Part 8
They couldn’t do this…yet neither moved away.
Cordelia let out a ragged breath as she slid her hand to the side of his handsome face, running her fingertips over the chiselled slope of his brow remembering his beauty with her hands. The vampire buried a kiss into her palm, his hand leaving her hair and covering her own. Angel closed his eyes, wrapping himself in Cordelia’s scent and taste. So close but still forbidden…although at this point he couldn’t quite remember why they couldn’t do this. He heard her sigh softly as his lips parted and his tongue snaked out across the soft skin of her palm, his teeth grazing over the plump flesh beneath her thumb.
“Angel….” Cordelia whispered, unsure of what she was going to say if anything. He was taking over her senses, invading every part of her with just a kiss. Just one kiss.
“I can’t stop thinking about you….” Angel murmured into her hand, his words and lips flaming the desire inside her to a degree she had never felt before. Her skin shivered with goosebumps, the hair on the back of her neck prickled, her lips were red with passion, hazel eyes hooded with desire…Angel felt the unquenchable need to possess this woman and make her his forever.
“I….” Cordelia began but was rudely interrupted by a sharp knocking at the door accompanied by a very familiar female voice.
“Angel? Are you home?” Buffy called from outside. Angel’s eyes widened in surprise while Cordelia snatched her hand away from his face, her traitorous body still humming from the kiss. She stumbled back, her gaze unwilling to meet his.
“Shit.” The vampire growled, tugging a hand through his hair.
Buffy.
His girlfriend.
“Shit.” He repeated, he hadn’t locked the door. Cordelia looked around frantically for some place to hide before the slayer barged in and divested her of her limbs.
“The bathroom.” Angel whispered nodding in it’s general direction, the brunette turned on her heel without looking at Angel and rushed to the bathroom, her heart pounding in her ears. Cordelia pushed the door closed but didn’t shut it all the way. Still breathing heavily she sat down on the toilet lid, her face buried in her hands as her brain tried to figured out what the hell had just happened here.
“Angel?” Buffy’s voice drifted into the room through the closed door, the vampire quickly pulled on a sweater and took a deep unnecessary breath, making sure that nothing that shouldn’t be at attention wasn’t at attention. It wasn’t, his girlfriends voice had killed any desire he had been swimming in.
Shouldn’t that tell you something idiot? His demon whispered in his brain.
One more deep breath and he opened the door.
“Hey.” Buffy smiled awkwardly at him, her eyes darting over his mussed up hair.
“Hey Buffy.” Angel forced a smile onto his face, he knew it wasn’t a very convincing one but it was the best he could muster while the girl that had invaded his every thought for the last week was hiding in his bathroom while his girlfriend stood in his doorway.
Life use to be so simple….
“What can I do for you?” The vampire said then instantly kicked himself for his far too formal tone, like Buffy was some stranger that had asked him the time.
“What’s going on Angel?” She asked him, a frown slipping over her beautiful young face.
“What do you mean?” Angel tried not to panic but Cordelia’s light perfume still hung in the room and if he concentrated he could smell the sweat aroma of her desire. Did Buffy know Cordelia was here, had she heard them whilst she was outside, how long had she’d been standing outside?
“With us Angel…. What’s happened to us? What’s changed?” Buffy felt the hot sting of tears in her eyes, Angel felt like the biggest bastard on the planet.
“I don’t know Buffy.” He told her gently.
“Do you still love me?”
“Yes.” Angel answered truthfully, he did love Buffy, whatever feelings he was having for Cordelia he did still love Buffy.
“I don’t want to argue with you any more Angel, I don’t have the energy.” The slayer let out a relieved breath. “Can we just…go back to normal?”
Normal.
The one thing he wasn’t.
Normal.
As though it were as simple as that.
“Sure Buffy.” Angel nodded, his old friend guilt sitting heavily on his shoulders. Buffy’s smile was larger this time, the tension and stress leaving her face. She snaked her arms around her boyfriend and sighed when Angel returned the embrace, if she hadn’t buried her face in his soft sweater, if she’d looked up instead she would have seen that the vampire’s stare was fixed on the bathroom door.
