Chapter 5
She checks her hair and glances at her watch. He said he'd leave the house at 5, which gives her half an hour to get there before he goes. She bites her lips and looks at her own face, she looks nervous and so she should be, she's planning to ambush an original in his own home after all.
She almost talks herself out of it on the way over, but the desire to see him is stronger than all the common sense she can scrape together and all her guilt combined, stronger she thinks in this moment than anything else.
By quarter to five she's striding in with false bravado to find Klaus, surprised, and shirtless in his palour. "Caroline," he glances at the grandfather clock that stands near the door obviously confirming that it is she who is early rather than he who is late.
"You're early love," he says guardedly and then with a smirk. "You wouldn't be trying to engineer another meeting between us now would you?"
She huffs and crosses her arms. "Seriously, you're one to talk, you don't exactly look like you're about to go out. Maybe you were waiting to ambush me"
He narrows his eyes and looks offended. "I was going to the woods"
"Yeah" she scoffs. "You always go to the woods half naked?"
He steps up to her and the instinctive desire to move away from him and all his predator's power is almost too strong to resists. Almost. She tilts her chin and keeps her gaze steady on him and he smiles at her stubborn bravery.
Then he lifts one hand and they both look at it as the fingers extend with a sickening crack of bone and tawny fur covers it. The wolf, suddenly she's taken by a powerful desire to see his other form, wonders if she'll ever be able to ask him to show her.
"Oh", she says instead sounding a little dumb. "You do that?"
"Occasionally," he says neutrally as his hand returns to its human shape. "I find it offers a certain clarity"
"Doesn't it hurt?" she asks.
He narrows his eyes and tips his head. "Indescribably."
They're silent for a moment then he breaks it in a soft firm voice. "Why are you here Caroline?"
"I wanted to see the painting and since I don't know anything about art I figured it'd be better if I had, you know, a guide or whatever"
He frowns and she sighs and drops the pretence. "Fine, I just wanted you to show it to me, ok. It's not everyday a girl gets her picture painted," she admits and he looks icily at her for long awkward moments before he rolls his eyes and offers her his arm.
She takes it, painfully aware of the nakedness of his chest, of how close she is to all that tantalizing pale skin, of the burning werewolf heat of him seeping into her own cool skin. They don't speak as he leads her to his studio but she feels his eyes on her profile as they walk and keeps her own trained forward with a military discipline despite the heat tingling in her cheeks.
Her control breaks the moment she see it. He leads her into the studio and on an easel in the center is the framed image. "Oh my god"
She untangles herself from his arm and steps towards it. "Oh my god"
She hears him chuckle behind her and manages to reluctantly tear her eyes from the image.
"Klaus," she says as she turns to look at him. "It's beautiful"
A smile dances shyly on his lips. "You're beautiful Caroline" he says sincerely and she laughs dismissively.
She flaps her hand towards the image. "I'm not that beautiful," she says but she can feel the delight like a fountain rising up in her chest and she can't help but grin at him.
He shrugs his disagreement with one shoulder as she turns back to the painting. "That's a matter of opinion love"
She looks back at her own form, captured in what her uneducated mind labels a renaissance style. He's told her before that she's beautiful, Tyler said it a few times too, even Matt said so once, but she's never in her life felt it. Not until right now anyway, she's always had too many insecurities to truly believe it.
Elena is beautiful, Bonnie is beautiful, not her. She knows she's slim and blonde enough to catch the eye. She knows she basically ticks the right boxes but beautiful? That's always seemed too ethereal, too precious, a label for bitchy overachieving Caroline Forbes.
"Thank you" she whispers turning again to find him slipping a paint stained t-shirt over his head. Part of her pouts that he's covered up his frankly drool-worthy torso but the action has mussed his hair into soft disarray that makes him look younger and sweeter than he has any right to look and that makes her weak for the need to touch him.
She's about to go to him when another easel catches her eye, the painting it houses is compelling to look at and makes something twist fearfully in her gut.
"Is that Mikael?" she asks and he glances tensely at the painting.
"Yes" he says tersely and she can almost see the walls going up around him layer after protective layer conjured into solid reality in a moment.
"It's horrible," she says honestly then gives him a quick awkward glance. "I mean it's brilliant but it's horrible, it makes me feel kinda," she swallows, she's treading on some dangerous personal territory here she thinks. "Scared"
He doesn't respond, just watches her with guarded eyes, his face a lie of impassiveness. "When was it?" she tries, she can't explain why these walls of his bother her so much, but a moment ago he was open and smiling bashfully and now he's closed off and frozen solid and she hates it.
He swallows, a flick of weakness across his Adam's apple, and she gives a small tight smile of encouragement. "A memory" he says eventually. "From when I was a child"
She swallows now and her eyes prick with empathy. She looks again at the figure in the image, he seems to tower over the canvas, his face twisted into a hateful snarl, his arm raised. "He used to hit you?" she asks. Thinking perhaps she already knew that somehow.
