His fingers trail along her spine, relishing in the shiver she volunteers under his touch. His mouth captures hers, searing, demanding, bruising. She molds into him, her eyes fluttering, her breaths sharp. His thumb is demanding over her damp core, two slender fingers working her into an oblivion that she enjoys too much. With a violent scream, she collapses in his arms, quaking with ecstasy, murmuring his name.
He crashes his lips to hers again despite her barely-there response, his tongue teasing hers, his teeth nibbling on her lips. So heavenly they taste. A sweet torture of their own, a shade of agony that he's become addicted to. He pins her beneath him, her bare skin flush against his own. Her gasp is sharp when into her he is embedded.
"Klaus" she volunteers a sigh, her tender flesh tormented by his rough movements.
Oh, but he will not allow her to rest. If all she allows are fleeting moments how can he be expected not to take advantage of every languid second, how can he not savor the taste of her mouth, the touch of her skin.
Her whine is loud when his mouth eagerly takes the pebbled pink bud into his soothing mouth. The velvety touch does nothing but increase her ache. The sweet taste of her flesh does nothing but intensify his need. He draws circles, enjoys what she is offering, groaning against her. She sighs, gasps, whimpers, moans, enjoying his onslaught. She may hold the reigns of their relationship, but no one controls their dance between the sheets except for him. She surrenders, gives him the illusion of control. He lets her, graciously playing along with her act. Until they both crash, their high mutual, ecstatic, bittersweet. It drags on for far too long, but arrives too soon. They indulge in it all the same. Their breaths mixing, their skins slapping against each other, their limbs shaking, and nothing is left but the gasps of each other's name toppling from their lips.
"Is it time yet, love?" he asks, running a hand over her naked body. She allows him a full view of her curves, staring up at him as he probes himself on his elbow, his eyes follow the trail of his fingers. They glide from her thigh, to her hip, to her stomach, to linger on her tempting breast.
"No" she shakes her head "not yet"
His hand slides to her face, his grip too tight on her jaw "When will it be the time, Caroline?" he asks, his eyes finally meeting hers.
"Soon, very soon" she assures him with a sad smile.
Like every time, he pretends to believe her. Nodding, he brings their mouths to the dance they have perfected a long time ago. The lie she dares to utter every time the only thing that keeps them glued. He pretends that it's the truth. He acts like it will become a reality instead of a fragment of a life that will never be. And he kisses her, with all his sincere passion he kisses her.
Because her lips, the way they move against his, is all the truth he needs.
Her lies drag on. From mere days to weeks to months and then to an entire year. They carry on in hiding, fleeting moments and temporary bliss is all they have. And the key to their freedom lays within her beautiful mouth. She has to do nothing but utter a single word. A word that holds the key to his relief, a word that unlocks the door to his happiness. But she looms over this word, offering little comfort with her nimble hands as they caress his bare skin. She holds it back, compensating for her cruelty with the way she moans his name. She silences his attempts to extract this word with heaving breasts, glistening folds and a wanton mouth.
"Is it time yet?" his voice is muffled against her neck as he asks, fingers dancing along the smooth skin, offering teasing comfort to her aching need.
"No" is what she sighs.
He pauses, his eyes meeting hers, his hands hovering over her skin "When will it be the time, Caroline?"
"I don't know" she murmurs, bringing him down for a kiss, stopping his objections with the arching of her back.
This night, he is merciless. With the change of answer comes the heart-sinking realization of the impending end to this affair. He ravishes her over and over again. His mouth dives between her folds, his hands stretch her wall and into oblivion she flies, over and over again. By the time he is done with her, when he at last collapses over her, her eyes are all but drooping.
He holds her through the night, watching her sleep in his arms for the first and last time.
The time comes too soon.
When her eager hands start undressing him, he stops her. Her quizzical glance laced with a tinge of hurt almost makes him break.
"Did you think I wouldn't know, Caroline?" he calmly asks her, his hands roughly wrapping around her wrists and bringing her hands back down to her sides.
"Know what?" Caroline frowns.
"Do not fake innocence" he spits through gritted teeth.
He steps away from her, picking up a discarded news paper from the coffee table. Her picture along with her now-fiancé looks back at her as he waves it in her face.
"Businessman Tyler Lockwood engaged to Fashion Designer Caroline Forbes" he repeats the headline sarcastically "Did you honestly think I wouldn't know?"