***
Cordelia had stopped listening when Buffy had asked the man she’d just had the most passionate kiss of her life with if he still loved her. Actually, she’d stopped listening when the vampire had yes.
Angel loved Buffy.
Buffy loved Angel.
Fuck it all to hell….
The brunette rubbed her eyes, willing the tears that threatened to fall to stay where they were. The couples whispered voices had silenced. Cordelia didn’t need to be a brain surgeon to know what they were doing.
I’m such an idiot. He loves Buffy. What the hell am I doing here…?
She heard the creak of the apartment door closing and Cordelia stood up, her legs still shaking but no longer from the kiss. From anger and guilt and…jealousy. Cordelia Chase was jealous of Buffy Summer’s and that pissed her off even more. She smoothed her hands over her hair and squared her shoulders.
She was Cordelia Chase and she was going to walk out of here with what little dignity she had left.
“You can come out.” Angel’s gruff voice echoed around the small apartment.
Put one foot in front of the other and just walk…. Cordelia repeated her silent mantra as she stepped out of the bathroom. Angel stood in the middle of the room, his hands pushed into his pockets as though he couldn’t trust them anywhere else. Cordelia crossed her arms across her chest so that he wouldn’t see that her hands were shaking. She made her face as unreadable as she could, the reliable mask of Queen C.
“Well….” Cordelia broke the silence. “I think I’d better be going don’t you?” She arched an eyebrow at him, her voice not betraying the torment of emotions she felt inside. She didn’t wait for his reply as she walked across the room in carefully measured footsteps. Her hand reached the door knob and she turned it.
“Cordelia…”
“Don’t Angel. Whatever you’re going to say just don’t. It should never have happened.” The head cheerleader said evenly over her shoulder as she pulled the door open. “Just forget it ever happened.” Cordelia stepped outside, the slam of the door behind her was the only reply she got.
Put one foot in front of the other and just walk….
***
Since the night Angel had followed Cordelia Chase back to her motel the vampire had found himself spending a lot of time staring at closed doors. More often then not closed doors that had been slammed unceremoniously in his face.
“Fuck….” Angel muttered as he listened to Cordelia’s hurried footsteps getting further and further away from his apartment until he could no longer hear them at all.
What the hell have I done? He raked both hands through his spiky hair, messing it up a little more, not that he cared, its not like he could see it. I kissed Cordelia…that’s what I did. And she kissed me back….
Forget it ever happened? How can I forget that ever happened?!
Angel glared at the door as though the rectangle of wood could give him the answers he needed.
I was so close to taking her, throwing her down onto my bed….God, she tasted so good…like honey and apples and woman.
Her scent still lingered in the room but it had been joined by another, a sweeter perfume, vanilla ice cream…Buffy’s perfume.
Fuck
He loved Buffy, he would walk through fire to give her a normal life, to give her all the things she deserved. When he’d watched her being called his heart had cried out for her at the dreadful unfairness of so much responsibility on someone so young and when he had finally left the shadows to talk to her, to warn her about what was to come in the months ahead he had been captured by her fragility and strength, her petite beauty reminding him of the other blonde that had taken over his life and made him into yet another version of himself.
Angel had loved Buffy since he had seen her…but Cordelia…Cordelia was intoxicating him. Her unflinching acceptance, her complexity, her silent strength, her infectious laughter, her smile, her awe inspiring beauty.
Angel loved Buffy but his body ached for Cordelia.
“Fuck!!!” The vampire growled and buried his fist into the wall next to the door.
***
Cordelia had made it all the way to her Motel without crying, she’d turned the radio up as she drove and switched off her mind, banished all thoughts of Angel and concentrated on the road and the music.
She refused to remember how the press of his angular lips against the palm of her hand had made her blood sing in her veins, refused to think about how the brush of his knuckles against the side of her breast had shot a bolt of warmth and desire into her very core, pretended that her own lips weren’t red from passion.
