Authors note:

I can't say enough how much I have enjoyed reading all of your reviews over the course of this story. Thanks to each and every person who has taken the time to leave feedback or to have a PM chat about this fic—it truly makes it all worthwhile.

The title for this story is a phrase I pinched from this beautiful prose by author Maureen Medved, in her novel 'The Tracey Fragments': "One day you fall for this boy. And he touches you with his fingers. And he burns holes in your skin with his mouth. And it hurts when you look at him. And it hurts when you don't. And it feels like someone's cut you open with a jagged piece of glass." It puts me in mind of Klaroline.

Disclaimer: I definitely do not own TVD or these characters.

Previously...

'Mine,' Klaus growled, all blood and fangs and amber warning as he grasped Caroline's wrists tightly, pressing them into the mattress and holding her there as he pumped his final thrusts with inhuman speed. He came with a muted howl, pressing so deep into Caroline that she thought she might come again, just from the feel of him pulsing so thick and hot inside her.

'Mine,' he said again, reaching down to catch Caroline in a searing, messy kiss that breathed fire and blood and oxygen into her immortal lungs.

Klaus's lips continued to caress Caroline's, as they held each other and basked in the afterglow; limbs heavy and minds empty. As Caroline began to come back to herself, the reality of her situation crashed down around her. Moving out of Klaus's embrace, she faced the ceiling and tried to hold onto the peacefulness that was left in the wake of her body's release.

She had just had the most mind-blowing, erotic, intimate sexual experience of her life... with Klaus Mikaelson. Gah! The things she had allowed him—even begged him—to do to her body. The way he'd touched her was beyond anything Caroline had known could exist. The cloying, suffocating, all-pervasive flames of wanting that had possessed her body were now gone—Silas's curse was broken. Now Caroline had to figure out how to live with what was left. Klaus had saved her... but at what cost? She had invited a monster into her bed. She had allowed him to see into her innermost heart, to see everything she'd worked so hard to keep locked away. Not to mention she'd thrown herself at him like a two-bit hussy and, with the barest of encouragement from the hybrid, given her body over to him without condition or reservation. She guessed she could take her body back, but the rest of her might not be so lucky.

This had so not been in the plan.

'Caroline,' Klaus's voice brought her out of her spiralling panicky thoughts. He was propped up on an elbow at her side and she had to fight really hard not to let her eyes wander appreciatively over the taut lines of his muscular body. 'How do you feel, love? About the spell, I mean. Does it seem like it's...done?'

'Uh,' Caroline swallowed hard and kept her gaze trained on the ceiling. 'Yeah. I feel, y'know, normal again.' To her annoyance she felt embarrassment washing over her in a flush of heat. 'I guess I should say thank you,' she said, tightly. She might be in the sole most uncompromising situation she could imagine—given Klaus's status as public enemy number one in Mystic Falls—but Liz Forbes raised a daughter with manners. 'Thank you for, um,' (shagging the hell out of her until she came like a freight train? Introducing her to the sheer erotic bliss of his bite drawing blood from her veins? Ruining her for any other sexual partner, like, ever?)... 'helping me out.'

'Hey,' Klaus said, calmly reaching across to stroke his finger down the side of Caroline's face. 'Don't do that.'

'What?' she asked.

'Don't pretend this was some sordid transaction,' Klaus said, frowning slightly. Dawn was creeping in, soft and pale, though the window panes. She'd been with him all night. 'You know how I feel about you and, excuse me for my bluntness sweetheart, I think we're past the point of pretending you are indifferent to me either.'

'I know,' Caroline admitted. She needed to get the hell out of this bed and into some clothes. Klaus was too overwhelming right now. She was exhausted, invigorated—a muddle of confusing and conflicting emotions that she couldn't start to work through with a very naked Original Hybrid next to her in a bed that smelt of the sex they'd just had. 'This was... I don't even know what this was. I'm not going to pretend I'm sorry it happened, even aside from the fact that I was going out of my mind with what that witchy bastard did to me. It's just...' Caroline trailed off and bit her lip, finally turning to look at the man lying next to her. 'Klaus, I'm all over the place right now. I'm so pissed at Silas I could tear something to shreds. I'm embarrassed at turning up here like this tonight—'

'Never,' Klaus interrupted her fiercely, with those serious full lips and brilliant blue eyes working full force on all her defences. 'You should never feel embarrassed, Caroline. You are stronger than you even realise—you radiate passion and life. Not to mention you're a stunning woman, so it's not exactly a sacrifice to ravish your body in the name of a good turn, sweetheart.' His lips quirked up at his last words and, in spite of herself, Caroline found herself responding with a small, wry smile.

