Title: Tracing Poem On Your Body
Author: fadingtales
Fandom: Vampire Diaries
Ship: Klaus/Caroline
Summary: By virtue of some sensual E.E. Cummings, Caroline realizes that while she may be familiar with courtship, she has never been properly seduced.
Caroline was not unaccustomed to boys' attention. There was Damon, who she chased, but found herself getting caught up by his devilish charms instead. She catered to his every wish and he catered to her dark desires by night. And where Damon was all rough and tumble, Matt was the opposite. He was Eskimo kisses and apple pie. She serenaded him with a song once and kissed him in the street with the headlights of his truck as back-lighting. Then there was Tyler who started out being insufferable, but grew more tolerable as time wore on. He was the jock to her cheerleader and they couldn't keep their hands off each other underneath the bleachers. She is by no means a blushing virgin and she thought herself knowledgeable in the realms of the male-female tête à tête.
No, Caroline was not unused to courtship, but she realizes when it comes to Klaus… she's never been properly seduced.
It began with a sliver of paper tucked between the pages of her chemistry textbook. A scrap of paper, written in his elegant hand that she has come to recognize through the signatures scribbled on the corner of the drawings he leaves on her bed.
Teach me to sin—
Enslave me to your wanton charms,
Crush me in your velvet arms
And make me, make me love you.
Make me fire your blood with new desire,
And make me kiss you—lip and limb,
Till sense reel and pulses swim.
Aye! even if you hate me,
Teach me to sin. [1]
The words make her blush, hitting too close to home. Klaus has never been quite discreet about his affections towards her. And neither has Caroline been in her rebuffs of them. But protest she may, she cannot deny the sandy devil his seductive allure. She has never been so moved by poems before. Especially ones of such erotic nature.
She rereads the poem again, silently mouthing it, forming the words with her lips, feeling their weight on her tongue without actually uttering a word.
Those borrowed words make her thighs clench and her heart beat just that much faster. She glances up nervously, afraid that her classmates might notice, but they don't. The teacher continues to drone on about cell membranes and not a single soul notices anything unwonted about Caroline.
They don't notice the deliciously dark tendrils of thought that have begun to fill her head. Of rough hands and calloused fingers interlacing with hers. Of lingering touches that make her gasp and her toes curl. And of knotted sheets and heavy breaths. No, no one notices.
It's for the better, because Caroline doesn't hear a single word of lecture the entire day.
xxx
The next time she finds a slip of paper with his handwriting on it, she is home alone, her mother working yet another night shift and leaving young Caroline to fend for herself.
She is in the kitchen, hunting for a snack to go with her B positive when she spots it, unassumingly peeking out from underneath a vase of flowers on the counter. It unfolds to read, short and sweet:
I have longing to kiss you
and my tongue makes worship on you [2]
More so than his drawings, the words paint a vivid image in her mind's eye. She could almost hear him reading the words in that velvety accent of his. Feel the phantom vibrations of his breath against her ear as he whispers them, feel his tongue doing what the poem says, and a moan seeks to escape her throat.
She cannot sleep the rest of the night; her dreams are haunted by slick tongues and parted lips and legs. Wine kisses, lazy and wet… trailing patterns across her skin from her head to her toes. And fingers interlaced and the tantalizing scratch of fine stubble scraping across her underbelly, so distinctly his.
xxx
The third time she gets a note from Klaus, she is in the middle of planning a fundraiser. A bouncy cheerleader hands her an envelope of what she assumed to be a list of last year's most generous donors, but when she opens it, it's his words that spill out.
There are times I desire you
In a lover's arms. Sometimes
I want you making fierce love,
With moans like thought-bubbles [3]
The words are a startling black, inked across the stark white parchment. It is as if they were branded there, hot as they were.
They make her hair stand on their tips, all static-y and uncomfortable, yet oddly pleasurable at the same time. She finds her bottom lip, catches it between her teeth, and sucks on it as if that little gesture would be enough to ease the sensation of heat that is pooling between her legs.
It doesn't.
In an unprecedented act, she passes on the fundraising duties to Rebekah and goes home early for a long cold shower.
xxx
The fourth time, not that she's counting, she expects it. When she saw the new book sitting on her night stand, dark leather bound and faded gold leafed embossing with a ribbon tassel to mark the page, she knew it was from him.
With a huff of exasperation, she turns away from the offending object and goes about her night with homework and television. As she's preparing for bed, slipping into her cotton negligee, her attention is once again drawn to the tempting book that is obtrusively invading her room. It's an old, masculine, and worldly thing that clashes with her modern girlish decor, trinkets of plastic and synthetic glass.
She reaches past the trespassing book to flip off the light switch and quickly slips under her covers, determined to ignore its presence.
