A/N 1: Happy spring forward everyone! I feel kind of weird publishing this chapter on a Sunday, but ah well. Hopefully God won't mind.

I have to be honest, I rewrote this chapter three times. And while I'm fairly satisfied with it, I don't know what the crowd reaction will be. Remember the rating has now jumped to an M.

Thank you so very much all the wonderful support! It's amazing and I can't believe it. You guys are the best.

This chapter gets less fluffy and more intimate. Just a fair warning. The fun sex may (wink, wink) come later, but now they need the heavyset, emotional sex. And if people haven't realised this already, these guys are pretty OOC. Sorry if that offends anyone. This is for fun, nothing else.

All mistakes are mine and I really, really hope you guys like it. Go easy on me if you don't.

Enjoy!

"Hey, a casual affair that could go anywhere

and only for tonight.

Take any moment any time,

a lover on the left, a sinner on the right."

Casual Affair | Panic! at the Disco

(Libertine n. A person who behaves without moral principles or a sense of responsibility - esp. in sexual matters.)

Chapter 3: Tonight I'll Be the Libertine

He tasted like bourbon and leather-bound books with cracks in their spines. Like trust and faithfulness. She was swimming in an ocean of him, but instead of thrashing around, gasping for air, she was allowing herself to get dragged beneath the waves of his curly hair.

She was drowning and it was okay.

Klaus hadn't paused when they'd reached the apartment complex. He already had some key in his grip and he jammed it in the lock, twisting until it gave. He pushed through, guiding Caroline behind him, looking back every few seconds as if he were scared she'd floated away in the time he'd not been staring.

She was having trouble remembering herself, remembering what she was doing. It was like an outer body experience. Maybe she'd been inebriated before, but she definitely wasn't now. Now she was high on some drug. A drug transfused through her skin wherever Klaus touched, kissed, breathed. She was less herself than she was him.

She didn't want to leave in the morning.

Pale darkness wrapped itself around them like a loose jacket that was too old and had too many holes in it. Warmth from him warped her body, infiltrating her insides, forcing her onwards, upwards, into his bedroom, into his soul. Instead of tumbling back like she normally would have, instead of recoiling, she found the final nudge, the final push, and fell forward into Klaus. Her arms wound around his neck, yanking him to her, and his hands, his gorgeous hands, locked on to her hips.

The gesture was oddly intimate, and Caroline swore the moment his fingers pressed down on the fabric covering her waist, when she could feel the beating of his heart pulse against her skin, that she knew everything about him. All his secrets, his desires, his hatred, his love; all there for her to witness and swallow up as her own. It frightened her, the intensity of this situation.

Too many boys, boys who swore they knew the world and its secrets, used her and stole her and never gave her back. She was always the throwaway, the rebound, the easy. Parts of her felt for the foolish men she allowed in her bed because she held on to the belief that sex meant connection no matter the emotional distance between partners.

Other parts hated them; hated the way they abandoned her in the morning time after time and left her with nothing but a used condom and broken dreams.

She was tired of feeling like the other woman, the one they all ran to when they needed a release. She wanted the intensity, the heavy feeling. She needed it. And she needed it here, now, with Klaus. And the way his eyes changed colour ever so quickly from light to plummeting darkness made her think that maybe that deeper connection, the one she'd desired for so long, was closer than she originally thought.

Caroline pulled away for a moment. Looking up at him, she saw a feral-like admiration in his eyes. It sunk his features greatly and with a flame licking the lining of her belly, creeping down to her core, she gently traced the lines of his face, letting her fingertips drag out the loneliness.

"One night, Caroline. It's one night." He begged her between kisses.

It was begging, she could hear it in the trill of his voice.

What have I gotten myself into? She asked herself, refusing to tear her eyes away from his.

Pro: Caroline, you want this. Stop freaking out.

Con: She's just protecting herself like a good girl. You don't need him.

Pro: Be like Bonnie, remember? Not Elena.

