Part 14
Newberry Cemetery
Later that night
Cordelia shuffled her feet against the damp grass, as she made her way through the surrounding headstones. She was still wearing her cheerleading outfit from earlier. After school had gotten out, all she wanted to do was take off. She’d figured the outfit was all smelly from practice, so why change for the sake of slaying. Better one funky outfit than two.
After today’s slayer versus slayer fiasco and seeing her tweeked grandfather, a night out slaying was just what she needed. Seeing Daniel Bellaver for the first time in ten years had unleashed a rage inside her that was boiling. Her only wish was that somehow he was a demon or would become one so she could kill him.
Thinking about him was fogging up her instincts. She could sense there was a least one vampire in close vicinity around her. Clutching her stake, Cordelia tensed her muscles in apprehension.
Whipping her head around, her high ponytail flying, she tried to home in on it’s location. “Stop checking me out and come out, vampy. I’ve had a bad day and I don’t feel like hunting your ass!”
Just as she was about to cut around one of the mausoleums, Angel stepped from the side, directly in front of her.
“Whoa, damn!” Her senses had been totally primed, ready to attack a vampire. And her slayer-sense had not failed her. She just wished it had been another kind of vampire. The soulless kind. “You so almost got wasted! What the hell are you doing out here?!”
Angel clenched his jaw as he dragged his eyes over her form. He’d never seen her slay in her cheerleading attire. There was something so incredibly innocent, but sexy, seeing her with that on. The stake in her hand only added to her dangerous allure. “Uh, sorry. I was just- um- looking for Buffy.”
“She takes over the north side of town,” Cordelia rolled her eyes in annoyance, as she maneuvered around him, carefully trying not to touch him. “It was part of our agreement, remember? She takes the north, I take the south side.” A few months ago, Cordelia had made the suggestion about dividing the cemeteries between the two of them. It was a perfect arrangement. Cordelia slayed- alone, while Buffy & Co. slayed in groups. Occasionally, Willow would join in Cordelia’s fray, but Buffy always made it silently clear that she didn’t want her friends anywhere near the other Slayer.
Giving an exasperated sigh, Angel decided to drop the pretenses. “Actually, I was coming to find you, not her. I heard about what happened today at school from Giles. You okay?”
“Yup.”
He could tell she was lying and it pissed him off. “Why can’t you open up to me?” For months, ever since the final battle with the Anointed One, she’d been pushing him farther and farther away. It was driving him nuts, especially since he didn’t know why she was doing it.
“What are you going to be? My diary?” Cordelia scoffed, with a nasty sneer. She pivoted around and began to move away from him. Walk away, walk away, she silently chanted, hoping he would do just that. She couldn’t be close to him, not now!
“No,” he shouted out, moving with his vampiric speed. Angel reached out and grabbed her wrist, spinning her back to face him. “You are not walking away from me this time, Cordelia. We’re going to talk. Now!”
Wrenching her arm back, she took a step back away from him. She really didn’t like the look in his dark eyes. They seemed be trying to bore into her soul. Cordelia could tell by the chip in his voice that he wasn’t going to let her go without a fight. And that was out of the question. She didn’t want any physical contact between them! She didn’t think she could bear it.
“Fine. Talk.”
Angel took a step toward her, trying not to growl as she instinctively backed away. He hated this. Hated that she kept avoiding him. “I want to know what happened today. From your point of view.”
“Buffy got mad that my granddaddy is part of the Watcher’s Council and I never told her. She made a big fuss and got knocked on her ass for it,” She crossed her arms, glaring up at him. “Sorry I decked your girlfriend, so can I go now? I’ve got things I need to do.”
“The only thing you need to do right now, Cordelia, is to stay here and talk to me,” Giving her a wicked sneer, he again invaded her space by stepping forward. “Unless you wanna go back to my apartment and take this up there?” Angel secretly smiled to himself. Her back was to the mausoleum, as she kept moving away from him, she was unconsciously cornering herself for him.
His apartment would be the only place he could take her at the Merchant Building. She’d never invited him into her penthouse there. “And what would dear, sweet Buffy have to say about that one? I’m sure she’d love finding me in your apartment.” Her eyes lit up in merriment. “On second thought- yeah! Let’s go there. There’s always fun to be had in that category.”
Shaking his head at her, Angel couldn’t believe how she was acting. “Why are being like this?”
“Just being the person everyone thinks I am, vampire. A cold hearted bitch.”
“Nobody thinks that.”
Cordelia laughed, “Your girlfriend does. So apparently, whatever Buffy thinks is true for what everyone else thinks.” Tucking a stray hair behind her ear, Cordelia tried again to will Angel away. “I really don’t have time for this, okay? Why don’t you go to the north side of town and leave me alone! I’ve got my own Watcher now, so none of you have to deal with me anymore. So go!”
“I’m not going anywhere, Cordelia,” he whispered, inching closer to her again. This time he let a smile catch his lips, when he saw the realization on her face that she was now cornered by him. She was pressed up against the wall and she knew there was no way around him. He’d stop her every move.
“Leave.” She clenched her hand tightly around her stake.
The movement did not go unnoticed by Angel. “You gonna stake me?”
“If I have to, yes.”
Calling her bluff, Angel ripped open his dark red shirt to expose his chest. “Go ahead. You want it so badly, just do it.” Opening his arms wide, he offered himself to her.
Cordelia’s heart was beating so hard she felt as if it would burst from her chest. She knew he could hear it too.
“Come on, Cordelia. Give in.” Angel pressed even closer to her, letting his arms drop. “You want to destroy everything around you, then start with me.”
