Chapter Nineteen

While William's fighting preference ran to fist and fang, he understood the value of versatility. Angelus had dragged him from bed to spar. While they were sleeping, Willow had gotten all tangled up in him. There was a red place on her shoulder from where he had been mouthing her skin while he slept and his hands still carried the warmth and scent of her body. She clutched at him when she felt him pulled from her, inadvertently leaving a long scratch on his hip.

Angelus had one arm around his waist, pulling him back against his body. Instinctively, William stiffened. Still annoyed with Dru, he was in no mood for Angelus' games. His grandsire's fingers stroked his bare thigh, raising his fingers to his lips. The scent of Willow's arousal reached him. She had been pressed up against his thigh, her cunt warm and wet against him. His morning erection had deflated a bit when Angelus had started rubbing himself against his ass. It jerked back to life at the familiar scent.

Angelus chuckled in his ear. “God, you are so easy,” he said with fond contempt.

“Sod off,” William retorted. It sounded weak to his own ears. He twisted out of Angelus' grasp and pulled the sheet and blanket up over Willow, who was sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. He adjusted the pillow under her head. When Angelus reached for him again, he eluded his grasp, leaving the bed.

Angelus sat on the unoccupied side, near the door, watching as William looked around for his clothes, most of which had been discarded in Dru's room. He found his trousers and pulled them on, one leg at a time, buttoning the fly over his erection. His eyes narrowed a bit when Angelus picked up a long, curling lock of Willow's hair.

“What do you want?” he asked, distracting himself by examining the scratch that was visible above the waistband of his trousers. It was already starting to fade.

Angelus rubbed the lock of hair between his fingers. “It's a long list,” he said with a grin. “I wanted to spar, but I'd settle for chaining you up and fucking you until your pet wakes up.”

That was supposed to be insulting. Angelus had a finely developed sense of protocol when it came to his audience. Bending him over and buggering him in front of a minion was nothing less than a punishment, and Willow was less than a minion. William found himself scrutinizing Angelus. Or maybe not.

“It's probably not wise to suggest that the route to getting a little respect around here is staking vampires,” William told him. “Seeing as how we are vampires. Though, when it comes to method, you might be on to something because she might just think that it's more about you being a scary, sadistic bastard. She doesn't think the way we do.”

Angelus smiled at that. He kissed the lock of hair he was playing with, and rose from the bed. “Thinks I'm a scary, sadistic bastard, does she?” he looked pleased.

They came up the back stairs with Dru between them, one arm around Angelus neck, one hand tangled in William's hair. Their hands clasped under her thighs, forming a seat for her. Dru hopped out of the cradle of their arms, sinuously winding herself around Angelus. She blew William a coy kiss. He almost rolled his eyes, but managed to refrain, catching the kiss instead. “My William still loves Princess best,” she cooed.

“That is never in doubt,” William told her.

Angelus did roll his eyes. He gave Dru a sharp slap on her ass that made her eyes narrow and her nostrils flare delicately as she absorbed his scent. “Make yourself useful, Drusilla, or go back to your room.”

There was never any doubt since Dru was there, but that they would work with weapons. They were using the long, narrow third floor attic space. The small windows were shuttered outside, letting in slivers of light. The attic was the largest unbroken space in the house. Angelus had arranged trunks, packing crates, and unused furniture to create obstacles.

Angelus tossed him a staff, a slim, balanced length of wood polished smooth. William caught it one handed and twirled it, testing the balance. Angelus picked up its mate. He was starting slow today. Sometimes he sparred weaponless, which made it more of a challenge for William to fend him off and hold onto the weapon. Sometimes he chose a different weapon, so it was staff versus sword or knives.

Dressed in no more than his trousers, William sized up the advantages that he had already conceded. He was bare footed and Angelus was not. Being barefooted on the wood floor would improve his traction, he would be more agile. The splashes of sunlight on the floor were going to burn like hell if he didn't manage to avoid them. He deliberately placed his foot in one now as Angelus circled him just to make sure that Angelus knew that he knew and wasn't going to be distracted by that.

At a greater distance, Drusilla was circling them. She could enter the fight at any moment, on any side, just to liven things up a bit. The minions were about, set to mastering basic fighting skills, an aspect of their training that had been given indifferent attention.

He was ready. When Angelus came at him, he countered. The sharp sound of wood cracking together in staccato bursts over the sound of shod and bare feet moving over creaking floors punctuated the fight. It was impossible to ignore. The speed, precision of movement, the viciousness of the fight, was riveting. Drusilla's capricious role in it was perfect. She make no effort to balance the fight. William was smaller and faster. Angelus was bigger, and stronger. She was as likely to go after whoever appeared to be loosing as not, and female shaped and beloved, she was simply another combatant. There was no pulling of punches.

For Lucius, the battle was also instructive. Ever since William chained him up, he had thought about killing him. Actually, he'd thought about killing Willow and then killing William before he could retaliate. Now he realized that it wouldn't be as easy as that.



Willow woke up at midday without a headache or any lingering ill effects from her use of magic. Partially, this was because she was more careful, but mostly it was because of what Dru did to her. She remembered all of it, from the sheer relaxation, the wonderful, heavy feeling of sinking into the feather mattress to the taste of blood in her mouth. She remembered what Drusilla showed her, and thinking about it made her want to fall back into the deep, dreamless sleep she had emerged from. That, or seek another kind of oblivion.

She was alone in her bed and her room, a circumstance that had become less and less common of late. The privilege of having her own room and a semblance of privacy was relatively new. She scooted back against the pillows behind her head, scrunching them up behind her neck and shoulders. Her nose wrinkled at the smells coming from the disturbed bedding. She needed a bath, and longed for a shower. A nice hot shower under the pressurized jet of a showerhead. Closing her eyes, she got a quick mental picture of herself, naked, in a driving rain, which was probably as close to a real shower as she was likely to get anytime soon.

Shaking the image off, she opened her eyes again, taking in the changes that had been made to her room. There was the new chaise in the corner, unused as yet. The dress from last night, the one that was too bloodstained to be worn again, was lying in a crumpled heap on the ground near her dressing table. She had been too tired to take it off when she came to bed. She remembered Dru helping her take it off later.

She bent her knees, her feet flat on the mattress and lifted the sheet, making a kind of tent over her body as she looked down at herself. There were reddened marks on her stomach from Dru's fingernails. She ran her hand over them, feeling the slight sting and an itchy sensation. Her hand moved on, over the curls that concealed her, feeling the crunchy residue of mingled bodily fluids as well as the dampness that was new.

She was certain that she had fallen asleep in Drusilla's room, which meant that William had brought her back to her bed. She turned her head, studying the arrangement of pillows to her right and the disordered linens before searching her own mind for impressions. He had brought her back to her bed and stayed with her.