Con: She only knows how to be Elena's shadow. She doesn't know how to be Bonnie. Or herself.

Pro: She's learning. You're learning, Caroline. Do this for yourself.

Con: It'll hurt like a bitch when you're the one leaving in the morning, Care.

Pro: It's a small world. Maybe they'll see each other again.

Con: Not small enough.

"You're so sure it'll take only one night to get over me?" She asked, raising an eyebrow in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Klaus' smile widened to Cheshire grin, his teeth sparkling with happiness and childlike humour. She almost couldn't see the lust. "It'll take forever to get over you, I'm sure. You'll devour me, Caroline."

Okay, she could see the lust now. It was in his eyes and, if she were being truthful, his lips; they were slick with saliva and smudges of her red lipstick. They called to her, roped her in. She jutted her chin, forcing their mouths closer.

"Devour you?" She sighed sweetly, daring to trail her fingers up his side. His skin rippled under his shirt.

Klaus visibly swallowed, his Adam's apple jumping. Caroline wanted to catch it mid-bob between her teeth.

"Maybe devour isn't the right word." Klaus spoke, but Caroline barely paid attention, too enthralled by the bouncing going on in the Brit's neck. "Destroy, perhaps."

"Pretty sure those are synonymous with each other," she mumbled while still staring at his pulse running against his throat.

"Ruin?"

"Also a synonym of devour."

"Which one of us has an English degree?" Klaus asked through a smile.

"I'm a journalist. It's my job to know words," she returned, carefully studying the look in his eye. The look that said 'I know you and I want you and I don't want to let go.'

"Well, if not devour or destroy or ruin, what might you plan on doing to me?"

Caroline pretended to think, moving back slightly, separating them, and bowing her body. Her thumb traced her lips sensually and she wondered in the back of her mind if she was doing the whole teasing thing right. Bonnie had told her once to always keep a guys attention on you; your lips, your boobs, anywhere, just as long as their eyes drooled over some sexy part of your body. She couldn't fight the pleased smile that threatened to snap her cheeks when she saw Klaus glaring at her swollen lips.

"Stuff," she said with all the nonchalant she could muster.

Klaus hummed delightedly. "I like the sound of that."

"Yeah?" Caroline asked, staring at the space between his eyebrows.

"Caroline." She swooned when he said her name, the way it tumbled off his tongue turning her into jelly. He forced her to look him in the eye, to witness the blazing gaze. "Come here."

Caroline didn't obey at first, when all that connected them was a stare. But then his nails scraped her wrist and goosebumps popped up everywhere and she had no choice, absolutely no choice, but to collapse.

Klaus' fingers burned a crushing trail as they slunk down her cloth-covered abdomen and met the hemline of her dress. She automatically lifted her arms, feeling puffs of his breath as he pulled the garment up and threw it away, far away where it could no longer come between them.

Watching Klaus watch her almost naked body oddly turned her on and she chewed her lip as his wide eyes, flickering with the darkest flames, trailed invisible lines up and down her bare flesh.

Her bones started aching for him, for his touch and his mouth.

Con: Caroline, you don't know this guy. He could be a murderer.

Pro: He's harmless. Well, for all intents and purposes.

Con: He'll break you.

Pro: Not if you break him first.

Caroline grabbed at Klaus' scruffy face, her thumbs circling the hidden dimples in his cheeks, and kissed him. Just like that. She shaped her chapped lips over Klaus' wetly, searingly. She consumed him, her body alive and buzzing when he explored the expanse of skin.

The world went hazy and Klaus walked her backward until her calves hit something hard. Vertigo overcame her, her body dipping down and coming into contact with a soft material. Bed, she thought lazily, hungrily, as Klaus removed his lips from hers and left openmouthed kisses on her throat.

Caroline gasped when Klaus climbed over her, his hands blindly reaching behind her and swiftly unclasping her strapless bra. Deft fingers met her soft breasts, breasts that had not been touched by another human being in over a year, and she swallowed a moan as a hot mouth met the sensitive flesh in the wake of fingers and thumbs and nails.

