Chapter 30
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A happy soft sigh passed through Klaus' lips as he watched Caroline sleeping next to him. Her head was resting on his shoulder, her hair sexily dishevelled from all the times his fingers had played with it. Her body was glued to his side and he felt like he could live in this moment forever. As his eyes roamed slowly over her beloved features, a slow smile started spreading on her face. He felt her leg move over his until her knee rested on his thigh.
Klaus laughed softly in her ear, as her smile widened but she kept her eyes closed. "I wonder what got you that happy, satisfied smile on your lips, ."
Caroline rubbed her face on his shoulder before planting a kiss there. Resting her head on her hand she slowly opened her eyes and looked at him.
"Oh, I think it's the same thing that got you yours." She said as she saw that he had a wide smile of his own on his face. "How was it that you put it...blissfully spent..." She said giggling softly as her other arm circled his waist. "Perfectly said."
His eyes brows rose knowingly. "I agree."
Her fingers and nails moved over his warm torso until they reached below his neck and stayed there. He loved every touch she gave him; even the smallest one seemed to touch him right down to his insides.
Klaus moved his head towards her to kiss her, then suddenly cocked his head to one side and just looked at her instead.
"What?" She wanted to know.
His eyes looked deeply in her eyes for another long moment before softly saying. "I just realized ...that this is what I will wake up to, everyday...from now on." Every day, till forever.
Her arms tightened her hold on him, resting her head on his chest and he took the opportunity to breathe in deeply the smell of her hair he was so crazy about.
"Every...day..." He said again in a bewildered tone. His eyes shone happily in hers, his cheeks hurting from smiling so wide.
"Stop looking at me like that..." She said, softly pouting her lips, "Cause when you will get used to it, I will miss that gaze too much."
Klaus kissed her on her head as he shook his head. "Who says I ever will?"
That earned him a loud smacked kiss on his chest before she put her hand around his head and pulled him down for a deep, lush kiss. He sighed, how did every kiss feel even better than the one before it?
Their first kiss suddenly popped into his mind, and he broke his lips reluctantly from hers to ask. "Did you really kiss me out of pity that first time?"
She caressed his cheek with her fingertips. "What do you think?" She asked as she moved one finger softly over his cheek.
"Well, you fooled me." He replied with a sigh. How hurt and angry he had been at her confession.
"I'm sorry," She said, regret in her voice. "I'm so sorry, I panicked! So many things were happening, my feelings...I never should have lied, I know but..." Her eyes turned sad as she tried to explain her behaviour and he hated seeing that look on her face so he pulled her up until he was looking directly in her eyes, trying not to be too distracted by the way her breasts were crushed to him.
"It's okay...it's okay." He held her to him. "Tell me about it now." There were so many things he still didn't remember from that night…
She rested her chin on his chest and her gaze mellowed as she sighed. "Everyone had been gone for hours...I was going crazy on my own and you were so sick...so sick, I really thought you wouldn't make it." Klaus felt her tremor as she caressed his cheek, "and...and I've never felt lonelier in my whole life...I thought we would both die there and...and then you kissed me and nothing mattered anymore. For that small space in time, everything was right! I wasn't afraid or lonely...I was with you and it felt right...It's why I hid it from you...I couldn't understand how... why I felt that way...and of course I gave myself another plausible reason for it."
"It came to me in flashes...no beginning, no end...you in my arms ...the kiss." He confessed as he remembered all the times he had thought it was all part of his dreams. "That's why I thought it was a dream."
"No, no dream." She shook her head, smiling now. "Just one hot, earth-shattering, mind-blowing kiss...which has been etched in my brain ever since."
"The night of the picnic...when we were driving back, it came back to me...and I was almost sure it was real then."
"I'm sorry I lied."
"You're forgiven." He said softly.
She pulled his head down once more, fusing her lips to his for a long, deep kiss that made his blood pump faster through his veins.
"Thank you." She said when they came up for air.
"So...mind-blowing huh?" He asked cheekily, a devilish smile brightening his face.
"Breath-taking." She agreed.