"Of course I knew you would" she sighs "But I thought it wouldn't matter"
He laughs. Coldly, pathetically, icily, he laughs. She freezes, the frown on her forehead deepening.
"You thought that I wouldn't care that the woman I'm sleeping with, that the woman I'm in love with is now engaged to another man?"
"No, I didn't." she defiantly says, crossing her arms over her chest "because it's always been this way, Nik. What's changed?"
"What's changed?" he repeats, mocking her reason. Closer, he steps. Fire burns in his eyes as he grasps her shoulders, shaking her ever so slightly. His jaw clenches with his words "What's changed is your promise, Caroline. It is nothing but lies! Night after night you promised that you would leave him, that you would come to me. How else would I react when you not only shoot down my question time after time, but also go and get engaged to him"
"Don't you dare pretend to be a victim in this!" she cries, shrugging his hands off of her "You knew all along that we have here is nothing but an affair. You knew all along that I will never act on my empty promise!"
"Yes, you're right, Caroline, I knew. But I participated in your charade. Do you know why, Caroline?" his composed tone frightens her more than the spat words, more than the clenched jaw and gritted teeth "Because I loved you. Because I love you. And for a foolish year I've thought that you will not use me. I thought that you will not use my affections to your goals and advantages"
"I didn't" she softly lies "I love you, too, Nik, but what we have" she gestures between them "is unlike anything I've ever experienced. You frighten me, Nik, you consume me. You're unpredictable, you're passionate, you can swallow me whole. And I will enjoy it. And I will lose myself enjoying it"
"So Tyler is the safe bet?" Klaus asks, his eyebrows shooting up.
"I just need more time" she says simply, closing the distance between them once more.
"No. You will say anything to continue this theatrical act, now" Klaus shakes his head, stepping back "You will not fool me again"
"Nik, nothing will be different" she tries to say steadily, but a tremble seeps into her tone.
"Yes, we'll be dancing the same secret dance, then you'll go on your merry way to his arms, in his house in his bed" he dismisses "Except that I cannot do this anymore."
"Nik, I..." she begins.
"Do you know how much it kills me?" he cuts her off "Knowing that he gets to touch you like I do? that he gets to kiss like I do? That he gets to sleep with you in his arms, that he can hold your hand as you walk with him down the street, that he can wrap his arms around you wherever you are while I can't? Do you not know how much it kills me, how much you kill me every time you step out of this door without so much as a glance back at my pathetic being?" the words get chocked in his throat, his eyes burning with tears.
"I can't do this, Nik, not now! My whole life is there, in his world. I just need a little more time and I'll be ready for you" she pleads.
"You'll always need time." he coldly says "But I won't give it. Not anymore. Your life will be cold, Caroline. And once you leave here you'll start looking for a replacement." he steps closer to her, cupping her cheek with a tender touch, locking his eyes with her, and, like every time, her gaze cannot be torn from his "You'll look for someone who loves as much as I do. You'll look for a body as warm and willing as mine. You'll long for a touch as scorching as mine. You'll yearn for a kiss as passionate as mine. And you'll not find it. So every time one of your flings touches you, you'll imagine my hands on your skin. Every time your soon-to-be-husband kisses you, the phantom taste of my lips will linger on yours. Every time a lover whispers sweet nothing to you, you'll hear my voice in your ear, Caroline"
"How can you be so cruel?" Caroline whispers, a tear escaping her eyes.
"I am not, my love. It is you who is cruel" Klaus whispers back "I've spent hours after seeing the announcement wondering, what I could have done differently, what I could have changed so I wouldn't lose you. But then I realized, Caroline, I never lost you, because I've never had you to begin with. But you... you owned every fiber of my being, I was yours body and soul. And now... Now you've lost me... so leave, leave and never come back... my love"
He steps away from her, watching as her body quaked with suppressed sobs.
"Please don't give up on me, Nik" she whispers desperately, panicked eyes gushing hot tears down her smooth cheeks. He does not catch the falling tear with his thumb like he usually does. He does not step closer and crush her to him in a powerful embrace that always raged a storm through her being. Instead he chuckles cynically, his own eyes glittering with unshed tears of hurt and pain and betrayal.
"I didn't give up on you beautiful, sweet, tormenting Caroline" he chokes out, locking her eyes with his. And his voice breaks when he at last adds "It is you who gave up on me"