If William were here now, she would have wanted to . . . she closed her eyes again, wincing a little. It would be comforting to think that it was all Drusilla, using her, manipulating her into using her magic to hold him down, to make him still for her, to make him at her mercy. The thought of it made her press her fingers against her own flesh, made her open her legs wider as she slid two fingers inside herself. Drusilla had shown her what she might become, what she was becoming, and the only thing that frightened her now was the idea that it wasn't as horrifying as she knew it should be.

She had seen herself, felt herself to be, a soulless and unprincipled thing, with the will to take what she wanted, and it felt like she was free.



When William returned to her room he found it empty and ordered. Just standing inside the door he was able to process several things. She had bathed, changed the sheets on the bed, and dressed, but she had not lingered long in the room. His gaze drifted downward as he stretched his perceptions beyond the room, seeking the sounds and scents associated with her. Failing to find them, his jaw clenched. If she had defied him by taking that stupid dog out to walk, they were going to re-visit certain lessons that she should have heeded.

He discovered that she had gone no further than the garden. With the sun slanting down on that side of the house, he couldn't see her without exposing himself to direct sunlight, but he knew she was out there and he waited for her in the kitchen. She came in, following the dog. In the moment before she shut the door behind her, she was framed in sunlight, pink cheeked, a sheen of sweat turning her skin dewy, the light dazzling the red and gold tones of her hair. It was the view that he had been cheated of due to the closed shutters.

It was the view he was cheated of due to the differences that would always define them.

He had dreams of her in the sunlight, just beyond reach, refusing to acknowledge his presence in that way that she had, with just the slightest hint of unease and stubbornness to suggest that she knew what he expected. He started to smile when he saw her doing it now as she pushed the bolt in and fumbled with the floor bolt that was a little trickier to manage. There was just enough tension in her shoulders to tell him that she knew he was there in the shadowy depths of the kitchen, but that she wasn't quite ready to acknowledge him.

She turned, shading her eyes, not from the light, but from the darkness in the shuttered kitchen. He hadn't bothered to turn up the gaslights that hung in copper hooded globes in two rows from the ceiling. The change from sunlight to darkness left her night blind, but she knew he was there, waiting and watching. He could tell it from her heartbeat.

The dog was scampering about, whining, his tongue hanging out, wanting water or food, providing a distraction. Blinking, she cautiously made her way to the sink. When she opened the cabinet to find a dish for water, she looked at him directly, over her raised upper arm. It was a brief look, and then she was fumbling for a bowl, setting it on the counter. She started priming the pump. He watched, his gaze lingering on her breasts as they moved with the up and down motion of her arm. The dress she was wearing was something new. It was a lightweight mint green silk embossed with tiny flowers. The low neckline and puff sleeves left her arms, neck and chest to the swell of her small breasts bare. Her skin was pink with sunburn. She had left her hair down, falling to her waist, held off her face by a ribbon that gathered the length at the nape of her neck, that was now hanging slightly askew.

She filled the bowl and stooped to set it on the floor at her feet. Mr. Buttons rushed forward, noisily lapping up the water. “It warmed up today,” she observed. “It finally feels like spring.”

That observation reminded him of his midnight picnic, aborted several nights ago. He made a mental note to himself to work it in if the weather held. “Are you feeling better?” he asked.

She retrieved a glass and filled it with water from the pump. “I'm fine,” she said.

He studied her face in profile as she sipped her water, wondering if she was that thirsty or if it was simply a way to put off talking to him. He thought that it was probably a bit of both. He picked up one of the knives in a block on the work bench, setting the point in a groove in the wood and spinning the knife by the grip. “You are fine,” he repeated, injecting skepticism. “Can't hardly look at me, but other than that . . .”

She finished drinking her water and set the glass on the counter. “I can't really see much more than spots,” she said in her extra reasonable voice.

“Dru had no right to do that to you,” he told her.

Puzzled by his tone, Willow frowned. Did he think that she was angry? Unnerved, yes. Angry? She was careful about what she let herself get angry about. Anger was not an emotion that she could easily afford, and it was Drusilla. In her own weird way, she meant to be helpful.

“What do mean?” she asked. “What did Dru do to me that . . .” she smiled wryly, “is anything worse than anything else?”

He paused in his knife twirling operation. “Thrall,” he said flatly. “She was mucking around with your mind.”

Willow nodded. “Right. And that's . . . cheating? Or taking advantage? Or forcing me to do something I don't want to do, which would be such a huge change of pace that I can see why you are disturbed on my behalf.”

He frowned at her. “Don't know if I care for the new penchant for sarcasm, pet,” he drawled.

Mr. Buttons butted his head up against her ankle with a sharp little bark. She retrieved the now empty bowl and refilled it for him, sitting on her heels to scratch behind his ears as he lapped the water more slowly now that the immediacy of his thirst had been sated. She had found a small wooden ball to throw for him, a game that he took to with great enthusiasm while they lingered in the barren garden. The spur of the moment request for a dog had mostly been meant to placate Dru, but Willow had never had a pet, save for some goldfish and Amy, and she refused to think of Amy as a pet. She had grown fond of Mr. Buttons, despite some of his more annoying behaviors.

She had no idea how to answer, so for once, she kept her mouth shut, resisting the impulse to fill the uncomfortable silence. What could she say? I didn't mind it so much, myself? In fact, when I woke up this morning, I lay in bed and masturbated while I fantasized about riding your cock while you lay motionless under me, vamping out, and that the idea of fucking you, of making you feel a tenth of the frustration and helplessness and lust that is my lot, was so powerful that it made me come?

Those thoughts were hers alone. She had no intention of sharing them, and not just because they made her feel slightly uncomfortable, but because . . . there were things that she would never tell him. No matter what he claimed he felt about her, he hadn't earned her trust, or her loyalty.

He had them, whether he knew it or not, but he had never earned it.

No matter what she suspected she felt for him, there was just enough resentment, just enough awareness of how wrong it was, to keep her from ever making it more than a curious aspect of the unreal world. The darkness inside of her was no longer alien or circumstantial. It had always been there. It was, in part, what had allowed her to survive more or less intact. It was the cold fist that held onto everything that had ever meant anything to her. It was the thing that kept her from telling him everything, even though she suspected that his innate skepticism would prevent him from lending any credence to her story.

“It's not new,” she said as she rose. Her penchant for sarcasm as he called it wasn't anything new.

He could feel them edging towards something that would probably end badly for her. She was in a peculiar mood, and had been for the last day he realized, thinking back on their conversation yesterday, when she woke up. He thought that she was testing boundaries that would always exist between them.

“I thought you wanted to make it last,” he challenged. “You told me you did, but you're just determined to provoke me, aren't you? Is that what you need? Do you need me to be your bloody cross to bear? Can't admit that you want me, that you need me, that you give yourself to a monster and that you love it,” his voice was cold. “Do you need me to make it easier for you to pretend that you don't have a choice? Is that why you aren't angry about what Dru did to you?”

