that was the case for him. If there was anything left to be saved of him after a millennium of ruthless consumption.
She couldn't bear the thought. So she grabbed his hand and suggested a drink. Yet the notion of a stiff bourbon brought a fiery sensation down her throat and that sensation tasted like him. All of a sudden every cell in her body was screaming in hunger, like she was deprived of blood for five straight days and that hunger must have shown in her eyes.
Because Klaus' hesitant grip on her hand instantly tightened, his eyes widening as if he was just reminded of her presence, her realness in this dreamlike reality. And those eyes turned ravenous in that second, taking her in without missing a curve, a blink, a twitch. He took her in like she was the sun-like she could kill him but instead sustained him, like he had longed for her every second of his long, dark life.
And then he licked his lips.
The next thing she knew they were in her hotel room right in the center of the French Quarter, with a view of the boisterous Bourbon Street down below. As she shoved Klaus against the window she took a second to reflect the irony of it all-they were supposed to see New Orleans, side by side. But now New Orleans could see them to her heart's content-Caroline didn't have the time to care.
Their lips crashed together with all the momentum they'd saved from the waiting. Half a minute if you counted from when Klaus licked his lips in the street, one and a half day from when the bell interrupted them in the town square of Mystic Falls, 15 years from when they last measured each other's lips with their own, the perfectly-fit shape, the scorching warmth, the intoxicating scent.
The time they'd lost through the years burst inside their mouths, and instantly mended together by the intertwining of their frantic tongues. Moans floated up from Caroline's throat like a whimper, but Klaus caught it with his teeth and savored it in between his gentle nibbles.
His hand tangled into her golden tresses as the other pressed down on her back to bring her even closer, the force so strong they heard a faint crack from the window under him. Caroline opened her eyes and looked down for a moment, the kaleidoscope of colors and lights downstairs nothing compared to the explosion she was seeing in her dazed mind.
Caroline closed her eyes again and dove into another heated kiss, feeling his hands trying to peel off her jacket, but they kept getting distracted caressing her, squeezing her, molding her. She softly laughed into his lips while struggling out of the jacket herself, the sound resonating in their joined mouths creating an addictive buzzing on the tender flesh.
Eager to release the sparks of flames running all over her, Caroline reached down to open the button of his jeans, but suddenly Klaus broke away slightly, the cold absence of his lips only barely comforted by his hand hot on hers.
"Not like this." His voice sounded strained as he gently pushed her hand away. Straightening up, he wound an arm around Caroline's waist, leading her to the side of the king-sized bed in a flash. His eyes landed on the hem of her shirt, as did his hands.
"I want nothing between us."
His fingers trembled for a brief moment, as if he didn't mean to voice that out loud, or that he didn't expect the unbearable weight of those words.
Caroline bit down hard on her lips to fight off the poignant wrenching in her heart. She looked almost helplessly at the bow of his head, at the slump of his shoulders, at the sharp stake of time pinning him down in that torturous position with a wry smile.
She wondered if he bore it like she did. The consuming guilt of ever wishing it had gone a different way-no kids, no impossible choice, no inevitable heartache. The hollow imaginations of what could have been. The slow yet painful realization that it was all set in stone, that they'd be scared but pretending not to be for the rest of their children's mortal lives.
And for a moment she wondered if it had already broken him beyond repair.
But in a breath's time she began to shed his clothes, gently but firmly. Piece by piece she took away his burden if just for a fleeting window before doom caught up with their desperation. She opened the buttons and zips and laces until for the first time in god knows how long he was standing in front of her as himself, as Klaus, and nothing else.
And then she rid her own body of the connotations the rest of the world had put on her. That she herself had let them associate with her. But not today, not this moment of respite in the glittering fervent of New Orleans.
When she took off her necklace and dropped it on the nightstand, Klaus' arms, strong and burning, snaked around her waist. He sealed a kiss in the crook of her neck before pushing her gently down on the bed, his body instantly following the move, coating her in the warmth of a wolf and the hardness of a man.
Caroline felt his fingers tracing down her spine, and a shiver ran just beneath them, like a fish jumping to the light through dark waters.
"As much I love you as a vampire, sweetheart," she could almost hear both of their hearts skipping a beat at the slipped word, but neither made a sound as he continued, his breath blowing over her back like a cloud brewing storm, "a selfish part of me wish your skin would scar and crease," he licked at the hollow below her left shoulder blade and Caroline groaned, "so that I could read from it every year that we spent apart."
