Part 10
“Cordelia-”
“Don’t,” she cut him off before he even begin the sentence.
Jaw clenched, Angel tightened his grip on the steering wheel as he took another corner faster than he should.
“Slow down,” Cordelia snapped as her hair whipped wildly around her head.
“It’s my car, I’ll drive as fast as I damn well please,” he muttered and pressed down harder on the accelerator.
“Fine, if you wanna wrap your beloved penis extension around a lamppost, be my guest.”
The vampire growled as his nerves were stretched to snapping point, he darted a warning glare at the young woman as he eased up on the pedal.
Cordelia gave him the finger and a saccharine sweet smile.
“Oh that’s very mature.”
“You are the last person to be talking about being mature,” she scoffed.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the basement looks like a hurricane blew through it. Don’t take your pissy mood out on the Hotel, we can’t afford it.”
“It’s my-”
“It’s my Hotel, I’ll do what I want with it,” she mimicked in a high falsetto, “you know, on occasion you can be a complete ass.”
“Being an ass is better than being a-”
“If you call me a bitch I will beat you to death with your own arm.”
“Already dead.”
“See? Ass!”
The atmosphere was anything but comfortable, mutual anger choking the air between them. Cold neon lights bled together as they sped by strip joints and fetish stores, another night spent in the bad side of town was doing nothing for either the vampire’s or the seer’s moods.
“I could be all cosy watching George Clooney and Brad Pitt being all sexy and fine, but oh no, I have to fight the frikken good fight,” Cordelia muttered petulantly, “I so should have taken Gunn up on his offer.”
She cocked an eyebrow at the rough growl that echoed loudly through the vampire’s chest.
“Gunn,” she repeated the black man’s name just to see Angel’s reaction.
Again another growl than almost made the car vibrate.
“OK, what the hell is your problem?” Cordelia demanded, she hadn’t planned on bringing up Angel’s sudden ire with their friend but she needed to focus on something that wasn’t the confusing mix of terror and arousal that was stirred up inside her courtesy of the PTB.
“I don’t have a problem,” he bit out through clenched teeth.
“The basement begs to differ.”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“That’s a surprise.”
The rest of the journey was suffered through in silence until the car lurched to a stop on the street opposite the club. Cordelia felt her stomach threaten to dispel the chicken salad she’d had for lunch, with a deep breath she closed her eyes but that only caused the vision to flash across the back of her eyelids and she really didn’t want to see or feel that again.
Especially the less bloody and more tender Angel parts of it.
Quickly opening her eyes again, Cordelia saw that the vampire in question was watching her with concern.
“I’m fine,” she snapped because she really wasn’t fine and knew he could tell. Angel grunted something about damn stubborn women that she didn’t quite hear then slammed the car door shut behind him as he climbed out of the vehicle. Cordelia grimaced at the sharp noise that agitated the pain in her brain, but slammed her own door just as loudly because she knew how much it pissed him off.
Angel scowled darkly as he swung his sword against his shoulder.
Cordelia twirled the small axe in her hand, eyebrows raised as she waited for the inevitable reprimand about hurting his precious Plymouth. She was a little disappointed when instead he said-
“When we get there, stay behind me.”
“Whatever,” Cordelia rolled her eyes, fully intending to ignore his order as she turned on her heel to cross the road.
“Just do as I say for once,” Angel growled as he strode along beside her, black coat billowing around his legs in the evening breeze.
“Batman wannabe,” she muttered under her breath, loud enough for the vampire to hear.
“I’m not….” his words trailed off to nothing as the coppery scent of blood prickled his senses, eyes flashing amber, forehead ridging, fangs lengthening, Angel knew what the scene ahead would look like before it even came into view.
“Cordy, wait,” he grasped her arm bringing her to a sudden stop.
“Will ya quit with the grabby hands already,” she jerked out of his grip and continued striding purposely into the alley, her stubbornness deafening her to the genuine caution in the vampire’s voice.
“Oh….” Cordelia gasped in horror at the carnage in front of her.