She had been expecting something like this, and here they were, back in the kitchen, where their most recent and most peculiar argument had taken place. She had not expected his strangely benign mood to last. Thinking back to the evening under the bridge, she had an inkling of how she could head it off. Testing her theory, she made herself approach him. He was standing at the workbench, his hand clenching and unclenching around the haft of a long triangle shaped knife that terminated in a sharp point. She laid her hand on his, her fingertips resting lightly on his wrist.

He went absolutely still and she took a step closer and then another, until they were nearly touching, until she could have kissed him easily by rising on her toes and pressing her mouth to his. She might have done exactly that, but his head moved in a deliberate way, ducking as his eyes sought hers. She had seen him do this with Dru countless times. Their eyes would meet and they would share a look full of secrets, savoring a silent communion that no one else was part of. The look he gave her wasn't the same look he gave Dru. It was slightly amused, as if he recognized what she was doing and was willing to concede that it would probably work.

She frowned at him, wondering if he had just manipulated her into a kind of capitulation. His free hand came up, his fingertips resting lightly on her skin from temple to jaw. His nose brushed against the puckered space between her eyebrows. He kissed the tip of her nose. “Sure you don't want to fight?” he asked, his voice low and husky. His breath gusted against her skin as he laughed softly. “Oooh. Made you mad, did I? Can't hide it, love. Your eyes give you away,” he tilted his head, chasing her lips when she started to pull back away from him. He turned his body just enough to keep her there, between him and the workbench that was at her side. “Thought you wanted to kiss me?”

“Not so much anymore,” she shot back, feeling slightly foolish for being drawn in by his show of annoyance.

His fingers traced the outer edge of her ear and tested the heat in her sunburned cheek. The contrasting coolness of his skin was almost welcome. She couldn't avoid his gaze, in fact, she was determined to hold it now that she could feel her nipples contracting as his fingers stroked her cheek, her ear, and her bare neck down to the scabbed over bite mark. If he looked down, if he made a single, stupid crack about her body's reaction . . .

He turned serious. “I didn't like it,” he said. “Felt like you weren't there,” he admitted. He knew a little about how Dru's gift worked. She didn't put anything in anyone's head, she just tugged out what was already there. The idea that Willow could see herself forcing him to submit to her wasn't unappealing. It was the feeling that she wasn't all there that bothered him so much. It was the fact that he had been cheated of finding that aspect of her on his own. Dru had served her up on a silver platter, and lovely gift that it was, it wasn't given.

His hand drifted down, tracing her clavicle, his fingertips following her breastbone, feeling the heat coming off her reddened skin. His fingers dipped into the vale of her breasts above the low neckline that displayed the tops of her small breasts. “This is pretty,” he commented on the dress. His hand itched to palm her breast, but he held off. “Are you still interested in the supper cruise on the river? We could do that tonight. Fancy it, pet?”

“Are we bait?” she wondered. The coolness of his hand against her sunburn was making her feel shivery.

He smiled at her. “Clever girl,” his tone was warmly amused, even approving. “Not so much as Lucius will be, all alone on the quay, waiting for us with the carriage while we dine and dance,” he took her upper lip between his, closing his eyes as his tongue stroked it, tracing the crisp bow of her lip. “You are so warm,” he murmured. Her lips tasted faintly of apple. Apples were out of season. Where had that come from? He let go of the knife and twisted his wrist to capture her hand, twining his fingers through hers before he moved their joined hands to the small of her back.

He turned his head, lips slanting over hers, seeking more of the sweetness lingering in her mouth. Breaking off the kiss abruptly, he licked his lips, savoring the small taste. “Want you, now,” he whispered as her eyes opened and widened.

She was so easy to read. Not at all averse to the wanting, but alarmed about the setting, where anyone could walk in on them. He gave her a little push, releasing her hand, bending his head to kiss her throat. “Go to your room,” he ordered huskily. “I'll be up in a minute, and I'd better find you there,” his tongue stroked his scabbed over bite mark. “With your skirt up around your hips and your hand between your legs, making yourself ready for me.”

She made a small sound in the back of her throat that he took for assent. “Go on,” he urged, giving her another nudge when she seemed unlikely to tear herself away from his attention to her neck.

She left the kitchen and went up the stairs, not really seeing anything. Inside her bedroom, she kicked off her kidskin slippers. She had made up the bed earlier with fresh linens, and stared at it now, feeling a trickle of damp heat between her legs. Her heart was pounding. Underneath her dress, she was wearing a shift and a pair of the voluminous underpants that covered her down past the top of her stockings. Not wanting to wrinkle the dress, she took it off, and the underpants, but left the shift and her stockings on and then got in bed, feeling the velvet counterpane against the backs of her thighs. She lifted up to pull the shift up to her waist and settled back down, feeling the velvet against her bare ass.

The lightweight shift was sheer enough that she could see her nipples clearly outlined against the thin fabric. Shuddering at the mental image William's instructions had left in her mind, she bent her knees, letting her thighs fall open and ran her fingertips lightly over the lips of her cunt, spreading them apart. Her middle finger followed, delving into the slick space between her legs, moving up to rub her clit until she was panting.

She traced the opening of her body with her fingertips, eyes closing as she imagined the sensation that she was denying herself, wondering what was taking him so long.

She barely registered the sound of the bedroom door opening and closing. “Keep your eyes closed,” he warned.

Willow bit her lower lip. He moved so quietly. It was impossible to tell where he was in the room. When she felt his hands on the inside of her knees, pushing her legs further apart, a low moan wept from her throat and her hips rose as she wantonly rubbed herself against the caress of her own fingers.

“I love watching you finger yourself,” he murmured. “My pretty little whore, such a naughty girl, you are, sweet. Slide those pretty fingers into your wet cunt, love. I want to watch you get yourself ready for my cock.”

She slid two fingers into her channel, rubbing the heal of her hand against her clit while he stroked her stocking covered legs.

“Did I tell you to take off your dress?” he asked in a deceptively mild tone.

Willow's shoulders pushed back into the pillows behind her as she arched her back.

His hands squeezed her thighs, hard enough to get her attention. “Did I tell you to take off your dress?” he repeated the question.

“No,” she moaned.

“That's right,” he agreed. “Roll over, baby,” he whispered. “Keep your knees bent. I want your sweet little bum wriggling in front of me while you fuck yourself.”

She rolled over, feeling the velvet gently abrade her sunburned face. His hands on the backs of her thighs kept her legs spread open, and then they moved up to squeeze her ass, separating the globes. He rubbed his cheek against her ass and then pushed her up, higher, his cool tongue licking her fingers as they emerged from her cunt, making her push back against him.

“You taste sun ripened, peach,” he told her huskily. “My sweet sun ripened girl with her juicy cunt flowing all over me. I want to taste that. Eat it all up.”

His hand landed sharply on her ass, making her cry out at the sudden sting.

