The Silken Cage: Journey

A.N..  Chapter 12 was originally posted in two parts.  It seemed better to post them as a whole, here.

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She was wearing her favorite summer sundress, a floral print on a lavender ground. The white leather sandals on her feet were also favorites, old and comfortable. She knew he was not lying on the bed behind her, but she could feel that while he was not too close, he was not too far away. He would never allow her too far from his side. She did not look backward, but walked out the door, which opened as she approached, allowing her to enter the corridor.

She was not surprised when, after she had taken no more than a dozen steps, the corridor terminated in the living room of her mother's house.

The damage she and Angelus had caused had been cleared away. Broken furniture had been replaced, broken pictures set into new frames, broken windows removed and repaired with fresh panes of glass. Even the front door bore newer, sturdier locks. She smiled wryly. The locks would hold against ordinary criminals, and with the Slayer gone, extraordinary ones had no cause to disturb the remaining inhabitant of 1630 Revello drive. But there wasn't a lock in the world that was sturdy enough to withstand Angelus. Only the ritual rescinding his invitation would bar his entry. Joyce was safe, not because of the locks, but because he had already taken what he wanted from her home.

Joyce sat, stone faced, on the new couch, ignoring the platter of food Willow had brought to tempt her appetite. As if Willow's was much more robust than Joyce's. Willow's eyes were swollen and red, her face drawn. Giles, seated beside Joyce, didn't look to be in much better shape. Buffy's heart broke to look at him. His face was more lined, his posture more stooped, his hair more gray than she remembered from--was it only last week?

You have to keep your strength up, Joyce." He pushed the platter, and it's assortment of fruit, cheese and cold cuts, toward her. She pushed it back.

"It wasn't Buffy," Joyce said flatly, her voice tight.

"Mom, I'm right here," Buffy said. She tried to step into the room, but found she couldn’t pass the doorway. She was staring into the living room from where the dining room normally was. Except, it didn't seem to be there. She was still in the corridor outside the bedroom she shared with Angelus. . .over twenty seven hundred miles away from Sunnydale. None of the others seemed to notice her.

"Joyce, we have to face facts," Giles began tiredly, removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose, the way he always did when he was worried. "Even Hank had to admit what happened, when he made the identification. The dress--"

"Any girl could have a dress like that," Joyce snapped.

"With Buffy's underwear?" Fresh tears came to Willow's eyes. "I don't want it to be her. I'd give anything for it not to be her. But I don’t think another tiny blond with Buffy's perfect dental records just happened to put on her dress and underwear and…and her jewelry.

"Angelus dressed her in my things!" Buffy shouted, once more trying to enter the room."

"It isn't time yet," a familiar voice said behind her. Buffy turned.

"Faith," Buffy said. Her one-time friend and bitter enemy was wearing tight leather pants, black leather half-boots, and a black Lycra top with a keyhole neckline.

"They can't hear you because it isn't time yet," Faith explained.

"But you can."

"It's a Slayer thing," Faith shrugged.

"So, this is one of the prophetic dreams," Buffy realized.

"One of the bennies," Faith agreed. "Aside from dying young and leaving a good looking corpse." Buffy turned back to the scene in the living room, not really surprised to find that the only thing there was the blank wall of the corridor. She looked at Faith, and found the other Slayer staring down at herself in a hospital bed. Buffy approached the bed, slowly, reluctantly.

"We really did a number on me," Faith said ruefully. The two girls faced each other across the bed in which Faith lay. The bruises from their battle were faded, now, but the body on the bed was too pale, too thin, too clearly that of an invalid instead of one of the Chosen.

"I'm sorry." No matter how justified she had been in going after Faith, no matter that she was doubtful she could have defeated the Mayor's Ascension if Faith had still been a player, Buffy truly regretted the damage she had done to her sister Slayer.

"Not your fault, B." Faith looked up from her own recumbent form in its plain hospital gown, and assorted attachments of wires and tubes. "The world really can't handle two Slayers. It isn't time, yet. But they had to get things rolling for when it will be time. 7-3-0 and all that."

