"So what sort of creature is this new constellation, Gerald?" Klaus said.
"He…he's a duck," she said, trying to make her voice sound strong and confident, knowing that it was coming out hoarse and slurred.
Reaching into a pocket in his jacket, Klaus extracted a handkerchief and handed it to her. "You've got a little…" he trailed, gesturing on his own face to indicate that she had tear-stained mascara trails down her cheeks. She accepted it, dapping at her face, feeling guilty that she was creating black stains on the clean white fabric.
"Thank you," she said.
"So what is Gerald's backstory?" Klaus said.
"What do you mean?" Cami said, handing the handkerchief back to him. When he took it back, their fingers brushed briefly, and it sent a shock through her body. In spite of herself, she took a tiny step closer to him. It was intoxicating to be in his presence, to hear the low, smooth sound of his voice so close to her, to have his blue eyes studying her carefully.
"Well, all good constellations have a backstory. Cassiopeia, for example," he said, pointing to the sky where the constellation was, "was a queen who so loudly boasted of her own beauty and the beauty of her daughter Andromeda, that she claimed they were both more beautiful that the sea nymphs. As punishment for her vanity, she was forced to be placed in the sky, and her daughter was offered as prey to the sea monster Cetus." Klaus's finger traced along the constellation Andromeda.
Cami watched him with fascination, hanging on to his every word. With every passing second, she felt something swell within her, this desperate wanting for him.
The alcohol was fogging her head, and her cathartic crying session had left room for only reckless thoughts and impulsive actions. She watched him closely, studying the curve of his lips, the way his eyes were lighting up in the darkness as he spoke about the stars. She found herself thinking that she had not felt such a strong, instantaneous attraction to someone in a long time, perhaps ever. In that moment, she would have done anything to be able to kiss him.
Now he was looking at her too. Her vision was a little fuzzy with the alcohol, and it was quite hard to see him in the dark, but she could feel a static between them that went beyond her physical attraction to him. She watched him study her, and knew that he with his heightened vampire senses, he could see her pretty well in the dark, and she wondered if he thought she was pretty. She was sure her makeup was still smeared on her face, despite his generous sacrifice of his handkerchief.
His eyes turned back to the sky, searching for where Cami's imaginary constellation was. "So what is Gerald's story?" Klaus said again. He turned his eyes towards her, taking a step closer to her.
A surge of electricity rocked through her. Her heartbeat quickened embarrassingly, and she was sure he could hear it. Her head emptied itself of all thoughts except for him. Klaus. Klaus Mikaelson. I need him, I need him, I need him. Alcohol and the heady static of attraction was making her feel dizzy and euphoric.
"Cami, are you—"
Suddenly Cami was throwing herself at him with surprising speed and ferocity. She did not think she could handle one more person asking if she was alright, so she crushed her lips against his to shut him up. Her arms flung themselves around his neck as she stood on her tiptoes, smashing her mouth to his. She could taste that alcohol on him, hoped that they had both had enough to drink that neither of them would question or try to stop the other.
She kissed him for a long minute while he stayed totally frozen in shock, his hands at his sides, his eyes open. She was afraid to pull back, to stop because she was scared that they may not start again. She just hoped that he too could feel the electricity that was making her heart hammer beneath her breastbone, and that that would be enough to keep going.
His hands were on her shoulders, pulling her away from him slightly, until she had no choice but to disconnect the kiss and look at him. "Are you alright?"
Cami's jaw clenched. She turned broke free from him, started to stomp away angrily, thinking about going back into the party and demanding that Daniel should take her home right then. But she had gotten this far, and now she had tunnel vision. She fully intended to get what she wanted, and what she wanted right now was Klaus Mikaelson.
"I swear to god, if one more person asks me that…" she said, spinning back around. Her determination was kicking into overdrive, making her adrenaline flow freely, and she felt bolder than she ever had before. A wild sense of abandon was growing within her, making her feel expansive, never-ending, completely devoid of any inhibition or burden.
Her palms made contact squarely with his chest, shoving him hard. It was so quick, so unexpected, that she knocked him to the ground, just like she had wanted. Power was making her head swim, knowing that she had just knocked this vampire off his feet, taking him by surprise.
Before he could get up, she climbed on top of him, straddling his lap, crashing her mouth back onto his. This time he kissed back, albeit hesitantly. She could tell he was nervous about this, and an unspoken question hung between them in the air: What about Daniel? And so she kissed Klaus harder, to forget that Daniel existed, to convince Klaus just how badly she needed this.