“Music, love. All of your pretty sounds,” he licked the backs of her fingers again, the tip of his tongue gliding over the narrow bridge of flesh separating her vagina and anus. His hand cracked down on her ass again as he rimmed her tightly puckered anus. “Like to put my cock up you,” he said. “Fuck you so hard,” he growled, feeling her shudder. His hand came down on her ass again. Her skin was pinkening from the spanking.

She felt the wool of his trousers against the backs of her legs as he freed himself. The wet head of his cock brushed against her hand as he hit her again, making her moan. His arms went under her thighs, circling around, his fingers locking together at the small of her back, pressing her back down as her hips were canted up at an awkward angle. His cock rubbed against her hand more insistently. She moaned as her fingers slid out of her to wrap around his cool, hard length.

He made a purring sound. “That's it, love. Take my cock and put it where you want. I want to feel you taking me inside you.”

She guided him inside of her, and he hissed at the heat of her, but he kept his thrust shallow, just teasing her with the head of his cock slipping in and out of her, his arms under her thighs keeping her from pushing back to increase the penetration.

“Didn't tell you to take off the dress, did I?” he taunted.

“No,” she gasped. “Will . . . oh, God, Will,” she wailed softly.

He licked her back above his joined hands, tasting the slight saltiness of her skin. The scalloped lacy hem of her shift had ridden up her back to pool at her shoulders. “Pinch your clit, baby. Not going to fuck you, yet,” he slid a little deeper inside of her, rewarded with a moan that sounded painful. “But, I'll let you come, and then I'm going to put you on your back and lick every drop of you up while I fuck your mouth.”

Her back arched and he thrust into her hard, burying himself in her as she came.

His fingers kneaded the small of her back, making soothing circles as he knelt over her in an almost prayerful posture, his tongue tracing her spine. His slightest movement sent little aftershocks of pleasure racing through her. Her forehead was pressed into the counterpane as she tried to catch her breath. She pressed the palm of her hand to her abdomen, avoiding her clitoris. Closing her eyes she concentrated on the way he felt inside of her.

She felt the vibration of his appreciative chuckle against her spine. “Love that, don't you? Feeling all full of cock?”

With a gusty sigh, Willow tried to blow part of her hair out of her face before giving up and squirming to free the arm trapped under her to push her hair out of the way. His vocabulary for sex, his total lack of inhibitions about talking about sex, usually enhanced the experience. She didn't really need the extra stimulation, and he was being obnoxious.

She turned her head to look at him. “Yes, you feel good, inside me,” she said, paying him back in kind with a patient, humor the vampire tone.

He unlaced his hands and sat up, laughing at her tone of voice as his hands slid over her hips and he eased his arms out from under her thighs. She might have moved then, but he kneaded the globes of her ass, effectively keeping her still. Then he withdrew from her body in a slow, deliberate way that made her suck in a quick breath. His hand landed on her ass again, followed by a kiss before he got off the bed and started taking off his clothes.

Willow rolled over, pushing her shift back down, watching him. His hair had gotten too long. He was careless about things like that. There was a bruise over his ribs on his right side and a healing bite mark on his throat that made her eyes widen a little. Feeling naked, she reached for the counterpane to turn it down.

“Don't,” he said, and then with a slightly annoyed expression, he amended, “Please don't.”

Please don't made it more of a request, except that it really wasn't a request. It was just a more polite way of saying ‘don't'. She shook her head. “On the subject of sorting out what is amusing and what is not, please don't,” she smiled when she found herself repeating the phrase, “confuse the issue by saying one thing when you mean something else.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You meant it when you said don't. Please don't is a request, except that in this case, it really isn't,” she pointed out. “It's confusing.”

He grunted. “You seem to have sorted it out,” he commented, walking back to the bed.

She eyed him warily. “Am I wrong?” She lifted the edge of the counterpane and flipped it over her body with the velvet side against her skin.

She wasn't wrong, and it annoyed him to realize it. Before he had come up, he had solved the mystery of the apple taste in her mouth. The Neri's had sent a fruit basket with a bread and butter thank you note acknowledging Darla and Angelus' hospitality. The fruit had been stored in the ice box. Pears wrapped in gold foil, smallish apples the color of honey, pale grapes, and a representation of the citrus family made up the basket. It probably cost a bloody fortune. He had retrieved a couple of the apples and a paring knife. He picked one up now and sliced into the fruit. A rivulet of clear apple juice wept into his palm and he licked it off.

“You like it,” he said, casting her a sideways look. “You like being in between the tension of having a choice and not having a choice,” he stated matter of factly, his lip curling. “Gets you off,” he told her, wondering if she would deny it. “I put my hand over your lips, or tell you to spread your legs, and,” he raised an eyebrow, “any of this sound familiar, love?”

He offered her the piece of apple that he had liberated. When she reached for it, he retracted it slightly, brushing her hand away, feeding it to her.

She took the piece of apple between her teeth and tugged it out of his fingers. She leaned back against the pillows. “I wonder where you get apples this time of the year,” she mused.

It was not a deliberate change of subject, or she would have betrayed herself by looking flustered or distracted instead of puzzled and curious.

“I don't know,” he shrugged, stretching out next to her. Willow stacked a pair of pillows for him to sprawl against and he kissed the corner of her mouth.

Holding the apple with one hand, he sliced into it again, freeing a wedge. He used the flat of the blade to offer it to her.

She took it between her fingers, holding it as she bit into the fruit, her tongue stealing out to swipe her lower lip. The apple was cold from the ice box. Recently re-stocked with ice, the ice box was extra cold, which wasn't so good for some things. The urn of milk in the ice box, for instance. Sometimes the solids in the milk formed clumps of sludgy ice when the ice box was too cold. Poured into hot coffee or tea, the rich butter fat milk tended to curdle if it was too cold. It was, however, perfect for chilling fresh fruit. The apple was tart, crisp, and nearly ice cold. It reminded her of after school snacks in the kitchen of Jesse's home, with Jesse and Xander, and Jesse's grandmother.

William watched her eat, her even, white teeth sheering into the apple, eyes almost closing as the taste of the apple was released. Her gaze lost focus as she got lost in some thought. He brought the apple to his mouth, wanting to taste what she was tasting. His teeth pierced the thin, tough skin and he broke off a piece in his mouth with a sharp sound, like ice calving.

Willow's head rolled back a little as she turned her head to the side to look at him. Her fingers, cool and sticky with apple juice, touched his face. Her expression became rueful. “You aren't like anyone in the whole world, are you?”

He squinted at her, wondering what she was talking about. “How's that?”

She gave a spare shake of her head, her thumbnail scraping lightly over the nearly invisible beard stubble that was coming through. Their eyes met for a moment, hers a paler green than he was accustomed to seeing, like sunlight coming through a shifting canopy of leaves. He could still smell sunlight on her overly warm skin, and he wanted more of it.