"I don't understand."

"Me neither," Faith shrugged. "Not much of it. I'm just saying."

"If you don't understand, then why am I here?"

"Because he isn't." Faith's gaze locked onto the other girl's, brown eyes holding green. "He's taken your blood and he's renewed his mark." She reached a hand to lightly brush the brand on Buffy's neck that showed where Angelus fed from her. "It was a symbol, once. That's why it never healed, when everything else fades. Now…he's made himself part of you, just like you're part of him. And when he's close, your dreams are his."

"He's always close. . ."

"There's close, and there's closer. He's. . .occupied right now. When he isn't, when your dreams are his, we can't come to you."

"'We?'"

Faith cocked her head, listening. "We're out of time, B. But don't forget. . .." She faded away before Buffy could ask what it was she wasn’t supposed to forget.

And then she found herself naked; strong, large hands caressing her breasts, a demanding mouth pressing fierce kisses to the back of her neck. With a sigh, she turned in his arms, so that his hands slid from her breasts to her back, holding her close, while his mouth moved from her neck to claim her own mouth with more hot, demanding kisses which she as heatedly returned. Her lips opened beneath his, granting him entrance and she reached her arms up to twine about his neck. Somehow, she was lying down, no longer standing in the circle of his arms but pressed beneath him on the bed. And his skin was oddly warm, not merely lacking the usual vampiric chill, but almost radiating heat, the way the flesh of a fever victim might. The erection hard and insistent against her belly nearly burned, and keening, she opened her thighs to him, needing that unexpected fire to burn itself out within the fires of her own flesh.

Buffy came awake as Angelus slid into her, the impossible heat of him burning her deliciously, so that she moaned against his mouth. She lifted her legs, wrapping them around him, taking him more deeply inside her willing body.

His lovemaking, always vigorous, was almost frenzied, and she responded to it in kind, her hunger rising to meet his. As the last vestiges of sleep cleared from her mind, she recalled the vivid images from her dream. . .and she recalled the decision she had made not much more than an hour earlier. Buffy pushed the dream images away, as she pushed away the consideration of Angelus' unwonted warmth. She could think about such matters later. For now, she gave herself over to the intense, almost savage attention Angelus was paying to her body, his manhood scorching inside her, setting every nerve exquisitely aflame. Her tongue battled with his, she tightened her embrace, gathering her strength. . .

. . .and flipped them so that she was on top. Still kissing him, she pulled her arms from around his neck, scraping her fingernails across his nipples so that he growled ferociously into her mouth. Her hips jack-hammered down on him, meeting the demanding pace he himself had set. She moaned as he burned deeper inside her, his hands kneading into her buttocks. She didn't really expect him to accept her assertion of dominance, and he didn't. He soon twisted again, so that she was beneath him once more, but she was no more about to accept his assertion than he had been hers.

They made love like warfare; violent and passionate and all consuming. The bed could not contain them, and they slid to the floor in a tangle of bedclothes and supple flesh, unable and unwilling to break their devouring kisses; hands caressing, squeezing demanding, hips clashing together like a force of arms. The struggle for dominance was deliciously played out as they writhed together in untrammeled abandon, intent on each other's pleasure as much as their own.

She was the Slayer but she was only human. The hard flesh inside her, unerringly rubbing against her most sensitive spots with every forceful stroke, soon had her sobbing as her crises approached. Angelus could feel the telltale signs, and he growled in deep satisfaction as she finally broke their kiss, whimpering his name over and over as she got closer to the edge. He rolled with her a final time, so that he was above her once more. She didn't try to fight him, this time, merely pulled him closer, her nails scraping down his back as she seemingly tried to pull all of him inside herself. Her passionate response excited him further, if that were possible, and he strove to meet her unspoken demand. Angelus reached to push her legs yet higher, bending her knees back to her shoulders. He raised himself over her, staring down at her so that their gazes locked. Her eyes were cloudy, almost gray with passion, her lips were swollen from his uncompromising kisses. His name was spilling from those lips in a breathless litany, filling him with the most glorious sense of possessive power that had ever come to him in any period of his existence; human, demonic, or ensouled.