Klaus spent time moving between her chest, kissing every square inch he could find, marking his territory with tender bites to her sensitive nipples (what was that about not biting, Klaus?). Caroline wound her fingers in his hair, pressing his face further into her torso, arching her back when he'd hit a particularly 'right there' spot.

She trembled in anticipation as his mouth moved up and up to capture her lips and his hand went down, down to the small garb coating her heated lower half. Everything was on fire, her body burning like his eyes as he asked permission without using words, asked her if he could do this. Her head moved of its own accord, her eyelids drooping as his cold/hot fingers slid the silk down.

Now she was naked, fully and completely open, and she hadn't even gotten his shirt off.

He could read her mind, she was sure of it, for as soon as she thought about ripping his clothes off, he sat up fast and impatiently removed all that covered his body.

Caroline studied him the way she'd allowed him to study her, with the eyes of an artist who'd never before seen such beauty in such a human thing. He was beautiful and hers. If only for one night.

Grey smattered the toxic mood and to prevent feelings from getting too dismal, Caroline started outlining all the grooves and dips and bumps of Klaus' abdomen, giggling whenever she'd hear him groan or growl. Dropping her hand dangerously low, she twirled her thumb across the tip of his throbbing erection. His head bowed over her in a delighted sigh.

She removed her hand, quickly growing impatient, and coiled her arms around his neck, pressing their naked bodies together. They choked a gasp in unison as her wetness dripped on to him. She was ready for this, she had no doubt.

"Wait, wait," Klaus interrupted, blinking as if he hadn't opened his eyes in years. "Protection."

Caroline smiled up at him, at his worried expression, and lifted herself up to kiss his lips slowly. "On the pill and I finished ovulating last week. We're good." Besides, she didn't want the barrier between them. However stupid and flawed her logic was.

Con: It's so flawed.

Pro: Shut the fuck up.

"How do you know that?" He asked, genuinely curious. He had a naked girl underneath him and he was asking how she knew she's finished ovulating.

"I. . ." Caroline started, a blush finally (finally!) making its way to her cheeks, ". . .I just do."

He didn't say anything.

Instead, he kissed her urgently, the lights in the room blacking in comparison to how Klaus and Caroline glowed; like they were the sun and the moon.

It became desperate and frenzied when Klaus situated himself at Caroline's slick entrance, his eyes open and her eyes open, waiting and ready and scared. He nudged her legs apart, lifting a knee, and, with another nod from Caroline, pushed in carefully, like she'd break with him inside of her.

She almost grimaced, her body requiring time to adjust to the invasion. She sucked in a breath, a confused feeling of twisted pain that definitely felt all the wrong kinds of right spreading through her veins.

The moment he filled her entirely, when her heat enveloped him wholly, she felt a piece of herself break off into him. A shard of her soul was now his for the taking.

And he took it. He took it by inclining his head into the crevice between her jaw and shoulder, by whispering nonsense in her ear, by nipping at every piece of skin his teeth and lips could find.

Quickly, Caroline realised it wasn't sex—not really. Caroline had taken part in sex before and this, what she was doing with Klaus, was not sex. It was more. Much more than she could even fathom. It was like every nerve ending fizzled with him and the noises he made, sparking alive whenever he'd push deeper.

She clawed at his back as he picked up his pace.

"Oh, God," she moaned into his hair when he dipped a finger to her clit, rubbing in languid circles, teasing her. "Klaus."

He smiled into her neck.

Slippery sounds radiated between them.

Bonnie constantly told Caroline the best way to get over a man is to get under another. But Bonnie suffered all the time. She never wore a happy smile. A Gilbert stole her brightness.

Caroline didn't want that, she wanted this. Gasping fervour and butterfly-light kisses that felt more like an unbreakable seal than a meeting of lips.

Tingling fanned out on her skin as he went faster, his fingers lifting to dance on her cheeks, smoothing away the sweat that had beaded through her pores.