'Ok,' she said, with a roll of her eyes. Swinging herself up off the bed, she vamp-flashed to bathroom to retrieve her clothing before she could stop to think about how nude she was in Klaus's presence. As if that should matter, she chuckled inwardly to herself, after everything they had just done. Somehow it did though, and so Caroline wriggled her way with some distaste into the black dress she had discarded on the floor some hours previously before emerging into the main chamber of Klaus's bedroom.

The Original was still lounging on the bed, exactly as she'd left him. He quirked an eyebrow, as if daring her to object to his continued state of undress. No, Caroline thought—she was a grown woman and would not give Klaus the satisfaction of seeing her be squeamish at this stage of the game. However difficult it was to concentrate on pure thoughts with him sprawled out on the rumpled sheets like the clichéd cover shot of some racy paperback. With that tousled bed hair and the Man Necklaces of Hotness resting haphazardly on his chest, Klaus looked practically edible and Caroline felt dangerously close to stripping off again and going back for round two.

As if he could read her mind, Klaus's smile widened and Caroline faltered, her eyes glancing for some safe harbour around the room. Her gaze fell on the old fashioned writing set arranged on an imposing mahogany desk by the window. With a sickening lurch to her stomach, she remembered Stefan telling her about the letters Klaus kept. The love letters he collected from his victims, trophies of their love for other men—love he had destroyed by seducing those women and taking their lives, separating them in spirit and in body from their husbands and lovers, forever.

This was the monster that was Klaus Mikaelson. He wasn't going through a phase or struggling to control his dark side; he revelled in it. Like Caroline had revelled in his touch, deliberately and greedily taking what she could, while she has some semblance of excuse for allowing herself the indulgence.

God, what was wrong with her?

'I have to go,' she said, noticing the dull edge of horror that had crept into her voice. Klaus noticed the change and leaned forward as if to sit up, but she halted him with a hand. 'Please,' she whispered, risking a fearful glance at his confused, handsome face. 'I need to leave.'

If Klaus answered, it was lost on the wake of the breeze as Caroline sped out of the mansion, away from something she was afraid she couldn't outrun anymore.

:::

'Earth to Caroline,' Elena said, waving a hand good-naturedly in front of her friend's face. 'Have you even heard a word we've been saying?'

Caroline cringed and looked sheepishly at her friends.

'Sorry guys,' she said. They were sitting in a badly lit booth at the Grill: Elena and Damon pressed close together on one side of the table, with Caroline and Matt taking up the other bench. Some time in between anti-Silas strategy sessions, Elena dealing with the aftermath of her sojourn away from humanity and trying to keep Bonnie away from the dark-side, they'd remembered that Matt still needed to eat on a regular basis and human food was pretty darn comforting to the rest of them too. Hence the truly impressive number of tacos that had disappeared in the last thirty minutes from the platter in the middle of their table.

'What's up with you, Blondie?' Damon questioned, curiously. 'First you disappear on us for most of three days, barely answering a text let alone a phone call, and now you're even more dazed and confused than usual.'

'Leave her alone, dude,' Matt complained, around a mouthful of taco. 'Care's going through a lot right now. It can't be easy learning to live without someone you love, but she's doing the right thing.'

'What?' Caroline practically squeaked, paranoid that Matt knew something about what had happened between her and Klaus. Matt looked at her with concern in his eyes.

'I just mean that I miss Tyler too, Care. I think you're handling everything real well.'

Caroline felt herself relax again, even if she did feel guilty at the thought of Tyler running from Klaus, wherever he was now. If there was any way to free him from Klaus's malicious edict, Caroline had sworn to herself she would find it. Tyler's fate was just another reason why she hated herself for the thoughts of Klaus that she hadn't been able to shake this past week. Every time she closed her eyes she was back in that room, feeling the slick press of Klaus's body against her most sensitive flesh, breathing in his exquisite, male musk as their mouths moved gloriously together. The ghost of Klaus's teeth sinking into the soft skin of her neck played havoc with her nervous system, night and day. Silas's spell had been unbearable torment, but she was starting to think now that the curing of one torment had only given way to another, different, kind.