“More, please?” she requested politely.

Without giving up her eyes, he cut another wedge off the apple and gave it to her. He flicked the tip of the knife he was wielding against the counterpane she had pulled over herself, smiling lazily when she looked at him curiously.

“More, please?” he mocked.

She shrugged and he took that as assent, even as it occurred to him that he wasn't in the habit of asking for anything. She had been right about that. He sat up, pushing the counterpane off of her. She started to adjust her position as her half clothed body lost its cover. Under the counterpane, she had been lying with her legs slightly apart, one knee bent. Using the point of the knife against her thigh, he let the pressure of the sharp point make her still, watching her eyes for her reaction to the restraint.

Wariness crept into her expression. The point of the knife had not broken skin, it was just pressing in enough to create a slight dimple. He eased the tip off her skin, using it to flick the lacy, scalloped edge of the shift that had ridden up her thighs. She had stopped chewing to look at him, a tiny frown puckering her eyebrows. He loved that little frown, the way it made her look at him like he was a problem to figure out. He used the knife to tease the lightweight shift up her thighs, imagining the shivery whisper of the lace against her skin, imagining himself taking away that sensation with the firm pressure of his hands.

He looked down at the apple in the cup of his palm. There was a smooth, flat section of it. He brought it to her thigh, sliding the fruit over her skin.

Startled by the cold, damp flesh of the apple against her skin, Willow sucked in a breath full of half masticated apple. Her throat protested, and she rocked forward, her head nearly colliding with William's as she tried to cough out the apple she had inhaled.

He caught her, stroking her back as she coughed into her hand. A half strangled moan of mortification emerged, and he smiled, smoothing her hair back. “Are you all right?” he asked, trying not to laugh.

She nodded against his shoulder as he lifted her hair off the back of her neck. “Poor pet,” he murmured, breathing in the sun warmed scent of her hair. Her forehead was pressed lightly against his shoulder. “You are so warm,” he marveled. “Your skin is so hot. Doesn't it hurt?”

“Not yet,” she admitted. “Maybe later.”

She coughed again, less violently this time, ducking her head to swallow to clear her throat. William felt her hands rest lightly on his ribs, and marveled at the sensation. She was just touching him, with no particular intent, and he could feel the warm pads of eight fingers, two thumbs, spread over his ribs. The warmth of her body, different kinds of warmth, from the trapped heat of sunlight in the hair under his cheek and the heat of her slightly sunburned skin, to the warmth she radiated, all so close. When she coughed the last time, her fingers had tightened on him briefly, and after she swallowed to clear her throat, her breath gusted against his chest as she got her breathing under control.

He still had the apple in the cup of his palm, and the knife between his fingers, leaving him with just the one hand to skim her back and her hair. Her hands moved, brushing his skin, withdrawing to his disappointment, only to return to rest lightly on his thighs, as if she meant to use that for leverage to straighten. She went still again when he rubbed his cheek against the silk of her hair, and then the back of her hand brushed his cock, making his erection jerk against her hand. It was his turn to suck in a surprised breath as her hands feathered up the inside of his thighs. An approving sound rumbled in his throat when her warm hands cupped his balls, her thumb rubbing the base of his cock.

She started to lift her head, or so he thought, and changed her mind, settling against him, her lips sticky and warm against his collarbone. Her fingers explored him with maddening delicacy. It made him want to grab her hand and show her how he wanted to be touched as if they had never done this before.

Her ‘friend', Jane, had tried to talk him into a hand job because she was new at the trade and needed to learn something that required skill. That had not been as great a lie as he imagined when they were haggling. Almost everything she knew about hand jobs and sucking cock had been something he had taught her, and none of it was in evidence right now as she touched him not for his pleasure, which after eight years, was well defined territory, but out of her interest in touching him. She was touching him like she wasn't quite sure what she was doing, or that he would like it, and when her hand closed around him awkwardly, her wrist locking because she had a bad angle, he let his head fall back and pushed himself into her hand.

She licked the skin her lips had been working, and lifted her head, looking at him. Her head tilted to one side, and he answered the question in her eyes with a crooked smile. “Do anything you want,” he invited.

“I thought I was,” she retorted, one hand moving to his lips as he made himself more comfortable by bracing one arm against the mattress behind him. It meant giving up touching her since he still had the apple and the knife in his other hand, and that really didn't suit him at all, so he started to sit up with nothing more in mind than disposing of the apple and knife, leaving them on the bedside table, that was otherwise out of reach.

She pressed her fingers against his lips to stop him, and he obliged, opening his mouth to invite her fingers inside. She watched, seemingly fascinated, as his lips closed around two of her fingers, his tongue stroking them. He pushed against her hand again to remind her that she was holding his cock, and her thumb brushed over the head, pushing the foreskin back, wetting her thumb on the evidence of his arousal that was transferred to his shaft as her hand moved in a familiar up and down motion.

She looked down at him as he sucked on her fingers, drawing them deeper into his mouth in a suggestive way, then back up, making a study of him. Her eyes lingered on his chest, and she glanced over at the apple he still held.

He dropped the knife, and offered it to her, feeling like he was cast in a role reversal that went back to the beginning of time. Tempting her to taste the fruit of knowledge. His grip on the apple had tightened unknowingly and when he lifted his hand, apple juice that had pooled in his palm from the slightly crushed fruit ran down his wrist. She caught it on the tip of her tongue, tracing its path to his palm and it was all he could do to keep from crushing the remains of the apple in his hand as he closed his eyes, absorbing the cat-like stroke of her tongue on his skin.

She nibbled on the apple, long eyelashes sweeping down to veil her eyes as his opened to watch her.

She lifted her head, comparing the delicate, radiant whiteness of the flesh of the apple to his skin. She licked the base of his thumb experimentally, wondering if the dampness that lingered there would shimmer the same way the juices that oozed in miniscule quantities from the broken cells of the fruit did. She felt him watching her, and wondered what he was thinking. Her hand stroked his cock, almost mechanically before her gaze switched from his hand to his face. She half expected an expression that would match the way he was manipulating her fingers in his mouth. Lust, and a silent demand that would not be denied behind eyelids heavy with pleasure.

The desire was there, but there was something else, a kind of reticence that wasn't really like him, almost as if he was holding himself still, and waiting for something that he was relatively sure that he was never going to get. It made her tug her fingers out of his mouth, uncurl her hand around his cock, though he made a protesting sound at the loss. She took the apple and the knife from him, turning at the waist to deposit these things on the bedside table, careful to set them on the runner that protected the gleaming wood veneer. He started to sit up, and she put her hand out, flat against his chest, to hold him where he was, getting a mental picture of holding him down last night, with magic, as she crawled over his body.