Neck twisted at an unnatural angle, intestines spilling out onto the dirty pavement, eyes fixed and unseeing, a dark pool of red forming a halo around the lifeless body.
Amy had changed her hair, the Seer thought vacantly as she stared at the blonde mane that was splattered with blood and dirt
***
The dark cranberry sheets were still unmade when Cordelia sat down on the edge of Angel’s bed, the squeak of the mattress springs punctuating the silence of the dimly lit room like an awkward cough. Cordelia toed off her shoes with a grimace, too many hours spent in too high heels made her feet cramp uncomfortably when she forced them flat against the plush carpet.
“Here,” the vampire handed her a glass of water and two aspirin, even though they both knew it would be of little help. Cordelia swallowed the pills and water then handed the glass back to Angel who set it down on the bedside table between a well worn book and an alarm clock that announced the late hour.
“You OK?” the vampire asked as he squatted down in front of her, he knew it was a stupid question but he didn’t know what else to say.
“There wasn’t that much blood in my vision,” the seer said instead of telling him she was fine like she’d meant to as she ran her hands, hands that for some reason wouldn’t stop shaking, over her thighs, smoothing out the small creases in her pants as though it were the most important task in the world. Angel watched the rhythmic action until he could stand it no longer and swallowed her small hands in his.
Cordelia didn’t know why she was so shocked, it wasn’t as if it were the first dead body she’d seen, she’d grown up in Sunnydale where a girl couldn’t get through the week without stumbling across a corpse or occasional severed limb. Even in her time in LA the young woman had seen things far worse than this, most of them in the private widescreen of her mind. But seeing Amy bleeding and broken had shaken her to the core so much so that it was the second night in a row that Cordelia had been sick in that very alley.
The police had been called, Cordelia didn’t know when or by whom, she couldn’t even remember if she’d spoken to them, but she knew they had been there because of the small rectangle of card in that sat in her purse with the name Detective Stevens printed on it in serious black script. Angel had tried to pull her away from the scene when he’d heard the police sirens in the near distance, he knew they would be instantly under suspicion and not just because of the weapons they were wielding, but Cordelia had refused.
Amy shouldn’t be on her own, she’d said.
Angel didn’t argue.
The scent of death and fear had been overwhelming for the vampire, Angel had revelled in that aroma for over a hundred years but as they stood in the artificial glow of a neon sign, their young client dead at their feet, he’d felt none of the vicious delight he once would have. Just guilt and anger and the overwhelming need to get Cordelia as far away from the carnage as possible.
Beneath the perfume of destruction Angel had picked up another scent.
Not human.
Daniel.
His first instinct had been to track it but Cordelia had turned worryingly pale and the sirens were getting closer and closer, so instead he quickly ran to the car to stash their weapons then wrapped an arm around Cordelia’s shoulders as they waited with for the police to arrive. When she’d buried her face into his chest, Angel realized he was the only thing keeping her standing.
Two hours, a million questions and one stern request not to leave town later, they’d finally returned back to the Hyperion, Cordelia hadn’t spoken during the drive back to the Hotel and it was starting to scare Angel, made him long for her acerbic taunts and petulant muttering.
“It’s my fault she’s dead,” she blurted out the thought that had been at the forefront of her mind ever since they’d arrived to find they were too late.
“No-”
“It is!” Cordelia leapt from the bed and began to pace back and forth, “if I’d just let you go instead of being stupid and starting an argument, you would have got there in time and Amy wouldn’t be dead. This is my fault!” her hazel eyes were her bright with threatened tears, the guilt Angel saw there was like a knife twisting in his stomach.
“Cordy, she was already dead by the time you had the vision,” Angel stopped her frantic movements with a hand on her shoulder.
“How do you know?”
“Vampire, remember? I have a nose for that kinda thing,” he told her gently, leaving out the details because he was sure if he informed Cordelia that the body smelt like it had been there for most of the day would be a little too much for her bare.