Cordelia Chase was the Queen of denial but as soon as she stepped into her dark motel room her comforting blanket of repression slipped and a shard of emotion broke through.
On the small table beneath the window sat the Scrabble board and dictionary Angel had brought her the night before. Cordelia clenched her jaw as she felt a rush of anger course through her body, anger at Angel, anger at herself, anger at Buffy for having the one thing she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about no matter how much she tried.
“Damn vampire….” Cordelia muttered as she threw her jacket over the board game, out of sight out of mind. She glared at her watch, it was still relatively early. The barely muffled voices of her neighbours once again intruded into her solitary space, bitter and acerbic as always.
She hadn’t even heard them the evening before as she and Angel had played Scrabble and talked late into the night. The apocalypse could have started and they wouldn’t have heard it.
There was no way she was going to sit in here tonight thinking about what she didn’t have, couldn’t have while Mr and Mrs possibly-homicidal-violent criminals beat eight kinds of crap out of each other.
Hell no! Her mind made up she stalked into the bathroom and turned the shower on with an angry flick of her wrist.
Cordelia Chase was young and beautiful and tonight she was going to forget about the vampire she feared she was falling in love with.
***
It amazed Willow how much life could change in the relatively short span of a year. Hell, it amazed her how much life could change in a day, before Buffy had walked into their lives it had always just been herself, Xander and Jesse.
The three would spend their evenings together dancing and joking without a care in the world but the day they’d found out that there was actually such a thing as vampires their happy little world had turned itself inside out and upside down. So, Willow Rosenberg knew that life changed everyday, it could be painful, leaving you with bloody knees, you could lose the people you loved in a blink of an eye and at the end of it the thought of spending the rest of your life hiding under your bed sounded pretty damn good.
Very rarely change could be good, Buffy’s appearance may have signalled the end of their childhood naiveté but the redhead had found herself a best friend that she cherished and loved as much as she did Xander. Yes, change could be good.
But as she sat at the bar of the bronze Willow silently pondered how frikken weird change could be too. Willow Rosenburg was sitting at the bar of the Bronze with Cordelia Chase. Granted she had sat with the cheerleader last night but she hadn’t been on her own with her then, she’d been with her friends. She’d thought it was a once in a lifetime oddity, the Queen of Sunnydale High gracing them with her regal presence…but here Cordelia was again, in public, standing casually next to Willow making small talk with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
This is just not normal…. Willow laughed nervously at the dry joke Cordelia made, her eyes quickly darting around the club to see if this was a set up for some practical joke. But no, the redhead couldn’t see Cordelia’s followers anywhere, the cheerleader was on her own and dressed like she was on a mission.
“Where are the rest of your gang tonight?” Cordelia asked as she sipped her coke making sure not to smudge her perfectly applied lipstick.
“Xander should be here…” Willow glanced at her watch, “…ten minutes ago and Buffy’s dropping by after patrol with Angel.” Cordelia nodded but didn’t say anything, not trusting herself to speak at that moment when the face of the vampire fluttered into her brain.
She was here to forget about Angel, forget about the way he had touched her, had kissed her, had made every nerve in her body fizz with excitement.
OK, what was that look about when I mentioned Angel? Willow’s eyebrows nit together in cogitation. What the hell is going on with Cordelia Chase of late?
“No Harmony or Aura tonight?” Willow asked when she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Nope, flying solo.” Cordelia finished the last of her drink and deposited the glass on the bar with a clunk. “I do believe there’s jock over there I haven’t got my claws into yet. See ya later Willow.” Cordelia winked at her then in a swirl of expensive perfume and the clack of stiletto heels the brunette was on her way to the dance floor, her head held high like she owned the damn place.
Willow picked up Cordelia’s glass and sniffed it carefully. Nope, no alcohol.
“Maybe it’s a Hellmouth thing then.” Willow shrugged and looked at her watch again. She was so going to hurt Xander when he finally turned up.