'You are ok, right, Care?' Elena chipped in, when Caroline failed to make any reasonable response to Matt's statement. The brunette's eyes shone with that potent mixture of guilt, self-loathing and genuine love that had been present ever since the Salvatore's had forced her to flip the switch back on. She wondered if Elena was thinking about those cruel words she had hurled at Caroline while the doppelganger had been without her humanity. All those dirty thoughts you have about Klaus, Elena had mocked her. Not that she'd ever mentioned it to Caroline while she had emotions switched on, but Caroline supposed it wasn't a surprise that Elena had known of her friend's impossible attraction to their worst enemy. Elena had always been observant and, for the most part, she saw things because she cared enough about her friends to look. Caroline could only hope her latest indiscretions were something she could keep from Elena for a good long while.

'I'm fine,' she assured Elena and Matt (and Damon, if he was pretending to care today). 'I just really really want to work out how we can be free of Silas, without any more people we care about dying before graduation.'

'Did Silas do something to you?' Elena asked, as if the appalling thought had only just crossed her mind. 'Did something happen this week, Caroline?'

Of course, that would be the moment two blonde Originals appeared at Matt's elbow. Rebekah was simpering at Matt in the disturbing way she had taken to doing lately and Klaus looked his usual combination of dangerous, arrogant and charming.

'No,' Caroline lied, glaring somewhere to the left of Klaus's head and almost daring him with her firm tone to contradict her reply, 'but he's hurt all of us. I want him dead for the same reasons you guys do.'

She was sure everyone could see the effect that being in such close proximity to Klaus had on her body. After avoiding him for best part of a week, being near enough to breathe in his scent and hear that familiar accented voice was sending her stomach into somersaults. This was ridiculous. She willed herself to get a grip and Klaus to keep his trap shut.

To Caroline's surprise, as well as considerable relief, Klaus didn't take the opportunity to publicise the humiliating truth about Silas's latest attack.

'On that matter, I think we've found some common ground,' Klaus said, tearing his eyes away from Caroline and addressing the whole group. With his trademark cavalier attitude he pulled a chair across from the nearest table and, leaving it facing the wrong way, straddled it. 'Rebekah and I thought it was time we all get our heads together and eviscerate this son of a bitch.'

The fact that he was met with suspicious stares from around the table didn't seem to faze Klaus in the slightest. He glanced from face to face and paused when he got to Damon. 'Where's your brother, mate?'

'Kind of not in the mood for socialising at the moment,' Damon said, and he shifted closer to Elena as if someone might try and take her away at any moment. Which, to be fair, Klaus had a fair tradition of doing.

'I should check on him,' Caroline piped up, clutching at the opportunity to get away from the real life star of the surround-sound Technicolor graphic flashbacks she'd been living with since going to bed with Klaus.

'Of course,' Elena said, sounding even guiltier than earlier. Caroline shot her and Matt both a small smile and very carefully didn't look at Klaus as she made a break for the exit.

What was Klaus even doing, helping her friends? She knew perfectly well that if he decided to take on Silas he could do it without reference to any of them and he wouldn't care if they got caught in the crossfire. Right? Suddenly she wasn't sure. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore. Klaus's letters and Stefan's lists and a circle of twelve dead witches swam inside her head, too fast and too violent for her to make any sense of.

She made it almost as far as her car before a rush of displaced air announced Klaus's arrival beside her.

'Running away, love,' Klaus chided gently, leaning against Caroline's car in an irritating display of nonchalance. 'Didn't think that was your style, but it seems to be becoming a bit of a habit. Should I take offense?'

Caroline sighed, contemplating whether to leave her car and run for it. She decided it was pointless, since Klaus could catch her easier than breathing.

'I need some space,' she said, appealing to the gentlemanly nature that seemed to surface occasionally. 'I don't want to talk about what happened.'

Klaus smirked.

'Bet you've been thinking about it though,' he guessed, and watched Caroline's face tinge a beautiful deep pink. Well, she guessed she was out of luck with the gentlemanly thing. 'I know I have,' Klaus added, moving nearer and crowding Caroline's personal space. 'Sweetheart, you were amazing. I need to have you again. You were made to be mine.'

'God!' Caroline muttered, in frustration. 'I wish you'd stop saying that. Newsflash, genius—I'm my own person! What's up with your whole "mine" obsession anyway? You said it the other night when we—' Caroline snapped her mouth shut, realising too late where that train of conversation was heading.

Klaus's smile was entirely too smug for her liking.

