Chapter 4
It has to be Stefan for this conversation. He's a man, which is a must for this. He's a genuine friend and not one to judge, also a must. He'll also probably go along with what she imagines will be her entirely transparent 'hypothetical' question.
"Hey Care," he greets in a lackluster tone. Also, she thinks sadly, he's probably too wrapped up in his Elena troubles to go uncomfortably deep into hers.
"Hi Stef, how you doing?" she came for herself but seeing him so low makes her ache for him so she turns herself over to his needs, lets him talk about Elena and the ongoing nightmare of her emotionless state. Eventually he mentions Damon, says he trusts Damon not to take advantage and that gives her the opening she needs.
"So guy perspective then," she says. "If a guy was really hot for a girl, like been chasing her for ages hot, and then suddenly he gets a chance to sleep with her, why would he not?"
Stefan frowns, "Are we talking about Damon?"
"No, no" she gives him a sideways smile and a shake of her head but she imagines the whole gesture is less nonchalant than she was aiming for. "Just hypothetically, I'm curious."
She looks expectantly at him, waiting for an answer and he shrugs awkwardly. "I'm not sure, was she drunk. Hypothetically"
"Not on booze," she says to herself and that makes him look at her quizzically. "Nope sober as a judge"
"Well then I guess I would stop if I thought she wasn't into it"
"But what if she was into it, like really really into it" she smiles a quick forced smile. "Hypothetically, I mean"
"Sure," he looks skeptical. "Caroline are we talking about-"
"No," she cuts in guiltily. "Just wondering why a guy would turn down a girl he wanted when she was clearly good to go."
"Perhaps, if I thought she'd regret it," he suggests uncertianly.
"And you'd care because? Well you'd care because you're a decent guy but why would a not decent guy care?" She should really bail out of this conversation, but she needs these answers. She's spent far too much time over the days since Klaus kissed her and sent her away trying to make sense of his motives and she desperately needs another perspective. "Why would Damon, for instance, care?"
"So we are talking about Damon?"
"No, seriously Stef, just run with it ok"
"Ok I guess someone like Damon would only care if they really cared about the girl," he sighs. Poor Stefan she thinks sadly. "Like he does about Elena. If they wanted more than just sex maybe."
She frowns at that, it makes a sort of sense in the abstract, the hypothetical, but it doesn't fit the reality. Klaus is an irredeemable narcissist who takes what he wants with no regard for anyone. At least that's what she understands of him, what she's determined over the time he's tormented her with his wickedness and charm in equal measure.
But if Stefan is right, if those feeling's that have always swum unspoken around them are more than lust and curiosity. If he genuinely cares enough about her to not have sex with her then she's in more trouble than she thought.
She'll have to stay away from him. She trusts he'll keep his word, and again she wonders if her certainty stems from that same unacknowledged knowing, and leave her alone. All she has to do is do the same. It surely can't be that hard.
Six days later and she's thinking hard would have been a best-case scenario. Staying away from him is a trial that makes Hercules' tasks look like child's play. She can't get him out of her head no matter how determined she is to find distraction, cant get him off her skin no matter how many cold shower's she takes.
She finds herself manically throwing herself from one fruitless strategy to another. Sublimation might work to dull the need for blood but it doesn't dull the ache low in her belly for him. She stress cleans her mother's house until it sparkles but it doesn't stop her mind always spinning back to his words as he sent her away, "the shame of having fucked a monster" that's what he'd said and in his eyes she'd seen something so close to self loathing that she can't help but believe he hates being what he is.
She masturbates furiously, futility trying to picture something other than his lean body as she ruthlessly works herself to one unfulfilling climax after another. Always when she comes she does it with the sound of his voice echoing in her mind, replaying the dirty thoughts they've shared but afterwards as her heart beat slows and her breath calms she hears something else. "You don't want this," he'd said. "Not as I do"
Her fingers work roughly over her clit but her body stubbornly refuses to find release with her mind locked tight against him. She growls and throws herself over on her bed so she's laying on her front with her hand between her spread legs. She fidgets in frustration, turning her head form side to side and she catches sight of the pale blue scarf draped over the chair beside her bed.
She hadn't realized until she was halfway back form the mansion that day that she'd still been clutching it in her clenched fist. She'd sat on her bed with his kisses still burning her lips and stroked the expensive silk pensively as she'd tried to make sense of his actions and her own, her abandon and his restraint, his sadness and his anger.