***
Finally Cordelia’s mind was quiet.
No thoughts of strong hands, no thoughts of demanding lips, no crystal clear memories of beautiful eyes she ached to lose herself in. Just the heavy thumping bass beat of the music as it reverberated through her body. Cordelia closed her eyes and moved with the music, faceless bodies surrounding her, grinding against her as her hips and thighs drank in the hypnotic beat and danced of their own free will.
As a cheerleader she knew how to move, how to use her body to get the attention she deserved but as she danced on the crowded dance floor nothing else mattered but the throb of the music and the fact that her mind was finally quiet.
The club was dark and hot with too many people but she didn’t care. She wasn’t thinking and she didn’t care.
Cordelia felt a stranger’s arm circle her waist but still didn’t open her eyes, she just carried on dancing.
If she stopped her mind would snap to attention and reality would seep in, forbidden memories, feelings and desires would punch her in the gut and knock her to the ground.
So she just carried on dancing.
***
OK so tonight is officially freak out Willow night then. The porcelain skinned beauty scrunched up her face in confusion, first Cordelia Chase shooting the breeze with her and now….
“Hi Angel.” Willow greeted him nervously when he sat down next to her.
“Willow.” The vampire nodded by way of greeting then did some sort of secret hand signal to the barman because a second later a glass of something looking suspiciously like alcohol was deposited in front of him.
And Angel drinks since when? She watched as he downed the brown liquid in one unflinching gulp.
“So…” Willow trailed off, it was really starting to piss her off that she never seemed to know what to say.
“Have you seen Cordelia tonight?” Angel asked her suddenly.
“Pardon?” Willow wasn’t certain she’d just heard correctly. Did he say….
“Cordelia? Have you seen her tonight?” Angel repeated darkly.
OK, it’s not my hearing that’s on the fritz then…. Willow took a moment to really look at the vampire next to her and he looked…severely pissed off. His jaw was tense, his knuckled were whiter than usual as they gripped too tightly on the fragile glass, his eyes were dark and dangerous.
Willow swallowed heavily, she had a severely pissed off vampire sitting next to her and she was staring at him like he was a science project. Real clever Rosenburg, just answer the vampire’s question before he decides he could do with a snack!
“Umm…yeah, she’s, she’s over there.” Willow nodded to the dance floor where Cordelia was doing a rather impressive impression of a pole dancer without the pole.
Oh my…. Willow blinked as the cheerleader danced amongst a group of very eager men, she’d never seen Cordelia act so blatantly sexual, her body language, the way she was dressed…it all screamed ‘come and get it boys’ which just wasn’t Cordelia’s style. Her gaze snapped back to the man beside her when she heard the unmistakable rumble of a growl fill her ears.
“I thought you were meeting Buffy for patrol?” Willow frowned, confused at Angel’s bizarre behaviour.
The vampire didn’t hear her question, he didn’t hear anything as he watched Cordelia, his Cordelia lose herself to the loud music in the middle of a group of men that had no right touching what was his.
Mine…. His demon was pushing at the surface and Angel was tempted to let it come out and play for a while. His gaze raked hungrily over her, from her wild curling dark hair and full glossy lips to the scarlet scrap of material that barely covered her breasts and fit like a second skin all the way down to the middle of her thighs where it was cut to reveal toned amber skin that went on for miles and miles, finally ending in a pair of dangerous looking high-heels.
Angel was torn between being incredibly turned on and incredibly angry, another growl ripped through his chest and he tilted his head so that the young red head wouldn’t see how his eyes flashed yellow.
“Angel, I thought you were meeting Buffy?” Willow repeated, louder this time.
“I am…later.” Angel forced himself to say, his voice was as gruff. Feeling more uncomfortable than she ever had before Willow hopped off her stool quickly, picking up her purse.
“I have to….” Willow gestured wildly at the vicinity of the ladies bathroom, when she didn’t get a reply she hurried away, thankful to get away from her best friends intense stoic creature of the night boyfriend….who was looking at Cordelia Chase like he was fixing to unleash several different kinds of hell on her.
