Part 10
Angel knew that the decision he made as day broke slowly over Sunnydale would be one that held the power to change the course of his life once again. The decision to stay or leave, run back to his apartment and wallow in the guilt he was sure was to come or stay in this room, stay in this room and fall in love with Cordelia Chase.
He wanted to stay, to make love to Cordelia again and again until they couldn’t tell where he ended and she began, to listen to her laugh, to watch some dreadful film as she dozed in his arms, to order take out and waste the day away in bed and not spend a moment thinking about anything but how good Cordelia felt in his arms.
Angel knew he should leave, return to the confines of his apartment, tell Cordelia that he loved another, that he didn’t want to hurt Buffy like this, that he and she should never have crossed the line between friendship and more.
It was what Angel should do…but he wasn’t sure if any of that was true anymore.
He loved Buffy…but this, being here with Cordelia, this was bigger than that somehow.
“Are you OK?” Angel broke the silence as he felt Cordelia shiver slightly in his arms.
“Yeah…I just…..” She sighed as she trailed off, not sure if she really wanted to press the issue, afraid of the answer she might get. Angel was holding her as she watched the light rain fall outside and she wanted to capture this moment in her memory forever and not ruin it completely with insecurities.
“I’m not going to leave Cordy, that’s what you were thinking about isn’t it? That you’ll wake up in the morning and I won’t be here?” He whispered into her skin. “I’m not going anywhere, we’ll put a blanket over the window, shut the world out and I’ll be here in the morning. There’s no place I’d rather be.”
For you it’s one I’m willing to pay. As though this wasn’t some random fling for him, as though this was more than just desire and lust. As though she were the one that he would walk through fire for.
His whispered promise broke down the protective wall she was desperately trying to build around her heart because against her better judgement Cordelia believed him.
She wasn’t a naive blonde slip of a girl, she knew you rarely got a happy ending in life, that the people you loved where often the ones that lied to your face while stabbing you in the back, but at that moment Cordelia wanted to believe that everything would work out and no one would get hurt because Angel’s arms felt so good around her and denial was a nice place to vacation in every once in a while.
“I don’t want to think anymore Angel, I don’t want to think about the real world.” The words fell from her mouth like the rain outside. “I just want to be happy with you for a little while and not think about the fact that I barely have a dollar to my name, that college is a far off and very distant dream, about the fact that tomorrow I’ll sit three spaces away from Buffy with the knowledge that her boyfriend gave me the best orgasm of my life, that I think I saw a cockroach in the bathroom last week, that everyone in the Bronze saw me doing an impression of a skanky ho….I just don’t want to think about any of that right now.”
“OK….” Angel pushed aside the guilt that rose up in his chest at the mention of the Slayer, he told himself to just think about now, about the girl wrapped in a white cotton sheet who was warming his cool chest and taking over his world.
It was easier to do than he thought it would be. “Best orgasm huh?”
“Oh like you didn’t already know.” Cordelia snorted, her melancholy mood lifting as his words finally settled into her heart.
Denial really isn’t just a river in Egypt.
“It doesn’t hurt a mans ego to hear it though.” Angel smiled, he kissed the dip where her neck met her shoulder, teeth nipping gently at her skin as he felt her life beat beneath his lips. Hot and fertile and thoroughly woman, his demon wanted to claim her, leave no part of Cordelia Chase without his mark.
Angel was a vampire, a demon, dark desire and carnal need. The very thing she had been told to stay as far away from as humanly possible but here he was running kisses across the slope of her shoulder like he was fixing to feast on her and Cordelia wasn’t scared.
Because she trusted him.
Cordelia trusted Angel like she had never trusted anyone before, he had kept her secrets, brushed away her tears, brought her Chinese food and lost at Scrabble to her. They were friends and he was the first person she had ever made love to.
And he was still there.
Cordelia turned in Angel’s strong embrace, slipping her hands around his neck. Without saying another word she pulled his lips down to hers and kissed him as though it were the end of the world and nothing else mattered but how his naked chest felt against her breasts, how his arms tightened around her waist, how the short hairs on the nape of his neck tickled her fingertips. Cordelia didn’t want to think about anything but the way Angel was making her feel and the fact that the sun was soon to be inching over the horizon and yet Angel was still in the small room, in Cordelia’s room, with her.
***
“Oh this isn’t good. This really isn’t good. Nothing about this can be good.” Willow muttered as she paced back and forth across her bedroom floor, her brain buzzing with what she had seen and heard in the alley behind the Bronze.
Angel and Cordelia.
Cordelia and Angel.
“This is so very far from being good.” The red head bit her already short nails, trying to convince herself that what she had witnessed was purely platonic and in no way was it Cordelia and Angel kissing and, er, groping as though they where trying to crawl inside each others skin and never leave.
