Part 21
Cordelia traced the contours of Angel’s chest with her finger. She noticed his eyes were still fastened to his mark. “How is it different?”
“Huh?”
“You said your soul affected the claim. How?”
“Oh that.” He cleared his throat. “Umm…vampires aren’t really monogamous by nature.”
One eyebrow shot up. “Uh huh.”
“Choosing a mate is very serious but..”
“Monogamy isn’t a part of it?”
“Yes and No.”
The other brow shot up. “It’s one or the other. You can’t have it both ways.”
“Actually you can.”
“How’s that?”
“Once you’ve taken a mate, you ARE expected not to stray but it’s not considered cheating if you have your mate’s permission or participation.”
“Eww!” She tried to pull away.
Angel wrapped his arms around her waist, keeping her close. “But I have a soul and I don’t subscribe to a vampire’s definition of monogamy.”
“That’s good to know because the first time you ask my permission to be with another woman or to bring another woman into our bed, you will be a eunuch.” Their eyes locked. “Truth spell, remember? I am not bluffing.”
“Since we’re laying our cards on the table, you should know I will kill anyone or anything that puts his unwanted hands on you. Just so you know, any hands that aren’t mine will be considered unwanted.”
“Uhh Angel, you know I love you but…ummm…you..uhh.. Please don’t say things like that.”
“You are mine.”
“I know but you can’t kill some guy just because he makes a pass at me. Bob was a rare exception. He planned to force me into marriage then rape me. Once he found out you are a vampire, he tried to kill me. Going grr on him is one thing but sleazy guys who make with the bad touching are totally different. You can’t kill them. I mean you have my blessing to scare them or even beat them up a little but no killing. I realize your demon is closer to the surface now but you cannot kill humans.”
“I can settle for the Bob-types. Any man who tries to take you away from me will see my bad side. Any man who ‘makes with the bad touching’ will have his hands broken.”
“Angel, I think..”
“What would you do if a woman started pawing me?”
“I’d kick her ass.”
“Exactly.”
“When did your demon first want to claim me?”
“What? Where did that come from?”
“You also said your demon wanted to claim me for a long time.”
“Yeah but we..”
“I think we’ve established we’re both extremely possessive. We’ll just have to hope that we will act more rationally than we think we will. So when did your demon first want to claim me?”
“Pylea”
“Really?”
“Yes. There I was fighting the Groosalug to protect you and you came running to his defense. You belonged to me yet you said you loved him.”
“I came to his defense because in my vision you won and it was supposed to be battle to the death. As for the love part, I just got swept up in the fairy tale, but let’s focus on the part where I belonged to you.”
“As far as my demon was concerned, you did.”
“How do you figure that?”
“When I took you from a rival vampire, you became mine.”
“WHAT?”
“You were in Russell Winters’ lair. You were his prey and I took you.”
“You rescued me.”
“I know that but you asked about my demon. My demon stole you from another vampire, which made you mine.”
“I see.”
“I had my soul so it’s not like I asserted my rights…for the most part.”
“What does that mean?”
“Can we not talk about this now?”
“Why?”
“Because we’re under a truth spell and complete honesty may lead to yelling.”
“You so cannot stop there. Explain yourself.”
“Just remember, you asked for it.”
“Keep talkin’ mister.”
“Because of my soul, asserting my rights appeared more like friendly concern for your welfare.”
“Huh?”
“I’d insist on meeting your dates, wanting to know when you’d be home, umm..questioning Dennis for information, following you..”
“WHAT?”
“After what happened with Wilson, I’d occasionally follow you.”
“I had no idea.”
“You weren’t supposed to. I didn’t want to make the same mistake twice. I waited until the next day to confront you. Having to hear from your friends you were dating someone I hadn’t met upset me. Then you didn’t show up for work the next day. It wasn’t the first time you hadn’t called but this time my demon had a few guesses as to why you were late. I showed up at your place and let myself in, ignoring Wesley’s protests. My demon was hoping the guy would still be there if the guesses proved true.”
“Then you found me pregnant.”
“Yeah. My demon wanted to hunt the bastard down and kill him slowly.”
“You never told me what happened when you found Wilson.”
“It wasn’t easy but I left him alive. He was probably out of circulation for a while, if not permanently.”
“So is that it for asserting your rights?”
“Well…this barely seems worth mentioning.”
“Go on.”
