Please Don't Say You Love Me

Herein is semi- smut (I mean there's smut, but I've written smuttier) before I kill you with feels again (although the end of this might cause that). AU of season three from episode 3x14.

It was a one time thing she swore. It wouldn't happen- couldn't happen- again.

Caroline had gone walking after Elena and Matt were gone. She didn't want to be there in the house where her father had died. It was more real there, more crushing that her father would never be there for her again. Everything she had ever dreamt of- graduation, him walking her down the aisle at her wedding- was gone. It hurt, it hurt so much, and she wondered wildly for a moment if she should, if she could, bring herself to turn her emotions off.

It would be easy, so, so easy; just the flip of a switch and everything she was feeling would be gone. Such a tempting thought, wasn't it?

"Caroline?" She turned quickly at the quiet, questioning voice- the voice that if she was being honest had haunted her dreams since that night- finding the man who had given her the strength inadvertently to survive.

It was a one time thing she swore. It wouldn't happen- couldn't happen- again.

Somehow, she was still a little fuzzy on the details of how and why, she found herself in his bed, his lips trailing a path of fire over her skin.

They had been talking, and it was crazy and stupid, and was probably a betrayal of everyone she loved, but she just wanted an escape from the hurt that was consuming her, and so she kissed him.

Caroline didn't stop after that, didn't want to stop, wasn't even sure if she could, and when he tugged her arm she followed him.

It was wrong, all kinds of crazy wrong, but all sane thought fled her at the feel of him against her.

It was a one time thing. Just a one time thing. It had to be. She was grieving, it was understandable. It was justifiable. But it couldn't happen again, it wouldn't.

If only she had known, if she could have seen how addicted to him she would become. How addicted Klaus would become to her in return. She wouldn't have changed a thing.

Caroline hadn't wanted to go to the ball he invited her to, not after sneaking out of his house in the early morning light. She hadn't wanted to face him, not after calling out his name over and over, begging him to take her again and again.

But still, protecting Matt was a good enough excuse to go right? She would avoid him at all costs.

How then, how had she ended up kissing him again as he swept his drawings off the table, raising her up so that she was sitting on the cleared space, and Caroline wrapping her legs around his waist, kissing him as passionately as he kissed her? Why did she let him, why did she want him, to lower the straps of the dress he had bought her down her arms? Why didn't she stop him when a hand went behind her back, pulling the zipper down; why didn't she still his hands, why didn't she get up and leave, when he pushed the top of the dress down to her waist so her chest was fully exposed to his attentions?

She didn't stop him. Instead, all she could think was that she had decided against wearing a bra with the dress as his hands and mouth quickly found the exposed skin and she gasped, arching into his touch, tugging his body closer to hers.

Each kiss, each touch, was sending a burning desire through her, building and building, and again she was begging for him to take her as he whispered promises in her ear; and she wanted it, she wanted the world he painted for her as he took her on that table. She wanted it more than she had wanted anything. Somehow, somehow he was becoming her tether to the world. To life. To a desire to live, persevere, continue on.

After that night, she knew there would be no resisting him. Not when Caroline couldn't imagine anything other than this, couldn't imagine anything better than this.

She tried, she did, to go along with Damon's plan that night, guilt for betraying her friends warring with her guilt at the thought of hurting Klaus. And in the end, his panicked expression on the bench, she couldn't. Caroline told him everything in a hurried whisper, apologizing quickly, telling him to go after his brother.

Speeding home, throwing herself onto her bed, trying not to let the tears spill out. She had lost him, she was sure. Until she heard the sound of her window being pushed open, and she turned to face him, anger and confusion fighting for dominance over his features. "I'm sorry." She murmured brokenly, and he nodded.

"Why?"

Somehow she knew he wasn't asking why she was apologizing, but why she did what she did. "I-I, I'm so confused Klaus. I feel something for you, and that scares me, because I shouldn't feel anything for you, but I want to, and I think I might lov-"

He cut her off, pressing a kiss to her lips before pulling away. "Don't. Please don't say that you love me. I don't deserve that."