He straightened his legs out as she came back to him, opening her legs to straddle his hips, his eyes riveted on her with an anticipatory gleam. She framed his face in her hands, the way he sometimes did when she was under him, and he was inside her, and she leaned forward to kiss him, taking the fullness of his lower lip between hers as a soft sigh left him. He let himself fall back on the bed, taking her with him, her hair sliding around her shoulders to fall on either side of him like a curtain as they explored each other's mouths.

His hands moved down to her hips and then over her ass, slipping under the hem of her shift to knead her flesh, his fingertips tracing the curve of her ass down to her thighs, grazing the lips of her cunt, making her aware of how wet she was, thinking of him, beneath her. There was nothing that Dru could put in her head, no notion, no image. That wasn't in her peculiar gift. There was only the ability to find hidden things and bring them to the surface. Willow understood from her brief sojourn in Bristol that being a thing that could be bought and sold did not stimulate desire or even awaken a sense of her desirability. No more so than being possessed, being reminded almost constantly that her body was in and of itself something he craved. It was the hidden knowledge that she wanted him, wanted him beneath her, wanted him to burn for something only she could give him that made her shudder as he delicately ran his fingertips over the margins of her labia.

He broke off the kiss with a groan. “Christ! You are soaking wet,” he hissed, his wrists exerting enough pressure on her thighs to make her scoot up a bare inch.

“Closer, baby,” he murmured, kissing her chin, her throat, her breastbone, as she moved a little higher, his fingers sliding between the lips of her cunt. “Closer,” he breathed, kissing the upper curve of her breast.

She moved up more, feeling the slight resistance of the nap of the velvet counterpane against her knees. His mouth latched onto one of her nipples, his tongue lashing it fiercely through a thin layer of cotton as two fingers sank into her from behind, and her head fell forward, her mouth opening in a gasp that was lost in his hair.

His lips tugged on her nipple as his fingers slowly delved inside her. “Love that,” he murmured when he released her nipple, the fabric giving way more slowly, peeling away from her skin as the weight of the shift hanging from her back pulled it away. “Love your sweet cream coating my fingers. You smell like daylight, so ripe and spicy,” he urged her up higher in his arms. “Let's get this off of you,” he grasped the hem of her shift, pulling it up.

Willow's hands were braced on the mattress above his shoulders, and William's efforts to get her out of the shift were frustrated. The shift, pushed up to her shoulders was falling in his face as he nudged her arm to get her to lift it off the mattress so he could slip one strap off her shoulder.

With a impatient sound, he gave up, his fingers sliding out of her. “I ought to beat your ass for making me stop,” he grumbled as he sat up, pulling her shift over her head.

She rested her forearms on his shoulders. “You didn't tell me I could take it off,” she said, looking serious and a little smug.

“Funny, funny girl,” he said, his eyes drifting downward. Her shoulders were pink. The pinkness crept downward. He could feel the damp heat of her against his stomach. His fingers moved over her sunburned skin, pressing lightly, leaving little white pressure marks.

“How long were you outside?”

“Long enough,” she shrugged, “An hour or two.”

One hand rode the curve of her hip, the other rested on the mattress where his bent elbow supported his upper body. Her hair slid over her shoulders again, reforming the tent of her body and hair, trapping the sun-warmed scent of her once more. He wondered if it was possible to get drunk on a scent. He wondered what she would taste like, if he pulled her down on top of him and pushed her hair to one side to suckle the scabbed over wound on her throat until it was oozing blood.

“I want you more than anything I can think of,” he said simply. It wasn't what he meant to say. He hadn't really meant to say anything at all, but she was looking at him, and he thought she should know that.

She didn't reciprocate. There was no corresponding declaration. She looked a little embarrassed, and perplexed, and her head started to fall forward, her hair shifting again to veil her eyes. His thumb rotated, and then followed the slight hollow of her hip. Her abdomen was covered with small scratches, places were Dru had opened her skin with her fingernails, tormenting him with the scent of blood and sex. A day later they were just scratches, marring the ivory of her skin, someone else's marks on what was his.

Not for the first or last time, he resolved to take better care of her. To keep her more to himself since he was the only one who really appreciated her.

The awkwardness of his unacknowledged declaration made her chest feel too tight. It was in the almost innocent way he said it. They were naked and sex was obviously on the agenda, but it wasn't just sex that he wanted. There was no leer, no innuendo, no subtext. She wanted to tell him not to do this to himself, while at the same time, in the spaces that would always resent him, there was a certain degree of satisfaction at the notion that he had walked into this trap of his own making. It was tempered by the fear that inevitably he would trap her inside it too, that he already had.

He was almost motionless. His perfect, sculpted body was quiet under hers, the arm he had propped himself up on not even quivering with effort. He could probably stay like this forever. Only the thumb connected to the hand on her hip moved, and she felt it all the more keenly, as his thumb strummed not just the skin but also the underlying structure of bone and muscle. She, however, could not stay like this indefinitely. She could already feel the slight tremor that was developing in her thighs and the tension in her back from leaning forward but holding her full weight off of him. There was a shivery sensation crawling over her skin from the repetitive movement of his thumb that demanded a response.

When she lifted her head to look at him again, he was watching her with a slight smile. His knees bent behind her and he lifted his hips a little. “Scoot back a bit, sweet,” he suggested. His hand left her hip, smoothing over her thigh to hook his fingers under her bent knee.

She understood what he wanted without any further words and unlocked her hands behind his neck, moving backward, feeling his cock under her as she let her weight rest in the cradle of his hips and his raised thighs, trapping his erection between the globes of her ass. Rocking forward a little, enough to shift his balance off his shoulders to his hips, his hands came up to frame her face, and then moved down over her throat and shoulders. His gaze lingered on her breasts before his hands reached them.

Below the neckline of the gown she had been wearing, her skin was startlingly white, more so than usual. He remembered, again, the first time he saw her, in an ill fitting wig, and a dress hanging off her thin shoulders, cheap, stiff velvet hugging her, the ivory of her skin made ashy with dirt, malnutrition, and cheap talcum powder meant to disguise the pale freckles dappling her skin, her heart beating so hard that he swore he could see her breast quiver with her heartbeat. After he had carried her home through the streets of London, he had taken off the blond wig, tossing it into a corner and he had slid his hands inside the top of her dress, the backs of his fingers against her skin as he ripped the fabric, showering her skin with the dirt and dust the fabric gave up as it came apart in his hands.

Then he had wet a washcloth and washed her, wanting to see what was under the cosmetics and dirt, curious about the packaging that came with the delicious blood that had filled his mouth. He had washed every inch of her, with no more thought than to shag her and drink her one mouthful at a time until there was nothing left.

“My beautiful girl,” his fingers found her nipples, stiffly erect. The first time he had taken one of her nipples into his mouth his arm had been laying across her throat to keep her still while he teased her pale pink nipple into a hard, rosy point with his tongue and teeth, his mind half on the anticipated pleasure of sinking his fingers into her and fucking her.