“Oh,” it should have been a relief but it wasn’t, not really. Someone they were trying to protect was still dead, a woman she had liked still laid lifeless on the cold metal of a morgue table, the monster that had done this was still on the loose.
“Don’t blame yourself for this, Cordy.”
“Kinda hard not to,” she sighed, sitting back down heavily on the bed again.
“Cor-”
“Why couldn’t I tell it was Amy?” she asked, not expecting an answer, which was just as well because Angel didn’t have one, “I should have known it was Amy. We didn’t take this guy seriously enough, we don’t even know what kind of demon he is Angel, how can we not know what kinda of demon he is?”
Because we’ve all been too caught up in our personal lives, Angel thought.
“We’ll find out and we’ll catch him, he won’t get away with this,” he said instead.
“Promise?” Cordelia asked, not caring how feeble she sounded because she felt feeble, she felt feeble and stupid and all she wanted was for Angel to make this all better, no matter what he had to do. The vampire sat down on the bed beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, no longer flinching at the contact because this was Cordelia and that’s all that mattered.
“Promise,” he swore and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
“Why didn’t the powers send me the vision earlier?” she voiced the question that had been going through Angel’s mind ever since he realized Amy had been dead for hours, not minutes.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly, wishing he had a better answer for her.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much blood before, which is strange because I see blood all the time, but never that much at once.”
“Shh shh,” he tried to hush her.
“I mean, it’s just blood, right? No different from the red stuff in the refrigerator,” she tipped her face up to look at him, eyes wide with confusion, “so why can’t I stop seeing it?”
Angel frowned and tucked her hair behind ears, his thumbs brushing a delicate path over her cheekbones. When the tears finally threatened to fall, Cordelia squeezed her eyes firmly shut and buried her face into the comforting expanse of Angel’s shoulder. Crying wouldn’t make Amy not dead, it the wouldn’t find the evil bastard that had raped and murdered her, she doubted it would even make her feel better, so she swallowed the hot burn of sadness that stung at the back of her throat down and concentrated on the way Angel was rubbing her arm. Cordelia inhaled a long calming breath into the lungs and pushed the sight of blood and broken flesh to the back of memory with the rest of the horrors she’d been forced to see since that horrible night they’d lost Doyle.
Don’t think about it, deal with it another time, write it on a post it note and pray it doesn’t send me mad, Cordelia thought abstractly.
“You smell good,” the young woman murmured before she even realized she had been thinking about it.
Maybe she was already mad.
“New laundry detergent,” Angel said as his eyes slipped shut and he rested his chin on the top of her head.
“S’nice,” Cordelia inhaled the soft aroma again until it was all she knew.
Maybe insanity wasn’t so bad.
Slow minutes ticked by without a word spoken, so different from the tense silence that had encapsulated the majority of their day together. Cordelia couldn’t even remember why she’d been so angry with Angel before, it didn’t seem to matter now, wasn’t important in comparison to what she’d seen tonight.
“We should start the research,” Cordelia unwillingly broke the easy silence and comforting embrace, the movement made her head swim and she automatically pressed her fingers to her temples to try an quell the pain she’d barely thought about tonight, even though was always on the peripheries of her awareness.
“It can wait till morning,” Angel told her in a tone of voice that he hoped would brook no argument.
For once it worked.
“Sometimes I wish I could just have these damn visions sucked out of my head for good,” she sighed and rubbed her hands over her face, she didn’t see the guilt that flashed across the vampire’s face.
“You should try and get some sleep.”
“No, if I close my eyes I’ll just keep seeing…” she trailed off, “I don’t think sleep is going to help,” Cordelia smiled a wry smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“Maybe you should eat something,” Angel said remembering the pitiful sound of his best friend spilling everything she’d eaten today onto the sidewalk, “I could make you an omelette? Or maybe some pasta, pasta might be better-”
“I’m not hungry Angel, really.”
“Sure? Because I don’t mind cooking if you’re hungry.”
