Chapter Six
If Cordelia had known what they would be shopping for she would have taken her evil straight up, without the splash of shopping. As she surveyed the picture she presented in the dressing room mirror she was once again drowning in the depths of Angelus inspired humiliation.
Gone were the clubbing clothes she’d carefully chosen for a night on the non-demony social scene, and in their place was…well, almost nothing.
Having dragged her to one of Sunnydale’s surprisingly prolific leather stores, Angelus told her to wait in the dressing room and proceeded to select what was obviously the smallest scrap of leather he could find. And frankly, Cordelia thought bitterly, finding it probably required a magnifying glass.
She nearly jumped out of her skin, most of which was exposed, at the swift and heavy pounding on the door.
“Cordelia, get your leather clad ass out here. We don’t have time for this. How hard can it be to put on something so small?”
The last was muttered to himself as he waited for Cordelia to emerge.
For her part, Cordelia was trying, and miserably failing to pull the bottom of the skirt down without her breast spilling out of the undersized top.
Covered with a spattering of white leather, the amazingly eye catching contrast to her bronze coloring couldn’t be denied. The top was cut in much the same shape as a sports bra. However, instead of reducing the natural bounce of her breasts, it seem designed to enhance it as the tight material thrust her breasts upward, spilling them over the low, heart shaped neckline.
The skirt was no better, ending far above her knees; it was cut in such a way that hem line was a diagonal, showing far more of her left thigh than her right. The top of the skirt rested low on her hips, leaving her gently curved naval on erotic display.
But by far the worst part of the ensemble were the two delicate, silver chains that dangled from the lowest edge of the material underneath her breast, crossing just above her bellybutton and attaching to the top of the skirt at her hips. Two identical chains in the back completed her outfit making it impossible for one scrap of leather to be moved without displacing the other.
It wasn’t the lack of material that was necessarily the problem. Cordelia had worn less than this at the beach on many occasions. And yet somehow she felt more naked now than she had in the briefest of her bikinis.
As she considered this she concluded that it must be the situation. Wearing something of the microscopic variety while those around her would be far more appropriately dressed made her feel more exposed than being completely naked, but with others who were nude also.
Still, she didn’t know much about what demons wore, not having read Villainy Vogue, so maybe she wouldn’t stand out.
Her pep talk was interrupted by more banging on what, in retrospect, wasn’t seeming like all that sturdy of a door.
“Cordelia, open this goddamn door! I’m not asking you again.”
“Again?? I’m still waiting for you to ask the first time.” Cordelia called out as she finished zipping up the stiletto heeled, calf length boots Angelus had tossed to her over the door earlier.
Hearing Angelus’ hand on the doorknob, she realized that he was more than willing to crush it and break the door down to gain entrance. Cordelia swallowed her embarrassment and moved to let him in grumbling beneath her breath, “Geez, keep your pants on. Lord knows I wish I could keep mine on.”
As the door swung open Angelus stilled in the middle of his headlong rush into the small room. The stunned look in his eyes carried over from brown to burning topaz as his true features pushed forward.
Cordelia’s step back from the clearly agitated vampire was wasted as hands gripped her bare waist, pinning her to the wall and locking her in with the weight of his heavily muscled form.
If seeing her drove Angelus wild, nothing prepared him for what touching her would do. Reason was slowly being stripped away as an incinerating passion began to sweep through him. Being driven solely by instinct he buried his face in her neck his cool tongue soothing the still raw skin in preparation.
Before his deadly fangs could spill her blood once more, Cordelia’s voice called to him, pulling him back to rationality.
“Dammit, no! No more biting. This one’s plenty new. I thought we had a deal.”
“Oh, we have a deal Cordelia.” Angelus rasped the words into here neck where his questing lips remained. “Like I said, it’s the same as before, and I certainly seem to remember biting being a part of that.”
“Besides, what’s a nibble compared to your life? Because if I don’t get what I want from you tonight then you’re no good to me and I might as well take it all as a mouthful.”
Knowing she had no choice but compliance, Cordelia stopped fighting and closed her eyes, allowing herself to relax as much as one could with a vampire, literally at their neck.
Confined sight was soon restored, as shock forced her eyes open when, instead of a bite she felt Angelus’ lips crash into her own.
Swamped by an instantaneous passion, Angelus delighted in the amount of skin available to his touch. The silky textured beckoned him, and he heeded its siren’s call, splaying his hands as widely as possible to maximize stimulation.
His tongue thrust into her mouth and crowded her own, compelling her participate in the oral assault, moving against him with her own silken appendage. Angelus growled deeply as the taste of her inundated him with half forgotten fragments of erotic dreams which had haunted him since he’d tasted her last.
His wandering hands had yet to still as they skimmed her diminutive skirt and, running down soft, velvet legs, came to rest against her exposed, inner thighs.
As his cool hands roved skin slightly dampened by the overexertion of their lustful embrace, Cordelia’s incoherent murmurs of encouragement rolled from her tongue directly to his. The sounds were Angelus’ undoing and all thoughts of their night’s destination were pushed to the background as he firmly eased her thighs apart.
Cordelia’s legs spread to accommodate the hand now pressing against her silk covered juncture, her eyes squeezed fast as fingers danced over the moist material. Tearing her mouth free she gasped, both in the search for oxygen and astonishment at the new and nameless need that drove her to thrust forcefully against the probing digits.
Angelus used the newfound freedom of his lips to navigate the exquisite length of satin between her lips and his mark. Reaching his destination, he pressed reverent kisses to the scarring wounds. As enameled blades scraped teasingly over the healing flesh his fingers slipped past the elasticized barrier and moved to gently circle her now erect and throbbing nub.
As the scent of her arousal filled the still air around them, Angelus could wait no longer and pierced through the scarcely sealed holes freeing the blood pounding wildly beneath.