“Mine,” his fingers tugged on her nipples. His lips found the heat of her sunburned chest. He felt her breathing change as his mouth drifted lower. His tongue followed the curve of her breast to her other neglected nipple, curling around it before he coaxed it into his mouth. Her head fell back against his knees, her hair spilling over his legs. Flicking the tip of his tongue over her nipple his eyes moved over her bared throat. “So beautiful, my sweet girl,” he murmured, reaching between their bodies to run his thumb over her clitoris as a soft sound worked in her throat.

“Do you like that?” he breathed. “Do you like having my hands between your legs? Is that what you want?” he kissed the space between and slightly below her breasts as her hands threaded through his hair and she rocked against his, the pressure of his thumb working her clitoris.

“I want you under my mouth, with your lips around my cock while I taste you. Taste what I do to you,” his thumb rotated over her clit and then swept down to explore. “Christ. You're so wet. Do you know how good it feels when you're all hot and wet for me? Is it because you can feel how hard I am? So hard, love. It's like an ache in the pit of my stomach. It's like a stomach ache from starvation. From wanting you so much I can never get enough,” he grinned, “but, we both know I'm going to try. Always. Tasting you, filling you up with my fingers and my tongue and my cock, always wanting more.”

“Do you have any idea what that's like, to want so much?”

Before she could even begin to formulate an answer, she was on her back, bouncing a little at the suddenness of her change in position, and he was looming over her, reversing position, his hands pushing her legs apart. His head lowered, his tongue coming out to slide between the lips of her cunt, and if she was wet before, she was soaking now, squirming as his hands held her legs apart. He made a sound, the kind of moan that she associated with something delicious passing over her tongue, and shuddered at the hungry passage of his tongue.

He lifted his head, looking up her body at her with a smirk. “Like that do you? Like having me between your legs, tasting your hot little cunt?” His hands stroked the insides of her legs and then one hand came down sharply in a stinging slap against her clitoris that made her cry out, and then twist her hips upwards as he penetrated her roughly with two fingers, twisting them as he finger fucked her. “That's my beautiful girl. Love being fucked, don't you baby? Fucked good and hard,” his tongue teased her clitoris as his fingers pumped in and out of her wetly, slipping out of her to pinch her clitoris before slapping it again.

She shuddered, her hands moving over his body, clutching at him.

“Starting to feel it? That coil in your belly, tightening up?” his tongue swirled in her navel. “When you come, I can feel it, squeezing me so tight. His face changed, his forehead pressing into her abdomen between her navel and her mound, changing, the prominent ridges rubbing against her skin like an oversized house cat. “Suck my cock, Willow,” his voice was harsh with strain.

Wrapping her hand around the base of his cock, she ran her tongue over the tip, tasting the precum, cool and slightly bitter. He was licking the cuts on her stomach, slapping her clitoris. “Yeah,” he panted. “Love your clever tongue on me,” he rasped as she traced a throbbing vein in his cock. “Lick it, sweetheart. “Lick my cock. Feel how hard you make me?” One of his fangs scraped over her skin, following the line of a wicked scratch, breaking her skin in a series of dashes and dots that oozed bright red blood. Feeling her stiffen at the sensation. Her skin was damp with sweat from exertion, and the broken skin burned. He curtailed the impulse to watch her bleed, and licked the wound, groaning at the small taste of her.

When she took him into her mouth, his head snapped back, alien eyes glittering ferociously, a low growl rumbling in his chest as he fought his instinct to thrust into the heat of her mouth and fuck her into the mattress the way he wanted to. She had one hand braced against his hip as if she had a hope in hell of preventing such an outcome, and he roughly stimulated her clitoris, pinching and slapping it again before sliding two and then three fingers inside of her.

His tongue laved her clit, soothing her abused flesh, smiling as she arched her back, a pretty whimper trapped in her throat as she sucked him, her tongue swirling around his shaft. “That's my sweet girl, my angel, my star,” he breathed, the cat-like licks of his tongue on her clit at variance with the almost punishing way his fingers were fucking her, “You taste like sunlight and magic.”

His hips rocked down in a hard thrust that had her pushing against him frantically, and with a frustrated growl, he pulled back, leaving the warm, wet cavern of her mouth with a wet sound and a gasp from her as she tried to catch her breath. He sat up on his knees beside her, licking his fingers clean of her before he shook off the game face. He couldn't think of the last time she had done something like that.

“I didn't mean—“

“Sssh,” he soothed, touching her lips. His gaze flicked to her abdomen and the scratch marks last night's adventure in thrall and bloodplay had left on her body. A muscle in his cheek twitched and his eyes darkened. He'd spent years training her to behave like a trained seal in bed, letting Angelus, and Darla, and Dru work her over, and he enjoyed every minute of it, even now, he was rock hard, aching to fill her warm body, make her ache, make her moan, make her come with his name on her lips.

Make her.

He started to ask her if she really wanted this, and stopped before the words were formed. Right. What the hell was she supposed to say?

He felt her watching him, puzzled and uneasy. He gave her a spare shake of his head, and hoped that she would take the hint and give him a second to sort himself out. He wracked his brain for some insight, some memory that would make this . . . what? What? Comfortable? He frowned at that. Meaningful? That was closer to the mark, but not quite what he was reaching for.

Romantic.

His eyes widened as it hit him. Romantic. Oh, Christ, he really was far gone. Squirming over inflicting his sordid desires on his . . . not-so-innocent love. As if she would appreciate the distinction. Which, oddly enough, really wasn't the point. How much had the life she had led cheated her from? Had anyone ever bothered to woo her? Had anyone ever written bad poetry addressed to her sweet, soft lips, or dreamt of stealing a kiss from the same? Had she ever known that just by walking into a room she made someone feel like their day was complete?

He raked his hand through his hair, the rich smell of her cunt lingering there, while he revisited the brutal way he had worked his fingers into her, mixing pain and pleasure, and relishing every sound she made, everything he made her feel, because it made him feel good that he could.

She reached for him, her fingers tentatively exploring his erection, making him shudder. His smile was rueful. “Nothing worse than anything else that has ever been done to you,” he quoted.

Completely misunderstanding what had made him think of that, she stopped touching him and for a moment there was a flash of anger in her eyes. It wasn't enough that she didn't have a choice in virtually any aspect of their lives, but now she didn't even have a choice about what to be offended about? He was back on the business with Drusilla.

“I don't know what you want from me, Will. Do I have your permission to be mad, or is it an order?”

Her waspish tone took him by surprise. “What?”

“It's a vampire thing, right? I mean, you might not have Dru's talent for it, but if you tried, you could do it, couldn't you? You could pull me under enough that drinking me wouldn't hurt. It might even feel good. It might even make me come,” she said, watching his eyes. She wasn't sure if that was true. It was a guess. “Is it better for you if it hurts me?”

