Klaus hadn't slept with a lot of women. Well, he'd slept with a lot of women but he'd never slept with them. He loved sleeping with Caroline. He loved sleeping with Caroline and sleeping with Caroline. Sleeping with Caroline put a thousand years of his life in the shadows. Countless women, countless extremely talented, imaginative, limber women. He wouldn't have been able to pick any of them out of a line up from the moment he had touched Caroline.
Klaus loved sleeping with Caroline because he loved waking up with Caroline. He loved waking up with his limbs entangled with hers. He loved waking up and being able to reach across and smooth the little furrow she got between her eyebrows with his fingertip. He loved waking up to see her beautiful blue eyes on him and the cute little grin she'd quirk when his eyes met hers.
"You look different when you're asleep." she whispered.
Klaus shifted, doubling up his pillow and resting his head in the crook of his elbow. "How so?" he whispered back.
They always whispered in the morning. In too short a time the rest of the world would encroach on their little bubble but for now, for now, it was just them.
"You look deceptively peaceful."
"I am peaceful."
"You're just overlooked a whole quarter of my sentence."
"I'm with you. I am peaceful."
Caroline smiled. "You think you're so charming."
He wiggled his eyebrows. "I am so charming. And you know it."
Caroline giggled and rolled onto her back. "You're full of it!"
Klaus chuckled and pounced, seizing her wrists and playfully pinning her against the soft sheets. "You love me." he murmured nuzzling against her neck.
Caroline twisted her hands free and cupped his face between her palms. "I do." she said suddenly serious and then just as suddenly her face became laughing again "Even though you're a cocky bastard."
Klaus kissed her deeply. "Because." he muttered sliding a hand around her thigh and settling more snugly into the cradle of her hips.
"What?" she sighed, running her fingers through his curls.
"Because. You love me because I am," he kissed the elegant curve of her neck, "a cocky," he kissed behind her ear, "bastard." he caught her lips again.
Caroline huffed out a breath. "Amongst other things." she whispered.
Let the world wait a little while longer.
000
Caroline drifted awake. The Mediterranean sun streamed through the window warming her skin. She glanced over the where Klaus was sitting, sketchpad propped up on his knee, charcoal smudged over his fingers as they flew across the page. She stayed where she was only quirking an eyebrow.
""You have me naked in your bed and you want to draw?" she asked sardonically.
Klaus glanced up, flashing her that half grin that always sent butterflies through her stomach, great big Amazonian butterflies the size of dinner plates. "Keep still, love." he said returning to his sketch. Caroline huffed but did as she was asked. It was no great chore to lounge in a cloud of a bed with thousand count sheets listening to Rome wake up outside the window.
Eventually however, she got bored and stretched. Klaus raised a brow as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and sauntered, naked, over to him. She turned her head to see the drawing.
The woman on the page lay languidly across the mattress, the sheets draped across her torso leaving a hint of the curve of her breast and long expanses of leg. Everything about her, from her sooty lashes brushing her cheeks, to her arm curved up over her head gave her the look of a woman well loved. Beautiful, sensual, powerful."Is that how you really see me?" Caroline asked softly.
Klaus set the pad aside. "How I see you, love," he said, "could never be accurately committed to paper." he circled his arms around her waist tugging her to stand between his bent knees. "But I can't stop trying. Hoping one day I'll perfect the line of your collarbones," he fluttered kisses along them, "or the curve of your delectable ear." his tongue traced the outline.
Caroline leant against him, running her palms along the hard planes of his chest. How was it, she thought, that this man could make her feel so loved? That he could pull old the old Caroline, the one she kept hidden inside her, the one full of insecurities and cracks, and set her aside without a thought.
Klaus' hands ran up her back to tangle in her curls, relishing their warmth and softness against his fingertips. Caroline pulled back laughing lightly at the graphite smudges painting her hips. Klaus followed her gaze and reached down to trace them enjoying the tangible evidence of his touch on her skin. "Do you think you could finish your sketch a little later?" Caroline asked tilting her head.
He grinned. "I could be persuaded, I suppose." he teased as she tugged on his hand and led him back towards the bed.
They toppled gracelessly into the sheets hands moving restlessly, his touch leaving slight grey smirches on her perfect skin. As Caroline tipped her head back, baring her throat and sighing out him name Klaus smiled. "So beautiful." he whispered descending on her vulnerable neck, "So beautiful."
000
After over a hundred years together Klaus still found his breath taken away by Caroline. She stole it, so prettily, with her smiles and her lightly mocking brows and her open eyed wonder. After over a thousand years of predictability there was her.
Of course there were some things that Klaus could predict. He had woken quite the wanderer within Caroline and she would be itching to move on to a new place, a new city every couple of years. They would have at least one knock down drag out fight a week. And these fights would be followed by truly fantastic make up sex. And no matter what had or hadn't happened the day before they would sleep side by side.
He'd spent a thousand years running. A thousand years with no real home. And now he had one. He had Caroline.
He peered down at where she lay beside him. Her golden hair was spread out across the pillow and his chest like sunbeams. Very carefully Klaus lifted his arm off her waist and shifted away from where he's been curled up into her side. Caroline gave a small, adorably sleepy, snuffly noise but stayed asleep. Klaus smirked and shuffled down the bed slightly taking the cool sheets with him leaving Caroline spread out before him mouthwateringly nude.
He scattered barely there kisses across her stomach and the tops of her thighs, his hands parting her legs. Caroline sighed softly and spread them wider in her dreams. He grinned and knelt between them breathing in deeply, savouring the scent of her skin and her breath and the deeper sweeter scent that sends him crazy every time.
Caroline woke up to find Klaus' head between her legs his talented tongue sending frissons of pleasure through her pleasantly tired body.
Klaus heard the change in her breathing and glanced up to lock eyes with her. Caroline held his gaze for a moment then tossed her head back, one hand tangling through his mussed curls the other clutching at the sheets as he pulled a low moan out of her.
She tugged harder on his hair pulling him away from her core. Caroline locked her ankles around his waist and Klaus groans himself at the heat now enveloping him. "Good morning." he whispered, as close as he can get to her.
Caroline chuckled softly, "Mmm," she tilted her hips slightly, "Good morning."
And then they move. Slowly, languidly. They have all the time in the world. Klaus reached down to shift her leg from his waist to over his shoulder and Caroline gasped at the new angle lasting only a few moments before she falls over the edge pulling him with her.
Once they have their breath back Klaus rolled over and Caroline shifts so her head is resting in the crook of his shoulder both of them on their backs staring up at the ceiling. Klaus merged his fingers with hers and brings her hand up to press a surprisingly sweet kiss to her palm. "What do you want to do today then, love?" he asked. "The Louvre? The Seine?" they've been to Paris before, a few times over the years and Caroline has her favourite spots.
Caroline however just snuggled closer to him and smiles, "Let's stay here." she murmurs. "All day."
Klaus doesn't complain. Especially not when he wakes up the next morning to find Caroline grinning up at him like a Cheshire cat as she kneels between his legs. "Good morning." she whispers. Klaus would later deny the sound that came from his throat but Caroline would insist, rather proudly, that if it wasn't him a small wolf cub was being strangled next door.