Willow felt her cheeks flush as she remembered the sounds the pair had made, gasping breaths and desperate groans, it was no wonder Angel, with all his super demon senses, hadn’t realised she was there crouched behind a trash can. The vampire was more than a little involved with pressing Cordelia up against the wall and….
“This is bad.” Willow whimpered.
Her first instinct had been to go and find Buffy in the cemetery and tell her best friend that her boyfriend was doing the vertical mambo with Queen C but as she made her way across town she began to question her decision.
What she had seen, especially the words she had heard just didn’t seem to fit together properly. Angel had been so angry, Willow had never seen the stoic vampire so animated before and what Cordelia had said before she had fled into the night….
You can’t keep making me want what isn’t mine.
That one sentence had flown into her brain just as she were about to turn on to the street that held the cemetery and she’d stopped short. Cordelia had sounded so…sad. Something in Willow’s brain told her that there was more to what she’d seen and that she should find out the whole truth before she played her part in breaking Buffy’s heart.
So Willow had hurried home, completely forgetting her meeting with Xander and had paced her room until the sun showed her golden face. School would begin in two hours and Willow hadn’t slept at all that night, she was tired and confused and hated keeping this from Buffy.
But she had to be sure before….
“Before what? Before I tell my best friend that her boyfriend is a cheat? How am going to do that exactly…?
‘Hi Buffy, did patrol go OK last night? Did you manage to study for that History test? Oh and hey, funny story, I saw Angel kissing Cordelia Chase last night round the back of the Bronze like they couldn’t get enough of each other and apparently it wasn’t the first time either. So…fancy going to the mall after school?’…Maybe not.” Willow sighed and continued her pacing.
“Maybe what I saw wasn’t as knee knockingly intense as I thought it was…it was kinda dark…Hey! Maybe it wasn’t Cordelia and Angel at all, just two people that looked identical to them…and had the same names…ok, now I’m reaching. And talking to myself. Wonderful, just wonderful.” She muttered.
So much for her enormous brain.
***
In the late hours of Tuesday morning Angel discovered that if he ran his fingertip down the middle of Cordelia’s spine when she was asleep she arched into the touch like a cat in the sun and he adored it. Adored how she responded to him even when in slumber. The vampire buried his face into her hair and breathed her scent into his lungs, pulling her back closer to his chest and moulding his body around hers.
His hands where eager to travel her body again, the memories of the evening before flashing behind his eyes and stirring his already aroused body even further. Angel’s hand snaked around her front from where it was resting idly on her hip, his fingertips drawing invisible circles over her firm stomach. He heard Cordelia sigh at the contact, moving unconsciously nearer to Angel’s touch, he planted a trail of soft kisses down the side of her neck and along her shoulder, delighting at the way her scent was mingled with his. Angel brushed his thumb over the swell of Cordelia’s breast feeling her nipple pebble instantly under his ministrations.
The small moan that slipped from Cordelia’s throat shot desire straight to Angel’s groin, instant desire that hadn’t diminished since the night before like he feared it would. Cordelia had seemed so sad as she’d stared blindly into the night, his embrace the only thing that kept her from retreating to the safety of her mask of indifference. He would have trekked to the ends of the earth to see her smile and when she had kissed him as though her life depended on it Angel knew his destiny was quickly being rewritten.
He had worshipped her as the rain had fallen outside, trying to show her with his body what he was scared to put into words, seconds and hours had melted into infinity as Angel gently learnt her body, ignoring his own aching desire because he wanted to give Cordelia the comfort, affection, and love, yes, love she deserved. No orgasm in the world could have rivalled the joy Angel had felt when Cordelia had smiled at him, flushed skin and red lipped as dusk turned to dawn.
Angel wanted this woman over and over again until neither of them could walk and if he had his way that would be exactly how they would spend the day.
The vampire’s hand boldly travelled down the length of Cordelia’s body, absorbing her warmth into his skin. Angel pressed his large hand to the gentle curve of her abdomen like a brand of ownership, his fingers danced through the light hair guarding her sex, silken folds that held secrets within that no one but him had ever learnt.
The magnitude of being Cordelia’s first hadn’t escaped Angel and a large part of him thrilled at the knowledge that she had granted him something so precious and sweet. Yet a smaller part, a part he was trying his hardest to ignore as he kissed the sensitive skin behind her ear, felt the familiar burden of guilt in his chest that he had taken away her innocence, him, a demon, a vampire with a horrifying past had been the one to thrust through her virginity when it should have been a nice young man of good moral standing and a beating heart.
No. Mine. His demon whispered in his ear at the thought of anyone else ever touching Cordelia Chase.