That’s it. I give up. Everyone’s officially insane.
There had been only one thing on Angel’s brain since Cordelia had fled his apartment, only one person who at the mere thought of her lips had aroused him to such a degree that he had spent most of the afternoon enduring a very cold shower. Thoroughly pissed off Angel had stormed out of his apartment with still only one person on his mind, he’d found himself outside Cordelia’s motel door with no sign of the young woman anywhere. His mood worsening as he stalked through Sunnydale’s empty streets until he’d arrived at the Bronze and had picked up the faint perfume that would be etched forever in his memory.
Everything in the club faded to a blur as Angel watched one far too confident boy wrap his arms around Cordelia…he saw red when she returned the embrace with equal vigour. Later, when Angel would think back over this night he’d struggle to remember walking across the crowded club like a predator scenting prey because one moment he had been standing at the bar and the next he had Cordelia’s slender arm in his bruising grip, her eyes shooting fire at him in the most delicious way.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Cordelia hissed at him, trying to jerk out of his strong grip. Her shock at his sudden appearance was assuaged only by the consuming anger she felt.
“I could ask you the same thing.” He growled at her angrily, jealousy coursing through him like a drug.
“I’m dancing.” She muttered once again attempting to wrench her arm out of his hold.
“That wasn’t dancing…that was….”
“What? Finish that sentence, I dare you.” Cordelia pinned him with an icy glare.
“Hey buddy, do you mind? I was dancing with the lady.” The man that had had his hands all over Cordelia butted in foolishly.
“Well now you’re not.” The vampire barked at him, his teeth elongating and his forehead shifting into his true face. That was more than enough to make the young man back way very quickly, his hands held up in front of him in the international hand signal of ‘my bad’. He didn’t stop backing away until he got home where he told his sweet Mary-Sue of a girlfriend that there was something very odd about this town and they should maybe get a gun. Or a very large cross.
“That was mature.” Cordelia rolled her eyes at Angel as her dancing partner stumbled away in horror. She flicked her hair over her shoulder and tried to walk away from him. She couldn’t trust herself so close to him. She couldn’t trust herself not to touch him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Angel whispered darkly in her ear when he tugged her back to him, Cordelia didn’t know how she heard him over the thumping music but she did, his voice was in her bones and in vibrated through her body.
“Go back to your girlfriend Angel.” She hissed, anger coursing through every vein. She didn’t know who she was more mad at, Angel or herself.
“We need to talk Cordelia.” He refused to let her pull away from him, to run away again.
“There’s nothing to talk about.” The crowd around the pair had stopped dancing, nervously watching the exchange between the defiant sultry young woman and the dangerous scowling man.
“You’re coming with me.” The vampire decided for her.
“Pfft, doubtful.” She scoffed standing her ground. Angel glared at her for a moment, a short silent battle of wills until Angel had had just about all he could take, unceremoniously lifting/dragging her off the dance floor.
“HEY!!” Cordelia roared at him as Angel hustled her through the club at lightening speed, her feet barely touching the ground until the vampire had led her outside to an alley at the back of the club.
“You irritating, arrogant, self righteous bastard! Who the hell do you think you are pulling that cro-mag shit? How dare you!” She yelled startling a cat that had been happily rummaging in a nearby trash-can until Cordelia’s voice had rung loudly through the night. “What’s your goddamn problem?!”
“What’s my problem? WHAT’S MY PROBLEM?” Angel boomed, Cordelia didn’t even flinch at the angry edge of his voice or the flash of amber in his eyes. “You’re my fucking problem!!”
“I never asked for you to stalk me!” She bit back at him.
“It’s just as well I am ‘cos the way you were acting in there girl….” He muttered under his breath as he advanced on her, invading her personal space just as he had done from the minute he had come to her motel room demanding to be told what she was doing there.