Cordelia’s moan of pleasure deepened to a harsh discordant sound that only comes when pleasure is intermingled with pain as Angelus’ fangs slid home. The pull of his mouth on her neck and his fingers on her clit overwhelmed her senses and left her shaking with need.
The sound of patrons making their way towards the dressing room cleared away just enough of Angelus’ prurient bloodlust and allowed him to acknowledge Cordelia’s swoon to be one of blood loss as opposed to delight. Knowing that his pleasure had come all to quickly to an end, he couldn’t help but pause a moment, and push forward, driving his fangs further into the delicate curve of Cordelia’s neck, making his newer mark far more prominent than the first.
At the simultaneous withdrawal of both his fingers and teeth, Cordelia mewled in disappointment. Swimming through a sea of tactile sensations she slowly surfaced to find that instead of Angelus confining her with his solid, immovable shape, she was now clinging tenaciously to him, her hands wound into his shirt, her body leaning into his in a bid to remain upright.
As the awareness returned incrementally to Cordelia’s eyes, Angelus smirked down salaciously at the trembling girl whose unsatisfied state was only surpassed by his own throbbing ache. He could see the moment she began to process what had happened in this small room and its repercussions.
Any woman who can defy a vampire to his face certainly has a fiery temper. After their night together he had more than enough proof that Cordelia Chase was just such a woman. He had no doubt that the fireworks that were about to begin would be spectacular. His gleeful expectation showed on his face as he waited for the yelling, the indignant accusations, and the fervent disavowals of her libidinous actions.
Cordelia’s voice was deep and husky and she wondered at the effort it took to push the words through her lips. “Wow. That was almost worth dying for.”
Shock dropped Angelus’ jaw at the maiden before him making no maidenly denials. Of all the things he expected to make their way out of her delectable mouth, not one of those was this open acceptance of what happened between them and how it affected her.
The thought stirred his lascivious yearnings once again as he was faced with yet another facet of this intriguing girl’s personality. He was finding in her almost the perfect woman. She was virginal yet passionate, strong yet vulnerable, and her unrestrained response and honest reaction were more arousing than he had ever thought possible.
Although thoughts of the claiming tried to push their way to the forefront, begging to be considered before further actions were taken, Angelus thrust them aside as he reached to pull Cordelia back into his arms, public location be damned.
“Whoa, Mister Touchy-Feely, I said almost.”
“I may have enjoyed what just happened here a little…well, maybe a whole frickin’ lot, but I’m a ball of hormones. It could’ve been anyone with that amazing technique, it just happened to be you. But that doesn’t mean it can keep happening.”
“Besides, I have a boyfriend. You know – Xander? And sure, I’ve wanted to wipe all memory of his existence from my mind plenty of times, who hasn’t? But I can’t. I have a commitment to him. He may seem like a loser to you, well…actually to me, too – but he’s my loser so the kissing thing is reserved for him.”
Angelus’ game face was out in an instant as his dull roar echoed throughout the confined space. Who the Hell did she think she was? Hormones? Boyfriend?? She had to be kidding right???
Here he was thinking that Cordelia was finally acknowledging the bond, admitting his dominion over her, but no, she thought it was nothing but a case of being a randy teenager.
Doubt began to cloud his thoughts as he wondered. That couldn’t be true, right? What had just happened proved that the claim was affecting her. After all, he was only acting on instinctual feelings of lust that any beautiful woman would arouse in a vampire. But her, she was afraid of him. She had a virtual fit trying to wipe his first kiss from her skin. That had to mean something. It was more than just her hormones. It’s not as if teenagers just fell into his ar – shit!
In Angelus’ time as a vampire he had often found that the best targets were indeed teenage girls. Full of suppressed desires and unfulfilled needs they were painfully easy to whip into a frenzy of lust which almost always ended in their deaths. Why would Cordelia be any different? The fact that her first coherent thoughts were of the moron made it abundantly clear that she was in no way feeling his mastery of her.
Still, it enraged him that she would mention that half-wits name while his mark was even now pulsating on her neck. He wasn’t sure if the growls escaping him now were frustration at their unfinished business, anger at her continued denials of his ownership, or possessiveness of the girl herself. His best bet would be a mixture of all three.
Cordelia had no idea what was causing the grr face to make a reappearance or the rumbling to increase, but she was willing to bet it had something to do with Xander. If she had an inner demon Xander would certainly be the thing that triggered it. He definitely had no problems triggering her inner bitch.
As she observed the fury on Angelus’ face rapidly growing, Cordelia began to fear for her life. Hoping to put a damper on any thoughts of that sort she untangled her hands from his shirt and began to smooth out the wrinkles.
“You seem a little…upset. Not really understandable since you’ve recently been fed, and let’s face it, gropin’ me, not exactly a hardship. Still, in light of your anger issues I think I should point out that if you eat me you won’t have anyone to take to dinner.”
Thrusting a long finger towards himself, golden eyes met hazel as he darkly informed her of an apparently forgotten reality. “Vampire, sweetheart. I can eat you and still take you to dinner.”
Cordelia paled at the not so subtle reminder that being turned was always a possibility when in his company, but she repressed her fear, rallying to cast him a raised brow look.
“Maybe, but we wouldn’t make it to dinner tonight, would we?”
Angelus studied the brunette before him. He could smell her buried fear which was a direct contrast to her outward self-assurance. That contrast, like many things he’d found about her was exhilarating and his game face faded as laughter replaced his growls.
Grasping her wrist, Angelus began pulling her out of the dressing room. “Come on; let’s get this show on the road.”
And Cordelia, who was still trying to get used to seeing Angel’s face covered in happiness of any kind, could do nothing but follow.
