Eight hours, eighteen minutes fifty-five seconds later I had discovered Angel’s oral fixation had, for the first time in my life, made me run like the rabbit in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and hide in my apartment in the fading light of the evening.
Oh god please, why couldn’t I stop my tongue from sliding across my bottom lip every two seconds, revisiting his damned taste.
Falling. Bah humbug!
I’d fallen for my stupid vampire boss long before his oral fixation. But I hadn’t counted on being slapped with the information so damned suddenly. I thought the PTB were on our side.
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
Sinking lower into the cushions on my couch I sigh. “Dennis that’s probably my Pizza. I told him to leave the box at the door since I might be in the shower. Slide the money out under the door then open the door in a minute or so okay?”
The soft breeze that caresses the crown of my hair is agreement enough as the money floats off the coffee table. With a sigh I snuggle deeper into my couch and drape my arm on the arm of the couch, my head pillowed there.
Eight hours, twenty-nine minutes and forty seconds ago I still had a boss, a best-friend and a job. Now I had one very large cheese pizza and a ghost that wasn’t potent enough to wrap me in big strong arms and draw out all the pain and guilt.
The door opened and I closed my eyes as the moisture welled up there. My lack of self control would cost me a few extra pounds and one best-friend with an oral fixation. The soft breeze ruffled my hair again.
“Just put it on the table Dennis, I’ll eat it later.”
“Okay, but can I keep the tip?”
“AHHHHHHHHH!” I was up like a shot, losing my balance; I stand up on my couch and tip sideways as I look at the looming figure in the sparse light coming in through my darkening curtains and the solitary light in the kitchen.
But cold hands reach out and one hooks the dip in my waist while the other wraps around an elbow and instead of tipping towards one very painfully sharp coffee table, I collide against a solid muscled chest.
It was much later when the lamp in the living room came on did I venture to raise my eyes as I stand there wrapped up in the arms on one very silent, expressionless vampire and my heart breaks.
The slopes and slants of his face were unreadable and the smile was gone. I’d stolen it away because of one little moment of weakness and one deplorable Twinkie.
The knot in my chest tightens and the grief and guilt threatens to pool my eyes, but I look away from the flickering brown of his eyes. Pushing against his chest, my hands take an instant to memorize the hardness of his chest and the tender softness of his sweater before I push myself out of the strength in his arms.
“Sorry.”
“I should be apologizing for startling you.”
Not able to meet his eyes I tuck a strand of my long hair behind my hair nervously. “No shit.”
“I’m sorry Cordelia.”
My chin nearly trembles when he didn’t call me Cordy. But a Chase never breaks in public. “Apology accepted.”
Dead silence follows my smartly witty words as we stand there in the semi darkness of my apartment.
How could something so simple become such thick tension between two people who, before, could talk about anything? Already it had changed. God why couldn’t he just tell me I’d crossed the line and get it over with.
The fatherly admonition would cut my heart into pieces, but maybe it won’t make him leave me.
“Say it already Angel.”
“Say what?”
I look up the frustrated anxiety in the pit of my stomach making me glare up at him even though I wasn’t angry with him.
“Tell me you don’t swing that way. Not with me and I should keep my kissie impulses to myself.”
And he does it again.
Standing there in front of me he catches the inside of his bottom lip between his teeth as his eyes regard me with guarded emotions.
I groan with painful frustration as I squeeze my eyes shut, my hand reaching out and the tips of my fingers catching the edge of his lower lip.
“God, please don’t. I’m sorry, but I’m just at the end of my patience here and you’re a vampire and the oral fixation is probably natural. Goes with the whole undead territory, blah blah woof woof. I know it’s not your fault, but I can’t take the tease anymore even if you’re not doing it on purpose.”
With effort enough to lift the Rock of Gibraltar I drag my fingers away from the firm softness of his mouth and step away from him, my eyes opening to fix on the painting on the wall, where I could only see his silhouette out of the corner of my eye.
God, was it asking much too make this as painless as possible?
“Cordelia?”
Shoot me and put me out of my misery already but please don’t call me ‘Cordelia’ Angel.
“Cordelia, what makes you think it’s not on purpose?”
My head snaps back and I gawk at him, my mouth hanging abnormally open and my breath frozen on my lips.
The Rock of Gibraltar turned into lumpy toast.
When the left corner of his mouth started to lift I took a step back as if visibly slapped and he ran a hand through his hair to hide his smile.
“Fuck Cordelia, I didn’t think it would take you this long to figure it out.”
The Rock of Gibraltar started to fume and if I’d been holding a weapon, Angel would be sans fingers and toes, no matter how delectable he was with them.
Noticing that I was no longer the proverbial deer caught in the headlights of a speeding car, even though, he was more of a freight train.
“You scared Wes and Gunn though.”
Closing my eyes, my fists clenched tighter as the insane anger built inside me. “You…you swine! You fat conniving bastard!”
“Fat?” His eyes sparked with mischief as he feigned hurt.
“You FAT arrogant pig!”
His mouth spread into a wide grin. “I’ve had two hundred and fifty years of acting experience.”