He moves away. "All fathers struck their children in that time," he tells her as he busies himself pouring two large measures of whiskey. "Mikael's violence went far beyond discipline however." He hands her the drink and looks at the painting again with a clenched jaw and a moist sheen on his eyes. "My mother needed all her magic to return me form the point of death more than once."
"That's terrible," she says her voice a little shrill with shock and outrage.
"It was a long time ago," he says dismissively and looks away again.
"But this isn't" she says knowingly and touches the painting finding wet paint on her fingertips. "You painted this today?"
He shrugs, clearly uncomfortable. "That's why you needed clarity," she intuits and follows the thought. "Painting Mikael got you all twisted up?"
"Almost love, the painting was actually today's first attempt to purge the demon, and a failure at that, the wolf is something of a last resort"
"I don't understand," she says. "Mikael's gone Klaus"
"The broken shells of his children are immortal," he replies and now he stares at his stepfather's image, his eyes sparklimg just faintly enough that he could deny the tears. "The damage he has done will live quite literally forever"
Her compassion sits like an octopus in her chest and reaches out it's many arms to stir pity in her stomach and movement in her limbs. It pushed her legs to step towards him and lifts her hands to cup his face. "I'm so sorry he hurt you," it commands her lips to say as her thumbs brush his cheeks. "No one deserves that"
"It was a lo-"
"Do not say it was a long time ago," she says firmly, her compassion is gentle at its core but she's always been short of patience with emotional dishonesty. "Because that implies that you're over it and well", she gestures at the painting. "Evidence to the contrary."
He huffs out air through his nose and looks up at the ceiling. "Perhaps," she starts haltingly. "Perhaps, there's another way to purge. Maybe a softer way"
He looks curiously at her and she squares her shoulders blocking out the firm sane voice in her head telling her not to do this. Her hands move into his hair and she pulls gently on the back of his head moving his face down so that her lips and his hover millimeters apart. "Don't think about him," she whispers. "Just for a little while"
And then she kisses him despite the sudden panic in that sane voice commanding her to stop. She wants too much to comfort him. Her pity will not be overridden now; it is the victor of her emotions, the undisputed heavy weight champion of her heart.
He's rigid and unsure but she doesn't stop, she moves her mouth over his until he relents, traces soothing patterns on his skin until he relaxes into her embrace. She is surer in this moment that he's in love with her than in any moment before, the way his tense muscles soften under her searching fingertips and his mouth molds to hers.
She is consciously gentle. Gentle beyond their shared nature, her fingers run featherlike across his shoulders, her lips slip softly over his and to her surprise her accepts her careful comfort. His own hands mirror hers as they explore each other with an almost frightened tenderness that she'd never in a million years have imagined could pass between them.
She's fantasied every filth she can imagine about him, she's dreamt him rough and possessive, she's picture him suppliant and lustful and angry and demanding. More recently she's even concocted scenes filled with a deep surging tide of love but never has she imagined this. Never the agonising beauty of these feather-soft, soul deep, touches.
Her body reacts, she feels the thrum of wanting, and feels too his answering desire press lightly against her belly. She's vaguely aware that they want each other very very much but it doesn't seem to matter to either of them right now. Right now she is kissing away the sting of lips split and healed a thousand years before, she strokes out bruises that have long ago bloomed and vanished and are yet as real right now as they were on the flesh of a frightened boy a millennia ago.
She draws him backward through the open door of his bedroom and towards his bed without for a moment breaking their connection and he lays her down with one arm around her waist and one on her cheek brushing away the tears she hadn't known she was crying until he smears their wetness over her cheekbone.
They don't speak. There are no words for this. Even his name would be too harsh she thinks, even hers said in that rolling hypnotic drawl of his could shatter this moment into a million pieces and she wants very much to preserve it. Eventually they sleep, she doesn't know who falls asleep first, doesn't remember a moment's breaking of their endless kissing until her eyes open and his shut a fraction too late to fool her.
Is he feigning sleep to keep her close she wonders or to allow her to leave? Either way she takes the opportunity to study him, he is ridiculously handsome like this with his face smooth and relaxed in the imitation of sleep but she misses the vibrancy of his blue eyes with that mischievous sparkly that has been chipping away at her defenses for so long now.
"I know you're awake," she says and his lips quirk but his eyes remain shut.
"Hey," she pokes him in the shoulder and his lips twitch again. "Hey"
He doesn't open his eyes and she huffs out a disgruntled "Fine" and purses her lips, then a puckish thought hits her and she sneaks her hand between them and up under his shirt to tickle the smooth skin beneath. His abs twitch enticingly under her touch and he squirms almost imperceptibly away. It's just enough show of weakness to make her pounce.
"Ah ha," she crows and her other hand joins the assault until he has no choice but to, laughing, open his eyes and try to trap her relentless hands. He flips them effortlessly his eyes dancing with laughter and joyful threat as he pins her beneath his body and retaliates in kind making her squeal and thrash in an attempt to escape his playful torture.
"Ok," she gasps eventually, "Ok, ok, I give."
