#if this is messy it’s bc I gave up on the painting idea halfway through and

[foccaccia]

Day 17, Pact, for Wyllstravaganza2024. This was originally going to be a lineless painting. lol. Lmao, even.

[thetourguidebarbie]

In a Morning Kiss

This is a present for @captndevil It’s a sequel to one of my recent drabbles Before He Cheats. It has smut. I hope you enjoy it (and feel better)! The prompt she chose was morning cuddling/Klaus trying to distract Caroline from her work. Sorry if formatting ends up being wonky. Posting from my phone. Title from “That’s Where it Is” by Carrie Underwood bc I figured I should stick with the theme.

She loved waking up in Klaus’s arms.

It had been two mostly-blissful years and she still had mornings where she woke convinced that it had all been a dream. Then she would stir against him and feel his heartbeat against her cheek, the comfort of his arms around her, his scent cloaking her, and remember that she was safe.

She liked to linger there, breathing him in and savoring his lean chest against her back and the tickle of his breath against her skin, the sunlight streaming through the curtains. She wouldn’t call herself a morning person by nature, but she wasn’t a grumpy asshole, could possibly be defined as “cheerful” once she got some coffee in her, something that Klaus definitely could not claim.

He preferred waking slowly and on his own time as opposed to quickly and painfully by way of alarm. Apparently he hadn’t had to consistently wake up before eight for years until she came along. His auctions usually ran from evenings until the early hours of the morning, and since he set his own hours, his normal workdays didn’t start until the afternoon. She unfortunately did not share that luxury. She had to be up practically as the sun came up to proofread that morning’s teleprompter script. Klaus endured it like a champ with minimal grumbling as long as she didn’t hit the snooze button more than once, but weekends were supposed to be alarm-free.

Sadly, not today.

One of the other editors had just gone on maternity leave and since she was the most junior and had paper editing experience, she ended up covering most of her extra work. It was even worse because Anna was the editor for the sports section, something that she was completely unfamiliar with other than football– and that was because she’d done cheerleading, so she’d absorbed the information unwillingly through osmosis. She couldn’t half-ass things if she tried–and she’d tried–so she’d spent an appalling amount of time reading official rule manuals so that she wouldn’t miss the easy stuff. In addition to all of her usual work that she could easily do in the evenings, which mostly consisted of looking over quick fluff pieces, she was also supposed to finish looking over the longer sports articles for the weekend, and she was not excited.

Still, it was hard to muffle her giggles as Klaus groaned softly, burrowing his face into her shoulder to try to drown out her phone blaring an upbeat pop song as her alarm. Deciding to be nice, she skipped her usual one snooze button use, reaching to turn it off and twisting in Klaus’s arms to face him. “Good morning,” she whispered, nosing his jaw and planting a soft kiss on the hollow below his earlobe.

“What time is it?” he asked, cracking an eye open to look at her, his voice low and rough from sleep.

“Too early,” she said, ignoring his grunt of annoyance when she disentangled herself from his arms. “But I have to get up, remember?”

He muttered something that sounded vaguely like, ‘No you don’t’ but she ignored him, pushing herself out of bed and stripping out of her clothes, grabbing clean pajamas from the dresser before she walked to the master bathroom to shower.

Just because she had to work to do didn’t mean she had to wear actual clothes.

He was draining coffee at the kitchen counter when she emerged, still pulling her wet hair into a messy bun as she took a moment to let her gaze roam appreciatively down his back. His sweatpants were sitting low on his hips, feet bare against the hardwood floor, and she moved behind him, resting her palm lightly on his back as she moved past him to get a mug from the cabinet.

“You didn’t have to get up with me,” she pointed out, putting the mug on the counter and wiping her eyes with her palms. “You still have at least a few hours to sleep before you have to get ready for the auction.”

“I did not,” he agreed, eyeing her over his coffee cup with barely concealed disgust as she emptied a few heaping teaspoons of hazelnut coffeemate into the mug before filling it. “I decided that it would be prudent to get some painting done myself so that I might be able to entice you into taking a break before we leave. A long break.”

She was seriously tempted to agree to a preemptive break (a good start to the day for motivation, right?), but knew that if she gave in now she’d be not working for the rest of the day, and enduring Kol’s endless less-than-subtle innuendos about why she didn’t finish her work wouldn’t be worth it. “I wish,” she grumbled, bringing the mug to her lips to drink.