"Good. Then it's just as I remember..." He said with a satisfied look, "Would have hated to think I didn't recall our first kiss."
"I love you." She said with glistening eyes before kissing him again. His arms wound around her waist, a thrill going through him like every time he heard her say those three words.
"What else did we do that night?"
"Whatever do you mean?" She asked with a surprised look.
With his arms still around her waist, he twirled her around, so that he was the one on top now. He put his weight on his elbows, smiling down at her. "Cause as I told you, I thought it was a dream... and well, my mind filled the blanks rather effectively...so after that kiss, I proceeded to do this..." He put his mouth on her ear and nibbled at her lobe. Then started planting kisses down her neck, "And this..."
Taking him by surprise, she twirled his body now so that she was back on top putting one of his legs between hers. "I was on top." She told him, before she put her lips to his, her hair all over his face, its smell all around him.
"Well, I remember, in my dream, I tore off your shirt and..." He had so many versions of that dream in his head…
"I could put it back on if you want..."
"Don't you dare." He pulled her closer to him, afraid she would move away even an inch.
"What else?" She whispered as she slowly slid up her knee.
"Ohh many things," He said as his breath broke when she touched him. "Which I will now show you.". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .She's into my lips the way I am about the way her hair smells…does she even realise how many times I sniff it? Klaus thought with a smile as he felt Caroline's fingers softly tracing his lower lip. Her head was resting next to his and he was passing his hand through her hair.
He opened his mouth and grabbing her finger with his teeth bit down on it.
He felt her slap him on his chest, and he opened his eyes. "Hey..."
Taking her finger out of his mouth, he kissed it.
"Do you...miss the spell?" She asked in a quiet voice.
"What?" He asked, his eyes huge. "Of course not! I hated it!"
A breath wheezed out from between her lips at his gruff answer and he sighed.
"You kept saying that, that the spell was all there was between us, I..." He explained. How could he miss something like that?
"Oh my God!" Her head came up with a start to look at him and kiss him squarely on the lips. "I didn't mean it that way...I meant...the way it felt...you know, when we touched..."
"Ohh, that."
She was talking about that tingle that sizzled between their skins when they even merely brushed against each other.
"Yeah," Her eyes took on a faraway look, "it was like, every atom of my skin came alive when we touched...I sometimes thought, it was like...little stars raining down on us..."
"Yeah...the smallest touch was like a spark..." He sighed as he remembered one unforgettable moment, "Hell, I still don't know how I was able to make myself leave that bathroom with you clad only in that towel..."
"Oh my God..." She whispered, her thoughts obviously following his.
"Actually, I don't know how I resisted for so long..." He admitted, his body coming alive as he pressed her to him. "I think it was the hardest battle I ever fought...I kept telling myself, this is one thing you won't ruin like you always ruin everything else..."
"Ruin?"
"Yes...I wanted you to come to me. I wanted you to want me as much as I wanted you." He glued his lips to hers in a hot kiss that left them both breathless. Their lips seemed unable to stop searching for the other's. "Only that way you would know...the first step had to come from you."
"It wasn't easy for me either. Every time we touched...even by accident..." Her gaze softened, remembering.
"Every time we were alone...in your room, in the library...I longed to kiss you, to touch you so much..."
"The night I fell asleep and you carried me upstairs..." She added.
"Yeah..." He agreed amazed that she had been feeling the same all those times. "And during the training...in the gym...I thought my body had turned into an overheated intermittent bulb!"
"The gym?!" She asked incredulously. "You looked so calm and contained...like you barely felt anything!"
Yeah, right! "Why do you think I kept shouting at you...I was so damn frustrated, I had to take it out somehow!"
"I thought I was the only one going crazy with want from that tingly feeling!" She groaned.
"Crazy with want?" He grinned happily, making her roll her eyes.
"Why do you think I left?" She asked him. "One more touch of your fingers on me and-"
His mouth cut out her words because again he needed to kiss her too badly. Her lower body pressed to his showing him what she wanted and he felt himself go hard.
"I think we don't need any spell...as we're very good at creating sparks on our own, love." He said in a whispered tone.