Angel shook the thoughts from his mind as best he could and concentrated on the unconscious sounds Cordelia was making under his touch, throaty moans, breathless sighs and frustrated whimpers merged into one as Angel snaked a finger along her most intimate flesh, a spider light caress that made her hips rock seductively in her sleep. Angel groaned when she rubbed against his aroused flesh, he had been hard from the moment he’d woken up and Cordelia’s instinctive response to him was quickly drawing all the blood in his body south.
With a gleam in his eye that few had ever seen before Angel slipped his finger over the swollen flesh of her clitoris, teasing her with butterfly touches until the scent of her arousal assaulted Angel’s senses, as thick and insistent as his own. Angel’s hand covered Cordelia’s sex, massaging, tormenting, dipping into her velvet depths only to leave her wanting more in her sleep.
He grazed his teeth over her shoulder, finding it increasingly difficult not to let the demon in him claim Cordelia as it demanded he do. Angel wouldn’t do that to her though, wouldn’t scare her like that no matter how much he longed to write his name across her skin. His desire to make her happy, make her smile, hear her shout his name in rapture did nothing to quell his baser instincts but over a hundred years of housing a soul had taught Angel to control his demon, even when he liked what it whispered in his ear. When the vampire gently scraped his nail over her sensitive bud Cordelia’s eyes flew open with a gasp at the sudden intense pleasure.
“Angel…” Cordelia’s sleep rough voice rang out softly into the room. “…what are you…oooohh.” She groaned and rocked her hips in rhythm with his hand.
“You like that?” Angel murmured huskily into her ear, his teeth nipping at the delicate flesh of her earlobe.
“God yes.” She moaned, overwhelmed by the waking up in a state of such an intense arousal.
“How does it feel?” Angel words brushed over her skin leaving shivers in its wake.
“It feels…feels like…everything….” Cordelia panted as his fingers brought her closer and closer to the edge. She could feel the thick presence of Angel’s arousal pressing against her behind and couldn’t help but move against it, a secret smile graced her lips at low growl that rumbled through Angel, delighting in the power her body held over vampire.
She pressed against him, rubbing against his shaft teasingly. “How does it feel?” Cordelia echoed his question, her words dripping like honey over cool flesh.
“Like I’m going to die if I’m not inside you.” He groaned hotly into her shoulder as the tables were turned on him, his words shooting fire into Cordelia’s belly.
“You’re already dead…ahh….” She said mischievously only to be cut off as his hand increased it’s sensual assault on her intimate flesh.
“Are you…arguing the…semantics?”
“Just…making…a point….”
“Interesting time…to..uh…to bring it…up.”
“Speaking…of up….” Unable to stand it anymore Cordelia lifted her leg over his, moaning loudly as his desire came into contact fully with her sex, she wriggled her hips, trying to urge Angel to where she needed him to be.
“God you’re incredible.” The vampire murmured kissing the line of her jaw and the corner of her mouth.
“Well…duh….”
She whimpered when he halted his hands maddening caress, her annoyed whine caught in her throat when the vampire gripped the thigh wrapped over his and thrust suddenly inside her in one quick motion.
“Jesus!” Angel grunted into her neck at the heavenly feeling of being engulfed in Cordelia’s tight slick walls, the brunette moaned her agreement.
There was none of the pain of the night before for Cordelia, not physically or emotionally, just pure ecstasy of having Angel so deeply inside of her, having him pressing against the sweet spot that blurred her vision and made her bury her face into the starchy white pillow that smelt of her perfume and Angel and the night before.
The night before, when Angel had made it his mission to drive her over the brink of sanity with his body and Cordelia had happily screamed to the heavens as she’d fallen over and over again into the safety of Angel’s arms. Cordelia had felt like she’d had all the orgasms in her life all in one night but as Angel moulded her breast and thrust slowly inside her Cordelia was quickly learning that no matter how many times she fell Angel could always make her want more with the briefest of touch.
Cordelia rolled her hips against the vampire’s, biting her lip at the fissions of pleasure that lanced through her belly and sparked at the tips of her fingers. Angel pressed himself as close to his body as he could, the smooth skin of her back fusing to his cool chest, her breast overflowing into his palm, her leg slung over his gripping his thigh for purchase, Cordelia was surrounded by Angel completely and she had felt nothing sweeter.
“Oh god…Angel….” She groaned as their hips met in an increasingly frenzied pace, ribbons of light dancing behind her eyelids with every movement they made, a perfect rhythm that made Angel’s eyes cross in ecstasy.
“Cordy….” He groaned her name, his muscles tensing as her silken walls constricted tightly around his desire. The vampire buried his face into her neck, his hips pistoning into her erratically of their own will, his fingers possessing her skin, lips sucking hungrily at her neck. Angel felt the familiar tingle of his forehead ridging and willed it away to no avail, he was grateful that Cordelia couldn’t see his face. She was a wildcat grinding against him and the animal in him wanted to sink his teeth into the pink flesh and feast on her life and make it his, have nothing separated them as her blood moved though his body as his moved within hers.