“I don’t know if you noticed but I never…really encouraged you to explore your feelings for Doyle or anyone for that matter. I loved Doyle like he was my brother and I knew you would be good for him.” His arms tightened around her. “But you…were mine. I mean I’d never stand in your way. Well not back then anyway, but I couldn’t bring myself to help things along, even though Doyle asked me to. Several times.”
“I never knew you felt that way. I knew you were protective.”
“I didn’t want you to know. My soul knew those feelings were wrong. It wasn’t about love back then. It was ownership, possessiveness.”
“If that’s how your demon felt, why did you push me away when you went dark or beige or whatever?”
“That was my soul that wanted you as far from me as possible. I didn’t want you to see me like that and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to protect you from my demon. That despair was so strong. I needed to save Darla and when I couldn’t, when Wolfram and Hart thwarted my every attempt, I felt empty. I thought I had to give in to the darkness in order to hunt Darla and Druscilla. I thought my emotions, my guilt, would prevent me from getting the job done.”
“Pfft. Fat lot of good that did. You didn’t manage to dust either of them.”
“I know but…think about how you would feel if you had to hunt Wesley and Gunn. If they’d been turned and it was up to you to dust them, your emotions..”
“It would hurt like hell which is exactly why I would need the love and support of what’s left of my family. If I cut off everyone that matters, I’d lose my will to fight. I wouldn’t need vampWes to kill me. I’d already be dead.”
“I had to figure that out the hard way. It’s just…I failed her. I couldn’t save her. She got a second chance and look what happened. My redemption didn’t seem possible.”
Cordelia sat up on the bed. “Darla wasn’t given another chance by the Powers. She didn’t earn redemption. She was brought back by an evil law firm.”
“She didn’t deserve her fate.”
“I get that but she was hardly an innocent. She worked with Wolfram and Hart. She tried to drive you crazy. She was human. Having a soul didn’t stop her from doing evil.”
“It took me almost a hundred years before I started helping.”
“Yeah but you also had your demon inside you. On that day only you can remember, did you have the uncontrollable urge to drive anyone crazy so they’d turn you?”
“No but I wanted to be human. It took her time to reach that conclusion, only to find out she was dying. You can hardly blame her for..”
“Excuse me? I think I can. I think I’m in a helluva position to make that judgment. I spent a year of my life knowing I was dying. I was twenty! Do you think I wanted to die? No. But I didn’t try to get you to turn me. I didn’t make a deal with satan’s toadies. I didn’t even fuck a rather attractive Pylean champion! I faced it.”
“But you were saved.”
“I know but I was willing to die. I didn’t run around feeling sorry for myself. I didn’t ask you to make it better. You may be a champion, Angel, but you’re not all powerful.”
“You still should have come to me.”
“I should have told you but it was NEVER your responsibility to fix it. Not for me and not for Darla and not for Buffy. You save lives by fighting battles but you can’t fight invisible foes. Death is a part of life.”
“You have the visions because of me. It was very much my responsibility.”
“Bullshit. My visions are an ancient and powerful force. They didn’t stop for Doyle when you became human. They didn’t stop for me when you were tired of being a champion. They didn’t stop when I was sucked into an entirely different dimension. Did you know that Doyle had the visions for months before the Powers gave him a vision about you.”
“No.”
“You may be a champion but the visions are mine. I’m the one who experiences their pain and hopelessness. I take that responsibility very seriously and if that means sacrificing my life then so be it.”
“Cor..”
“No. That isn’t up for debate. I will promise to fight to live until my last breath but I won’t walk away from the fight just to save my own skin. I won’t.”
“I can’t lose you.”
“I feel the same way about you but I’m not going to ask you to walk away either.”
“Accepting the fact that the visions were killing you wasn’t fighting to live.”
“I did research. I looked for ways that could help with the physical side effects.”
“You should have asked for help. If not mine, then Wesley’s.”
“You would have tried to take my visions.”
“If that’s what it took.”
“That wasn’t an option.”
“Let’s not fight about this. They’re not killing you anymore. Just promise me you won’t ever keep anything like this from me again.”
“I promise but it works both ways.”
“I promise too.”
“Cor…do you forgive me..for pushing you away?”
“I understand why you did it, even though I think your reasoning was totally stupid. It hurts. You have to understand, what you decided wasn’t worth fighting for, wasn’t achievable, that was something I was willing to suffer and die for. I didn’t know the visions were killing me when you fired us, but during my never-ending vision, I died over and over again. When you and Wes woke me up, a part of me wanted to run and hide, but I couldn’t not help those people, even if it killed me. I trusted you to help them and you walked away.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I forgive you. Everyone has their weak moments. For a minute there, I was ready to give up during the whole book of Job thing. I don’t know if I’d have followed through with it, but the pain was so unbearable and it wouldn’t stop. Then when I was in a coma, I walked away because you hurt my feelings.”