Angelus thrust inside her, going as deep as he possibly could, deep and hard the way he needed to go, the way he had taught her to need him, deep so that he was as close to her as he could get, burying himself as in a second, most delightful, tomb. It was exactly what she craved. Buffy came around him with a final shriek, her body tight and hot around his, so that his own pleasure crested and he came inside her with a roar of the most bone-deep satisfaction he had ever felt.

His seed was not cold. It burned inside her like a living thing, and she welcomed the invasion. He pulsed within her, still thrusting as she milked him of every drop, and he was not stopping, not slowing, not coming to rest

The struggle, evidently, was not done.

Buffy didn't understand it. Her experience was limited to the week they had spent together, and the bittersweet night of her seventeenth birthday. But each time, his orgasm had heralded, if not the end of their lovemaking, at least a brief interlude until he grew hard for her again. She was always grateful for those interludes, which had allowed her a brief respite to recover, to ready herself for the next delicious ordeal.

This time, he stayed hard. Buffy was panting, her own crisis reached and passed. She didn't think she could take it if he kept this up.

He proved her wrong.

She struggled, at first. The very power of her response to him, the sheer intensity of pleasure frightened her. She didn't think she could bear any more. But his strength was still enhanced by repeated infusions of her Slayer's blood, while her own was still compromised by the drugs he was feeding her. She couldn't pull free, couldn't escape, couldn't stop him.

And within a very few minutes, she didn't want to.

The fever burning in his blood made Angelus impatient with Buffy's struggles. He snarled warningly, and when she didn't heed him but continued to try to pull away, he wrapped his arms around her, restraining her, then sat upright so that she was sprawled over him. Buffy was panting, still struggling. Growling, Angelus forced himself to his feet, still holding her in place. He staggered a few steps to the nearest wall, pressing her up against the hard surface, and wrapping her legs around his hips as he kissed her brutally.

Buffy had been desperate to escape him, truly frightened, truly convinced that she couldn't handle any more. Now, the shift in position changed his angle inside her, and that was enough to relieve her over-sensitized nerves. Buffy gasped at the difference, as her discomfort transmuted into something far other, and desire once more burned throughout her body. With a moan, she opened for him, sinking further down on his rampant manhood, accommodating his forceful thrusts. Her only struggle now was to free her arms of his restraint, so that she could hold onto him as he pounded into her. She lifted her face to his, seeking his mouth with her own, pulling him into another devouring kiss.

Her struggles had only excited his demonic nature, which relished torment, and force, and dominance. Her sudden capitulation and renewed ardor–relishing his torment, yielding to his force, submitting to his dominance–inflamed senses already roused to fever pitch by the venomous aphrodisiac he had ingested earlier. Angelus became mindless with lust, beyond rational thought. There was only one imperative: brand himself into the willing flesh of his mate, consume her with his passion as her flesh consumed him. Angelus tightened his grip around her, crushing her soft breasts against the sold wall of his chest, swallowing her moans of need as she pressed herself closer yet.

He slid his arms down from her sides, freeing her to wrap her arms around his neck while he gripped her hips for better purchase. He slammed her down on his cock as she tightened her inner muscles around the hardness. He groaned, demon slipping free, his fangs bruising her lips and drawing blood. The taste of it, rich with her desire and satisfaction, merely incited him to greater frenzy. He drove himself inside her savagely, losing himself in the tight wet heat of her, in the fires of her passion, the only passion that had ever truly been a match for his. He kissed her with the devouring hunger of a drowning man for air, only to find his hunger growing, his need increasing. Her heartbeat was a thunder in his ears, and finally he could not resist its siren call. He pulled away from her lips, unerringly finding his brand on her neck, and sinking his fangs home.