“ASSHOLE!”
He laughed. “You’re just sore Cordy.”
“ARGH!!!!” I paced there in front of him, horribly conflicted between either kissing the daylights out of him, or staking him where he stood. “You planned this!”
He smiles wickedly, “Yes, I did. Do you really think a vampire would play fair?” I could hear the amusement in his voice.
Smug bastard.
“Why?” Though I know the answer even before I speak.
“Because you are mine,” comes back to me, whispered with all the fierceness of someone who has found something long lost.
The ridges ripple in his forehead as the flickering mirth of his chocolate eyes melts into sinful gold.
His eyes never leave mine and the simple declaration makes me tremble to the roots of my hair. Buffy. Her name nearly makes it past my lips, but the dark honesty in the golden slight of his eyes speak enough.
Covering the little distance between us, albeit a lot slowly than before, I stand gazing up into his face. Fangs that had before only been fangs slid back to the whiteness.
“Damn you,” I whisper as he lowers his head.
Just before he could claim my mouth in a kiss, he speaks. “Probably.”
This kiss is nothing like the kiss in the office. That one had been tender, passionate, and just a bit hesitant. And too damned quick. This kiss holds nothing in comparison.
It is hard, needy and hungry; where the previous kiss had seduced, this one demanded. His fingers come to bury in my hair, pulling my head back to expose the column of my throat to his questing tongue and lips.
When his hips slide to connect with mine a soft growl made me gasp and pull away to look up into the face of his demon.
In for a penny? I lean forward to kiss him, and he jerks away slightly, but my fingers tighten on his shoulders I leaned up further, running my tongue along the edge of his teeth, plunging my tongue deep into his mouth, careful to avoid the bite. And the kiss explodes and deepens, with a little more pressure his mouth complies, opening and welcoming above mine.
And when his tongue seeks entrance, I open my mouth to receive it. He explores my lips, the roof of my mouth, and under my tongue. And I’m branded. Then his lips trace my jaw and across to my ear, were he breathes a shuttered breath into it, a soft shudder leaving him that I didn’t expect from my big strong vampire.
I kiss him fiercely then, burying my face in his neck and sucking his borrowed blood to the surface. The low growl of pleasure surprises me as his hands tighten on my hip bone. Breathing hard, I back off and see the red mark I had given him; surprising myself with the dark desire to mark him somehow as mine.
I look up slightly afraid of this between us. This is way beyond teasing and I can see him take an unnecessary deep breath, reaching for some control.
“Angel, we can’t…”
“Shhh…do you trust me Cordy?” Caressing the side of my body with one hand, he tests the fullness of my breast and I can’t help arch into his touch.
This was not teasing anymore. His hand leaves my breast to slide along the dip of my waist, the curve of my hip, and the taut muscle of my thigh and I am quivering under his touch. This was Angel. This was oral fixated Angel and I was the one who had marked him.
Oh god he was rubbing off on me. That was the only solution.
Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Angel and his oral fixations had rubbed off on me.
“So… you love me?”
I looked up into his stoically calm face and snort slightly. “What?”
“You love me, right? Angel manly man too much for you? Couldn’t resist could you?” He winks without cracking a smile and I’m tempted to think this isn’t my vampire. But I know him well. Oral fixations and all.
“What?!”
“I knew it would happen sooner or later.”
“Oh my god!”
“Can’t resist the vampire call can you.” And I can tell he’s trying really had to not smile or laugh.
Raising an eyebrow and crossing my arms as I gaze at him evenly. “Listen, you pompous windbag, I would never-” But before I can finish I am hauled against him, and pinned against the wall, bringing his lips down on mine roughly.
My eyes widen slightly in surprise, but when the kiss continues, I can’t keep my arguments over his arrogant pig male flaunting turning into a moan, eyes closing when the rough, sandpaper chin glided against mine, with his tongue ventured into my lips again, I sighed.
And I’d been thinking of getting rid of this taste of Twinkies and Angel. I deserved to be shot.
When his hands lightly skim the hard nub of my left breast, my eyes shoot wide open. Back to teasing again!?
“Angel-” But the words die in my throat when I see the intensity in the flickering gold eyes. Oh God… they burned.
“I love you, Cordy,” he whispers, fingers cradling my face without the teasing or the taunting. “I love you.”
And just like in those stupid seedy romance novels, right there in my darkened apartment, wearing draw string pajamas in my heart pitter pattered, my chest heaves against him, and I realize that it was completely hopeless resisting this man.
Vampire. All of him.
“Angel,” I whisper, smiling into his lips, my calf sliding around his to pull him closer. “Damn you; you’ll be the death of me.”
“I’m counting on it, Baby. Because there is no other way I will let you go.” He chuckles; breath hot and moist against my lips.
I grin up at him. “Want to know what my fixation is?”
“Tell me all about it.” Reaching down he scoops me up in his arms and I nuzzle into the crook of his neck. Yup. I bet I could share Angel’s oral fixation.
“Oh and Cordy.”
“Hmmm?”
“Do you still have the doorknob to the front door?”
THE END