“What?”
“I heard you tell the conduit I was just a rich girl from Sunnydale and that I wasn’t strong enough to handle the visions. Skip told me my clock as vision girl had officially run out. My part was done and there was no going back so I chose to live a different life rather than die in the arms of a man who thought I was weak.”
Angel’s mind struggled to deal with the new information. “And I’m hearing about this for the first time why?”
“It wasn’t a secret. It was a life-altering, truly personal experience. I learned that the mission had become a part of who I am. It wasn’t something I could walk away from. I couldn’t walk away from you. This mission, our family, you…all of it is so much a part of me, it couldn’t be erased, not even by the Powers that Be. I made a choice and I don’t regret it. Sacrificing a part of my humanity was a piece of cake compared to coming to terms with the life expectancy of a seer. The specifics aren’t important. I chose to spend my life at your side.”
“I’ll accept that..for now.” Angel edged closer. “So you do forgive me?”
“Yes but don’t ever do it again. No matter how hard things get, we will face them together.”
“I promise.”
“That includes trying to protect me from you or your past. Nothing from your past will destroy what we have as long as you are honest with me. And even if you do something stupid, like beating the crap out of some guy you think hit on me, you need to be honest. My reaction will pale in comparison to what it would be if I find out another way.”
“I promise.”
Cordy ran her fingers along his leg. “Are we done with the serious stuff yet? ‘Cuz it feels like ages since we made love.” A wicked gleam appeared in her eyes. “We really should check those tapes. There could be one floating around the police station right now and we’d never know it.”
He wasn’t about to point out her abrupt attempt to change the subject this time. “That is an excellent point.”
She leapt off the bed and rummaged through the tapes. “Let’s start with this one.”
“Aren’t we starting from the beginning?”
“What would be the fun in that?” She popped the tape in the VCR. “I told you it was a good idea to buy this TV/VCR combo.”
“Yeah. It would have been awkward to ask Wesley to bring us a TV and a VCR.”
She giggled. “It might have been fun to see his reaction since we can’t lie.”
“You did want to torture him.”
“True but I’m gonna need to do some embellishing for that.” She hit play. “We’ll talk about that later.” She watched the screen. “Hey! What happened to the sound?”
“Try the volume button.”
“Thanks. Like I need advice from the technologically retarded.”
“I was just trying to help.”
“Sorry. I was only teasing.”
“And telling the truth apparently.”
“Aww! Is my cuddly manpire feeling inadequate?”
“I am not inadequate!”
Cordelia crawled toward him. “Trust me. You don’t have to tell me that. You’re just not good with technology.”
“That’s because it’s evil.”
“Only to those who haven’t mastered it.”
Angel was distracted by the video. He couldn’t stop the smile from forming. “You picked this tape on purpose.”
“I don’t…I didn’t… Fine! I wanted to watch this one.”
“I don’t have any problems with that.”
“Of course not. You’re the one that’s corrupted me.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“Hmmph.” She moved to lay across the foot of the bed.
Angel watched his golden beauty stretched out like Aphrodite on her half shell. He remained still, admiring the delicious curves he’d touched and tasted. Her elevated heartbeat made him look at the screen. “You can be quite the tease, Miss Chase.”
“It was the first time being a tease didn’t feel like a bad thing.”
He shifted to lay behind her, his head propped up on his hand so he could whisper in her ear. “You were wonderfully bad. Almost wicked.”
His sultry tone made her grin. “I thought it would look suspicious if we seemed too eager to send a message. I was trying to distract you.”
“Mission accomplished.” He trailed a finger along her side. “I don’t know where I found the strength to stay in that chair.”
“I thought for sure the bottle of water would push you over the edge.”
“It nearly did.” He planted kisses along her shoulder. “Crawling towards me was a nice touch.”
“What can I say? You inspire me.” She licked her lips at the sight of her taking him into her mouth.
“You are extremely good at that.”
“I aim to please.” She moaned softly when Angel began nibbling on her earlobe.
“You don’t have..”