“You know, on occasion, you can be very sweet,” Cordelia knitted her fingers through his as she repeated her earlier declaration, this time without the venomous ass calling.
“It’s not you’re fault, Cordy,” he repeated his early assurance.
“You being sweet?”
“What that monster did to Amy,” Angel clarified.
“She was so scared Angel, I felt…she knew what he was going to do…that there was nothing she could do to stop him. I felt it, saw it….” Cordelia shook her head trying to chase away both the vision and reality from her abused mind, “seriously, if I ever meet those damn powers that be, I’m gonna bitch slap their omnipotent butts into next week.”
Angel watched the almost physical change come over his best friend as she refused to be broken by the horrors of the night, Cordelia Chase was not the kind of woman that would let the world bring her to her knees, though she might stumble and fall she always found away to stand again.
She smoothed down her hair, straightened her spine, wiped away the invisible stain of tears that hadn’t fallen and looked very much like the carefree girl he’d first met so many years ago in Sunnydale.
The vampire knew it was just a mask to cover the frayed edges of hurt that dwelt inside her soul and wondered what the price would be the day she couldn’t pretend anymore, when one ill wind too many knocked her down and she didn’t have the energy to be what she thought they expected her to be.
“So, I guess we’d better have sex then.” Cordelia’s no-nonsense tone caused his head to jerk up with surprise.
“Excuse me?” Angel felt like he’d missed an entire conversation.
“Vision sex, remember? To get rid of the jack hammer in my head so I can think without wanting to throw up? Any of this sounding familiar?” Cordelia tapped a finger against his temple as she hid behind a smile that threatened to crack around the edges.
“Right,” he nodded with a frown, “I just thought….”
“What?”
“Well, you’re kinda shaken up, maybe we should just wait-”
“I’m fine, Angel. Really,” she smiled at him like he was being ridiculous. Cordelia began unbutton her blouse as if to prove to him she was OK.
It would have been quite convincing if it weren’t for the fact that her hands were trembling.
“Cordy, wait,” Angel stilled her hands.
The plastic smile faltered.
“We have to do this,” Cordelia’s voice was steady but her hazel eyes betrayed the turmoil of emotions that the day and evening had stirred inside her.
“I know,” he said carefully, “but not like that,” Angel cupped the side of her face as though she were made of the finest porcelain, and in that moment Cordelia felt like she was, like she would break into a million pieces in the softest of breezes. A breath caught sharply in her throat when the vampire’s hands brushed against her breasts as he unbuttoned her blouse, his fingers moving slowly as though he feared one wrong move might tear the material or break a delicate button.
“OK?” Angel asked when the last button had been released.
Cordelia nodded mutely.
Angel felt the urge to run his fingertips down the strip of amber flesh that had become visible to him, to trace a path from her clavicle, down the valley between her breasts to her navel, so he did exactly that before his brain could tell him that he shouldn’t.
Cordelia shivered at the touch.
“You cold?” Angel flicked his gaze to hers.
Cordelia bit her lip and shook her head, guiding his hands to her blouse as she did so. His eyes didn’t leave hers as he slowly slipped the garment from her shoulders.
While Angel had seen Cordelia naked before, and she he, they’d never undressed in front of each other, never indulged in the intimate ritual of disrobing before each others eyes like lovers.
It excited Cordelia just as much as it terrified her.
Angel trailed his fingers along the path of her collarbone, momentarily hypnotised by the beat of blood beneath her skin until he reached the strap of her practical white cotton bra, he hesitated for a second before he pushed the strap aside and pressed a chaste path of kisses from the thin line of flesh that it had hidden to the far too tempting curve of her neck.
Cordelia let her eyes slip shut as his lips moved over her skin, letting the guilt and fear ebb away under his feather light touch, even though her body still crackled with nerves because this was Angel and they didn’t do this kind of thing.
“Angel,” she whispered, threading her fingers through his hair, gently tugging at the gelled spikes to get his attention. The vampire tensed and pulled away, worried he’d stepped over the line.