He chuckles and stops tickling her, but his hands still lie inside her blouse on the cool skin of her waist and she's suddenly very aware of their heat. She feels the laughter of the moment drain away leaving in it's place just the feel of his hands on her skin and the connection of their eyes.
He's going to kiss her. She realises that is inevitable in this moment, realises too that although he's the one about to place his lips on hers that she was the initiator. His mouth feels soft and hot against hers, more demanding than the night before, more sensuous.
She kisses back, because, well, she's not made of stone and he feels amazing. She hears a needy moan come from her own throat and her hands travel to his shoulders, not exploring but simply clinging to him while she groans out her desire into his open mouth.
It's going to happen, they're actually going to have sex and all she can think in spite of herself is 'finally.' Without thought she feels her body begin undulating under his, nothing she does now is done mindfully, everything is instinct. She is filled with a rising sense of rightness, it's going to happen, it has always been inevitable and she is, deep in her soul, so very glad.
He kisses his way up and down her throat just the way she fantasised the night before as his hands explore the skin of her sides and his hips answer the surging oceanlike rhythm of her body as she rubs herself against him.
"Klaus," she says his name like a prayer and her hands finally find the ability to move from their place on her shoulders to travel raggedly over his body. "God Klaus"
"Caroline," he breathes in her ear then he's kissing her again and she feels her need for him ratchet up until she's tugging artlessly at his cloths and whining in her throat.
Like everyone else her fantasies always a steal a little romance novel illusion, a beautifully choreographed coming together in soft focus perfection but this is better. This clumsy desperation that makes her hands shake as she tries to tug his shirt over his head and the wet messy clashing of their mouths as his passion surges up to crash against her own like two stag locking antlers, brutal and animal in it's rawest form.
She tears her mouth away from his before the intensity of it overwhelms her. "Fuck" she hisses and claws at his hips as she grinds against him. "Please"
Clearly he likes it when she begs, her blouse rips loudly in the silent house and she throws back her head as he turns his attention to her breast, kneading and fondling while his mouth runs hot wet kisses down her cleavage and to her nipple, her bra pushed hurriedly aside.
It makes her rash and crazy with wanting and she searches impatiently for the buckle of his belt. Her need fans out into every inch of her body from the aching emptiness at her center, madness chases desire from her belly to her fingertips and she rips the belt wildly from him and tears open the zipper.
"Please" she begs inarticulately again and he responds by reaching up between her bare legs to finally, and god she's been waiting forever for this, slip beneath the soaked fabric of her underwear.
"God" he hisses and closes his eyes as if losing himself in the wet feel of her. "God Caroline."
"I need-" she starts and pumps her hips against his hands. "Klaus I-"
"Hush" suddenly he goes utterly still. "Shh love someone's here"
"What?"
He lays a finger on her lips and cocks his head to listen. "It's Ripper"
"Klaus" she hears Stefan's call. "Are you here?"
He looks at her and suddenly his weight over her body makes her feel trapped. "What do you think love?" Klaus asks in a whisper. "Should we pretend we're not here and hope he goes away or find out what doppelganger crisis he's having this time?"
"Seriously are you crazy, I am not getting caught here," she snaps under her breath, fear of discoverymaking her lash out. "With you." That last comes out nastier than she ever meant it too and he flinches visibly before his face hardens and he stands fixing his clothes, which she'd been so urgently tearing from him moments before, with sharp angry movements.
She wants to say sorry for being a birch but she can't even begin to form that sort of surrender so she just stares at him as he moves to the door. "Best keep quite then hadn't you sweetheart and trust I keep your shameful secret"
He goes and she sags back onto the bed and stares at the ceiling. "Shit." She mutters before getting up and straightening her own cloths. When she hears Stefan leave she finds Klaus pouring drinking whiskey in gulps inappropriate for anytime of day let alone this early in the morning.
"What did he want?" she asks because she's too much of a coward to offer up the apology she knows she owes him.
He doesn't answer and she bites her lip, "Klaus, look I…"
"Don't you have places to be Caroline?" he asks calmly and she wishes he sounded angry. If he were angry, she'd get angry, and they thrash this out with raised voices and painful truths.
Like this she knows it's pointless talking to him, his shields are up so high she'll never get past them. So she just nods and heads for the door where his voice stops her.
"Caroline," he says in that same calm neutral tone. "You should know that if you come to me again I will consider the terms of our deal void"
She turns to him, frowning because honestly she's considered them pretty much void from the moment she sat herself down in his lap and traced patterns on his skin, she's a little shocked he 's still honouring it after last night.
"If you come to me again, I will pursue you," now emotion does colour his voice making it just a fraction hoarse. "I will have you, and I will ruin you"
She opens her mouth to speak but he turns his back before she can formulate any words. "Goodbye Caroline"
She looks at the floor feeling her brow scrunched up with confusion and dissatisfaction. "Klaus, serious…" she looks up and he isn't there, she didn't even hear him woosh away.
Her shoulders slump and she leaves, she should check in on Stefan and her friends, try to find out what crisis could have brought her beast friend to the hybrid's door because whatever it is cannot be good.