"What did you see? How did you feel?" He traced down her back with his tongue, emphasizing the torturous touch with his husky voice, "what angered you to make your muscles clench? What pained you to shake your bones with sorrow?"
Caroline arched her back under the sinful tease, voice strangling out of her throat, "you have such dark thoughts." She felt his chuckle in the small of her back, followed by a sweet suck of his lips, milking a gasp out of her before her next words, "what about happiness? Joy at seeing the first castle in my life? At sneaking into the secret sections of the Louvre that were banned from tourists? Of hearing a whale sing?"
Klaus didn't answer. Instead he flipped Caroline over and in the blink of an eye his lips rained down on Caroline with mind-numbing craze. He kissed the mist of sweat beginning to form on her neck, the flush coloring the roundness of her breasts, the ragged breaths heaving in her throat and the raging heartbeats inside her chest.
He kissed her with the pious reverence of a disciple and the vicious greed of a burglar. He kissed Caroline like she was life itself.
And Caroline let herself get lost in those kisses, in the fire that they set all over her, her mind latching onto nothing but the violent beats of his own heart, pump pump pumping like a machine-gun. Like a hummingbird.
Suddenly she couldn't take it for one more second. She grabbed Klaus by the shoulder and pushed him until he landed on his back with her on top. She returned every kiss he'd given her, and linked them together with the blowing of her hot breath and the licking of her soft tongue. Klaus' moan vibrated in her ears and under her fingers, the sensations going through both of them in a never-ending circle.
She made her way slowly down his body until her mouth was just above his hardened cock. She held it in both of her hands and drew close to make it feel her smirk.
Stroking the pulsating hardness, she looked up to find Klaus' eyes fused on her, "tell me about a place." She circled her tongue around his tip, "anywhere in the world. I haven't seen much yet."
The wistfulness in her voice was soon covered by lust, but Klaus must have heard it all the same as he threaded his fingers into her curls, "close your eyes, love. I'll take you."
So she closed her eyes as she took him into her mouth, the stiff flesh filling her as his hypnotizing voice filled her ears.
"I bet you haven't been to Warsaw yet-it's not on the top of many people's touring list." His breath was a little uneven from the moves of her lips and tongue, "but I happened to have taken a short detour there a few years back." He took in a sharp breath as she released him with a pop, running her tongue along his length, "the sky was dripping blue. Like your eyes. And it felt so low to the touch, as if grown from the earth."
His voice became more strained with a hint of desperation as she took him in again and began to massage his tip with her waiting throat, "there was barely a man in sight in the castle square that day. Everything was so bright and clear. The white marble benches sang the soft melodies of Chopin. You'd never know how much blood was covered underneath it all. Years and years of blood, war fire and suffering."
Startled by the sudden harshness of his voice, Caroline drew back a little, only to be dragged up his body until they were face to face. "No-" he stared at her with myriads of emotions running through his eyes like tides, "I want to see you."
Caroline smiled at him, kissing him sensually on the lips while their eyes locked, "then see me." She took his hand and guided it down her torso, her eyes fluttering half shut at the arousal she felt under the touch, "feel me." Her breath hitched as his hand-their hands-reached the edge of her core. She dipped his index finger into her wetness, moaning as it brushed against her tender folds.
Pulling the finger out, she guided it back up until their hands hovered over his slightly-parted lips, "taste me." She felt tremors run through her own fingers like electric shock just from this close to him, to his tongue involuntarily darting out.
The next second Klaus sucked both their fingers into his eager mouth, growling as the sweet scent of her hit his tongue. Caroline watched mesmerized as he licked them clean of her juice, his raspberry lips glistening like the deadliest temptation.
Unable to hold in any longer, Caroline drew her fingers out and crushed her lips to his. She tasted herself on his tongue, the sensation making her head swirl with inexplicable lust and want. She dove in further with vehemence and tasted Warsaw. The sky, the sun, the Chopin, and the blood that would never wash away.
She felt Klaus pinning her back down on the bed, his hands roaming over her body, pinching and twirling her nipples to draw small gasps from her, which only gave him more room to devour her whole. Then she felt his thumb rubbing her already swollen clit, and she arched up, a scream shooting through her as stars burned under her eyelids.
Finally breaking their lip lock, she looked up at him with equal part desire and plead. Sucking in a breath, Klaus placed his cock at her awaiting entrance and slid in, inch by agonizing inch until he was buried to the hilt, and he stayed there, perfectly still, his eyes staring into hers with such intensity like they'd catch fire, but the look on his face so soft it was close to pain-as if it pained him to feel what he was feeling.
