Chapter 3
It was 4:38 a.m. and Angel had been up all night. Sure part of that time was spent relieving the left over pressure from the still mind-searing Cordy flash dance, but the rest was just spent in sheer agony. He’d gotten so desperate he had even trekked to the lobby to find an answer in one of Cordelia’s women magazines. The most he got out of that was a tip on a refreshing cucumber mask he figured he’d try later…after the sex fiasco tonight.
No, there was just no way he could top opening night. The depression was so strong now that he was seriously considering tying his shoe laces together and accidentally falling on the pointy end of a pencil.
“What the hell am I going to do?,” he asked no one in particular as he flopped into his chair. The same one her legs had been draped over recently. The same one that still held her arousal in every thread and that was wafting over his senses and making him dizzy.
**If you ask me that one more time I will sharpen the pencil with my fangs.**
“I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to myself, so just shut up.”
**I AM you, or have you begun to believe your own press? The answer is so simple.**
“Like you’d know.”
**Hello? Do you remember me? Angelus? If there’s something I’m better at than sucking blood, it’s whoring.**
Angel had to admit that was true. Angelus always had women flocking to him. Unfortunately, there was never much of a flock leaving him…at least alive.
“I’m not killing Cordy, and since that’s the only way you know how to keep a woman, I’ll just pass on your helpful tips.”
**Oh, my mistake. I thought the point was to attract her, NOT keep her. Did something happen to change that agenda?**
If you can feel an invisible smirk, Angel just got one from his demon. And it wasn’t unjustified. Sometime about – oh, 2:12 in the morning – Angel decided it might not be a bad thing to have Cordy in his bed for more than a week. It didn’t have to mean life-altering love. It could just be like she said – fuck buddies. So, in his mind, it was now more important to show her sex with him could be fun. Something she’d love to continue past the little competition. He’d even put up with losing the bet and having to go shopping for a year if it could continue.
Of course, losing the bet meant he’d have fallen in love with her, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that possibility yet.
“Don’t act like you don’t want her in this bed for just a week. I know what you want to do to her body, and that’ll take more than seven days.”
**Ooouucchhh. Right to the heart. Wait. No. I don’t have a heart. But you do, and you’re losing it fast. Now that hurts!**
“Sorry my joy fills you with such pain. Then again, not really. Can we get back to the problem? What am I going to do?”
Angel left the chair and now was spread-eagle on his back across his bed. His body needed sleep badly, but his minds wouldn’t let him rest.
Angelus couldn’t believe that one night staring into a woman’s pussy could completely turn this soul into a fuckin’ sex retard. Although he did savor the self-inflicted torture, he was tired himself so he decided to end the agony.
**Ask yourself this. What does a woman crave in a man?**
“Well, if you’re talking about Cordelia Chase, you’re talking about fistfuls of cash, preferably fifties and hundreds.” Angel suddenly sat up inspired. “Hey! Great idea. A bed covered in cash. That would so turn her on.”
**Shit, how did I get stuck with you? Was one Goofy just not enough for the world? Don’t you think that’s a bit crass? She might think you were buying her like some hooker?**
He fell back on the bed completely deflated. “You’re right. So what does a woman crave, oh great swami of love?”
**She wants a man who acts like a man.**
“That’s it? That’s the secret of life?”
**Hey, I said it was simple. Stop over analyzing and just act. Wasn’t the bet that she’d fall in love with you?**
“Yeah, so?”
**Court her you idiot. You do remember how to win a woman over, don’t you?**
Angel became pensive. The quiet lasted for some time because he had to peruse over 250 years of memories to answer that question. “Actually…no, I don’t. I’ve never really had to date. As Liam I plopped down a few bob or grabbed a willing wench in an alley. As you, I just pulled out the swirly, thrall eyes and took what I wanted. The closest to dating I’ve ever done was with Buffy, and that was pretty pathetic and awkward.”
**Don’t remind me. Although nice move with the ‘uh-oh I didn’t know that was a porn flick’ ploy.**
“That wasn’t a ploy. I really didn’t know. But, see? Even that didn’t get me any. I’m doomed.” Angel draped a melodramatic forearm over his eyes and sighed.
**You’ve already got the hard part in the bag. You know she’s going to sleep with you. All you’ve got to do is be manly and she’ll swoon at your feet. Manly and romantic.**
“Define manly. Not that I don’t know, I just want to know what you think manly means.”