“I’m sorry-”
Cordelia pressed a finger against his lips to stop his apology, a nervous smile and shake of her head told him that he hadn’t done anything wrong. When nimble fingers skirted to the hem of his sweater, then beneath it, Angel barely managed to stifle the groan that bubbled up in his throat. Tangling his hands through her hair, Angel leant his forehead against Cordelia’s as her nails grazed curiously over his chest, feminine fingers reading his chest like Braille, over the hard nubs of his nipples, down the ladder of his ribs and finally tracing maddening patterns through the trail of soft hair that began at his navel. Her fingers fluttered over the thick metal of his belt buckle for a timeless moment until they ventured further south down the line of his zipper.
A bolt of hard desire shot sharply to his groin.
“Cordy….” his voice was a whisper that cut through the silence, making her hands stutter in their explorations.
She blinked when Angel tugged off his sweater and let it crumple into an untidy pile at the foot of the bed.
“Sure?” Angel asked once again.
Through all the nerves, pain, guilt and arousal, Cordelia felt the sudden and all consuming desire to smack him around the head. Instead, the young woman scooted across the bed and let her head fall to the pillow as her answer.
Angel realized two things as he stood and unbuckled his belt, his eyes roaming over the woman laid invitingly across his bed.
Firstly, this wasn’t as awkward as it should be.
Secondly, as he toed off his boots, unbuttoned his fly and let his pants fall to a heap on the carpet, he kinda wanted to do this.
Cordelia watched as the vampire’s slacks hit the floor, colour rising to her cheeks when once again she was reminded that Angel and underwear would never exist in the same sentence. The flush of pink that prickled at her skin wasn’t borne of embarrassment though, and that surprised her.
Mmm, a salty goodness, fluttered through her brain without her consent.
“Salty what?” Angel frowned.
“Nothing,” Cordelia said quickly, horrified that the thought hadn’t been as silent as she’d meant it to be.
The vampire narrowed his eyes suspiciously at her, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that he was naked.
And hard.
“You planning on standing there all night?” she jerked her head in invitation to cover the nerves that were beginning to twist in her belly. Angel simply cocked an eyebrow in reply before he crawled onto the bed like a big, naked, cat. The demon in him delighted at the sudden increase of her heartbeat while his soul forced him to be gentle, to be cautious, because Cordelia was his best friend and even he could see that she wasn’t as OK as she insisted.
Cordelia felt every nerve ending in her body spark to attention when Angel pressed a kissed to the feminine curve of her stomach, the tongue that she’d so fervently decided would not being doing those wicked things he’d done the night before, now dipping into her navel as the vampire unbuttoned her pants, lifting her hips as he slipped them down her thighs.
Her eyes fluttered open, she couldn’t remember closing them, as the reverent kisses ended. Blinking to focus her gaze, Cordelia was greeted by the sight of Angel towering over her, uncertainty etching across his face.
“I’m OK, Angel,” she reassured him, or maybe it was herself she was trying to convince, she didn’t know, didn’t care, because when he was touching her the pain wasn’t so sharp, the guilt not so difficult to bare, the ghost of the woman they’d failed not so horrifying.
“I worry about you,” he murmured honestly.
“I know,” Cordelia cupped the side of his face, “if it helps, I worry about me too,” she smiled the first real smile of the evening.
“Not really, but that does,” Angel brushed his thumb across her curve of her bottom lip.
The atmosphere shifted and stilled in a quiet heartbeat as fingertips learnt the history of each others faces. In the shadowy room that housed its own ghosts of the past, the line of their friendship blurred even more, need, comfort and the first frightening sparks of real desire stirred together in the loud silence.
Cordelia’s eyes widened as Angel’s lips began to descend, the words no, we don’t kiss were stuck in her throat, her head frozen and refusing to turn away like her brain told it to as they inched closer and closer and-
Pressed a kiss to her forehead.
Cordelia didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed. Thankfully, she didn’t have long to think about it as the vampire began to touch her with earnest, his hands had lost the awkwardness of their first time as they teased her nipples through the soft cotton of her bra, a mouth skilled with over two hundred years of experience quickly making her breath turn to silent pants of desire as his hands snaked behind her back.