If she didn't know any better, she'd have already convinced herself that this was lovemaking—that silly thing that existed in romance novels and the occasional vampire book.

But she did know better, and calling it that would only lead to more pain, so she forgot all about what it was, what they were doing, and focused solely on the way Klaus moved above her, looking down at her like she was an angel among demons.

There was an almost tortured vulnerability in his movements, one Caroline wanted to capture and hold. He looked so torn—he knew she was leaving when the morning came, but here he was, baring his soul for her.

The sounds they made were almost embarrassing, but they were too high, too wet with want, to really care.

It felt too good to care.

She was doing it—she was devouring him. And ruining him. And destroying him. But he was doing all the same to her.

Pulling almost all the way out and plunging back in, Klaus hit something inside of her that made her cry out and dig her nails deeper into his smooth back. He was everywhere; in her, on her, with her. They were one, they were connected. It was zealous and rough and jagged, but sweetly overwhelming. Satisfying.

Caroline's body didn't know what to do with all the emotions pouring through her. It threatened to give up on her several times, especially when Klaus would growl and tear his teeth into her lips or her neck or her shoulder. She'd have bite marks for days.

True bite marks—his marks. Because that's what he was doing to her, he was marking her—making her his. Choice eluded her; she'd be required to leave this room, this space where everything was right in the world, and go home with him written all over her.

And she loved it. It made her feel raw and cared for and appreciated. Like she'd finally done something right.

It was new and scary, but it was still Caroline. She hadn't lost herself along the way or become some shiny new 2.0 version of herself. She was her, just in a different light. A harsh light that didn't look like it'd ever burn out.

And she had no doubt it had to do with the man pulsing over her.

The apex between her thighs, where Klaus disappeared and reappeared as he continued to kiss her lips with smiles and laughter, ached. The tension inside her grew and grew as he moved quicker and quicker, drawing out sighs and moans, until the world went a little softer around the edges and her body convulsed as her orgasm hit.

It was like a sucker punch to the gut.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and called out a string of obscenities, but Klaus kept moving in search for his own end, his hands slipping down her sides and gripping her waist in uncontrollable need.

Nails slipped under her skin, enthralling her and blowing her dead mind awake.

His lips found hers mindlessly and she sucked on his mouth, his breath, until something gave and she felt him shiver above her, his arms shaking where they held him up upright.

Klaus went rigid and flopped on top of her, but she barely felt any extra weight. His head hit her chest painfully, but he refused to separate them, his soul still stuck inside of her.

They smelled like bourbon and gin, like old books and new books, like sex-induced sweat and the start of something new.

Caroline wanted to bottle up the scent and spray herself with it daily, remind herself and those around her that she'd had mind-blowing sex-that-didn't-feel-like-just-sex with a stranger-who-didn't-feel-like-a-stranger.

When Klaus did pick himself off of her, his breaths still coming out in laboured pants, she immediately felt the loss.

A cold air washed over the room and the blaring light dimmed to ash.

Caroline watched through heavy-lidded eyes as Klaus picked up his forgotten shirt and tossed it to her, a happy smirk splitting his face.

"Put it on," he commanded lightly, ruffling his curls. They stuck up with sweat and Caroline stood, her legs incredibly wobbly, so she could press them down. His eyes closed as she scrubbed his scalp with careful threads.

"Why?" She asked, clutching his top.

"Because," he rasped, moving his naked body closer to hers, "if you don't, I'll want to eat you in your sleep."

Caroline narrowed her eyes. "Who says I'm staying the night?"

"It's the least you can do for the amount of scratches on my back." He turned around and Caroline saw a mass of zigzagged red lines already starting to heal.

"Does it hurt?" She winced, smoothing one of the cuts.

"Deliciously."

Caroline ran her hand across all the marks and eventually couldn't refuse the urge to kiss every mark on his incredibly sexy back. He tensed when her torn, swollen lips met his skin, but he relaxed soon enough as Caroline kissed the pain away.