Buffy came, screaming, clenching around him with exquisite strength. Her blood pouring hot down his throat, he climaxed with her, hips thrusting into her with bone-jarring fury. She would be bruised, but that didn't seem to concern her as she ground herself down on him, holding him close, arching her neck against his lips to grant him better access to her intoxicating blood.

Her blood. . .he was greedy for her blood. No one tasted like her, no other Slayer had been half so good. The desire to drain it all came over him, the desire to slay this Slayer with an excess of passion, to make her climax until it killed her, and then to reawaken her as his eternal mate. . .

But then, her blood would change with the alchemy of death, and he wasn't ready to give up this delicious bounty just yet. Angelus forced himself to stop drinking her, ignoring her sigh of protest. He continued to thrust into her until the last of his seed was spent, and the fluttering of her sheath had quieted.

He was still aching for her.

 

Recovering from their latest bout, Buffy realized that he was still hard inside her. . .

. . .and that she was too sore from their repeated bouts of lovemaking to sate him a third time.

Angelus seemed to come to the same conclusion. He pulled out of her, but still held her fast in his arms, carrying her back to the bed. The sheets and covers were on the floor, as were most of the pillows. Angelus tossed her down prone, grabbing a pillow as he followed after.

He set the pillow under her belly, then settled himself over her, pulling her thighs apart. Buffy had learned her lesson from what had just passed. She didn't try to fight him, or to protest her own human frailty. He lifted her slightly, and she found the head of his cock butting against her clit, while his hard shaft rubbed against her outer lips. She moaned as he pulled her legs clamped tight again. She could feel him between her thighs and he began to stroke against her clit in a way that was absolutely delicious, and spared her tender sheath any further discomfort.

She rewarded his patience by coming for him almost at once, pressing against his swollen shaft to increase her own pleasure, and thereby ensuring his. He grinned savagely as she ground down on him, forcing himself to hold back while she bucked and writhed under him. After a few moments, she lay spent beneath him. He held still for a few minutes, save for the soothing kisses he rained on her shoulders and back, then loosened his grip on her hips, sliding his hands up and beneath her, filling them with her generous breasts, gently pulling on her tight little nipples. She whimpered in renewed arousal, and he began to rub against her once more.

He made her reach two more quick, hot peaks, before he allowed himself his third and final release. . .for the moment. His seed pooled beneath their joined forms, drenching her lower belly, her mons, and her thighs as he poured himself onto her, pouring out his passion and need for his delectable captive, his destined mate.

Finally, spent, he collapsed over her, blanketing her tiny body, nuzzling her neck, licking at the freshly opened brand. As the haze of passion receded Buffy was shocked, both by the purely animal nature of their coupling and by the degree of pleasure she had taken from it. She was still new to lovemaking, though Angelus was giving her a very thorough introduction.

But she had been schooled in strategy for two long years, and she realized that if she wanted to keep her advantage, she had to keep him off balance.

"I am not sleeping in the wet spot," she said, her voice seductive enough to make her complaint more of a challenge than a whining demand. Angelus bark of laughter told her she had judged his mood correctly.

"Sleeping?" he returned cockily. "Who said anything about sleeping?"

Before she could respond to this jibe, he moved off the bed, picked her up once more, and carried her into the bathroom. Instead of setting her on her feet, he managed to snag one of the oversized bath sheets, and spread it on the floor by the tub, despite the awkwardness of keeping her in his arms while he did so. When he was satisfied with the results, he lay her down on the thick terrycloth, then walked down the steps of the bath and over to the faucets, turning them on and adjusting them until he was satisfied with the temperature, before shutting the drain and allowing the water to rise. A number of bottles were set on a shelf above the faucets. He looked them over, then reached for one, opening it and pouring out half the contents before restoring it to the shelf. Lazily regarding him from her supine position Buffy suspected they would have a long wait before the mammoth tub was filled. The thing was more like a small pool than a bathtub.