“Where’s the damn clasp on this thing?” Angel muttered between blunt nips on the tantalising rise of her breasts.
“On the front,” Cordelia chuckled a little breathlessly.
“Of course,” the vampire said dryly, what was it about this woman that made him feel like a fumbling sixteen year old?
A one handed twist and snap unclasped the cotton bra and Angel felt his ego return with a knowing smirk.
“Yes, you’re very talented, well done,” Cordelia rolled her eyes and patted his shoulder as her breasts were bared to the cool air of the room and the even cooler caress of the vampire’s lips.
“Talented….” she sighed and arched into his mouth.
Angel didn’t even try to hide the wolfish smile that crept over his face.
“Like that?” he whispered huskily as he bit down gently on the pebbled flesh, he was rewarded with a gasped uh huh from hisbest friend.
The world began to swim around Cordelia as Angel’s lips, teeth and tongue travelled a maddening path over her breasts, her fingers kneading into the hard muscles of the vampires shoulders as she silently begged him not to stop, to not leave her, to make everything better.
To take the throbbing guilt that burnt in her chest and turn it into something she could understand.
“Angel,” Cordelia panted as she tangled her legs with his to bring him closer, not realizing that it was the first time his name had fallen from her lips in desire.
The vampire noticed though, it made the demon silently roar with possession and caused his hips to jerk into the cradle of her thighs with a groanedCordy rumbling through his chest. She hissed in pleasure when his cock ground against her clit through the cotton of her panties and Angel had to use all the willpower he could muster not to buck into her roughly.
Gently, slowly, became his mantra as he peppered her pink flushed skin with reverent kisses, his hips easing to a maddeningly slow rhythm that made Cordelia whine with annoyance.
“Shhh,” he trailed his lips down the valley of her breasts, fight roughened fingers twisting through the elastic of her panties, his mouth following their journey as he dragged them down her thighs.
The scent of her desire hit him like the finest perfume and beckoned to him.
“Wait!” Cordelia grabbed a handful spiky hair when she realized what he was about to do.
“What’s wrong?” Angel frowned, his tongue darting unconsciously over his bottom lip as though he were a starving man about to eat.
Cordelia’s face burnt crimson but she couldn’t seem to pull her gaze away from his mouth.
“Cordelia?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s wrong?” he gestured to the hand in his hair.
“Oh, er…” she tried to think of a way to say what she didn’t really want to say.
The way the vampire’s thumbs were tracing gossamer promises on the inside of her knees wasn’t helping her concentration.
“Cordy?” Angel repeated, starting to worry. He knew they should have waited a while, Cordelia was shaken by the events of the night, she’d needed time to calm down, he should have been more adamant instead of letting the desires of his demon rule his reactions. “We should have waited, it’s been a long night and-”
“I don’t think you should go down on me,” she blurted out in a rush.
“Why?” he asked, surprised and more than a little disappointed.
“Were you not aware of the weird mood you were in today?”
“That wasn’t because of last night.”
“Uh huh.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Fine, whatever, I still don’t think we should do that again.”
“Why not?”
“Can we not talk about this right now?” Cordelia muttered, starting to feel a little uncomfortable in having a conversation with Angel while his head was between her thighs
“What if I want to?” Angel nodded to the dark patch of soft curls.
“Do you?” she asked, surprised.
“Well…yeah,” the wolf smile was back again and the sight of it pooled molten desire into her womb.
The vampire watched the argument die in her eyes.
“If you wig out on me again….” Cordelia trailed off and flopped back onto the bed, her hands clasped firmly over her face as she grumbled about orally fixated vampire’s and their ridiculous mood swings.
Her hips shot off the bed at the touch of tongue against her most sensitive flesh.
“Jesus!” she quite happily took the Lords name in vain with a loud moan. When Angel laughed it vibrated through every nerve in her body but Cordelia was too far gone to do anything but grasp at the headboard and try not to think about fragile friendships, vision pain and clients being murdered in alleyways.