"That feels nice," he exhaled, twining Caroline's arms around his belly and clinging to her dainty fingers.

Smiling against his lacerated back, Caroline squeezed his body.

They stood in silence, both stripped clean, still finding a way to stay joined. Her heart beat against him, her breasts squished and palpitating, and she heard him breathing, felt his own heart give him life.

Eventually it got too difficult to stand.

They dressed, Caroline in Klaus' shirt and Klaus in his boxer-briefs, and climbed in his bed.

When Klaus opened his arms with a fascinated smile, Caroline didn't know what he was asking her to do. He crawled to her and pulled her on his chest, her head resting over his ribcage.

"I've never done this," she said.

Klaus looked down at her, eyebrows raised in disbelief.

"Cuddled?"

"Yeah," she whispered to his skin.

"Huh. Never?"

Klaus put his chin on her hair, his hand tracing random lines on her thigh.

"Never," she admitted.

"Your ex-boyfriends sucked," he insisted and Caroline laughed, nodding her head.

"That they did." She shivered as he continued his work on her leg.

Silence. It creaked like old wood.

"You have scars," she noticed, a finger stationed on his tummy where thin white lines marred perfection

He laughed breathlessly. "You have some as well, love."

He called me love. I think I'm dead. "Well, yeah, but these look off."

She couldn't see him, but she knew he'd raised an entire side of his face in amusement. "How can scars look off?"

Caroline shook her curls. "I don't know. I have ones from things like falling off a bike and having some girl tear at my arm during a cheerleading competition. Yours don't look like that."

His ribs expanded and she stopped outlining the white marks.

"You were a cheerleader?" He asked finally, whooshing his breath out.

"Not the point," she exclaimed, slapping his pec.

"Violence is never the answer, Caroline," he scolded.

"Neither is avoidance," she mocked.

"Ugh, fine," he relented, moving his hand to her hair and stringing out the ever-present knots. Caroline waited patiently for him to speak. "My father was not a happy man. I was his outlet."

Without meaning to, Caroline gasped. She held a hand over her mouth as disgust ran inside her, poisoning her blood supply.

"Your dad?"

"Sort of. I was a bastard child," he added with an eerie calm.

"That's sick." Her voice rose considerably and Klaus held her down. Did he know she was two seconds away from imploding?

"It was years ago. He's dead now."

"Doesn't make it okay," she mumbled, her entire self teeming with revulsion.

Klaus laughed. He always laughed. "I'm not okay with it, I just don't see the point in worrying about it anymore. It was hell when it happened, but it's long since been over."

"You've got so many siblings. Did they get beat on too?" She felt strangely protective of the man lying beneath her, and the idea that he was the only one forced to suffer the wrath of an angry man made her even more sick.

"Once or twice. I was a bit of a show off, though. Always defying him and such, just to see how much of a rise I could get out of him."

"Are you one of those who thinks it was your fault?"

"Me? No," he said, very sure of himself. "He was the bastard, not me. My brothers and I had a party when he died."

"That's. . ." the right word escaped her, her thought vanishing.

"Morbid?" Klaus offered sarcastically.

"Cleansing," she decided. "Tell me more about these brothers of yours."

"You saw them all at the pub."

"Okay, yeah, but tell me about them."

Klaus lifted his head and sighed, "fine. But if you end up falling in love with one of them, that's not my problem."

"They're that great, huh?" Caroline giggled.

"Pfft, not nearly as great as me. Especially in bed," he scoffed.

"I'll have to find that out for myself then," Caroline cooed seductively.

"Never mind," he interrupted, "I'm not saying anything."

"Oh, just tell me. Stop being such a baby."

"You asked for it," he warned, tickling her neck. She scrunched her shoulders and waited for him to start.