**Uh-huh. Well, let me just pull my Webster’s unabridged out of my ass. Oh, yeah. Here it is. Manly. What you’re NOT. Swallow some bull nuts and get with the program. Manly! Strong, virile, decisive, dominating…**
“Hold it right there. Me? Dominate Cordy? I know I heal quickly, but I’d rather keep my bones in tact.”
**I’m not talking whips and chains…yet. Every woman likes a man to take control in bed sometimes. Makes them feel more feminine and when that happens, that damn busts wide open and you can seriously drown in all that wetness.**
“Okay, I get that. But, romance? I mean we are way past the candlelight dinner and dancing stage. And this is just about the fucking. We’re not dating.”
**I didn’t say date. I said court her. In this room. In this bed. Make her feel that she is the most special, most beautiful, most desired woman that ever existed. You succeed in that, and she will be putty in your hands.**
God, his demon was smooth. He was turned on just listening to him. And much more relaxed and relieved. Angelus made sense and that bothered him.
“Why are you trying to help me?”
**I’m trying to help me! I want to make sure you don’t fuck this up because that’s my cock, too. I want to feel some of that tight seer muscle sucking me dry.**
“So this has nothing to do with you thinking that maybe I’ll just lose control, have that perfect bliss moment, and let you out?”
**Of course not. But, I’m a lying demon, so you should probably take that answer with a grain of salt.**
Again, the demon was right. How could something so evil be right all the time? It was beginning to really piss him off, but for now he was just grateful he could close his eyes and sleep knowing he at least had a goal for tomorrow night. Woo the woman and win her heart. Simple. So simple.
Angel drifted to sleep with the images of Cordelia putty covering him. He’d worry about the little details of how he’d accomplish her actual melting tomorrow.
3:52 p.m.
Cordelia expected the day to be fraught with tension and armpit dampening awkwardness. But to her shock, Angel treated the day like any other so far. Granted he’d only been in the office for an hour or so, but the only thing she found unpleasant was the grin that said ‘we have a nasty little secret and I like it’.
After that Wesley began rambling on about some boring demon characteristic and the atmosphere became routine again. Part of her was thankful and excited. She didn’t want any unease between them, and she was jazzed that this could actually work. The thought that she could have sex with a friend and not have any morning-after weirdness was exhilarating.
On the other hand, what the hell was he doing? Why wasn’t he trying to get close to her and sniff her? Why wasn’t he accidentally touching her? Why wasn’t he trying to manipulate her into a dark corner and cop a feel? Didn’t he have any manners?
Stupid manpire. He could at least say, “Thanks, Cordy, for the great time. You rock you little whore, you.” But, nooooooo…all I get is, “Morning. Is there coffee?” Like he can’t see the frickin’ coffee pot himself. Or was that ‘coffee’ comment supposed to mean something? Some double entendre sex thing I’m too naive to understand. Like, “Morning, is there more hot, wet caffeine-roasted goodness between those creamy, sweet thighs for me today you whore you?” Okay, maybe not the whore thing, but the rest is possible. He did sort of grin stupidly when he asked. No, that was his usual stupid grin.
Cordy sighed at the hopelessness that was Angel and got up to do some filing she’d been postponing. Just as she was putting the final report on the Benson case under “X” for “X-tra Slimy,” she felt him behind her. He wasn’t breathing, of course, but his mass just displaced the void behind her, and she was aware of being surrounded and protected. It was a creepy and comforting sensation.
She didn’t know what he was doing there, but the wait for him to make his presence known lasted for days. Her whole body tensed and for a second she thought she might be feeling the precursor of a vision, but then he spoke softly in her ear and she quivered.
“Tonight. My place. Eleven. No props. You’re all I need.”
Her breath got lodged in her throat and the chills his husky voice and words caused traveled over every inch of her skin and then settled in the acidy depths of her stomach. When she felt her womb vibrate and the wetness pooling, she panicked.
Oh, God. Can he sense how turned on I am? Please let him be gone.
She slowly turned, her eyes lowered in a prayer that they meet empty space and not the smug smirk of a…
Damn!
…completely aware of her arousal, highly pleased with himself…and yet…Is that desire?…equally excited, hot as hell, stud muffin, Angel.
Her lips curled up shyly.
**Wet and coy. Mmmmm. Screw the seduction. Let’s fuck her brains out right here. Maybe teach the pansy watcher a few moves.**
The demon’s crude thoughts ruined the moment for Angel. He was glad Cordy had turned back to her filing so she didn’t see the anger that washed over him. Seducing her was your idea. Why can’t you take your own advice?
**It’s the fickle in me. One minute I’m calm and the next I’m chewing on your esophagus. Exciting, id’n’it ?**
More like schizophrenic, Sybil.