“What?!” Her eyes shot indignant fire at him
“You were asking for trouble!” Angel snarled, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, the air between them crackling with electricity.
“Well maybe I wanted trouble!” Cordelia snapped, her eyes narrowing in defiance.
“So you give every guy in the club a lap dance? Fuck Cordelia, that’s not you.” He said with open disgust.
“You don’t know me.” She scowled at the vampire, anger, desire and indignation drumming through her veins.
“Yes I do Cordelia, I know you and I want to know what the hell all that was about!”
“Why I do what I do is none of your business.”
“Yes it is!”
“No it’s not!!”
“Yes it….”
“You kissed me Angel!” The sudden declaration was out of her mouth before she could stop it, spiralling around the pair like a whirlwind.
The truth hit Angel in the gut and it stirred something deep and primal within him. She was doing this because of him, because of the effect he’d had on her. The silence rattled around them loudly as they looked at each other, eyes locked and unflinching.
“You kissed me back.” He told her softly as though she wasn’t aware of the fact. His was anger ebbing away as another emotion swept over him, just as strong and even more destructive.
“Well I didn’t have a whole lotta choice with you’re tongue stuck down my throat!”
“Bullshit, you wanted it as much as I did….” He stepped towards her once again causing Cordelia to take a step back, he had that look in his eye that both made her nervous and prickled her skin deliciously. Angel was a predator by nature and the way he was looking her made her want to be caught.
“You should never have kissed me, we were friends! Friends!” Cordelia said frantically into the night as his solid form towered over her. She could tell by the slight quirk of his lips that his mood was shifting at a frightening pace, gone was the barely restrained anger at her behaviour, in its place was barely restrained desire.
Cordelia swallowed heavily becoming lost in his eyes. Her lips remembered his caress, her hands remembered the cool warmth of his skin, her very essence remembered the hard press of his desire against her belly and the mere thought flushed her cheeks with what could be.
“Tell me you didn’t want it, tell me you didn’t enjoy it, tell me that I’m not all you’ve thought about for the last few days….” Angel murmured silkily when he could taste her desire on the air, an arrogant demon long repressed whispering words out of an ensouled mouth. He twisted his fingers through the velvet strands of her hair, possessing her with the most simple of intimate touches.
“You bastard….” Cordelia whispered, her heart beating in her throat.
“Tell me you don’t want me and I’ll walk away and we’ll go back to being friends.” Angel ignored her hushed curse. “Tell me that just being near me doesn’t make you crazy. Tell me.” The vampire murmured, his gaze flicking over her plump red lips. “‘Cos it’s making me crazy Cordy, you’re making me crazy.”
“I don’t want you…” Cordelia tried her hardest to sound convincing but even to her own ears her words sounded forced.
“You’re lying.” Angel’s hand snaked around the back of her neck, his fingers rubbing maddening circles on her skin.
“I’m….” Angel’s mouth swallowed her words as his lips crashed demandingly down on to hers. The nip of his teeth, the sweep of his tongue, the bruise of his lips elicited a guttural moan from deep within Cordelia’s chest and she didn’t even try to pretend that this wasn’t what she wanted, what she needed.
Cordelia felt her back hit brick as Angel pushed her against alley wall, their teeth clashed and breath merged as body met body in the oldest dance known to man. Angel’s strong knowing hands were everywhere, stealing her secrets into his skin, fingers snarled themselves in her hair, danced across her collarbone, an arrogant thumb brushed the side of her breast in the same exact way that had made her head spin the first time they kissed. Cordelia fisted his soft sweater in her hands, pulling him closer until only their clothes separated them.
Angel’s cool fingertips crept up the outside of her thigh, her skin burning his with every touch. Cordelia’s leg wound itself around his, the delicious scrape of her stiletto heel as it moved up his calf brought him to a painful state of arousal, he growled as he gripped her thigh with bruising fingers and pressed her heat against him, her hips grinding against his in an the age old rhythm.
This was happening too fast, Cordelia couldn’t think, could barely breathe, he was taking over her senses and the cheerleader gripped his broad shoulders like a life line.