He was watching her as she sipped, a small smile on his face, and his hand ghosted down her spine to rest just above the curve of her ass, thumb skating across her ribs. “Why not start the morning with something to wake you up a bit? I’ve been told that exercise in the morning can be beneficial.”

She gave him a look that was supposed to be a scowl but probably edged closer to a pout, the knowledge that she was denying herself a great Saturday morning in favor of reading about grown men chasing small objects less than palatable. He seemed to sense that his agenda was making progress, his fingertip darting just under the waistband of her soft cotton shorts to slide along her skin before pausing to stroke her hip. She felt goosebumps pebble on her skin, the pleasurable shiver up her spine and the tightening at the apex of her thighs tempting her almost beyond resistance.

“I can’t,” she said regretfully, stepping away so that his touches wouldn’t reel her in her any more than they already had and trying not to look at his frustratingly effective puppy eyes. “Seriously, I wish I could.”

Unfortunately for both of them, though she hated passing up an excuse for him to touch her, she hated the idea of her coworkers still viewing her as Kol’s sister-in-law rather than as an actual peer even more. She knew that slacking on her assigned work would only reinforce that image, and she’d worked really hard to build up the trust she already had so far.

Still, as she watched Klaus stretch, his muscles flexing in a way that made her want to refamiliarize herself with the feel of them under her fingertips, she was very much regretting her decision to fulfill her adult responsibilities.

She could tell he knew what was on her mind, since there was excessive flexing and a heated drag of his eyes up and down her form, lingering on the hem of her tank top, which revealed glimpses of creamy skin just above the polka-dotted waistband of her shorts. She resisted with a show of practically superhuman-level self-control, at least in her opinion, and cleared her throat before draining the rest of her coffee. She avoided his eyes as best she could while she washed out the mug in the sink, determined to not get sucked in. He knew all the right buttons to push to coax her into spending just another hour in bed with him, which could easily turn into two or five, and though her skin prickled in anticipation when she felt his eyes on her, she ruthlessly pushed her desire away.

“Later, then,” he said finally, his voice low and full of the kind of unspoken promises that made her toes curl, and her breath caught when she looked up, her lips parting at how he watched her. Klaus could still take her breath away with a single glance even after two years together, and it was incredibly irritating.

“Sure,” she managed, trying not to sound too eager. He was smug and smirky enough already.

“Let me get that for you, sweetheart,” he said, reaching to take the mug from her hand, the brush of their fingers making her skin heat. “Let me know when you’re hungry and we can have lunch, all right?”

She nodded and pecked him on the cheek, her hand lingering on his shoulder for a few seconds before she walked to her office, determined to avoid him and his knowing smiles and lickable abs.

Ugh.

She’d finally managed to get some headway around lunchtime, sighing when her stomach grumbled and managing to motivate herself to finish marking up Andi’s fluff piece about a dog that had rescued a kitten from a well on the edge of town (they were not above heartwarming clickbait) and decided she’d finish editing the teleprompter feed for the Monday morning celebrity gossip show after she had something to eat.

She’d expected to hear muffled rock music bleeding through the heavy wooden door of Klaus’s studio, but it was oddly silent. She debated whether she wanted to poke the dragon before deciding that if Klaus waited to eat he probably wouldn’t be hungry at the auction banquet later, and he had told her to find him. “Klaus?” she called, knocking before opening the door to peek inside, her cheeks flushing when she saw him.

They’d long gotten past her being embarrassed to talk to him about sex or what she wanted, Stefan’s lack of talent and excessive pearl clutching at her early tentative requests now a long-forgotten memory, but it was still a little weird to see him on the plush couch she usually occupied while he was painting absorbed in one of her repeatedly read paperbacks with a cover that showed a fanged and muscled hero clutching a clearly swooning heroine to his chest. He was still shirtless, his necklaces resting against his chest just begging to be tugged, but he’d put on jeans for reasons that she could not fathom. Not that she was complaining; she definitely did not mind the way they framed him. His sweatpants never quite did him justice.

He appeared to be halfway through and clearly hadn’t heard her come in. She leaned against the doorway fighting down her giggles as she watched him turn the page a few times before walking over and plucking the book out of his hands, grabbing a nearby receipt and sticking it in the book to save the page. He looked up as she bent over him, one of her hands splayed on his ribs, the other resting on the armrest by his head. “Good book?”

“Quite enlightening, actually. Inspirational, even.”

His smirk was wicked and almost baiting, and she bent to press her lips to his briefly.

“You hungry?” she asked.

He gave her a wicked grin and she huffed.