Cordelia’s eyes flew open as the coil of pressure exploded in her womb like a supernova, her body singing its own private song as wave after wave of white heat shook through her, eyes blind, lungs gasping, the universe turning inside out as Cordelia fell and fell and fell until she was nothing but a shaking mass. Angel was out of control as the tremors of her inner walls clenched and released him like fist over and over again, insistent, demanding his body join hers until the vampire couldn’t take anymore and hoarsely grunted his release in a language older then sin.
“Interesting wake up call.” Cordelia said breathlessly once she had regained the power of speech.
“I thought so.” Angel’s murmured into her neck.
“Far more satisfying than an alarm clock.” She sighed happily.
“I aim to please.” Angel chuckled as he shifted his hips and left her body, Cordelia flopped heavily onto her back without the support of Angel’s strong chest as he moved away only to be blanketed by the vampire wrapping around her.
“You get two very enthusiastic thumbs up and a gold star.” Cordelia smiled lazily at him.
“Ooh a gold star….” Angel grinned making the brunette laugh. The vampire loved that sound, he wanted to hear it everyday and be the one that caused it.
Angel stole a soft kiss from her, their smiles never leaving the couples lips as desire made way to a sated ease.
The motel room hummed with an easy quiet as Angel and Cordelia sipped languid kisses between murmured conversation and soft laughter, both unwilling to step outside into the real world, to go back to a dark and lonely apartment, to go to school and look the Slayer in the eye.
It was comfortable there in their own private universe…and becoming more dangerous with every gentle kiss they shared.
Cordelia and Angel might not have said the words out loud but the truth stood silently in the room.
They were falling in love.
***
Willow Rosenburg decided she was a horrible friend and was definitely going to hell. She’d come to this conclusion as she stood biting her lip while she watched Buffy laugh at the goofy joke Xander made as they shared a can of coke and a candy bar in the sun.
Willow had barely seen her blonde friend all morning, the weight of what she’d discovered sitting too heavily on her petite shoulders and making her dart away from Buffy whenever she broached the subject of her problems with her boyfriend.
Angel hadn’t shown up for patrol.
Willow didn’t need to think very hard to figure out the reason why…but she just couldn’t bring herself to share that reason with Buffy. How was she meant to tell her best friend that she thought Angel was cheating on her with Cordelia Chase?
Before Buffy, Willow had never really had a close girlfriend before, Xander for all his effeminate ways didn’t count, so the redhead was struggling deal with the situation. Nevertheless Willow sucked up her courage and made her way across the quad to where her two friends were seated.
“Ah, the mysteriously disappearing Ms Rosenburg, now you see her now you don’t.” Xander greeted his oddly skittish and taciturn best friend.
“Umm…Giles was, Giles was looking for you Xander, said he need some help with a, a thing.” The red head jerked her head awkwardly to the side, the international signal for ‘go away I want to talk to Buffy.’
“A thing?” Xander scrunched up his face.
“Yeah….” Willow jerked her head again, her eyes wide and darting. “…a thing…now…”
“But it’s lunch… lunch is a sacred time, no demons or books, just lunch. Xander likes lunch! It’s happy time for Xander.” He whined, completely not getting what she was silently trying to tell him as Willow’s head almost shot off her shoulders as she vigorously gestured for him to go away.
“Tough, go…Giles…urgent…hurry!”
“But…”
“Xander go away, Willow wants to talk to me.” Buffy rolled her eyes at her two best friends. “Shoo, girl talk.” The slayer smiled at him and handed him his bag.
“I never get to hear the girl talk.” Xander muttered as he lumbered off the bench and shouldered his bag. “Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to see a Watcher about a ‘thing’. Well, didn’t that sound strange and wrong?” He flashed them a wonderful Xander grin then loped off across the quad in a hurricane of teenage arms and legs.
Willow took a deep breath and sat down next to Buffy, her fingers twisting around themselves as she tried to figure out how to say what she needed to say without Buffy feeling the desire to shoot the messenger.
“So, Buffy…” Willow started but trailed off nervously. She was so very bad at this.
“Will, what’s on your mind hun?” Buffy asked her gently, she hadn’t seen Willow this skittish before.
“I…you see…well…last night…I…here’s the thing…last night….” So very very bad at this.
“Willow have you been on the caffeine again? We’ve talked about this before, a caffeineated Willow is a confusing Willow.” The Slayer smiled reassuringly at her, trying to calm her down a little. It only made Willow more nervous and boy, the guilt. How could she do this to her best friend?
“I…hehe..yeah…coffee, bad.” Willow shifted awkwardly. She decided to change tactics. “Have you seen Cordelia today?”