“Stop it. I like the way you feel in my mouth. You feel so hard like marble, despite the constant motion. You quiver and tremble against my tongue. Your growls seem to vibrate through your entire body and into mine. It’s amazing. I love the way you fist your hands in my hair. You don’t try to hold me in place or control my movements. It’s more like you’re clinging to me, needing me, wanting me. And the way you taste…I can’t get enough of you.”
Her words had him panting for her touch. He gripped her hip, pressing his hardness against the softness of her bottom.
Instinctively, her hips ground against him. She watched her image scramble onto his lap and slide him home inside her welcoming body. “I love the way you feel inside me, filling me so completely. I am a big supporter of a vampire’s fast recovery time. I should have a t-shirt made.”
Angel smiled forcing his mouth away from his mark. His arm snaked around her waist. His hand itched to hold the lushness of her breasts. “I love being inside you. The heat of your body searing my flesh, the way your body envelopes me in a tight embrace as if desperately trying to keep me inside you and you’re so soft, like velvet stroking me on every slide of our bodies, I’m addicted. I’ll never be cured. I don’t ever want to be.” His thumb and forefinger gave one last pinch before leaving her breast to descend the length of her body.
The image of Angel pistoning into her on the table made her moan. “We’re lucky that was such a sturdy table.”
He barked a laugh. “I wouldn’t want to be the one to explain to Wes how you’d gotten injured.”
Snorting, “Forget Wes, facing the paramedics would have been totally embarrassing. My injured and naked body mixed with broken wood and your dusty remains is a sight they’d never forget.”
His fingers brushed past her soft curls to explore her silken and very damp folds. “I would have protected you from bad craftsmanship.”
“That’s…mmmmm..good to know.” Her hips rolled with his movements, teasing the hard and hungry flesh behind her.
He slid two fingers inside her. He groaned as her hips jerked back harder. The flickering on the screen caught his attention. “And the teasing continues.”
She struggled to speak. “I broke the first time. I couldn’t leave it like that.” Gasping, “You threw me.” His cool breath tickled her ear.
“You shouldn’t have left my bed.”
She wanted to protest. Her outrage was on the tip of her tongue but his ministrations had left her without breath.
His almost unfamiliar image lifted her to his mouth. “I love the way you taste, such sweet nectar. I can’t help savoring every drop.” The picture didn’t really show it, but he knew the moment he’d bitten her. “I guess the camera only picked up really loud sounds.”
“I couldn’t help it.”
His thumb lazily stroked the pulsing bundle of nerves. “I don’t want you to hold back. I want to hear you, what you enjoy, what you need, how I make you feel.”
“Alive, so full of life, like I’d never really taken a breath until you filled me for the first time.” She hooked her leg back over his in silent invitation.
Angel removed his fingers and thrust inside her just as his twin did the same.
“Oh god!” She pushed back against him, wanting him deeper. Her eyes were glued to the screen as they both took her from behind. “Please..oh please..”
“Tell me what you need, Cor. Tell me what you want.” His strokes continued at a slow and steady pace.
She reached back to grab his hip, trying to pull him further inside her. “Harder. Please I need more.”
Angel increased the strength behind each thrust but his pace remained slow. “Is that better?”
Watching herself scream in ecstasy again had shattered her patience. “Harder. Faster. Please Angel. Make me scream.”
“Your wish is my command.” Angel tightened his grip on her hip as he drove into her hard and fast, his need as great as hers. His other arm snaked its way under her head and around her trembling form to fondle and tease each breast.
“So close. Please! Need..more.” Her hips desperately tried to match his rhythm, forcing him as deep as he could go.
His hand abandoned her hip allowing his fingers to press against her clit.
“Oh god! Yes… Angel, teeth..please…I need your teeth..please now!”
Angel sunk his fangs into her shoulder as he pinched her clit and buried himself to the hilt. Her inner muscles convulsed around him, demanding his surrender. He thrust once more into her quivering body and exploded.
She half expected to hear the sound of running footsteps at any moment. They must have heard her scream in Sunnydale.
He carefully cleaned his newest mark. Thankfully this one would fade. His demon didn’t share his relief but Cordelia wouldn’t appreciate her body being covered with permanent scars, even if she did ask him to bite her. The last thought made an almost painfully large smile spread across his features. “I love you.”
She turned in his arms. Her body shivered at the loss as he slipped out of her. She snuggled into his arms to ease the ache. “I love you too.” Her head wearily rose off his chest. Hazel eyes locked with warm brown ones. “It was a very good idea not to destroy the tapes. I definitely approve.”
A rich, deep laugh echoed through the room. “I couldn’t agree more.”