The need to breathe became too insistent to ignore as Cordelia wrenched her lips away from Angel’s, she sucked deep gasps of air into her lungs as the world spun around her. Teeth grazed her shoulder and Cordelia threaded her fingers into his thick hair pressing him against her heated skin, her eyes fluttering open and closed as the thick evidence of his desire pressed against her core. She whimpered when he dragged his tongue over the slope of her neck and lightly nipped at the delicate flesh of her earlobe.
The sudden loud clatter of an overturned trash can wrenched Angel’s attention away from the goddess in his arms, his body instantly ready for the fight.
“Who’s there?!” The vampire growled into the dark alley, his vampire senses searching for the intruder. A rat scurried out of the shadows and ran across the dirty ground like a thief in the night. Just a rat. Nothing but a rat hiding in the trash cans.
Reality kicked in at that very moment.
“Dammit Angel, you kissed me again… .” Cordelia thumped him lightly then laid her spinning head on his chest, not wanting to leave his embrace. Calming down to a degree Angel wrapped his arms around Cordelia, pressing her still humming body to his, he buried his face into her thick hair and closed his eyes. A tender moment slipped by before Cordelia pushed the vampire away from her, her lipstick smudged across her cheek, her eyes wide and glassy. “You can’t….” She sighed wearily.
“What?” Angel frowned at her, his body confused at why the comforting warm heat had gone away as she physically pushed him further from her. Cordelia straightened her rumpled dress, slipping a thin strap she hadn’t even realised had fallen off her shoulder back into place.
“You can’t keep making me want what isn’t mine.” She told him bluntly not waiting for his reply as she turned quickly and ran down the alley way and away from him once again. Angel felt a very clear sense of deja vu as he listened to the clack of her heels getting further and further away from him.
“Shit!!” Angel snarled and kicked the trash can that had shattered the heated moment. His shoulders hunched, his hands buried in his pockets the vampire stalked out of the alley in pursuit of the girl that haunted his every waking and sleeping moment.
If he had waited a moment longer he would have heard the frantic drum of a heart beat, would have smelt a vaguely familiar perfume beneath the stench of the alley, would have seen a flash of long red hair in the glow of the street light as Willow crept out of the shadows, her eyes wide, her teeth worrying her bottom lip at what she’d just heard and seen. He would have known that he and Cordelia had been found out.
But Angel didn’t wait so he didn’t know Willow knew.
And if Willow’s enormous brain lived up to it’s reputation and put a very obvious two and two together…then there would be a whole lot of trouble headed their way.
***
Cordelia banged her forehead against the steering wheel of her car, too many thoughts buzzing through her brain at once.
Want, desire, guilt, fear and confusion thundered over her in debilitating waves, she flipped the sun guard down and stared at herself in the small mirror, what she saw both embarrassed and astonished her, her lips were rough from passion, her cheeks still flushed red, her eyes dark and hooded, a rapidly scarlet hickey marring the perfect skin where her neck met her shoulders. Cordelia looked as though she’d been thoroughly ravished and had enjoyed every moment of it…which she had.
Her body still burned with unfulfilled desire as she locked her car and walked across the parking-lot to her motel room with measured footsteps, the cool night air disturbing her still tingling flesh, the snap of her heels disturbing the quiet.
Cordelia’s fingers fumbled slightly as she put her key into her motel door and turned it, her blood drumming in her ears. She slipped inside her room pushing the door closed with her foot.
Cordelia didn’t need to switch the light on to know Angel was there.
She could feel his presence in the room, taking over her space and penetrating the air. She’d known that he would follow her home as she’d driven aimlessly around town, she’d known that running from him wasn’t going to be the end of this…whatever this was.
Cordelia had known he would follow her home and the very thought had thrilled her. He was waiting for her, leaning against the door frame of the bathroom, his arms folded casually across his chest, too casually. Pretending that his body wasn’t still taut with desire.
She wasn’t going to run away this time.