After a long moment, she felt him move beneath her, felt his hands wrap around her waist. And then she felt him begin to kiss her back in earnest, his reservations quieted now by the intense chemistry flowing between them.
As soon as she felt him starting to kiss her back, she eased off. She had been practically smashing her face to his, trying to convince him that this was okay, that this was what they both needed, but now she pulled back a little, started to kiss him slowly. His mouth tasted like whiskey, and she could smell his cologne, woodsy and leathery. Cami relished the taste of him, the soft feeling of his lips against hers, the scratchiness of his stubble against her chin.
Experimentally, she ran her tongue along his upper lip, her hands moving from around his neck up into his hair. His breathing hitched slightly, and she smiled against his lips, pushing him back so he was fully lying down with her on top of him. She got a head rush from all the power, from being in complete control for once, and she smiled again as she moved one of her hands to his throat.
She squeezed lightly, turning his head so that she could kiss down the length of his neck. Shimmying backwards a little, she reached down to the buckle of his pants, undoing it and his fly. "Wait," he said breathily. "Are you sure we should…"
Cami reached down the waistband of his boxers, taking his already-stiff length into her hand. "Don't stop me," she said in a stern tone. Then, realizing how forceful that sounded, she revised, "Please let me keep going," leaving it to him to give his consent.
It was pretty hard for him to say no as she stroked his length. Whatever reservations he had about this fell away as he kissed her deeply, his fingers closing up in her hair and pulling slightly. He caught her bottom lip between his teeth and pulled gently, eliciting a moan from her. That was all the convincing it took for him. "Don't stop, please," he said. She did as she was told.
Hiking her skirt up around her hips, she realized that she had left her underwear in the bathroom from her tryst with Daniel. She grinded her hips down onto him, kissing him hard as her hips started to move back and forth instinctively.
Klaus's hands extracted themselves from her hair to push his trousers and boxers down over his hips. And then he pulled her hips down onto him, and he was filling her with this intense, euphoric pleasure. Her head felt so fuzzy, so pleasantly empty for once, and all she could do was focus on him, on their connection.
Rocking her hips up and down, she pressed her mouth to his roughly, her hands clenching in his hair. The friction was already building inside her, causing her to cry out. A warmth was collecting between her legs, and she would do anything to keep it growing.
She moved faster, harder above him, sitting up so that she was riding him, her head swimming with immense pleasure. In her periphery she could hear his moans, but she was so focused on her own pleasure that it didn't register to her.
It was getting so close for her, so painfully close, and she couldn't stop. She had hoped to draw this out a little longer, to keep the blissful emptiness in her head for a little longer, but she couldn't hold off anymore. Cami let out a loud cry as she came, throwing her head back as she rode out her pleasure.
Her mind was flooded with an intense, delicious emptiness. She hardly even noticed when Klaus flipped her underneath him, rocking into her until he finished a few seconds later. As he rolled off her, she just lay there in the grass on the golf course, eyes closed as she savored the buzzing high rolling through her body.
It didn't take long for reality to set back in. Thoughts trickled in slowly, individually so that she felt the pain of all of them. You're so stupid. Why did you do this? What about Daniel? This didn't solve anything. You're still broken, and now you've ruined your relationship.
Klaus was lying beside her as she sat up, turning her back to him. She looked at him for a moment, his eyes still closed with bliss, his chest heaving as he began to catch his breath. Turning away from him, she stared out into the darkness, feeling her whole world come crashing in around her. You should have known better, you should have known better, you should have known better. You should have known that this wouldn't solve anything, that it would make things worse. And yet she couldn't have stopped herself from leaping at the opportunity for a momentary reprieve from the pain she constantly felt. She had gotten that, but it hurt all the more when her problems had come back.
Tears welled in her eyes, and she started to shake. She could feel a panic attack coming on, looming like a hurricane just offshore.
He sat up behind her, draping his arm over her shoulder and across her chest, pulling gently so that she would lean back into him. But she resisted, resting her hand on his wrist lightly before disentangling herself.
Standing quickly, she straightened her skirt. "I have to go," she mumbled.
"Wait!" he called. She was already a few steps away from him but she stopped, not turning around, but giving him a chance to say what he wanted to say. "I know…I know you're with Daniel. But if things don't work out, maybe I could see you again?"
Cami didn't dare turn around because if she did, she knew she would lose her resolve. She knew that if she looked at him, if she saw his shadowed expression, she would run back to him and kiss him and they would start all over. "I think that's a very bad idea," she almost whispered, but she knew he could hear her.
Before he could say anything else, she was walking back towards the country club, leaving her shoes behind.