She grabs it now and brings it to her face, it doesn't smell of him exactly but the scents of his studio cling to it, paint and cedar and the faintest hint of scotch no human could detect. The smell fizzes in her senses and transports her back to that day so that she can feel his cool eyes on her and hear his voice coaxing confessions from her.
She plays the scene, more dirty thoughts of him dancing in her imagination. Hears in her mind's ear him escalating the encounter beyond the murmured words and fleeting touches of that day. She imagines him in that eerily unaffected tone asking her to show him exactly how she pleasures herself for him. She pictures herself writhing wantonly on his chaise while he sits at his easel and sketches her, watching with storm blue eyes that hint at passion beneath the too calm surface.
"My Caroline" she imagines he might have said, in her fantasies he is ever possessive, she doesn't analyse why her body responds to eagerly to imagined claims of ownership but experience has shown her that it does. "Will you cum for me, my love? Will you say my name as you do into the solitude of your room?"
"Yes, god" she gasps both in the sandbox of her fantasy and into the silence of her reality.
"Good girl," he might praise her and she buzzes at it. She tips her hips back and increase the pace of her fingers.
"Fuck" she gasps and breathes in the smell of the scarf again. She's so close, closer to real release than she's been in days. In her minds eye she cums with a desperate plea in the form of his name and it undoes him.
He stands and comes towards her stripping his t-shirt as he does and unbuckling his belt. He stands above her so she's looking up at him and slowly frees himself from his jeans. The image in her mind is so vivid that in the grip of it, and of this heady lust, she is almost certain that is actually what happened that day.
She sees herself looking up at him hungrily as he strokes himself and imagines what he would say. He never used to talk that much in her fantasies before, a little filthy praise here, a possessive endearment there, but since that day she has constructed new fantasies in which sprawling litanies of seduction tumble from his lips and slide around in her body. It seems to be the only thing that fans the flames enough these days to bring her off.
In her fantasy she moves to take him in her mouth but he tangles a hand in her hair and tips her head back as he works himself their eyes locked the words still pouring from his mouth and urging her body onwards towards release.
"Do you want me to cum for you Caroline?" he asks and she groans desperately and tries to nod against his grasp. "Will you wear my colours then girl? Shall I decorate that beautiful face with my cum?"
"Fuck yes" she gasps, she can't believe how arousing she suddenly finds the thought of him doing just that. She pictures the rhythm of his hips the fast smooth movement of his hand, the pleasurable pain on her scalp as his grip tightens and he jerks her head further back as his cum spills onto her face.
She shudders violently against her hand, but keeps up the punishing movement of her fingers, riding out her orgasm and pushing on through the hypersensitivity that follows to a second with the image of him collapsing to his knees before her and kissing his own semen from her face.
"Klaus" she murmurs, not at the height of her orgasm this time but in the slumping contented moments after when her body goes limp and her heart beats deafeningly in her ears. "God Klaus."
She fingers the scarf as she calms, its magic is dormant again in the aftermath, it is no longer the key to a portal into the frighteningly real world of her fantasies, it's just a beautiful scarf smelling almost imperceptible of paint.
Eventually she returns fully from her imagination and berates herself for once again giving herself over to him in her mind. Even fantasy Klaus is a betrayal of everyone she loves, the perfidious kisses she shared with the real thing over a week ago are tantamount to treason in her own mind. She showers. Turns the dial till the water scalds her skin and zealously scrubs the shame and juices from her thighs and asks herself for the millionth time "what the hell is wrong with me?"
The next morning she wakes angry with him, almost angry enough to go marching into his home ready to hurl down accusations, if she could think of a single thing to accuse him of right now she'd already be there. She can't so she spends the day trying to study for finals and gets so frustrated that by early evening she's desperate for a drink.
She texts Bonnie and Stefan and heads over to the grill hoping that one of them will respond to her invitation. When did she become so very short of friends she wonders.
Matt is working the bar and his smile when she enters feels like the sun coming out form behind a cloud. Sweet human Matt it seems so very long ago that she wanted him as more than a dear friend, she can't now believe that he ever excited her, excitement has taken on a whole new meaning recently, but how she does still love him.
"Hey" he greets warmly and surreptitiously adds bourbon to her coke without her having to ask. "Bad day?" he asks tossing a bar towel over his shoulder, every inch the stereotypical barman.
"Bad year" she gives him a rueful smile to take the bite out of her retort. "Just keep 'em coming barkeep"
He smiles and nods and turns away and with her attention no longer on him she suddenly senses a presence in the bar, old and powerful and thrilling. Without thinking she scans the room for him, he's watching her from the far end of the bar and when her eyes meet his he looks down quickly into his drink.