She was sticky with his seed, and would be glad of the chance to clean up. And yet. . . she remembered what he had tasted like, the salt tang of his seed as she had taken him in her mouth that first time. But he had been cold then, and now, he was so unnaturally hot. Curious, she ran a finger along her thighs and over her belly, just as he turned away from the faucets. Angelus saw the slow movement of her finger, watched as she lifted the finger to her lips and as her small pink tongue came out to take a tentative lick.

He grew rock-hard again on the spot.

No wonder Angel had fallen in love with her. No wonder he himself couldn't get enough of her gorgeous body and incomparable blood. She was not merely a warrior goddess, she was a goddess of the sensual and the erotic as well; temptation incarnate, living seduction, corporeal desire. Angelus slowly emerged from the tub and walked back to his enthralling captive. Enthralling…was he then her slave, however much she belonged to him? Did it matter? He was beginning to think not. He wondered anew at how foolish he had been a year and a half earlier. How the hell had he denied himself the pleasure of her heated flesh and wine-like blood? Why the hell had he spurned the delights of her body and her bed? It would have been so easy to take her back to bed when she returned to his apartment. . .or even to have gone back to the bed in which he had just taken her virginity. How differently might things have gone for them if he had only heeded his hunger for her, instead of trying to master it, and her, as he had Dru?

No matter. She was here, and she was his, and she had never been anyone else's. Eternity stretched before them, a limitless vista filled with an infinity of erotic possibilities, theirs for the taking.

Right now, he wanted to take her again.

Buffy regarded her demon lover through lowered lids as she licked his seed from her fingers. He was rampant, aroused again, and she realized her own action had probably been the cause. She smiled at this evidence of her power, and deliberately curved her tongue around her finger in the most sensual gesture she could devise.

Angelus almost spilled at the sight of her voluptuous smile, and the wanton action of her tongue, imagining what that tongue would feel like, fluttering along his hard flesh. A rumbling growl emerged from his throat, as his arousal increased. Buffy's smile widened, at this further proof of how she affected him. She knelt up as he came toward her, opening her arms to pull him the last few steps toward her.

His goddess was kneeling before him, smiling and reaching for him, her hands going around his hips as she leaned forward to open her mouth over his manhood, eagerly sucking him into the wet, hot cave of her mouth. Angelus hissed in satisfaction, game face coming over him again. Her tongue licked along the hot shaft, as if exploring the shape. There was just a tiny bit of hesitance, the slightest awkwardness, to remind him that she had only been introduced to this act a few nights before. But her intuitive sensuality was even more apparent, and he surrendered himself to the velvet caress of her tongue and lips. She was moving slowly; languorous, perhaps because he had so thoroughly sated her own hunger. But that was all right. Slow was good. . .

Buffy experimented, judging by his reactions what he liked and what he liked even more. She learned that he liked the feel of her tongue dipping into the tiny hole of his glans, that he liked it when she sucked him down as deep and as hard as she could and fondled his balls, that he enjoyed the fluttering of her tongue along the sensitive underside of his prick, and that if she nipped, very carefully, he went out of his mind. The last resulted in his growling, then digging his hands into her scalp, as if to keep her head in place. She knew, by the trembling of his forearms and the sustained growl, that he was restraining himself from slamming down her throat with great effort. The Scourge of Europe holding back his pleasure out of consideration for her human need to breathe. . . she nipped again.

Angelus came with a roar, hips bucking helplessly, shooting his seed down her throat. Buffy had prepared herself, and was able to keep pace with him. She worked her lips and throat and tongue to enhance his pleasure, continuing to caress his heavy balls, drawing the seed out of him like thread from a spindle. For those few seconds, he was helpless, completely in her thrall. She only hoped she could find a way to keep him there.

He couldn't believe how thoroughly she had drained him. Remaining upright took an act of will. But he was nothing if not willful. He stayed upright, as his softened cock slid from beneath her glistening lips, and her little pink tongue came out to lick away the last traces of his seed.

Which was almost enough to make him hard once more.

