Prompt from recklessnesspersonified: Kc + Rivals + Businesses + Secret One Night stand


Caroline checks the items on her clipboard for one last time, feeling the pressure of her high heels digging into the soles of her feet. It's been a long day with a thousand accidents and mishaps, but finally the book reading she's arranged for this evening seems like it's actually going to turn out a success. The decorations look welcoming and tasteful, the finger foods appetizing, and the chairs that she had to threaten at least three different people with literal murder in order to get fit amazingly into the warm atmosphere of her little bookstore. Quite a lot of guests are already showing up and browsing even though they have another half an hour before the official starting time, and the author is sat in Caroline's office peeking out the windows in a formfitting silk shirt instead of the borderline obscene dress that she was wearing twenty minutes ago.

If forcing Katherine Pierce to change her outfit is the only thing she's managed to do today, Caroline would still call it an astounding achievement and pour herself that extra glass of celebratory wine at the end of the day.

"What is he doing here?"

Startled by Katherine's contemptuous tone, Caroline looks up and stares right into the eyes of the devil. How he always manages to throw that annoying smirk her way the second he enters her store, Caroline has no idea. But as usual, she ignores the strange stumble of her heart and reciprocates with a glare.

"Hell if I know. Checking out the competition, I guess." At least that's the reason he feeds her.

"Oh, you mean his dingy, dusty hole of stuck-up white male whiners is still not out of business?" Katherine snorts, "this really is a nice neighborhood."

Caroline huffs a laugh. Klaus Mikaelson's bookstore, The Original, is just a few blocks down the road, and despite them being supposed rivals as local business owners, she doesn't have anything against the store itself. Does she think the selection is a tad outdated and elitist? Maybe. Does she mentally roll her eyes at the dark, pretentious decor? Absolutely. But overall the store's not bad, not that she'd ever admit it to Klaus.

No. What she has a problem with is his very off-putting personality.

And the fact that she sneaked out of his apartment at 5 a.m. this morning with heels dangling in her hands and yesterday's panties stuffed in her purse.

"Well, I know I said I'd be nice just this one evening for your sake, Forbes," Katherine flips her hair, "but if he stands in line for my autograph I'm not making any promises."

Caroline sighs. This is what happens when the author you invite to your store is also your best friend who trashes any person you've complained about even once, only twice as hard.

"Behave," she waves her pen at the grinning brunette. "I'll go deal with him."

On second thought, she might need that glass of wine a little earlier.

She makes a beeline to the event area, smiling at the clueless customers along her way while shooting daggers at Klaus who has already procured himself a drink.

"Good evening, Caroline," he raises the glass at her, a lilt in his voice just enough to line sincerity with a suspicious amount of mockery. "Quite an impressive arrangement you've got here."

"Come with me," she hisses at him, taking a hold of his elbow and drags him through the crowd without a backward glance. Klaus comes willingly, following her until they are at a quieter corner of her store, where she's just put on a small display of dark-themed horrors and thrillers. She reckons the screaming faces and bloody murder weapons on the book covers would set the tone for their upcoming chat pretty nicely.

"What are you doing here?" She crosses her arms and watches him with alarmed eyes, ready to assert her right to refuse service at any second.

"Isn't it our duty as business owners to support other local businesses as much as we can?" He quotes her own words at the local business gathering a few weeks ago back at her. She hates when he does that.

"If you really want to show your support," Caroline bites out, "you can leave."

"That's not the message you sent out when you were woman-handling me back there," Klaus licks his lips, a suggestive glimmer under his eyelashes, and Caroline feels a flush on her cheeks. "Or when you were calling out my name so sweetly last night -"

"Shut up!"

Klaus zips his lips up with a signature smirk, watching in amusement as Caroline runs a hand through her hair, messing up the meticulous curls she's wearing for the night. In the uncomfortable silence he picks up a book from the shelf he's leaning on, idly leafing through the pages while Caroline stews in her indignation and embarrassment.

Caroline is not thankful for that at all, since he was the one bringing up the source of her embarrassment in the first place.

It truly was a night of shame.

She was drinking at the bar at her favorite restaurant, asking for a second shot of tequila because she was tired, over-stressed, and in a wallowing mood. Of course that was when Klaus came in, and stayed her unofficial drinking buddy for the night despite sitting two seats away, and constantly bickering with her. They exchanged insults without looking each other in the eyes, and threw down drinks simultaneously without proposing a toast. It almost felt comfortable – as comfortable as it could be with Klaus's accent sounding increasingly melodic in her alcohol-induced haze, and his furtive glances hurtling little sparks of flame in the mix.

Another two drinks down and they stopped talking shop. Conversation subjects started to venture into uncharted territories, scary and exhilarating. She must have been drunk, because as she so easily navigated from literary tastes to the latest movie adaptations to TV stars with Klaus, she felt as if walking on wobbly legs when the first brush of night air hit. The whole world tilted, but fresh and new.