“For food,” she added, anticipatorily talking over him when she saw the flash of mischief in his eyes and the obvious innuendo about to spill out of his mouth. “Seriously.”

“You don’t want to explore the mature themes discussed in… ah…” he grabbed the book again, glancing at the cover, “…Bound by Passion?”

“Tempting, but bondage seems a little time consuming,” she said dryly, and he gave her a dimpled grin, sitting up.

“Fair,” he said. “Shall I order in, then? I can bring it to you. Perhaps we’ll even have a little time before we have to change.”

“Before you have to change. I have to do my hair and makeup too,” she reminded, the prospect of going back to work suddenly making the idea of a break before they went to his auction much more appealing. It seemed like Klaus had been able to read her well since the moment they’d met, and now was no different, the glint in his eye indicating that he could sense that she was starting to lean towards some stress relief. She couldn’t give in, though. “But sure. I’d take pizza.”

“Mushrooms and peppers?”

“Yes, please,” she said, kissing him again. “I love you.”

“And I you, sweetheart,” he murmured, already reaching for his phone, which was on the side table.

She returned to her office and put her headphones back on, pulling over the second-to-last article. She preferred to mark them up by hand, and she was twirling the pen in her fingers as she contemplated whether Josh needed a transition sentence between two of his paragraphs when she nearly dropped it, flinching at the unexpected brush of stubble against her jaw before relaxing as she realized it was Klaus and tipping her head to give him better access to her neck. “I’m working,” she reprimanded half-heartedly when she removed her headphones, and Klaus chuckled, flicking his tongue against the juncture of her neck and shoulder.

“I know, sweetheart. Just bringing you food,” he said, pulling back and setting down a plate by her elbow.

She found herself a little disappointed that he didn’t push a little more, simply resting his hands on her shoulders and squeezing lightly before pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Do you need anything else?”

She was faced with a split-second decision: Be a real life adult and get some actual work done, or have some great soulmate sex, probably some afterglow cuddling, and then get ready to go to Klaus’s art auction and drink too many cranberry vodkas.

The decision was clear.

She slowly spun around in her chair and reached to sling her arms over Klaus’s shoulders, kissing him lightly. “You.”

She was about to tease him about how smug he looked, but his hands were already sneaking under her tank top, his palms hot against her skin, and she melted against him. All thought fled from her mind as he bent to suck her lower lip and scrape it with his teeth, his hands squeezing her hips lightly. “Bed,” he murmured between kisses. “I want you in the bed.”

She hummed in agreement, pushing gently on his chest to get him to move back and standing up, leaning into him when he placed his hand on the small of her back, guiding her down the hall to their bedroom. She felt his hand drifting lower as they walked, first to her hip, fiddling the waistband of her shorts before settling on her ass as he pushed open their bedroom door. “And how do you want me in the bed?”

She almost laughed at the brief torn expression that flashed across his face, his eyes sliding up and down her body as though he couldn’t quite decide. “I want you on top, I think. I want to watch you rock against me, your head thrown back as you ride my cock.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice a bit breathless as his hands moved down to unbuckle his belt.

“I want you to strip for me first,” he said, his voice low but firm. The underlying growl sent an anticipatory shiver down her spine, her eyes never leaving his as he sat on the bed, pulling the belt off and letting it drop to the floor.

She nodded, swallowing, keeping eye contact as she fingered the hem of her tank top. Whether they were alone or not, the way he looked at her never failed to make her feel sexy and desirable, and she pulled her tank top off in one smooth movement, letting it drop to the floor.

“Good girl,” he murmured, smirking as she let out a soft moan at his words, her face flushing. She let her gaze wander down to his hands, licking her lips as he pulled out his cock, stroking himself to the sight of her. “Shorts as well, sweetheart. I want to see you. Yes, slowly… just like that. Good girl. You’re so beautiful…”

She kicked her shorts away, her heart pounding, pussy already wet and aching. She could feel that her inner thighs were slick with her arousal as she sauntered over, her hips swaying in a movement that she knew he couldn’t tear his eyes away from.

“Lie down,” she said, gently pushing his chest so that he was on his back, a low groan rumbling in his throat as his hard cock brushed against her thigh, precome mixing with her wetness on her skin.

He wrapped his fingers around her wrists, guiding her palms to his shoulders before easily positioning himself at her entrance, his hands hot on her hips and the guided her down.