**’You like me, you really, really like me’ *sniff*!**
Before Angel could respond to the retarded impersonation, his muscles poised to move. There was a shift in the atmosphere from the normal nothing to oppressive. The silent crackle and tingling presence of electricity. He recognized the phenomenon even before he heard the cry of pain building in her chest.
Screaming for Wesley, Angel raced to her side. He grabbed her shoulders just before the first spasm flung her like a bullet into his chest. She was so strong in the throes of a vision. As if all the demons and victims she witnessed became part of her at that moment and their power fused in her. He feared it was too much and one day it would rip her apart.
Angel managed to struggle into a seated position on the floor and wrap her epileptic body in his arms. It was pointless to try to stop her from seizing, but he couldn’t suppress the urge. He cradled her head to his chest where it pounded mercilessly against him. He hoped he was at least slightly softer than the marble floor. An image of her head smashing against the hard surface when she was alone and out of his reach frightened and sickened him.
Why didn’t I ever think about that before? God, how it must hurt when she’s alone.
“Angel?” Her voice drifted slowly through his dead synapses and he looked down to see her struggling to loosen his death grip on her body. Her squirming only made him want to hold her tighter.
“Angel, please. I can’t breathe.”
“Oh, sorry. Sorry.” He relaxed his hold but kept her in his lap. Helping her to sit, he manacled her wrist with one hand and rubbed her back with the other as she relayed the vision.
“Um, I think it’s another – oh, what are they called – Spandex demons?”
“You mean Spaundect,” Wesley corrected.
“Close enough. Big, as usual. Smelly, check. Ugly and dental-hygiene impaired and attacking some women at a bridal shower I think.” She concentrated and searched the vision again. “Yeah, bows stuck on an tacky paper plate bouquet. Bridal shower all right. Tonight sometime around 8:00 in Inglewood.”
Wesley took down the rest of the details as Angel concentrated on the circles he was drawing on her back and memorizing her profile. She was still in pain, but all he knew was how soft her arm felt and how whenever his fingers glided over the area just below her waist on top of her hip, she trembled. And now that the smell of her fear and pain was subsiding, his nostrils flared catching the remnants of the musky odor of her sexual need.
He felt his groin tighten and suddenly realized what was happening.
Angelus. Stop it!
**I’m not doing anything. This is all you, perv.**
He was right. Again! Angel shook his head and took a deep breath. Consciously forcing his hand to stop its comforting mission, he was relieved to see Cordy hadn’t noticed his glazed appearance or apparently his roaming hand.
When she finished describing the vision and winced in pain, he scooted her off his lap, stood and helped her up. She smiled, mumbled a thanks and headed for the bathroom and her painkillers.
“Are you all right, Angel?” Wesley studied the vampire’s face. The worried portion of his expression was familiar after one of her visions. But there was something else…in his eyes…on the surface of his skin…that was new and indefinable.
“Huh? Oh! Yeah, Wes. I’m fine. Just worried, ya know. The visions don’t get any easier for her.” He spoke to him while keeping his gaze fixed on the person behind that door.
“Yes, we’re all aware of that. Are you sure there’s not something else?”
Angel turned to see that look on Wesley’s face. That look of suspicion and curiosity and patented disbelief. He decided to fess up to at least part of his thoughts to pacify him.
“Just worry…and a little fear. It just hit me, ya know. What if the visions… What would we do without her, Wes?”
Wesley heard the slight hitch in his voice and saw the moisture begin to pool in his eyes and it stung him. Angel was falling in love with his seer and more than anything else…even Cordy’s possible death…that scared him. Without Cordelia herself and her visions, it would be sad and difficult for all of them. But add to that a mourning, vengeful demon, prone to bouts of insanity and the ability to pillage entire villages, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
“Angel, you can’t.”
“Can’t what, Wes?”
“You can’t fall in love with her.”
Angel’s eyes widened and then he turned them back to that closed door. “I’m not falling in love with her. I love her, sure. We all do. How could you not? But, I’m not…you know.”
**Nope. Don’t think he’s buyin’ it. Maybe you should’ve put that on the close-out sale table.**
Angel nervously cleared his throat and wet his lips.
“Angel, I’m not criticizing. Lord knows it wouldn’t be difficult to fall in love with her. I think we’ve all been in love with her at one point or another. But, you especially can’t allow it to happen.”
“Why, because of the curse? That’s not a problem any more, Wes. It hasn’t been for some time.”