Which wasn’t really that difficult seeing as Cordelia was having problems remembering how to do the most basic of things, such as breathing, while Angel attempted to devour her.
Everything the vampire had felt the night before was once again ignited as Angel re-learnt the essence of his best friend, Cordelia’s soft bitten back mewls filled his ears as her scent took over the broken places inside him, a flame of possession burnt sharply up his spine and threatened to make his demon show itself across his face.
“Oh God….” Cordelia panted uselessly, eyes squeezed shut, fingers desperately grasping for purchase as the universe shrunk to a pin point between her thighs. She could feel the blood moving through her veins, every cell in her body throbbing with the drag of his tongue, too much, too good, too wonderful, the pain in her head was wrapped with a soothing balm with every nip of his teeth and thrust of his fingers, the cracks in her heart smoothed over, tired soul brought back to life by the once Scourge of Europe, “….Angel.”
Mine, his name once more on her lips was all the demon needed as a catalyst and before Cordelia could even whimper in annoyance at the loss of his lips, Angel was above and inside her with a sharp thrust of his hips.
“Oh!” Cordelia exclaimed in surprise as her body struggled to accommodate the sudden intrusion.
“God, Cordy, I’m sorry,” Angel apologised in a rush, horrified at the slip of his control. Even though demon victoriously roared it’s possession, Angel shifted to pull out of her the tight warmth he was enveloped in.
“No, wait,” she panted roughly, wrapping her legs around his hips to still his exit, forcing the vampire’s guilty eyes to meet hers.
“I’m sorry,” Angel repeated, his arms shaking with raw tension.
“S’OK,” Cordelia insisted, running her hands over the tight muscles of his shoulders, “was just a little unexpected, is all. But in a good way.” As if to prove her point, the young woman rolled her hips against his.
A mutual groan filled the air.
“Cor-” Angel felt what little control he’d struggle to regain begin to fray around the edges again.
“I’m OK,” she whispered again and again until his hips began to move against hers, slow, gentle thrusts in the rhythm of his silent mantra, an apology made physical by gentle kisses against her forehead.
Gentle, slow, gentle, slow, gentle, slow, repeated over and over in his mind, desperate to be what Cordelia needed, not a hard, fast fuck, gentle and slow, to take away the pain, not cause it, not to take, gentle, slow, gentle-
Cordelia’s nails bit sharply into his shoulders and his restraint was shot to hell.
Angel buried his face into Cordelia’s neck as he felt the skin and bones of his forehead began to shift, praying to a God that had deserted him centuries ago that she wouldn’t notice. The sudden stinging pain and low feminine moans of need was too much for the demon that had been denied for so long.
It was too much, everything he’d tried to deny or ignore all day bubbled to the surface, Cordelia’s hand on Gunn thigh, his arms around her waist, the way she laughed for the black man flashed through the fog of his memory and caused a low possessive growl to vibrate through his chest before he could stop it, he was dancing on the edge of control, so tempting to fall over the line, chain her wrists to his bed and fuck the jealousy he’d felt burning inside him into Cordelia’s body.
The vampire grappled madly at the end of that thought in horror.
No.
Cordy.
Won’t do that, not what this is about, for her, needs comfort, not possessiveness
He frantically tried to reign in the demon, forcing the return of his human face upon his features. Angel tore himself away the gossamer thin skin of her neck, there was too much temptation there, too much blood beating beneath the surface, just too much. But the sight of Cordelia’s cheeks mottled with a pink flush, the sheen of sweat at her temples, hazel eyes black with need, beneath him, he surrounded her, their difference in size barely noticed until now as Angel’s hips pumped inside her, rougher than he meant, meant to be gentle, for her, was worse. Too tempting to simply let go, steal those lips and leave possessive bruises on her breasts, mark her, parade his ownership.