'I'm serious,' Caroline said. 'I hope you don't think you have some stupid wolfy claim on me just because we slept together one time.'

'Caroline,' Klaus said, bringing his hands up to hold her face gently. 'Just take the compliment. The man in me craves you, the vampire in me craves your blood and the wolf? Honestly, love, I'm only just starting to get to know my wolf nature, but it seems to react pretty strongly to you. I seem to react pretty strongly to having you spread and writhing beneath me; giving it all up to me, sweetheart—allowing me the privilege of worshipping your body in all the ways you should be worshipped. I want to do it again. Let me, please.'

Caroline felt the heat sparking through her body, responding to his words and his touch. This was Klaus. How could he be making her feel this way? Ugh, she couldn't deal with this yet. She needed more time and, besides, she really did need to go to Stefan.

'Let me think,' she said, pushing Klaus away. Thankfully, he let her do so and she got in her car and put him in the rear mirror before he could change his mind. She'd face him when she was good and ready, she decided. Caroline Forbes rushed for no man, even if he was vampire pseudo- royalty and the best sex she had ever had.

:::

'How do you feel about me?'

Klaus leaned against the doorjamb and grinned. No doubt he'd have heard Caroline's car arrive nearly fifteen minutes ago; heard the blonde vampire walk up to his front door and pause, only to return to her car again; heard her muttering in her car before she made her second approach to his front porch and, finally, knocked on the door.

'Why Caroline, what a delightful surprise,' Klaus said, charmingly, gesturing with his arm that she should enter his home. With a huff, Caroline strode past him and stood in the middle of the foyer, eyebrow arched expectantly. Klaus only quirked an interested smile, his eyes taking in Caroline's determined posture and serious face.

'Shall we, love?' he asked, motioning to the living room she knew he and his siblings favoured when they were at home. When she had perched on the edge of one of the oversized armchairs, he moved to the sidebar. 'Can I offer you a drink?'

'No, Klaus, thank you,' Caroline said, firmly. 'I don't want a drink. I want some answers.'

'Ok,' Klaus said, sounding slightly amused. He took a seat across from Caroline and levelled an impassive gaze at her. 'Have at it, love.'

'How do you feel about me?' Caroline repeated, voice strong and clear. She was Caroline Forbes and she was afraid of no man, Original Hybrid or otherwise. 'The other night, you said that I know how you feel about me, but that's not really true. I mean, I know you care about me and,' she gulped slightly and tried to hide her girlish embarrassment, 'you like having sex with me.' Klaus's eyes blazed with undisguised want, and Caroline gathered her courage to press on as the tension in the room suddenly ratcheted up a few turns. 'I need you tell me what that means though,' Caroline finished, softly.

Klaus chuckled lowly and leaned forward.

'Quite simply, Caroline,' he said, his accent making the words flow like sweet syrup and rich blood. 'I am in love with you.' Klaus held her gaze as he made his confession. 'It's not something I was expecting, and it took me a while to recognise the feeling.' He chuckled ruefully. 'Somewhat out of practice, I suppose, but there it is. I care for you deeply, Caroline, and I want you to be mine.'

Every cell inside Caroline's body stood still as the meaning of Klaus's words washed over her.

He loved her.

She turned it over in her mind and found that, yes, somehow she believed him. It felt like the truth; she couldn't ignore the energy between them. This predator, this killer, this tyrant behind blue eyes; he really loved her. It didn't change what he was, but... But it did change something. Caroline just wasn't sure yet quite what that was.

The space between them suddenly seemed too much and Caroline longed to cross the divide of the room and climb into his lap. To lose herself in the scent and the feel of Klaus; such power and such history in one awful, wonderful, confusing mess of a man.

'I'm in love with you too,' Caroline said, suddenly. Klaus's eyes widened in surprise at her candid admission. In honesty, she hadn't been intending to say it either; hadn't even known for sure that she really felt it until the truth of the situation just hit her right now. 'You know that anyway,' she said, wryly. 'The spell...'

'I didn't—' Klaus began, and then brought himself up short abruptly. He cleared his throat, eyes shining strangely. 'It wasn't real until you said it to me.'

Caroline shifted in her seat.