**Zing! Bet he didn’t see that one coming. Love it when the wanker gets wanked.**
This statement jolted the ex-watcher, and he’d certainly get an explanation later. But, for now he had another point to make, which would have to wait since the door was opening and Cordy rejoined them.
Angel met her and stroked her upper arms. “How are you?”
Cordy twisted from his grasp and was immediately sorry she had. Force of habit. She looked into his pained eyes and softened her typical reply.
“I’m fine…really. Just the usual brain fryage. Sorry, but I need to lie down. Can I use your room?”
“Of course you can.”
They both watched as she plodded up the stairs, massaging her temple with one hand and her neck muscles with the other.
When she rounded the corner, out of earshot, Wesley took up where he left off.
“Angel.” The vampire stared at the empty space on the landing that Cordy once occupied. “Angel!” He started and turned toward Wes.
“The curse is only one concern. You have a mission and part of that mission is your own redemption. If you allow yourself to be consumed by a passion for anything other than that mission, you are doomed to fail. And, if that passion is for a seer who’s life may be shorter than we would all hope, then what will be left of you when she’s gone?”
**I’m so fuckin’ tired of all the goddamned mission talk. How about we chuck the mission and go to Disneyland?**
“And what is my mission, Wes? We both know that my redemption is not possible. I will never be able to atone for all that I’ve done. So it boils down to helping people one at a time, one day at a time. Did you ever think that Cordy may be one of those people?”
“We all help her in every way we can. In every way she’ll allow us. That’s not the point.”
**No, the point is you don’t want us to have any of it because you can’t. Green is just not your color Wes.**
Angel struggled to overpower the demon’s childish rants. “No! The point is we’re all fighting this battle alone. But why? Does it really make us stronger not to love? Pardon my Hallmark moment, but isn’t love what it’s all about. Love of humanity? Love of life? Isn’t that what you and she have been trying to pound into me for the last three years?”
“Yes, of course. But…”
“But, what? It’s fine for everyone else but me?”
Wesley cringed that Angel could think that. “Jesus, no. Of course not.”
“Then I don’t get it. This is a long war for an immortal like myself. It’s long and lonely. And the ache for something more…for love…makes me weaker not stronger. If I allow myself to fall in love with Cordy or anyone for that matter and she chooses to love me back, it could only make us stronger, the mission easier, and the life we had together much more bearable than any life we spent apart.”
**Okay, sick now. I’ll be back when it’s time to fuck.**
“And when that time is over? When she’s gone and you still have hundreds of years to look forward to without her? What then?” Wesley despised his role as the voice of reason. But, he couldn’t stop himself from trying to help the ones he loved from unnecessary grief.
Angel tried to grasp the concept of life without Cordelia. There was an instant stabbing pain in his chest and a hot dagger piercing his skull.
“It would hurt like hell, and I know hell. I also survived it. But there would be memories that I don’t have now. And she would not die alone and unloved. Isn’t that worth the pain? Isn’t that what everybody risks when they love someone? Why should she and I be less deserving of that than all the other people we help every day?”
Wesley’s heart ached. There was nothing he could do to save him or her from this. He knew they were both right and both wrong. There was only choice, and the consequences to be suffered varied in only slight degrees depending on the path taken. Either he kept his heart closed and lived a lonely, long life; or he opened it to love knowing he’d lose it and have to endure the torture of that loss. Not much of a choice really. Sometimes life sucked.
“You’re not less deserving and neither is she. My fear is that losing her as a friend would kill you a little but not fatally. Losing her as the love of your life, could send you into a personal hell that none of us could ever hope to pull you from. You do tend to brood you know.”
Angel grinned and relaxed his stance. He’d become slightly aggressive during their talk and noticed he was invading Wesley’s personal space more than he should. He backed off and sat down at the counter.
“Either way, Wes, when she dies, part of me will die with her. It’s everything that happens before that day that will keep me from staking myself.”
“I’m not so much worried about you staking yourself as you taking half of LA with you.”
Angel chuckled at the thought. Angelus salivated. “Don’t worry, Wes. If that ever happens, the mission is lost. You can dust me, save the world and inherit all this. The Wyndham-Price Agency. Fess up. You know you want it.”
Wesley smirked at the chiding, love-sick fool in front of him. “If I wanted it that much, I’d stake you in your sleep and take it. I’m no sissy boy. Rogue demon hunter here, remember?”
“You’re a very scary man, Wes.”
“Damn straight. Don’t forget it.”
The male bonding moment stretched for as long as was comfortable and then Wesley remembered the earlier sticky topic.
“Now what’s this about your curse not being a problem any more?”