Cordelia’s breath panted across his lips, so close, closer than they’d ever been before. Angel’s fingers itched to tangle themselves in her hair, to get lost in the thick mane that tumbled across his pillows. His pillows, his bed, his Cordelia-
Stop! Angel barked silently at the animal that threatened at take over, his body now still with tension.
He turned his head to the side and screwed his eyes shut as he fought for the control that seemed to allude him tonight, when he needed it the most.
“Angel?” Cordelia panted nervously when Angel hadn’t moved for a long moment.
“I….” he shook his head, the hard lines of his back twitched beneath her fingers, long steel coils of tension.
“What-”
Angel didn’t let her finish the question as he tumbled them so he was beneath her, her legs still wrapped tightly around his back as she straddled him.
He watched the surprise flash in her eyes at their sudden change of position, Cordelia felt the urge to cover herself with her arms, which she knew was ridiculous, but for some reason the young woman felt more naked sitting astride Angel than she did beneath him. She wanted to tell him this was too much but as she tried to find the words Angel’s hips bucked upwards, driving his cock inside her deeply.
“Oh,” Cordelia’s eyes fluttered shut, “do that again.”
So he did.
“S’good….” she murmured thickly as her head rolled back, not caring about anything but the perfect place his cock hit with every movement, nothing else mattered, not the blood, the guilt, the fear, just this delicious rasp of skin against skin, body meeting body, hands that made her feel safe grasping her hips, she didn’t care that it was Angel that was making her feel like this, she needed it to be him, had to be him, his hands, his lips, his body that filled her dreams and visions.
Angel knew he wasn’t going to last much longer, his control had been shattered and reformed and shattered again too many times, the tight wet heat that enveloped him too good not to lose himself in, this golden goddess astride him too beautiful, his, riding him, his cock buried inside her, all his, all his all his….
“Cordy, come for me,” his words sent a tidal wave of liquid heat rolled through Cordelia’s womb, the press of his thumb against the swollen flesh of her clit flushed pleasure from her fingers to her toes, again and again, don’t stop, god, don’t stop, fell from her lips without her consent as the universe turned itself inside out behind her eyes, hips moving of their own volition, a staccato drum of pleasure beating through her blood, more and more and more until the world exploded with a climax that ripped through her body in shuddering ripples that clenched tightly around the vampire inside her, pulling his release from him in a silent cry
***
“I think we’re getting better at that,” Cordelia told the ceiling some time later when she’d regained the use of her voice.
“It was a definite improvement,” Angel agreed, body spent and demon quiet.
“Uh huh,” she nodded, no longer concerned or embarrassed about being sprawled naked beside Angel, she’d think about that in the morning because right now she was too tired and too relaxed to worry about modesty.
In fact, Cordelia had a lot to think about in the morning.
“Vision hangover?” the vampire shifted on his side, head propped up on his elbow.
“Gone,” she sleepily smiled her thanks and rolled onto her front to face him, “I should get going,” Cordelia yawned, “need to make an early start in the morning,” she buried the side of her face into the pillow, “lots of research to do,” her eyes slipped shut, “I should…go home….”
“Uh huh,” Angel agreed quietly as he pulled the rumpled bed sheet over them both.
“Just gimme a minute….”
“OK,” the vampire tucked the hair that had fallen across her face behind her ear and listened to her even breathing and steady heartbeat.
Angel had no intention of letting Cordelia leave his bed
***
Red roses are such a cliché, yellow are much more sincere, the man thought happily as he arranged the extravagant bouquet in front of him.
He’d been disappointed to discover that the young woman who’d charmed him so completely the night before was not home, he’d tried to gain entry to the small apartment but a cold unseen force had barred his way.
Maybe it was for the best.
He could wait a little while longer.
She would be worth it.
Even if she’d lied about her name. Did she not think he’d discover the lie?
“People in love shouldn’t lie to each other, Cordelia,” he tsk’d.
“There, that’s perfect,” he declared as he stood up and stepped back from his creation.
Twelve yellow roses, each one lovingly smeared with sticky red blood.