“You know what, I haven’t. I wondered why the birds were singing and the audio visual club had come out of hiding.” Buffy’s gaze wandered over to the small group of nerds huddled nervously on the other side of the courtyard looking as though they were ready to run at the first sign of Queen C.
“I heard Cordelia was at the Bronze getting it on with half the club last night and then some poor doting shlub she was seeing went all green eyed monster at her in front of everyone. Major weirdness even for our May Queen.” The Slayer turned back to Willow who was chewing her bottom lip thoughtfully.
“Yeah…weird, with the…strangeness and…stuff.” Willow nodded. Buffy was starting to worry about her best friend.
“Willow what’s….”
“You said earlier that Angel didn’t show up for patrol?” The words were out of Willow’s mouth before she could stop them.
“Yeah…” Buffy sighed wearily, slightly confused at Willow’s sudden change of subject and not really wanting to think about her boyfriend standing her up. “I guess there was some emergency that meant he couldn’t show up, or call, or fax, or a send a semaphore message or a singing telegram, you know, anything to let me know that I didn’t need to wait in the cemetery for three frikken hours like an idiot. Something, anything.” She started to warm to the subject.
“I thought you two had talked about your problems?”
“We did, we kissed and made up and everything. Well, we didn’t exactly talk about stuff…but…you know, Angel’s not much with the talking at the best of times.” Buffy said feeling justified at grousing about her boyfriend after he hadn’t shown up for patrol and their date.
“I just can’t figure him out at times.” She sighed heavily, Buffy had been upset as she’d walked home the night before, but not completely surprised. She knew things between herself and Angel were on shaky ground and that they needed to sit down and discuss their problems properly but that was kinda difficult when the two people in question were a vampire and a vampire slayer.
By definition alone they were meant to be mortal enemies, not in love, but Buffy did love him, she loved him so much that sometimes it scared her…but she wasn’t sure if that was going to be enough to overcome who they were.
Willow couldn’t stand this, couldn’t stand knowing what she knew and being too scared to be the one to tell Buffy. She felt like a coward and a very bad friend.
“Buffy?”
“Yeah?”
“I need to tell you something.” Willow’s gaze was fixed intently on her hands.
“OK.” The gravity in Willow’s voice surprised and unnerved the Slayer.
“I…I was at the Bronze last night and…well..you see….”
“C’mon Will, you know you can tell me anything.” Buffy bumped her shoulder to Willow’s, an intimate gesture shared between girlfriends the world over.
“I know, it’s just…ok, I’m just going to tell you straight up….”
“Take you’re time Will, I’m not going anywhere.”
“I was at the Bronze last night and…” Willow took a deep breath and looked her best friend in the eye. The warm look of patience and understanding on Buffy’s face twisted something painful in the redheads stomach. She couldn’t do this, not when she wasn’t one hundred percent sure of what it was that she saw. “…I decided to get my hair cut.”
“Oh…OK…that’s…Willow, you’re a very odd person, has anyone ever told you that?” Buffy raised a relieved and amused eyebrow at her.
“Everyday.” Willow’s lips quirked into a half smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“C’mon girlie, lets go find Xander and discuss hair, you know how he enjoys that.” Buffy stood and pulled Willow by her hand off the bench with her. Arm in arm with her friend Willow let herself be led across the sun filled courtyard, the guilt of the secret she had unwittingly learnt getting heavier with every step she took.
Being straight with Buffy hadn’t worked.
It was time for plan B.
But first of all she had to think up a plan B.
***
Angel felt as close to heaven as he knew he’d ever get as Cordelia ran her hand rhythmically through his hair, a tender lovers caress that he had never really had before. He felt a deep contentment in his chest as he lay across the bed with his head resting on Cordelia’s lap, the thin cotton bed sheet idly covering his waist.
The pair had hardly left the refuge of the bed, languidly making love as seconds slipped into hours, the longest Cordelia had been away from the circle of Angel’s arms was when the diner across the street had delivered the cheerleaders takeout and even then he hadn’t been able to take his eyes from her as she had slipped on his sweater and answered the door. Her wild dark mane tumbling around her shoulders, sun kissed legs barely hidden by his sweater as she paid the delivery boy who was spending too much time grinning and counting out the change if you asked Angel.
The world outside no longer existed in the small motel room, they’d shut it out and locked the door, please do not disturb the nirvana within. Cordelia smiled as she watched Angel rub his cheek against her breast, his handsome face relaxed like she had never seen before.
“This place is kinda growing on me.”
“You are joking, right?” Cordelia laughed softly.
“Nice bed, hot and cold running water, thick blanket over the window, a damp patch that looks like Nixon, what more could you ask for?” The vampire nodded at the water stain on the ceiling above them.
“Pfft, speaks the original Mr Minimal.” Cordelia scoffed. “And it’s a bunny, not Nixon.”
