Bonnie's always aware and observant. Caroline's reminded of this when she desperately tries not to grimace when Bonnie helps her spread body lotion across her shoulders, scented skin softener burning hot and deep into her abrasions like alcohol into a festering wound. She gnaws the inside of her own cheek to force the noise of discomfort down, hoping that it's enough to prevent any questions from coming up.
But Bonnie sees a different thing. "You're getting really red," she pauses application, allowing Caroline a chance to breathe. "Blotchy, even."
Caroline isn't about to confess that she's spent some time with her back against a rug, so she casually shrugs it off and blames it on rough base work in cheerleading.
Elena, overhearing, walks over to examine. She doesn't look convinced.
"Right," Bonnie replies, capping the bottle and handing it back to the cringing blonde. "Anything you want to tell me?"
Yeah, she's been trying to be normal like it was pre-Kol, but it's hard to be furtive when he seeks her out during practice and kisses her just under her ear. "See you later," caressed his voice upon her skin, before he vanished abruptly.
"I'm perfectly fine," Caroline says. As perfectly fine as a person can be after being denied sex under the bleachers with Kol.
As her friends exchange a skeptical look, Caroline packs in her bottle and quickly pulls her tank over her head. "See you guys tomorrow," she says, hoping that neither of her friends have curiosity powerful enough to make them investigate. She isn't sure that they'd like what they find.
Caroline reaches home to find her mother attending to a flood of paperwork spread around her laptop on the table. Working mode mom. Good. One less person to ask about all the things she's trying to hide.
She strolls past the stairs, then hears, "Honey, I need to ask you something real quick."
It doesn't sound like anything ominous, so she walks over to lend an ear.
Without looking up, the sheriff asks casually, "What do you think if I went on vacation?"
Slightly taken aback, she pauses. "Is this a trick question?" Liz stares pointedly above her reading glasses. "Oh-kay," Caroline says, getting the message, "Maybe it doesn't hurt to take a plane to Cancun."
"Cancun, huh." Front teeth worry at her lip, but she resumes typing. "There was this boy," she says, nails tapping the keyboard at a leisurely pace, "he suggested that I should take a holiday. Do you know a Kol?"
All the blood drains from Caroline's face.
"He came by the house earlier and asked about you." She stops to pick up a pen and scribbles something. "I told him you weren't home."
Surely if the sheriff had learned his last name she would've never let him near the lawn let alone their house. Caroline thanks her mother and briskly travels to her room to make a seriously loud phone call. She almost jumps backward when she swings open her door and finds the object of her annoyance sitting on her bed, all dark autumn colours and well-adjusted hair greeting her.
She can't exactly tell how long he's been there, but from the somewhat rumpled sheets and his apparent restlessness, it's longer than she feels comfortable with. Asking him how he got here without her mom knowing is as useful as telling him to take a hike at this point.
"You're back," she says, trying to keep her tone indifferent. Wouldn't want to let any of yesterday to get to his head, though it's messing with her plenty more than it does him.
"I am." He leans back, a picture of confidence, lit with a smile. "It's up to you to decide what you want to do with me."
She cocks a brow. "You're going to be disappointed." Maybe it had been a bad idea to let him pull her aside during practice earlier, because she's still struggling to block from her mind the things she would do with him. Or do to him.
"I wasn't expecting anything," he says. She can't tell if it's genuine.
"And here you are, at the edge of my bed, waiting for nothing." The swing of her bag, aimed at the spot right beside him brings her closer. She notices that his eyes are particularly drawn to her hip, where a spot of skin shows just above skirt she wears.
Kol calmly reaches out - oh don't fall for this, Care, your mom's still around - and gathers a fistful of fabric to gently tug her towards him.
"You were waiting for me," he replies, hands somehow managing to guide her body onto his lap where her knees are pinned to either side of his hips. One hand lifts her delicate chin while the other races along her thigh, searching. Caroline runs her hand up his chest, thinking, clothes, way too much clothes, and leans forward to kiss him, but his head pulls back just so he can watch her flush when his fingers graze over damp cotton. "You were waiting for me."
She hates how right he is.
"I've got assignments," she says, "I don't have time to wait around for some guy to swing by and get his rocks off."
Kol nudges her panties aside and presses a digit ever so slightly into her. "Some guy," he grits out, disapproving. Caroline's mouth opens in surprise and leans forward, to which he tends to the bare column of her neck with his tongue. She feels him trace a solid line to her clit, smoothing over it before he drags it back and repeats the teasing until she starts to clutch at his shirt, going red under her collar.
All the stroking but never entering turns her so wet that she finds herself nearly pleading for his kiss. He pulls away each time she attempts to claim one, amused at her response when he almost manages to sink the finger deep enough but draws his hand back before it satisfies.
"Don't call me some guy," he says into her collarbone. A palm curves over her ass. "Don't." Caroline's body responds with a jerk when his hand rises and lands with a quick smack.