How dare he she thinks, the excitement of realising he was near morphing back to anger, how dare he look so normal, so human? How dare he pretend to just be a guy caught looking at a girl?
She marches over, feels her face set into an angry mask, thin tight lips and narrow eyes. "So much for leaving me alone," she snaps at him, self-righteous and accusatory. "Guess your word has about as much integrity as the rest of you"
If it's hurt that flashes across his face before his own anger rises she pretends she doesn't see it and swallows down hard on the regret that threatens to press an apology from her mouth.
"Well at the risk of sounding childish sweetheart," the endearment holds no fondness, he's defensive and scornful. "I was here first"
She scoffs. She's regretting deeply coming over here, she really had no reason to and now she's clinging to a self-righteousness she doesn't feel and wishing she could just go back to her seat.
"You approached me Caroline I had no intention of –"
"Whatever" she cuts in haughtily. "Just stay away form me"
"Gladly," he keeps his voice low but still she hears a snarl in it. "Until the next time you come looking for me"
"I did not come here looking for you," she retorts indignantly.
"Perhaps not but I knew the exact moment you realised I was here love," there's a nasty sort of seduction to his tone now that makes her shoulders tense and her jaw tick nervously. "Cover what you feel with petty accusations if you like but I heard your breath hitch, your heart rate pick up"
"Fear"
He tips his head and the corner of his mouth rises in a cruel smile. "Doesn't smell like fear"
"Gross"
"But accurate," suddenly his eyes sharpen and she realises he's recognised the scarf she'd foolishly decided to wear tonight. "You know sweetheart I'm beginning to doubt your commitment to our deal." His voice drops to a sultry sort of poison and he fingers the silk about her neck. "Coming to me smelling like you do and wearing the scarf I laid across your body when I painted you"
She swallows hard and tries to keep from sounding like she's been caught out somehow. "It's a nice scarf"
He shakes his head, exasperated she imagines with the flimsy transparency of her lies, and turns back to his drink without another word.
She stands there for a few seconds feeling magnificently foolish caught between the desire to flee and her curiosity. "Did you finish it?" she asks when finally curiosity wins out.
He looks back and she can see from his expression that he can't make her out and it's driving him mad. "Yes" he answers neutrally, clearly waiting for her to show her hand, she wishes she knew herself what was in it.
"Are you pleased with it?"
His eyes flash up to the ceiling and when they come back to her she can sense the softening in him, his voice when he answers confirms it, rich and sincere and so engaging. God she loves when he speaks to her like this, the accent, the old fashioned phrasing, the almost hypnotic cadence of his words all come together to ensnare her. "Painting that which one finds beautiful is a two edged sword Caroline" he says and she draws in breath at how his compliments don't sound like compliments but rather just like truth. "It can be inspiring but there's always the feeling of not being able to do justice to the subject." He flashes a coy dimpled smile. "But yes, I'm pleased with it"
She smiles back uneasily.
"If you'd like to see it I could arrange to be elsewhere," he offers without looking at her.
"Yeah" she bites her lip awkwardly. "Yeah I'd like to see it"
Now he does look at her and the sensation of being pulled into something inescapable comes over her. The thought that in quicksand struggling just makes you sink faster pops into her head and she goes still and just looks back at him.
"Very well, I will leave the house at 5 tomorrow and won't return till late. I'll move the painting to the studio so you can find it."
"Where's it now?" she asks reflexively.
He looks bashful and his mouth quirks. "In my room." He looks young and handsome and if she were a normal girl and he weren't the devil himself then she imagines in this moment she might be falling for him until something panicked rises in her, scared and lashing out.
"I should have guessed" she sneers nastily. "It's still perving even in oils you know."
She expects some kind of come back, his usual injured rejoinder, harsh, right to he bone, but he just clenches his jaw and closes his eyes for a moment. Then he picks up his glass and the half full bottle from the bar and without another look moves over to a booth in the far corner leaving her at the bar alone and wondering what the hell just happened.
"You ok?" Matt's voice snaps her out of her thoughts a moment later. "Was he bugging you again?"
She smiles. "Just the usual Klaus creepfest" she says flippantly feeling dishonest and oddly abashed at her own behaviour, hoping against hope Klaus doesn't heat her.
Matt goes back to work and after a few minutes she turns to see him sitting there, his back slightly to her as he pours another shot, she wonders if he's going to drink the whole bottle tonight.