“I own stuff, lots of stuff.” Angel muttered like a petulant child.
“A chair, a desk, a lamp and a bed isn’t lots of stuff Angel.” The brunette smiled sweetly at him.
“Books, I have lots of books!”
“Yes, you’re the Imelda Marcos of the book world.” She rolled her eyes and resumed running her fingers through the vampire’s messy hair, her nails scratching gently over his scalp making Angel’s eyes close happily, a deep purr rumbling through his chest. “You’re like a big cat.” Cordelia chuckled.
“Feels good.” Angel murmured, a lazy smile on his angular lips. Cordelia continued her hypnotic caress, smiling at the way the vampire’s hair stood up as she dragged her hand through it.
She spent long moments enjoying the simple feel of his thick hair tickling the palm of her hand until the desire to touch more of him over took her. Cordelia traced her fingers over the chiselled angles of Angel’s face, memorising his features with her hands, feather light glances travelling the map of his smooth forehead, the strong slope of his nose, the gentle curve of his lips. Delighting in the slight rasp of stubble against her skin as she brushed her thumb across Angel’s jaw.
“Whatcha doing?” Angel’s low sleepy voice whispered around the room.
“Learning your secrets.” Cordelia murmured soothingly, a soft lilt that was as sweetly soporific as her gentle ministrations.
“All of them?”
“All of them.”
“OK.” Angel mouth quirked with amusement, Cordelia’s touch was like a drug, even the most fleeting caress of her thumb glancing over his bottom lip sent fission’s of electric across his nerves that calmed and excited him by equal degrees.
Cordelia attempted to add up the sum that equalled Angel in her mind as she learnt his face, total the equation of the man that kissed her as though she were fine china with the vampire whose eyes had flashed yellow the night before in the Bronze. Soul and demon housed in a body that had worshipped her and brought her to the peak of ecstasy over and over again until she couldn’t see straight or feel her legs. Cordelia knew the demon was always there, hidden just beneath the surface.
Angel was a vampire…but looking at him now as he lay dozing on her lap the brunette couldn’t tell by just looking at him, his chest might not rise and fall with breathing but apart from that there was no outward physical sign of what he was. No neon sign declaring ‘here be monsters’, just a pale marble skin and a beautiful face.
“Does it hurt?” Cordelia suddenly asked, never one to not say exactly what she was thinking.
“Does what hurt?” Angel opened his eyes and blinked at her, a little confused at the random non-specific question.
“When you go ‘grr’?” The vampire couldn’t help but smile at the way the young woman’s nose scrunched up when she did an impression of his kind.
“No.” Angel shook his head chuckling, his eyes drifting shut once again.
“Oh…Angel?”
“Hmmm?”
“I wanna see it.”
“See what?”
“Your grr face.”
“Cordy…” Angel frowned and shifted to sit up only to be halted by the gentle press of a warm hand over his silent heart.
“Humour me.” Cordelia needed this, needed to see every part of him.
“I don’t…” The vampire didn’t want to scare her but Cordelia’s perfectly arch eyebrow cut off his sentence in his throat. He didn’t want to frighten her but he didn’t want to hide from her either. She wanted to see him and he couldn’t seem find the power to deny her.
Cordelia watched the conflicting thoughts wash across Angel’s eyes, with an unneeded breath the vampire closed his eyes and let the heavy ridges of his demon sweep over his human face, not daring to move a muscle as he waited for Cordelia’s response. He felt her tug lightly on his hair and he forced his now amber orbs to open.
“That wasn’t so difficult now was it, ya big dork?” The hundred watt smile on Cordelia face astounded Angel so much all he could think of to say was….
“Did you just call me a dork?”
“If the shoe fits.” Cordelia shrugged, amusement dancing in her hazel eyes, not terror, not judgement but amusement. Angel was speechless as her fingers retraced the path they had taken moments before, this time learning the face he hid from the world.
Angel felt as though she was touching his very soul with her hands as Cordelia ran her fingers over the thick ridges of his brow, his eyes closed as she touched the sensitive skin on the bridge of his nose, the emotion pouring through Angel was almost too much for him to handle.
“You’re not so scary.” He heard Cordelia whisper as she traced a finger over his bottom lip, his tongue darting out to savour the now familiar taste of Cordelia Chase, of apples and sunlight and beauty. She carefully ran her finger over the elongated length of his fangs, making sure not to cut herself on the razor edge not knowing what his reaction would be if he were to taste her blood.
“Careful.” Angel said gruffly and grasped her wrist as the temptation to bite down on the soft flesh of her finger became too much.
“You won’t hurt me.” Cordelia said confidently.
“How do you know?” The vampire frowned.
“Because I trust you.” They weren’t the words she wanted to say but the complete truth would have been too much in an already intense moment.