The expression brought unexpected tears to Caroline's eyes. It reminded her too much of their time in those deserted woods of Mystic Falls, and for a moment the Klaus in the present and the Klaus from her memories overlapped in the mysterious folds of time like no time had passed, but in the next moment time resumed its flow and she felt freezing cold as the ruthless stream ran through her.
She didn't know if Klaus had ever felt like this. How many times had he felt like this, until his heart hardened to steel, and giving out a tiny bit of softness required literally burning the metal over and over to yield a single drop of liquid bleeding out?
"Shhh," she heard him whispering at the corner of her eye, kissing the wetness that had so weakly leaked, "am I hurting you, sweetheart?"
Caroline's heart felt squeezed, unable to utter a sound. She arched up to catch his lips, her hips bucking slowly, signaling him to move.
Klaus kissed her back with heat, his cock retreating a little before thrusting into her hard. Caroline groaned loud, her head throwing back, and Klaus nibbled at her exposed artery with his human teeth, sending another rush of dizziness to her brain.
Gradually Klaus picked up his pace, pounding into Caroline with one hand holding her waist in place and the other playing with her breasts. The room span in her eyes, overwhelming sensations traveled her body in lightning speed and the faint jazz music from outside the window mixed with the erratic sounds of his pants, stoking the fire inside her higher and wilder.
Suddenly she screamed out in abandon as he hit her sensitive spot, her inner thighs trembling from the stimulation. But as he continued hitting on that spot and waves and waves of unbearable pleasure drowned her, Caroline was assaulted by a different kind of overwhelming need. Without registering it she was pulling him towards her neck, almost crying out at the anticipation as his lips touched her pulse point.
"Bite me." She felt Klaus freeze mid-motion before she even heard her own lust-filled words.
"No." Klaus frowned, something between annoyance and panic in his eyes, "I'm not going to endanger you, Caroline."
"It's not endangering if I've got the cure right here." Caroline curbed the urge to roll her eyes, trying for a winning smile instead.
Klaus sighed, "the answer's still no." Ominous shadows flashed through his face and it took Caroline a few seconds until it dawned on her.
It was fear. Penetrating, paralyzing, poisonous fear.
She cupped his face tenderly, turning his reluctant eyes toward her, "Klaus, listen to me. I want you to sink your fangs into my neck as hard as you can, when your beautiful cock is pushing into me." She licked her lips, catching him mirroring her move, "then I'm going to drink your blood. And I'll feel it chase the death away." One more time.
After a long silence, Klaus wordlessly thrust into her with no warning, a sheen of gold covering his savage eyes. He bared his fangs and bit down with force, puncturing his lethal venom into her pulsing artery.
Caroline cried out at the mixed pain and pleasure, her eyes rolling back as she instinctively buried her own fangs into Klaus' exposed neck. She pictured how Klaus would feel the jarring metallic taste of death when he bit into her, and how he'd feel the sweet relief of revival when she bit back.
His thrusts became more and more frantic as their blood ran in each other's veins, their life force joined at the tips of their sharp monster fangs. Spasms stormed through Caroline's clenching walls as Klaus brought a hand down to her clit, and a few rubs later orgasm erupted in her like searing lava. She clutched at him, still trembling violently from her high as she felt him still, a long groan rolling through his bloodied lips.
Minutes or maybe years passed as they reveled in the afterglow, but as the endorphin running in their mind and blood ebbed an empty sadness crept up to their intertwined bodies, reminding them of the things mightier than the almighty and mortalized the immortal.
Klaus' fangs retreated from her neck, his strangled voice almost drowned by the vigorous sound of flesh stirring and knitting back, seeming more like a resigned statement than a desperate plea. Yet Caroline could hear the suppressed tears in his throat, the nervous fluttering of his eyelashes and his baited breath, like a man hanging on a precipice-like a girl all those years ago feeling the weight of eternity on her frail shoulders, but still reaching out.
"I don't want to die."
-Then she won't let him.
Caroline enclosed Klaus in her arms, breathing him in silence, letting the familiar smell fill her senses like she never did before. She wondered if she was taking it in as something to remember him by, something to jog her memory in the endless future like the postcard and dresses sitting in her house back in Mystic Falls, or the blood that was currently pumping out of her dead heart.
But then the sounds of cheers and laughter and music reached her from outside of their bubble of a hotel room, and she realized she needed none of those. He'd given her the promise of a world full of genuine beauty since her time as an immortal being barely started.
The whole wide world was his token.
And she'd give it back to him, one way or another.