Two hours in, the red light from her digital clock blinks 1:02AM at her. She growls into her pillow, twists and turns until she's facing the book. Its worn leather cover seems to glow in the moonlight streaming through her window. Beckoning, pulsing and dark.
With a half sigh-half snarl, she snatches it from her bed stand and lays it on her lap. The leather feels warm against her thighs. She switches on the light and flips to the page where the bookmark has been placed. Sinking into the warmth of her pillows, she carefully scans the page.
The poem is long and bit rambly, but it is beautiful and lovely. Full of graceful metaphors and a strong sense of heartache and yearning and nostalgia. And then in the middle of it all, in the middle of the pretty prose, he has underlined a single line.
Moonlight making crosses
on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one [4]
If she thought reading the poem would help her sleep, she was wrong. Now the anxiety that filled her was of a different kind.
Again came the yearning. Her body ached to be touched, her mouth dry with the want. She feels tight and taunt, like the strings of a violin.
She shuts her eyes tight and imagines the words. Feel their weight in her mind, like fingers and lips, tracing every inch of her. They caress her, tease her. She craves them so, but they do not satisfy the need that pulses at her core. She needs more.
Taking matters into her own hands, literally, she slips her hand under the hem of her negligee. And in the safety of her private thoughts, she dares imagine that it is his hands upon her body.
She wakes up discontented with mere imagination.
xxx
The fifth time, she goes to him. Unbidden and unexpectedly. She doesn't bother to ring his doorbell, just finds her way to his study and props herself against one door frame, eyebrow cocked.
"You've been leaving me poems."
He turns away from the painting he's currently working on, an abstract image full of peach hues, dark smudges, and just a spot of pink at the center.
"I thought I would broaden your horizons," he says casually, with a hint of mocking.
His hands are smeared with paint and when he finishes wiping them on a rag, he looks up at her with a wolfish grin and she thinks she's figured out what the subject of his painting is.
"Consider them broadened," she drawls.
Her retort makes him laugh, a deep throaty chuckle that sends trills up her spine.
He steps toward her, eyes glinting and the lupine smile back on his face. She swallows the lump forming in her throat, but doesn't look away from his steady gaze. He's inching closer and she could almost perceptibly feel the heat of his body, smell the heavy heady scent of him. Masculine, musky, and distinctly Klaus.
When he leans in, his stubble brushes against her cheek, inciting a sharp hiss. She's ready to flee, but he's predicted her moves and has latched his hand to hers, holding her hostage.
He doesn't touch her anywhere else. Just his hand gentle but firm around her wrist and his lips against her ear. Yet she feels on fire, the air around them igniting from their sheer proximity.
"Oh, my dear… you have learned nothing yet."
And with that, she becomes undone.
She kisses him first. She will remember this. It was her hands that snaked into his hair, pulled his head closer, her lips that found his and seared them to hers.
She regrets none of it because to feel him pressed against her, his lips, his hands, his chest, it was like finding water in a drought and her body has been a desert for far too long.
But he breaks the kiss and pushes her away, gently so, but the action stings. And for a moment that seems to last for an infinity and she thinks she will die from the humiliation. But before she can properly register the rejection, he has her lying on her back on his leather couch. His eyes mischievous once more.
"Shhh," he soothes. "Don't rush this. I want to take it slow."
And the previous sting ebbs away.
He crawls over to her, his muscles rippling with the movement. His smile may be lupine, but his movements are that of a panther. Feline elegance and unnatural grace.
He hovers above her, hands running down from her neck to her torso to where they rest at the top of her jeans, fingers skimming against her button and zipper.
He undoes the button, and her hips buck in anticipation. He pauses to hold them down, shaking his head at her.
"Shh," he says. "I said, we're going to take this slow."
Only when she finally settles down does he continue.
He runs his finger along the zipper, unzipping it as he is unzipping her control. Her breathing feels labored and he hasn't even taken any clothes off yet. As if taking pity on her agonizing torture, he leans forward and kisses her. A soft, gentle, and calming kiss. And that above everything else startles her the most.
Having been distracted, she did not notice that he had already started divesting her of her bottom attire. Slowly pulling one leg of her pants down, down, down until her foot slips out of it.
He bows his head and places a kiss on the side of her ankle and whispers, "I like my body when it is with your body." [5]
And a new tremor runs through her.
He places her feet back down and repeats his steps with her other leg, mirroring kiss and all.
"It is so quite new a thing."
His fingers slip in between the buttons of her blouse and in one swift movement, rips the garment wide open. The buttons clink as they drop onto the floor, an orchestra with Caroline's gasp.
Her chest heaves as he sinks his face down to kiss the dip in between her breasts. He drags his lips downwards until they reach the apex between her thighs. She inhales sharply when she feels his tongue, hot and wet, licking her through the lace fabric of her panties. She lets out a moan and quivers when he begins softly sucking her through the material.