The fellow business owner turned out to be fairly fun when he wasn't busy criticizing the graphic novels and adult coloring books she kept in highlighted spots in her store – albeit in a totally judgmental, totally haughty way. He merely hummed when Caroline revealed that her favorite author was one – surprise, surprise – Jane Austen, and kept whatever acidic commentary to himself for once.

And naturally Caroline was curious, "what, you don't think it's 'generic and juvenile'?" He'd certainly used those exact words on some of her other beloved titles.

"A classic's a classic."

"Of course you would say that," Caroline snorts, thinking about the walls of classics looming in Klaus's small store. He really should have opened up the space a bit – the book selection was intimidating as it was.

"For your information, I do enjoy a Jane Austen story once in a while."

"See, I always pictured you the type of person who would up their nose and scorn at the Austen fan girls."

The corner of his lips lifted up slightly, "and you pictured right. A lot might think themselves Austen heroines, but really they are just the sentimental fools that real Austen heroines try not to laugh too hard at in their point-of-view narratives." He swirls his drink, eyes lingering on Caroline's face a second too long, "not everyone can be Elizabeth Bennett, with her sharp mind and beautiful eyes."

"Just like a bad attitude doesn't make you Mr. Darcy," she shot back at him.

"Touché," he laughed softly, dimples deepening.

And for reasons unknown, she laughed with him.

In retrospect, Caroline was surprised that she was having a rather decent time with him before her moment of poor judgment. She'd followed him back to his apartment, just to see his signed copy of a first edition On the Road (how typical). She ended up digging into his personal collection of Russian poetry – she'd always been somewhat secretly fond of Russian literature, and was taken by surprise when she discovered the great selection in Klaus's store. One minute she was complaining about the "weird look" he was giving her when she took the short story collection of Ivan Bunin to his check-out counter, the next his lips were on hers.

It was messy, and irresponsible, and so fucking hot. She remembered every second of his hands on her, in her, around her, with his hard body pressing into hers and his giant bookshelf digging so sinfully into her back. Hot breaths, wet kisses, and a high she hadn't experienced for ages, so wrong and good and right, when he made her scream and writhe, her head turned to the side while he sweetly sucked on her throat, her eyes blearily staring into the sturdy spine of Crime and Punishment.

How ironic.

She has done her crime, and now comes her punishment.

Caroline sighs, frustrated, looking anywhere but Klaus's eyes peeking at her from behind the cover of John le Carré. An involuntary shiver runs down her body as her line of sight seems to be fixed on his fingers; as if in slow motion they gently rub, roll, and twist to separate the pages, reminding her of just what they can do with those exact motions.

She quickly averts her eyes again, and mentally hangs onto the very first thing she can come up with to judge him – to steel herself. Le Carré. Spy novel. Why not – he's certainly dark and twisted enough for that. And now she's imagining him lurking in the shadows in a trench coat.

Caroline refuses to think about what it means that recently, more often than not, the face of any character she's reading on seems to be morphing into Klaus.

That stupid, annoying face, which is still smirking at her.

If it weren't for the fact that it would damage the book, she'd definitely hit him right in the head with the largest, heaviest, most expensive one in her store.

"Not that I don't enjoy this intimate time of ours," Klaus drawls, "but isn't your book reading about to start?"

Caroline takes in a deep breath, and slowly exhales. "Look, Klaus, this -" she gestures at the event area, "is very important to me. I don't know why you're here or what you want, and to be honest I don't care. I just want this evening to go without a hitch. Anything else can wait," she grinds out the last bit with unvoiced threat.

"I can maybe get on board with the concept of book reading, but Katherine Pierce and The Power of Female Pleasure?" Klaus raises an eyebrow, "that's what you're going with?"

Caroline rolls her eyes, not bothering to tell him that the feeling's completely mutual on Katherine's part. "You just don't like anyone who dares to contradict you."

Klaus locks his eyes with hers, an unreadable look on his face, "you have no idea just how wrong you are." But soon a smirk slips back in place, "plus, judging by your very passionate responses last night, I obviously have more authority on the subject than she."

"Klaus," forget the giant tome, Caroline's just going to strangle him with her bare hands. There's got to be at least one tip on how to safely dispose of the body in her well-curated display of murder mysteries. "What happened last night, stays last night. And not a word of it to anyone, you hear me?"

"You mean I don't get to climb on the counter and shout out that we had amazing sex last night to a room full of strangers?"

"Klaus!"

"Fine," Klaus shrugs and pushes the le Carré back onto the shelf. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a book reading to attend."

For the love of God, Caroline hopes that he doesn't go stand in line for Katherine's autograph.