"Please," she finally whimpers right above his ear. The finger's going over her clit again and she's aching so badly - she can't feel the full pleasure of it and it drives her nuts. It drives her absolutely insane because she knows what it's like when he wants to get her off and he's just not giving it to her. Her imagination, her memory, everything is an exquisite torture to her, and Kol knows it. Bastard.
"Don't be a dick," she says, and he begins to ignore her clit entirely as punishment.
"What am I to you, Caroline?" He increases the speed that he dips into her, which only makes the need worse. She got half a mind to reach down and unbuckle him, but he's got her at an angle that doesn't allow her much room to do anything but tilt forward or back.
The question doesn't help either. It's not exactly easy for her to answer, especially now. She frowns, breathing hard, then shakes her head because she has no idea what the right response is.
Displeased, his wrist stops. "Answer the question," Kol persists.
She goes through every description that pops up in her mind. "You're super annoying," she throws out first, and he smiles at her frustration, "Disturbed," her hand grasps the back of his head, tugging, "And a nuisance," she rounds off. "Definitely not just some guy, I guess."
He flips them over so he's on top. With eyes dark as night, he looks down the length of her body under him. "I'm going to fuck you," he promises, voice like gravel gently scraping down her spine.
"Good," she pries his shirt apart. His tone makes her thighs clench in anticipation - god, the way his cock filled her the day before. "Good," she says again, soon forgetting that one of the other things she meant to call him was charming. But he doesn't need to know that yet. Sex first, feelings later.
"What business did you have here," Caroline hugs the duvet close to her chest, "Besides... This?"
He looks amused as he pulls on his jeans. "Look at you, being shy and doe-like after all the filthy things that ca-" A pillow flies in his general direction, which he ducks with ease. She finds herself trying to look away when he zips up and picks his shirt off the floor. "Does it matter to you that much?"
It doesn't. At least, she'd like to think so. "I'm just making conversation," she replies.
"Taking an interest in me." Kol glances at her, disbelieving. "Surely you don't want every finicky detail of my mishaps and adventures."
"I have a right to know if I'm sleeping with a serial killer."
"Mass murderer," he corrects. "But you already knew this, long before I touched your pretty face."
"So you're not going to tell me." The very last button slides into place, and she finds herself already missing the sight of the bare muscle that meets the jut of his hip bone.
"I'm not," he says. "And I never will." His roguish smile makes a brief appearance. "Guess you're going to lose some sleep over it."
It bothers her how good he is at yanking her chain, but she won't let him reap the pleasure of seeing her squirm. "I've got better things to worry about."
"You don't have to pretend with me."
Caroline's lips press into a little line. "Says the vampire who lied his way into my bed."
"And yet here I am, having just climbed out of it." Kol sits back down to tend to socks and shoes.
"So how do I know that you're not going to just wipe out the entire Forbes line in one fell swoop tomorrow?"
"You don't," he says. "But there's a vague possibility that you can still convince me not to."
"Me. Convince you." He can't be serious. "Don't be a jerk. It's definitely not going to get you laid."
"Maybe it's not just about getting laid."
Kol reaches out to cup her cheek, and she finds herself leaning into it ever so slightly. Because he sounds honest, and she can't help but let it stir her heart to life. Weak, she scolds herself, but thinking that he might pick up on it and respond to her in kind, her hand rises to meet his.
Caroline isn't sure what she expected to happen. He doesn't kiss her goodbye, doesn't touch a hair. He only looks and looks and looks, at her eyes and her mouth, wordless and thick with meaning, knowing full well how antsy she gets when she's forced to guess what's swimming around in that warped mind of his. Then without allowing her fingers to graze his skin, he utters, "Wait for me." He leaves.
He leaves, and she sinks low into her bed and under her covers, hoping that the warm knot in her chest will subside. But his smell trapped in the cotton of her sheets. There is no escape.
Terrible, she thinks, pressing her cheek against the mattress. He did say he was terrible.
He doesn't come back; she doesn't know why. All she knows that as the days stretch into weeks, into months, there's no hiding the fact that she does miss him, the presence of him, his air of mystery, the total obliteration of common sense and comfort she feels from just the tender brush of his hand along her jaw.
Aggravating.
There are times when she's on the couch in her living room and she remembers, while she, along with her best friends, bury their noses in textbooks for finals, full of highlights in every colour of the rainbow. The rip in the carpet reminds her of his hands; the draft that enters the house by a window left open makes her recall his bite.
Caroline can move on and be entangled in other flings of the summertime, trading patience for quick kisses and gropes at frat parties where the wells of youth teem with the promise of new and unforgettable experiences. She can easily take what she had with Kol and chalk it up to a good, wild time, a romantic anomaly in her otherwise mundane routine of a vampire in Virginia. It's not like they had spent days and nights attached at the hip. No one had said anything about love, or alluded to exclusivity of any sort. She's free to do as she pleases.
But she also remembers that he told her to wait. Strangely, for some reason, she does.