“I don’t want to start anything with you!” Feeling the cold wall against her back was a slight comfort to the heat that was beginning to spread through her body. This is why I can’t open up to you, she silently confessed to him. Every time she was around him, she could feel- almost see, that connection between them grow inevitably stronger. She felt consumed by it.
Angel could almost taste the desire that was seeping out of her. It matched his tenfold. “Don’t you? Say my name, Cordelia.”
“What?!”
Letting a grin come on his face, not unlike that of Angelus, Angel moved impossibly closer to the girl that haunted his dreams. “I want you to say my name. I haven’t heard you say it all night. In fact- I haven’t heard my name on your lips in weeks.” Hearing the rapid sound of her heart, seeing her flushed face- she’d already confessed to him with her body as to why she was avoiding him.
“All right,” Her smile just as calculating as his. “Liam.”
Angel blinked at her incredulously. She was deliberately provoking him, testing how far he bring himself. Her beautifully classic face was turned up to his, and she wasn’t batting a lash.
It had become too much for him. All the way back to that first taste of her blood after she’d slayed the Master, to seeing her come back from Japan. Those brief, yet wonderfully welcoming days when she had returned to Sunnydale and they were becoming friends. Then those months that she had receded from him completely, almost shunning him.
Releasing a growl of pent up anger and desire, Angel violently grabbed her by her upper arms, bringing her against his chest. Ignoring her gasp of alarm, he took the opportunity to assault her glossy parted lips.
Trying to pull herself away from him, Cordelia soon felt lost when he slid tongue past her lips, roughly caressing her tongue. Cordelia groaned when he locked her arms behind her back, her wrists held together by a large hand. Absently, she notice that her stake dropped from her limp fingers to the damp grass below.
Using his free left hand, Angel slid his fingers long the side of her waist and up toward her right breast. All the while not letting up on his kiss, if anything deepening it. Feeling her body lax to him in surrender sent another growl rumbling from his chest. She tasted like everything he’d imagined she would. She was his! This cemented it.
Cordelia gasped in his mouth, as she felt his hand skim over breast, pressing into it’s fullness. There was a silent alarm sounding in the back of her mind, as Angel sealed himself against her. He knew exactly how to kiss her, his blunt teeth nipping her lips, then crushing her mouth open to dual with her tongue. This was what if felt like to be truly alive. Her body hummed with it.
Angel had to get closer. Releasing her arms, Angel kept kissing, moving his hands down to her hips. Grinning to himself, when her heard her cry out, as he lifted her up. Slamming her against the mausoleum wall, Angel groaned when she gripped his waist with her long legs. Cordelia wrapped her arms around his neck, trying not to cry out when his hands traveled from her hips to explore underneath her cheerleading skirt.
This was too much too fast. Much too fast. Mustering all the inner strength she had left, Cordelia wrenched her mouth away from his, bracing her palms against his shoulders and pushed with all her might.
Completely taken aback by her sudden burst of strength, Angel fell back on the ground, Cordelia slumped out of his grip onto her knees. Still in the tides of passion, Angel looked at her with heavy lidded eyes. She was crouched before him, her chest heaving as she fought for control of her turbulent emotions.
“Do- don’t do that again!” She stammered, not taking her hazel eyes of his. Her hand searching the ground for her stake. Finding it, she surged to her feet on shaky legs. “Or I will stake you.”
Still not moving from where she’d shoved him to the ground, Angel narrowed his eyes at her. “This is far from over, Cordelia. It will never be over!” Now that he had tasted her, felt his desire for her- he knew now this could never end. “All this time you’ve been avoiding me- It’s because you’re in love with me. Don’t deny it!”
“No,” she whispered. “I don’t love you. I can’t love you!” Her anguished scream echoed through the cemetery. “God, just stay away from me, please!”
Angel shook his head, leaping to his feet before her. “Never. You belong to me!” He moved again, so fast she barely had time to raise her hands to him. Grabbing her wrist, he snatched the stake out of her hand, throwing it over his shoulder. “No matter who comes into your life, you’ll always belong to me, Cordelia!”
Cordelia kicked out, her tennis shoe slamming into his knee cap. Feeling his grip slack, she pulled away and began to run. Pausing by a headstone, she turned around, “This has to stop here and now, Angel! I know- I feel it in my gut that this- us will end badly if you don’t leave me the hell alone!” Seeing him slowly shake his head at her words, Cordelia felt tears well in her eyes. “Stay away from me or I will leave town. For good!”
Turning on her heal, not waiting for him to reply, Cordelia sprinted out of the cemetery as if the devil himself were on her heals.
Straightening his shirt, Angel allowed her to run from him. This time.
“Next time,” he whispered to her retreating figure. “You won’t be able to run from me. And there’s nowhere in this world that I won’t be able to find you.” Deciding it was best not to hook up with Buffy and her crew this evening, Angel opted for a much needed drink in town. He rapidly headed that way, his only thoughts were of Cordelia
Too consumed with their passion, neither vampire nor slayer had noticed they had had an audience. Daniel Bellaver and Vinessa Chandler had seen and heard the whole spectacle. Emerging from the shadows, Daniel grinned at his beautiful charge.
“When I leave, Vinessa, you know what you must do?”
Bringing her blue-green eyes to meet his, she obediently nodded. Vinessa finally saw when she looked up at the head Watcher, that Cordelia had his hazel eyes. Of course, she didn’t have the evil that lay within the depths that Daniel Bellaver had. “Yes, sir. I know exactly what to do.”