"Muscles better and nerves more," he whispers into her flesh.
"Stop being a tease," she complains, her voice is low and raspy.
He looks at her sideways, grin near reaching his ears.
"Not enjoying yourself, love?"
"Hmmm," she muses, her lips slowly curling into something resembling a Cheshire.
Before he can ponder what that simper meant, she shoves him backwards. He lands with an "oof" onto his back. She wraps her thighs around him and presses his hands above his head. With a smile, she dips her head down and presses her lips against the underside of his jaw.
"I like your body," she says, tongue grazing against his skin. "I like what it does…"
His eyes widen as he recognizes the line. He can feel her smirking against his throat. She kisses her way down his chest, unbuttoning his shirt with her teeth.
"I like its hows," she continues. "I like to feel the spine of your body and its bones." She kisses each one of his ribs. "And the trembling…"
And tremble he does.
"-firm-smoothness and which I will."
She's licking his abs, the kind that put washing boards to shame.
"Again and again and again," each again is punctuated with a suckle, a nibble, or a lick and then…"kiss."
She's reached part of his shirt where it is tucked into his pants. He can feel her there, hovering, and he throbs with anticipation. His breath comes out heavy, panting. She runs her hand down the bulge in his pants, stroking him through the fabric of his jeans, inciting a hiss and a groan.
She's biting down on her bottom lip and he can barely control himself from the sight.
"You know the poem," he says breathlessly.
She smiles coquettishly down at him.
"AP English," she says matter-of-factly. "I never could resist a bit of E. E. Cummings."
"I didn't realize they taught that particular poem," he says, eyebrows lifting.
"Ah, well… I've always been a bit of an overachiever," she smirks.
And then she licks her lips and Klaus finds himself thinking he's never met another creature as astounding and exquisite as the one he has before him.
With lightning fast speed, he grips her waist and lifts her up, hoisting her up against the back of the couch with her back towards him.
She is in nothing but her under things; lacy black seductive things. He can't wait any longer and quickly unzips his own pants, the strain of them feeling far too unbearable. He stands behind her, shirt hanging open and pants undone, admiring the view.
She arches her back, wiggling her hips enticingly. She hears him growling lowly from behind her right before the flimsy material of her underwear gets ripped down to her knees. His hands stroke down her back to unclasp her bra. And then he's there, behind her. She can feel him at her entrance and the mere thought gets her wetter than before.
"Caroline," he whispers.
She trembles from the sound of her name dropping from his tongue. She grinds up against him impatiently. The sensation is enough to have her whimpering.
"I need you inside me," she pleas.
That's enough to relinquish him of any further control and he pushes into her. She's tight and wet and he feels harder than he's ever been before.
She gasps as he enters her and moans as he begins to rhythmically pump into her. He is so large and he seems to completely fill her up.
Her sensations are like an ocean. Cresting and falling, tumultuous. He tucks his head into the crook of her neck and softly nibbles the tender skin there. She runs her hands through his hair, making it quite a mess. His hands find her breasts, fingers running over nipples, rubbing and massaging the mounds.
"More. Faster," she demands.
He's eager to answer her command and picks up his pacing, his thrusts shorter and quicker. Her nerves nearly short circuit with the sensation, her entire being unraveling. Her neck arches and he presses his lips there. His hands finding hers tangled in his hair. He is a tsunami, a hurricane crashing waves and beating against her shore.
Her eyes clench tight, bright spots flashing before her. Her head whips back, blonde hair tumbling. His arm is wrapped around her waist, holding her flushed against him and filling her to the hilt.
She cries his name as she topples right over the edge, sparks and all. And he comes toppling right behind her.
The two of them are a sweaty mess, draping across the back of his leather sofa, entangling with each other.
xxx
In the morning, Klaus finds a post-it note stuck onto his unfinished painting. It reads,
"If only you knew
The wicked thoughts
That I am having of you
Of limbs entangled
Yours and mine
Of lips locked in kisses
And bodies entwined
Of twisted sheets
Covered in sweat" [6]
What I mean to say is next time, let's try the bed. - C
xxxx
A/N: I would like to dedicate this fic to Silvia (miraclemargo) because she fangirled over E.E. Cummings with me and helped inspire it. I was also very lucky to have both Silvia and Paige to beta this fic for me. So thank you to them both, especially for their input on the title. *big hugs* I hope you guys all enjoyed this little piece. I had a lot of fun writing it. =)
Also, for those of you who are interested… most of the poems featured in this fic can be found via google and I have cited the poet below (listed in order to appearance). Thanks for reading!
Poems featured in this fic are by the following authors:
[1] By Alfred Bryan
[2] By Lenore Kandel
[3] By Yusef Komunyakaa
[4] By Richard Siken
[5] By E.E. Cummings
[6] By Injete Chesoni