Caroline learned all about the Mikaelson clan. There was Finn, Elijah, Kol, Henrick, and Rebekah. Finn was the eldest and had a wife and child. Elijah was helplessly in love with some chick who constantly broke his heart and his bank account. Kol, apparently, was a hopeless romantic who shielded his true desires with sarcasm and disgusting pick up lines. Rebekah was young and foolish and searching for something more. Henrick, the baby, constantly felt left out, but always looked up to his elder siblings.

His mother had died giving birth to Henrick, leaving his father in charge of them all. Caroline had never thought it wise to speak ill of the dead, but she couldn't stop the inkling of hatred she felt toward both his parents.

They all lived in this apartment complex, which weirded Caroline out only a little. The family of six had picked up their things after their father died and (because of the amount of money left to everyone excluding Klaus) were able to come to America. NOLA had called to them and when they came across a nearly barren bookshop, they bought it and refurbished it. Klaus told her that he and his siblings were surprised when the shop was so well received. Caroline told him he was stupid for being surprised.

After a while, Klaus' voice got gruff and Caroline's eyelids got heavy. His words whispered her to sleep and, with the comforting warmth of his arms protecting her, Caroline drifted off, her dreams full of white picket fences.

..1..

Caroline woke up first.

Con: Good. We need to get out of here.

Klaus and her had separated in the night, the heat from New Orleans proving too much to keep the young lovers together. She tried not to read too much into it.

Con: Makes it easier to escape without him noticing.

She was going to walk out of here shamefully, but not really shamefully because last night she had the best sex of her life. And not just because he was good (okay, he was mind-blowing), but because it felt real and exciting and intense beyond all reason.

Looking at him now, asleep and soundless, she fought hard with the side of her that wanted to curl with him again and never leave. He was so innocent in sleep, still with a cheerful smile playing at his lips.

Would he miss her? Would he wander around the apartment to see if she'd simply gotten up to make coffee or breakfast?

Jokes on you, sucker. I don't cook breakfast. Or make coffee. It always ends up tasting like feet.

Caroline slid off the bed quietly, her feet hitting the wooden floor with a hushed thump.

She looked around, trying to convince herself that this was the right thing to do.

Con: It's the right thing to do.

Pro: It's not really.

Con: But you'll do it anyway. Because you run from feelings, Caroline. It's just who you are. You're not Bonnie or Elena, you're you.

Seeing his apartment in the morning light made her smile. He had bookshelves everywhere. It was like his own personal bookshop. She recognised most (Crime and Punishment; Walden.), but several, ones caked in dust and suffering from spinal injury, Caroline met with blank stares.

The colours of his flat were dark and woodsy, all deep purples and greens. Caroline felt like she was back in Mystic Falls, running through the forest, as she escaped out his bedroom with her things tumbling in her arms.

She dressed fast, yanking off Klaus' shirt, giving it one final sniff, and slamming her clothes over her head. Folding the shirt neatly, she placed it on the wooden coffee table.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a stack of sticky notes. They were yellow, like the one he'd written his number on.

Pro: Do it.

She did it—she walked over and found a red pen and wrote a note.

I have to leave before the world catches up. Thank you for a wonderful night.

Caroline, xoxo

Then she kissed it.

And then she left.

Break involuntary ties, a secret so the spies could never find us out.

Stay for as long as you have time,

so the mess that we'll become leaves something to talk about.

A/N 2: No, Caroline! Why'd you have to leave?

So, what did you all think? I'd love to hear feedback for future reference. Again, took me three different tries to get this right and I might not have succeeded. If I didn't, I'm really sorry. But hey, if you liked it, then that's spectacular.

I know you're probably thinking 'who can have the greatest sex of their life in the missionary position?' and my answer would be: doesn't matter about positions - they were fighting for connection, not necessarily pleasure.

What'll happen next. . . ?

And I seriously, seriously, seriously want you to go and listen to "Casual Affair." Just. . .just do it.

You're all fantastic people. Thanks ever so much for reading and reviewing and all that jazz. It makes me so happy.

Until next time,

-LoveIsATemple