Eventually she pushes herself away from the bar and settles in the booth next to his so they're back to back with the thin wood between them. "I'm sorry," she mumbles knowing he'll hear her. "That was bitchy" he doesn't respond and she ploughs on. "Look don't sulk Klaus you can hardly blame me, you are the bad guy you know"
She hears him chuckle, but its not a happy sound. "Yes I suppose I am. The quarterback certainly seems to think so if the devil's eye he's giving me is any indication"
She glances at Matt who's watching them with a stormy brow. "I suppose that explains your imaginative seating arrangement," the hybrid continues coldly. "Tell me do you think it's fooling him any more than it's fooling me? Or perhaps it is yourself you wish to deceive"
"Klaus don't"
But he's hurt and when he's hurt he's hurtful and he won't stop. "Perhaps if you keep this flimsy barrier between us you'll be able to make yourself believe you don't want me. That your eager cunt isn't dripping for me even now while you feign revulsion or that you wouldn't have let me fuck you like a whore against my front door just last week, that you didn't beg for it"
The words are ugly, deliberately so, he's so fragile this man-monster so easily hurt, so foul in his reaction. "Klaus just stop ok, Jesus why do I even bother?"
She should storm away but she doesn't she just lays her head back against the high back of the booth and sighs.
"Perhaps because you're body doesn't care a jot what I am or what horrors I've committed," he continues, his voice taking on an icy neutrality. "Because it doesn't care how much your little gang of misfits may hate me, it would still have me screw you right under their noses given the chance"
She wants to walk away from this onslaught of bitter insults but she's just tired of trying to figure him out and it's not even as if he's wrong, every single word is true and today she realises she likes it better when she's honest with him than when she lies.
"I used to think about that way back before Elena turned" she says eventually and feels something change in unrelenting anger buzzing in the air around them, a tiny crack in his rage.
"Did you now love?" the endearment holds little affection. "Back when you were Tyler's girl you mean? And yet still you thought of us"
"Yeah" she murmurs softly and clearly he wasn't expecting the confession, she hears him shift in his chair and her name falls uncertainly form his lips.
"I used to imagine that I'd slip out the back right over there" she tips her head towards the rear entrance not caring if he sees the gesture. "That you'd follow me and find me in the ally out back"
"Caroline" he says again and perhaps there is a hint of warning beneath the husky timber of desire.
"I always imagined that I'd push you against the wall, I think I liked the idea of being in control because you scared me so much." He doesn't respond but the tempo of his breathing lets her know he isn't exactly unaffected by her words. "I thought about going down on you, how you'd look down at me and call me beautiful."
"You are beautiful" all the anger is gone from him now and he sounds almost reverent as if to him her beauty is a tiny deity worshipped only by him.
"Why didn't you?" she asks impulsively because conjecture and Stefan's bewildered opinion haven't given her an answer to the question she's been battling with for days and without having to look at him it seems possible to ask. "Screw me like a whore I mean"
"Because you are not a whore Caroline." He says it in a voice made for love rich with reverence and conviction. 'Not a whore' isn't the worlds greatest compliment sure but in his voice he could be calling her a goddess and it would sound just the same.
"Klaus?" she asks hesitantly after a few moments indecision. "Are you in love with me?"
He doesn't answer and she's not sure if his silence is telling or not, but it chokes her until she has to say something, needs a reaction of some sort.
"If I walked out the back right now," she asks eventually, speaking so softly she imagines even his hybrid senses might struggle to hear. "Would you follow me?"
He swallows, she hears the wet nervous sound and his breath seems to tremble as he sucks it in. "No" his voice is firm but not harsh or scornful, still rejection is rejection and she's never taken it well.
"What? Why not?" she's honestly shocked by his refusal and a little indignant.
He's silent for one, two, three heavy beats of her heart then she hears him stand. "You know why not" he says curtly and then he's leaving and she watches him stride determinedly to the door knowing that she must look stricken in his wake.
Her friends don't show and she really doesn't want to face any questions form Matt about the scene he's just witnessed. So she goes home, lies on her bed and thinks about Klaus Mikaleson till her head swims with confusion and her body throbs with want.
She touches herself for the second time that day with his voice in her mind but this time she hears words he's never said, words she can't believe she's beginning to think she could hear form him someday, words that make her whole body tremble violently.
She pictures an encounter between them that is more tender than anything she's ever thought about, ever allowed herself to imagine, pictures them in bed together; a deep steady rhythm, kisses all up and down her throat and his voice in her ear as he cums. "I love you Caroline."
A/N so it wasn't my intention but this might be turning onto a love story, oops looks like i just can't help myself