Caroline's face lit up with an agreeing smile.
"But if it's stars you want?...I'll give you stars." He told her before putting the sheet above his head and slowly started kissing her neck, then her throat, her collarbone and then her breasts. Nibbling and teasing her nipples with his teeth and tongue. He took his time with one then gave the same treatment to the other.
He felt Caroline stop breathing when his lips started kissing her flat stomach and then went lower.
"Klaus..." She whispered breathlessly when his mouth touched her there.
She writhed under his loving assault and her nails dug in his shoulders before fisting the sheets.
Her body went stiff like a board under him and he continued until she arched against his mouth and with a loud moan, her body spasmed and finally relaxed.
He pulled the sheet away to look at her face, closed eyes and a sigh escaping her lips.
Who needs spells?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . Klaus' hand caressed Caroline's back slowly, up and down while his other hand was entwined with hers. He could feel her steady heart beat against his chest and once again he marvelled that his unused heart still hadn't burst from all the love and joy he was feeling. He had told himself he would try and express his feelings to her cause she deserved to know and he wanted her to.
"I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you - it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string to you...I was afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly."
He sighed. Little steps. For now Charlotte Bronte was way better than him at declaring love.
Caroline's head shot up from his shoulder, her lips parted and her eyes wide. "Did you just quote Jane Eyre to me?" She asked with a wobbly voice.
"Kind of..." Klaus said, pursing his lips. "Rochester said those words to Jane when she was leaving." He motioned with his head towards his bedside table where the book Jane Eyre rested.
"I finally understood what you meant about having something familiar...I don't know how many times I've read it...it kind of helped me to miss you a little less." He admitted as his eyes went lovingly over her features.
Caroline just pressed her lips together but her eyes filled up with unshed tears.
"And these words I just recited, it was just as I felt after you left." His hand went up to caress her cheek. "I didn't even know it was possible to miss someone that much." Just thinking about those nights made him sad.
Caroline whispered his name before saying. "The night I left...you had this look in your eyes whenever you looked at me...at first I thought it was because we had quarrelled but...it was something else..."
Thinking of that night and how he had to let her go made him hold her tighter to him. He took a breath in as he prepared to tell her all the emotions he went through that night. "For the first time in my life, I felt...impotent...I didn't want you to go. I almost threw Bonnie out of the house when she arrived and you would never have known she was here...but I couldn't." He grazed her temple with his lips. "I couldn't keep you linked to me...it was too dangerous for you. For once, what I wanted wasn't the important thing...knowing you were safe was."
"I thought you couldn't wait to be rid of me."
I've always been too good at hiding behind my mask. He thought as he started moving his fingers over her back again. Not anymore, not with her. "Knowing it was the right thing to do didn't make it any easier...I even came to check on you that night." He finally confessed hoping she wouldn't get angry when he told her everything.
"What?...but T-Tyler was there!" She said quietly.
"I saw him come in, but he only stayed a while...I told myself I was only going to check you were okay...you were so weak when you left here... You looked so small on that bed...so exhausted...I pulled the covers over you and then I just stared at you for a while...lying next to you..." He waited for her reaction but her loving gaze stayed the same.
"I just didn't know how to let you go...I thought I would go mad...I had to come to terms with it, my own way...to accept it...it was only then that I seemed to calm myself, being there next to you...I realized..." His fingers removed a strand of her blond hair behind her ear as he tried to find the words that would make her understand. "It's like there's this on-going battle in my head...all the time. Things I want, things I think I need...and how to get them..." Again he stopped. He had never revealed these things about him to another living soul.
Caroline's lips tilted slightly in an encouraging smile as she waited for him to continue.
"It's like a need, a drive to prove myself...to the world, to my family and more importantly to myself ...but resting there next to you I realized that when I was with you, everything else becomes irrelevant...it's like my head goes quiet...your presence soothes my soul, Caroline."