“Fuck,” she bit out through gritted teeth, rolling her hips. “That feels so good…”

“Roll your hips for me,” he said, his eyes dark, chords of his neck tight, muscles tense. “Good girl…”

He’d spent a great deal of time observing her when he talked to her during sex, noting her likes and dislikes, and a smirk still twisted on his lips whenever her breath caught or a moan escaped her from his praise. “You feel so perfect, Caroline. So wet and tight around my cock. Come forward just a bit more. Yes, sweetheart…fuck…”’

It felt amazing, but she knew neither of them could come without a bit more friction, their preferences always having leaned toward being rougher and faster. He was trying to tease her, to draw it out, and she found that she didn’t mind at all.

Still, her body naturally tried to chase her release, her body rocking against his as she tried to find the perfect angle, and she huffed when his hands squeezed her hips to slow them down. “Klaus…” she whined. “Come on.”

“What, sweetheart?”

“I need more,” she said breathlessly, giving him her best wide-eyed imploring look.

“More?” he asked, the word dragged out with an infuriatingly smug gleam in his eye.

“Yes,” she said, her nails curling against his shoulders in what she knew was probably a painful scrape (though judging by his groan when she did it he didn’t exactly mind). “More.”

“What do you want, sweetheart? Tell me.”

“I want hard and fast,” she said, relishing the way his eyes darkened, his lips parting slightly.

“Good girl,” he murmured, his hand tangling in her hair, tugging her head back and taking a nipple in his mouth, nipping it lightly. “Tell me more.”

“I want,” she gasped, struggling to retain coherent thought as she got lost in sensation. “I want your cock in me—” she began, interrupting herself with a moan as he thrust his hips just the way she liked it.

“You have it already.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” she scolded, the effect slightly ruined by how breathy her voice was and the soft moan as he pinched her ass. “I want you to fuck me harder.”

“Bit difficult from this position, sweetheart,” he said, his dimpled grin indicating that he was having entirely too much fun torturing her.

“Then we’ll switch,” she said, her nails scratching down his chest as she moaned when he tugged her against him as she started to sit up on her knees.

“No. I want you to tell me what you want.”

“I want you on top of me,” she said impatiently, letting her teeth sink into her lower lip to muffle a gasp as he rolled his hips and pinched her nipples at the same time, her head tipping back.

“Good girl.”

She panted out his name as he let his nails bite into her ass before rolling them over. His hands pushed her thighs back gently to let him go deeper, his hips snapping as he began to move faster, and she lifted her hips in rhythm, needing more.

“Klaus…”

He didn’t have to ask what she needed, knew her well enough to guess, and she moaned as his hands slid from her thighs to cup her ass, squeezing roughly before letting a nail drag across her back entrance, her back bowing at the sensation. He bent to give her long, drugging kisses, the languid motions a perfect contrast to the fast thrusts of his cock. His lips were soon traveling down her neck, and she moaned again as his lips and teeth made what she knew would be bright, lasting marks against her pale skin. She knew that she shouldn’t find it unbelievably hot that she’d have to be careful all night to make sure the red marks didn’t peek out from beneath the bustline of her dress, but she couldn’t help but moan at the thought of it.

“I’m close,” she gasped out, her high building quickly now that he was giving her a harder rhythm and the nip of sharp teeth against her skin.

“Come for me, sweetheart. I love the sounds you make, how your pretty eyes grow deliciously dark with lust for me. I want to see you let go. I love watching you.”

She bit out a stream of expletives as she came around him, her nails raking down his back.

“Good girl. Just like that,” he growled, his hips speeding up, his hand moving between their bodies to make tight circles around her clit to extend her high. “Moan for me, Caroline. Fuck…”

She felt herself begin to grow heavy, her skin oversensitive, and she lifted her head tonip his lower lip between her teeth. “Come in me,” she encouraged, tugging his necklaces lightly. “I want you to come in me.”

She knew it would be the push he needed, and a few moments later she felt the heat running down her thighs as he rolled off, pulling her on top of him, his fingertip lazily tracing patterns up and down her spine.

She buried her face in his shoulder, hitching her leg over his hip to press closer, her breathing still a bit heavy. “l don’t want to move,” she muttered, her voice muffled against his skin, and she heard him laugh quietly, his hand stopping its movement to

rest on the small of her back.

“Tired?”

She hummed, relaxing against him. “Early mornings suck.”

“They do indeed.”

“Taking a break was totally worth it, though. I’m glad you convinced me.”

“Me too, sweetheart,” he murmured, his thumb tracing the tattoo of his first words to her on her forearm. “Me too.”