He flinched, and she knew that was not what he had expected. “Will . . .” she made herself stay where she was, rather than put a little more distance between them. “I don't understand,” she admitted, feeling frustrated by the way he kept circling back to this. “I feel like we are talking about two different things, and . . . you can't understand this. I know that. You can't begin to imagine what it is like to feel—“ she made herself stop when he held up his hand as if to ward her off.

“Are you out of your mind?” he demanded. “I wasn't talking about that, and no, it's not better for me if it hurts you,” he sneered, knowing that it wasn't precisely true, but shoving that aside. “You carry on about it like I'm killing you, and I keep telling you, if I wanted you dead, you'd be in the ground, or you'd be begging me to bite you.” He fingered the mark on his own neck. “Drusilla's work,” he reminded her. “Nothing like having your sire's fangs in your throat, kitten.”

She scooted back against the headboard, and he glared at her, daring her to even think about leaving the bed.

“I'm not planning on finding out,” she told him.

His nostrils flared as he drew in what was meant to be a calming breath. They had gotten way off topic. His jaw clenched as he resisted the urge to tell her that she really didn't have a choice in the matter. Knowing Willow, she would take that as a challenge, and God only knew what she would do.

She had been shot once, stabbed twice, gang raped, and forced to engage in more acts of violence and sex than she could recall accurately. There was a sanity preserving grace in that. She made herself hold his gaze. “I carry on about it like you are killing me?” she reminded him. “It hurts. You are biting through skin and muscle and that hurts,” she said steadily. “And it's frightening. Terrifying. You have to know that.”

He sat back on his heels, sucking on one of his incisors, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else. “Yeah, Willow,” there was a world of weary patience in that. “I know.”

She bit her lower lip, chewing on it as she sorted it out in her head. “You are mad at Dru because she did something that made me . . . not feel those things, so you can't possibly understand why I don't want to feel those things. Or you simply don't care.”

“Well,” he said, bitterness edging his tone, “I stand corrected. The next time I get a craving for a nice mouthful of you, I'll keep in mind that you'd rather I rob you of your will.”

“Rather than make me do what you want knowing full well that all the choices that you've left me with are bad choices?” she shot back. “This is stupid,” she said, feeling like she was in the wrong, that she had hurt him somehow, and knowing with grim certainty that eventually, she was going to pay for it. “She didn't do it to hurt me, and that's more than I can count on under the best circumstances. Let's leave it at that.”

“I don't drink you to hurt you.”

“But you don't do anything to keep it from hurting me,” she pointed out. “So, you have your ‘nice mouthful' of me, and expect me to be grateful that I'm allowed the dignity of feeling it,” she held up one hand. “No, I think I understand now. Really. Philosophic consistency. I get it, Sp—“ she cut off the name that almost fell from her lips, startled that it came to her now.

He caught the little slip of tongue, but shrugged it off. “Fine,” he snapped. “Are we done?”

Her fingernails bit into the palms of her hands. Oh God, oh God, what have I done? She swallowed hard, and nodded.

He almost rolled his eyes at that. The way her heart was beating, the whiff of fear that was bleeding through her scent, suggested that she thought this was far from over. “Knock if off,” he said. “I'm not going to beat you,” he lowered his upper body to the mattress, rolling over on his back. “I wasn't throwing it back at you, or picking a fight,” he announced, sounding oddly subdued.

“No?” Willow was looking for her shift, feeling uncomfortably naked.

“No,” he insisted. “I was thinking . . .” he heaved a sigh. “I don't know. It's like what just happened,” he looked over at her, catching her in her discreet visual search for something to cover up. Probably the little number she had on earlier. He crawled to the end of the bed and leaned over the footboard to snatch it up off the floor where he had dropped it. “Looking for this?” he guessed.

“Thanks,” she took it from him and slipped it over her head. Her hair was trapped under the neckline in the back, and she slid her hand under the mass of her hair, pulling it out, and with it, the ribbon that had held her hair back.

She looked at it like she couldn't recall how it had gotten there and he grinned at her bemused expression. He returned to his former supine position as she sat up on her knees, smoothing the shift down. He started to reach for her, and let his hand drop. “It's to be expected, I guess. I don't always understand what's going on in your head, and being hampered by being mortal, you can't imagine the things that I'm thinking, but . . . I wonder . . . I think about it,” he sounded defensive. He frowned at the ceiling. “I—“ he looked at her, “I don't know what you understand, partially because even when you are telling me, there's nothing that it connects to. Being bitten hurts,” he said. “Yeah? I'm a vampire, Willow, my Willow,” he drawled. “Let me know when you get to the bad part.”

She frowned, but she understood that he was making a joke at both of their expenses.

He rolled to his side, re-arranging the pillows and patting the space at his side. She settled in next to him, her back to his chest.

He shifted until his upper arm was under her head, and let his arm curl around, finger combing her hair away from her neck before he nested his hand in there, playing with the lace edging the wide straps of the shift.

“How do you know that I love you?” he asked.

She frowned, thinking that the question was rhetorical. It had to be rhetorical. He couldn't expect her to have an answer.

He pushed the strap aside and kissed her shoulder, taking her silence on the matter as an answer, albeit a slightly discouraging one. “Yeah, that's what I thought,” he said, sounding calm. “You don't know. And, how could you?” He closed his eyes, his lips resting briefly on her shoulder. “I love you,” he whispered. “I love your stubborn little chin, and your wise and lovely eyes, and the way you hog the blankets in your sleep, and the way you fall into a book when you are reading, and how you carry the scent of sunshine into the shadows,” he kissed her throat. “I love lying awake and listening to your heart beat, and feeling this,” his tongue painted a vein under her skin, “under my lips. I love your blood and your life flowing over my tongue, filling me with you—“ he lifted his head, his fingers gently turning her head so he could meet her eyes.

There was so much there. Never any simple answers for his girl. Astonishment and wonder, anger and sorrow. She looked moved to tears. She also looked a bit tempted to tell him to bugger off. “It was the last part, wasn't it?” he guessed with a crooked smile. “Can't understand it? It just sounds seductive, unless you've had a vampire at your throat and you've wondered if this is the time that he doesn't stop.”

Her ferocious intellect, her sensitivity, her amazing ability to take Dru at face value, to accept what life dealt her with extraordinary resilience and grace, rescued her now. He watched as her lips parted on a silent exclamation, the tears that had filled her eyes, spilling over. He watched her as she understood it.

“I love you,” he whispered tenderly. “So much. My beautiful girl,” he stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, “my angel. My bright and shining star.”

He kissed away the tears that spilled over her sunburned cheeks. “I love you,” he whispered, huskily. “When I'm fucking you? It's not just . . . it's not just fucking. It's you, it's me loving you, loving your sweet sounds and your body, it's me wanting you to feel as lost in me as I am in you.”

He kissed her mouth, tasting her tears, feeling her turn to him, reaching for him, praying to a God that he didn't believe in that locked inside her somewhere safe was the same feeling.