She took a strong breath in, her eyes growing in her face before softening as she looked back in his eyes. "And your presence completes mine, makes me...whole." She said as she caressed his face. "From the moment I left, something went missing in me. I thought I was going back to my life but...it's like nothing made sense anymore, and the more I tried...the worse I felt and I even forbid myself to think of you, cause it physically hurt to do so." She stopped talking to kiss him. "I kept crying that night and I didn't know why but...it's because I wasn't going back to my life...I was leaving it behind me."
He kissed her nose, his heart soaring at her words and that he had been able to open up to her.
"And I missed you too. So much!" She exclaimed as a tear spilled over her lower eyelid. "I missed your voice, that...special way you have of looking at me, just me...and I missed your adorable dimples." She finished before kissing him soundly on his cheek.
"Adorable dimples!?" He winced, thinking that he'd never hear the end of Kol's teasing if he ever heard that. "Come on! I got a reputation to maintain here!"
"But they are! Adorable and irresistible." She insisted with a wide smile as she moved her lips to the other cheek and kissed him on his other dimple.
"Well, I love the dimples you got here!" He said as his fingers went just above her buttocks and touched the dents there. Unable to resist, his hands went lower cupping her naked bum. He grinded his hips against her, his erection hard between them.
"Klaus..." She said breathlessly as she slid upward.
All of a sudden, the bedroom door was swung open hard, making the wood hit against the wall and Rebekah waltzed in, hands on hips. "We got it!" She yelled at the two lovers. "You love him and he loves you, we heard you, loud and clear, many times. Many!"
Caroline squeaked loudly before hiding under the sheets completely.
Klaus turned his suddenly angry stare on his sister. "Bekah! What the hell!?"
"Sorry for bursting in but seriously?!" His sister crossed her arms on her chest. "It's five in the afternoon are you ever going to leave that bed?"
Caroline's head popped up from under the sheet to turn and look at the clock on their left. "What?" She yelled as she realised the other girl was right.
"So what?" Klaus told her when Caroline turned her surprised look on him. "We're vampires; everyone knows that vampires like to sleep during the day."
"Right, cause sleeping is what you two have been doing." Kol was suddenly standing next to his sister with his stupid grin on his face.
"Oh my God!" Caroline scrambled to make sure that the sheet covered her well as she turned it carefully around her.
"Hey there, darling." Kol smiled at her, all teeth.
Did his brother just get an eyeful of Caroline?!
"Get out! Both of you!" Klaus ordered them angrily.
His sister rolled her eyes. "Not before I have my say! I've spent hours preparing a dinner for the whole family, Caroline's first one with all of us...so I want you boys dressed up for the occasion and you...in a pretty, nice dress." She finished addressing the girl in the bed.
"But I have nothing here!"
Again Rebekah just rolled her eyes and then raised her eye brows at Klaus. "Fix that."
What the bloody hell? How did they end up talking of clothes and dinners when he had just been about to make love to Caroline. He thought with barely held frustration.
"I feel you Nik." Kol smiled knowingly at him. "I wouldn't want to leave that bed either if I had a goddess like Caroline next to me but..."
"Hey!" Klaus shut him up. So he had been looking!
"What? Is that inappropriate to say?" His younger brother asked with an innocent look no one believed.
Time to bring back the daggers. Klaus thought as he made to get up, not giving a damn that he would be naked in front of his sister because maybe that would make her leave. Caroline's hand on his chest kept him in his place.
"Rebekah..." Caroline called his sister's name. Good, she was going to throw her out. "Thank you." She told her.
Klaus scoffed loudly but everyone ignored him.
Rebekah returned Caroline's thanks with a small nod and a smile in her gaze. "I want you downstairs in an hour...okay, one and a half but not a second later." She left a moment later as fast as she had come in.
Kol stayed in front of their bed, his lopsided grin still intact. "You can now go back to...having fun ...lots of it from what we've heard!"
"Leave this instant!" Klaus yelled at him as he saw Caroline close her eyes with embarrassment.
"Do I close the door?" His brother asked, unmoved by Klaus' anger.
Klaus grabbed the pillow from behind him and threw it at him with all his strength, hitting his brother squarely in his face.