“Maybe you shouldn’t.”
“You’re being a dork again Angel.” Cordelia rolled her eyes and cut off the reply she could see forming in his eyes with a kiss.
Angel held still as her teeth nipped his lips, unconsciously holding a breath he didn’t need as she slipped her tongue into his mouth, tentatively running over his fangs. Cordelia felt a slight sting as she purposefully nicked her tongue against him, the growl that rolled through the vampire’s chest raised goosebumps on her arms and sent a shiver up and down her spine.
“Cordelia.” Angel warned her darkly as he wrenched his mouth away from her, the coppery taste of her blood exciting his demon too much for him to control if they didn’t stop this now.
“What?” She blinked at him a little breathless, her body beginning to hum with a now very familiar desire.
“I’m a vampire Cordelia.”
“No? Really?”
“I’m serious.” Angel ignored her sarcasm “You shouldn’t do that…you don’t…it’s not a game Cordy, I’m a vampire….”
“I know what you are Angel.” She whispered, her palm cradling the side of his face as she leant over him, her hair falling in a chocolate halo around his head. “I know….” Cordelia pressed her lips to his once again, this time Angel forced the vampire visage from his face, his teeth no longer dangerous as she kissed him.
The sweep of Cordelia’s tongue over his made Angel groan as the faint taste of her blood filled his senses, he couldn’t stop himself from hungrily deepening the kiss, devouring her mouth as he threaded his fingers through her thick hair, possessing her as she possessed him. Something inside Cordelia thrilled at the reaction she had elicited in the vampire, at the way his strong hands snagged her to him unyieldingly.
Stars danced behind her eyelids as the lack of oxygen began to make her head spin but she refused to stop kissing him, to pull away and lose this delicious contact. Cordelia grazed her nails lightly down the side of Angel’s throat and felt him shudder under the touch, it seemed to break the gossamer thread of the vampire’s control as he moved with a preternatural speed dragging Cordelia out from beneath his head and settling her astride his lap, never once leaving the hot cavern of her mouth.
The brunette wasn’t exactly sure how he’d managed that and didn’t particularly care as Angel ran his large hands up the outsides of her thighs. All she cared about was the way his fingers gripped her hips, how his lips bruised hers with a passion that would always surprise her and how the warm cradle of her thighs fit so perfectly over his…
“You’re like a walking libido.” She gasped dragging her mouth away from his as the insistent press of Angel’s desire rubbed against the cotton of her panties.
Unable to do more than growl a response Angel plundered her mouth again, anchoring her heat to him like a molten vice as he tumbled them over so Cordelia was sprawled beneath him, his body covering every inch of hers. Fire flooded Cordelia’s womb when Angel tugged the sweater over her chest, mouth, teeth and lips ravishing the full flesh as though he were a starving man.
Cordelia realised she’d unleashed something primal within him when she’d nicked her tongue on his teeth and even though it was in no way a deep cut, she only tasted a very faint trace of copper herself, it had snapped open what he had tried to keep away from her, the animal, the demon, the part of himself that no matter how much he tried to repress would always be there. She wanted to let him know that he didn’t have to hide himself from her, just as she didn’t have to with him, Cordelia had a feeling that whatever words she tried to use to tell him that wouldn’t work as well as showing him with her body.
Cordelia dragged her nails down Angel’s back making his hips jerk roughly against her as the vampire struggled not to give into the whispers in his brain, to fiercely possess her body and soul, to sink his teeth into her beautiful breasts and mar them with his name. Angel knew that his fingers would leave bruises on her perfect thighs as he gripped them but he couldn’t stop himself from clutching at them like a life line as the desire borne of her blood surged through him like a drug, he distantly heard Cordelia moan but it sounded a million miles away from him, he needed to be closer to her, to crawl inside her skin and curl around her heart.
Angel pulled the sweater that held both their scents over her head and tossed it across the room, submerging his face into the valley of her breasts, licking a path upwards and over the rise of her collar bone, increasingly closer to the dip where slender neck met shoulder. The vampire brushed his nose over her skin, scenting the blood that beat just below the surface, so close, so vibrant, calling to him as their hips ground together, the cotton of Cordelia’s underwear a teasing rasp against Angel’s erection, the promise of the heaven held within causing his forehead to ripple and change before he could stop it.
Angel realised what he was doing and stilled his movements, disgust crawling through his soul.
“Angel?” Cordelia whispered, her voice low and husky, confused at why he had suddenly stopped. The vampire released her from his fierce embrace and stumbled from the bed, his shameful amber gaze unable to meet hers from.
“God Cordy…I’m sorry….” His gaze flickered over the pink stripes his fingers had left on her hips.