'I don't know what this means,' she admitted, hoping Klaus would understand. 'Everything you've done, everything that's lead us here... It doesn't change I know feel about you. It's not just that you've done terrible things and killed people that I cared about, that friends of mine loved. It's that you'll do it again. I love you anyway, somehow, but what does that mean?' She giggled suddenly. 'You're a thousand year old vampire-werewolf hybrid on a power trip and I'm an eighteen year old blonde cheerleader newbie vamp who's scared of drinking from the vein. I don't see Friday night movie and pizza dates on the horizon for us.'

'You might be surprised,' Klaus said, smiling with her, 'at the things I would do to make you happy.' He titled his head, basking in sharing this moment of honesty with this girl who had turned his world upside down. 'And I'm not on a power trip,' he argued, as an afterthought.

'Oh, really?' Caroline said, raising an eyebrow. 'So, you're not so hell bent on controlling everyone around you that you keep enchanted daggers around to put your siblings down every time they do something you don't like.'

'Careful, love,' Klaus said, eyes narrowing slightly.

'Of what?' Caroline tested him, deliberately. 'Having a thought that you might consider disloyal? Questioning your role as supreme authority over your family—who forgive and return to you time and time again, no matter how much you hurt them—or over the rest of us? You aren't the centre of the universe, Klaus.'

With a growl, Klaus was out of his chair and Caroline instinctively moved to run from him, but Klaus was faster. She quickly found herself pinned against the wall, trapped within the cage of Klaus's arms on either side of her head. His breath fanned hot against her face.

'Wow,' Caroline deadpanned, trying hard not to let him see how he intimidated her. How could he not? Klaus was one of the strongest supernatural creatures on the planet, and he could snap her like a twig just for looking at him the wrong way. 'Do you see why I might not be chomping at the bit to be "yours", Klaus? Your behaviour changes at the slightest provocation and, frankly, it gives me emotional whiplash. Not to mention I can't be in a relationship with someone who thinks it's ok to physically back me against a wall just because I said something to upset him. I'm not a ragdoll; I'm a person you supposedly care about. Do you have any idea how to treat the woman you claim to love?'

With a controlled rumble of discontent, Klaus brought his arms down from around Caroline's head, so he was no longer pinning her against the wall but leaning into her like a lover. She relaxed slightly as she felt his face nuzzling into her neck, inhaling her scent, she thought. When Klaus pulled back to look at her, his face was a mask of loneliness that pierced her heart like a knife.

'No,' he said, steady but quiet. His fingers tangled with Caroline's as he grasped for physical connection between them. 'I really don't.'

:::

It was nearly three days later that Klaus appeared in Caroline's bedroom. She'd been sleeping, but woke at the feeling of another presence in the room. Her vampire eyes easily picked out Klaus's still form by the window, bathed in dark shadows and the heavy cloak of night.

'You know it's super creepy to just turn up like this,' Caroline murmured, sleepily. She sat up and ran her hands through the messy sleep-tousled locks on her head, trying to smooth them down. He might be a semi-stalkerish really old vampire-werewolf with anger management issues, but he was also a smoking hot guy in her bedroom and Caroline had standards, after all.

Klaus moved to the side of her bed and sat down, looking at her in a way that reminded her of the night he'd first fed her his blood and given her back her life, undoing the harm he'd caused her so unthinkingly. He reached to still her hand and took it in his own, moving it to his lips. She sighed at the warmth of those sinful, luscious lips brushing against her knuckles.

'It's been a long time since I've tried to be a man,' Klaus said, quietly, 'let alone a good one. The vampire and the wolf have ruled in me for too long.' He paused and Caroline let her eyes flicker up to meet that endless blue gaze. The intensity in his stare made her gasp, stomach churning with emotion and every part of her yearning to be closer to him.

'Klaus—' Caroline whispered, but he hushed her with anther kiss brushed against her palm.

'You were right, Caroline. I don't know how to treat the woman I love.' His eyes were filled with wonder and that awful vulnerability as his gaze swept over her face. 'You're radiant, pure of spirit, so very beautiful, and I never want to hurt you or break even the tiniest part of you. I want to learn how to love you, as you deserve to be loved, Caroline Forbes.'

He leaned forward and pressed the most delicate of kisses to the side of her mouth.

'Will you wait for me?' Klaus asked her, before capturing her mouth in a kiss that seared into her soul, clawing into her heart and burning holes in her skin.

Caroline found that her answer was not no.

The end.

Well, here we are guys. I hope you enjoyed the conclusion to this story- I can't please everyone but hopefully there'll be some happy faces :) I've had a ton of fun writing this very silly fic. Please let me know what you think about the final part! xxx