"A yes would have sufficed." Kol said, the grin finally gone as he gingerly touched his nose with his fingers.
Klaus grabbed another pillow and threw it at him again but this time Kol was faster and moved out of its way and then slowly, finally closed the door and left.
I hate my family! Klaus thought as he shook his head at the closed door. "Remind me to always lock our door from now on!"
He turned to look at Caroline who had grabbed the sheet around her and was rolling away from the bed.
"Hey, you," He stopped her by taking her by her upper arm and sliding her back to his side, "just where do you think you're going?"
"You heard your sister," she replied with widened eyes. "We need to get ready...shower...and I have to find myself a nice dress and..."
"That's the least of your problems." He said as he tried to capture her lips with his.
"And do my hair and..." She kept talking dodging his mouth.
"Caroline..." He pleaded as he brushed his nose along her neck.
"Klaus, please, this is important for me." She told him with a sigh.
Her words immediately caught his attention, and he looked up waiting for her to continue.
"Don't you see...your sister...this is her way of welcoming me to...the family..." Her teeth came out to bite on her lower lip and he was unable to tear his gaze away. "I want her to know that I appreciate it, no, more than that, I want her to know, how much it means to me...you all, doing this for me." She said looking down.
Klaus put his hand around her head and gently pulled her to him to kiss her. She really appreciated his family. That must be a first. He thought with a smile as her arms came round his neck to deepen the kiss before suddenly pulling back.
"No, you have to stop kissing me..."
"What?" Never.
"You heard me." She said with a stern feign look even as her fingers still lovingly touched his face. "We need to get ready...please go find me a gorgeous dress to wear...I want to make a good impression on Elijah."
He rolled his eyes at her. "Oh great, having Kol already half in love with you is not enough, you want Elijah under your spell as well." Which reminded him that neither of them had yet told him about their phone calls.
"He's your big brother, I want him to like me," her lips twirled in a secret smile before adding, "As for Kol, I'll let you know, he was the first to tell me that it was worth giving you a chance."
So his family had turned into a bunch of old matchmakers behind his back? Klaus scoffed remembering the interest in Kol's eyes when he looked at Caroline. "I'm sure he wouldn't have minded a chance of his own."
"Stop it." Caroline chided him with a frown. "Go look for my dress, please."
He decided to compromise. "Okay but only if we take that shower together."
"How about a bath instead...I'll start running it while you go get the dress." She said, winking at him.
"Deal." A second later he left the bed and went to his drawers, took out a robe and putting it on turned to look at her again and found her starting at his naked form.
"I don't have to put this on..." He offered. He'd take staying in bed with her over dinner with his family any day…actually he'd take just being with her over anything else. Always.
He groaned inwardly as she took her lip between her teeth again as if she was debating accepting …then shook her head and using the sheet as a sarong started waking backwards towards the bathroom, her eyes still glued to his.
He closed the robe. "Anything specific for your dress?" He asked with a small smile.
"No, I trust your taste completely."
He bowed his head and went to the door. With one foot out, she called him back.
"Wait! There is one thing!"
"Yes, love?" He turned to look at her again.
She stayed silent for a moment before softly saying. "Hurry back."
His heart strings tugged happily once more and a small sigh left his lips. He gave her a small nod, not trusting having a voice in that moment. He turned towards the door once again.
"Klaus..."
He heard her whisper his name and with a smile turned yet again to look back at her.
She returned his smile and he almost sped to her to take her back in his arms. "You know last night...and today has been the most wonderful and...incredible night of my life."
"For you and me both, love." Klaus told her, his smile opening wide as the most wonderful thought crossed his mind. "And you know the best thing about it?...We get to have another one just like it... tonight...and the day after that, and the day after that..."
She nodded her head with energy and he looked at her smile once more before leaving the room.
He started walking towards the other wing of the mansion when he heard Caroline's voice whisper softly. "'I love you, Klaus."
A wave of emotion engulfed him and he closed his eyes letting it wash over him. "I love you too, sweetheart." He answered back. Then he sped to choose for her a dress worthy of her beauty so that he could then run back to her side.