“OK, I have two questions.” Cordelia frowned and leant up on her elbows, concern flowing through her for the vampire that looked like he was about to run and hide in a dark corner for the rest of his unlife. “One, why are you sorry and two, why the hell did you just stop when it was about to get oh so very good? Hmmm?”
“I…I shouldn’t have…” Angel shook his head, forcing his forehead to smooth out.
“Angel…” She said softly when he still refused to look her in the eye, she sat up and snagged his hand in hers. Angel stared at the soft female flesh that had never known or seen the the kind of pain he had caused in his life, caused with the very hand she held in hers. “Angel, baby, what’s wrong?” The sweet endearment that slipped from her lips penetrated through the familiar guilt that was building in his bones.
“I don’t want that to touch you. I don’t want…it shouldn’t touch you Cordelia. Not that part of me.”
“Maybe I want it to touch me. Angel, I want to know every part of you and I want every part of you to know me.”
“Cordelia you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Yeah I do numnuts, now shut up and come here.” Cordelia jerked him down next to her and Angel didn’t resist. She crawled on to his lap and cradled his face in her hands, her fingers running over his now human brow.
“I see you. See what you are, who you are…and I’m still here, still here and naked in case that escaped your attention. Did you hear me telling you to stop? No, because I didn’t. Do you know why I didn’t?” Cordelia didn’t wait for his answer. “Because I see you, I see your soul in your eyes and I know you won’t hurt me. I see you baby.” Angel felt like he was drowning in the deep pools of her hazel eyes, acceptance he had never experienced before wrapping around him like a warm blanket. Every argument he knew he should voice melted away as looked in to her eyes. The acceptance he found there too sweet to deny.
Cordelia pressed a kiss to his forehead and sighed with relief when she felt Angel’s arms circle her waist, holding her close as though he feared she would change her mind and flee the room. Like she would take back her words and turn her back in disgust if he gave her the space to move.
“Now….” Cordelia leant her forehead against his. “If you don’t mind, we were in the middle of something back there that I would quite like to continue…” Her eyes danced at him and Angel couldn’t help but smile.
“You’re really something you know that Chase?” Angel hands began their journey over her body once again, the words he really wanted to tell her caught in his throat.
“Yeah, I’m wonderful.” Cordelia grinned as she used all her strength to push the vampire down onto his back. “Don’t even think about stopping this time because I swear to god I will stake you.”
***
Willow had a headache, a dull throbbing pain between her eyes that refused to ease no matter how much water she drank or how much she rubbed her temples. She decided it was her punishment for keeping secrets from Buffy, as though the guilt wasn’t enough already. The red head had tried sporadically throughout the day to say the words she knew would break the slayers heart but always turned chicken just as the sentences formed in her mouth.
As the buzzer sounded for the end of what could possibly be the longest school day of her life, Willow decided that plan B was all she had left no matter how much of a cowardly plan it was. She’d managed to evade her two best friends as she skirted through the heaving corridors of Sunnydale High, ignoring the bitchy comment that flew her way as she accidentally stumbled into Harmony, Willow was on a mission and could think of nothing else but ridding herself of the responsibility of being the only one who knew.
It was too much, it was making her brain hurt and her shoulders ache with the weight of it and hey! she never asked to know any of this, it wasn’t her fault that she was naturally inquisitive and had followed Angel and Cordelia out of the Bronze and in to the alley the night before.
In this whirlwind state of mind Willow Rosenburg crashed through the door of Rupert Giles’ office, causing the Watcher to spill his tea over his jacket.
“Willow! Good god girl, are you trying to give me a heart attack?” Giles grumbled as he dabbed at the damp tweed with his handkerchief.
“Giles, I need your help because if I have to keep this to myself any longer my head is going to explode and ok, I’ve only known this for a day but I didn’t get any sleep last night and I think I failed my history test and Xander thinks I’m completely losing it and I think he might be right! I don’t know what to do! I can’t talk to Xander because, hello, not exactly known for his discretion when it comes to Buffy. So that leaves you, plus your older and wiser, not that I’m saying you’re old, just that you’ll know what to do and I really need you to tell me what I should do. What if I tell Buffy and it’s not what I think it is and hurt her for no reason, but what if it is what I think it is and hurt her and Giles, I don’t want to be the one that hurts her! What am I going to do?!” Willow ran out of breath and collapsed down heavily on the worn couch he had in his office.
Giles blinked dumbly as he tried to find a linear thread in the young woman’s frenziedly rambled words. He decided there wasn’t one.
“Pardon?”
“What am I going to do?” She asked him desperately, her hands wringing frantically in her lap.
“Willow, you need calm down and start from the beginning…slowly.” Giles added when he saw her draw in a deep breath ready to babble lyrical again.
“Now, is this Hellmouth related? Is it something to do with the prophecy we’ve been researching?”
“No.” Willow shook her head gravely. “It’s so much worse than the Hellmouth.”