With a growl, Angelus pulled away from her, stalking over to the shower. Buffy sat back on her heels, watching him curiously as he adjusted the faucets. The water was still running in the tub, why on earth was he fussing with the shower? He soon showed her. . He returned to her, and wordlessly offered her his hand. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet, guiding her into the shower.

The shower stall here was much larger than the one aboard the ship, and there was ample room for the pair of them. Angelus pulled the glass doors shut, and stood her beneath a lovely cascade of warm water. There was more than one showerhead, and water streamed over her not only from above her head, but from the sides, as well. She sighed as her taxed muscles relaxed in the wet warmth. Angelus smirked down at her, grabbing a wash cloth and soaping it up. He made very quick work of cleaning her up from head to toe, especially careful to clean away the seed he had earlier spilled on her. He was curiously gentle, and she found there was something very sensuous about his ministrations, about the warm, wet cloth in his big hands stroking over her tender flesh. Buffy giggled as his hands delved between her thighs, and his caress became a little firmer than strictly necessary just for cleanliness. His answering smile was wolfish. Satisfied that he had removed every trace of his own release, he rinsed the cloth out and attended to his own ablutions while Buffy washed her hair and applied a conditioner. When they were through, she took the cloth from him and moved behind him, reaching up to wash his shoulders and his broad back. She had to stand on tiptoe to reach his shoulders, but he gave one of the vampiric purring growls that signaled his pleasure, and she couldn't help but smile in response. As she rinsed out the cloth a final time, and then rinsed out the conditioner she had put in her hair, Angelus washed his own hair. A moment later, they emerged from the shower. Buffy reached for one of the bath sheets, only to have Angelus snatch it away from her, toss it beside the nearly filled tub, and then scoop her up in his arms once more. She arched her brow at him.

"I can walk, you know." She wasn't really complaining, and she slipped her arms around his neck.

"When it suits me to let you walk, you will. Right now, it doesn't suit me." Angelus carried her to the edge of the tub, keeping her in his arms as he descended the steps. There were three steps, and when he reached the bottom one, she discovered that there was a ledge below the surface of the water. He sat on the ledge, still holding her in his arms, and both of them were nicely submerged.

The water was deliciously hot, and silky from the oil he had added to it. It was a scented oil, but something neutral and not overpowering, so that the effect was very soothing. She relaxed against his chest with a little sigh of pleasure as he reached over her to turn off the faucets, then settled back against wall of the tub, holding her close.

He wasn't speaking, and she was glad. For a moment or two, she could indulge the illusion that she was with Angel, not Angelus, and that she was finally being allowed the only thing she had ever truly wanted. But she didn't dare hold that fancy for long. It was too dangerous. Angelus was not one to share, not even with his other self. He had made that cruelly, abundantly, clear. But it was so easy to pretend when he was so gentle with her. Not that she could expect such gentleness to continue.

Yet, for the moment, it did. After a few minutes of simply holding her, Angelus began to caress her gently, cradling her close with one had and running the other lightly over her body from her shoulders, down her back, over the curve of her hips and buttocks, then down along her thighs before reversing the journey. The motion was soothing rather than otherwise, and Buffy closed her eyes, yielding to it. She relaxed further, almost drifting into slumber, but slowly, subtly, the soothing nature of his caress changed. He stroked lightly over her breasts, down her belly, and each time his hand slid over her thighs, it came closer to the juncture between them. Buffy's eyes flickered open, to find Angelus regarding her intently. His own eyes were hooded, his expression unreadable, but the caressing motion became more arousing with each new transit over her flesh. Finally, he did more than simply caress. He slid his hands over her bosom, catching the nipple between his fingers, and gently tugged. Buffy felt a spark ignite in her breast and shoot straight to her womb. She arched into his arms, yielding to his touch. He swooped down, capturing her mouth with his own. Yet still, he retained his odd gentleness. The kiss was tender, his mouth worshiping her own, not dominating, or demanding. Buffy whimpered, kissing him back. It wasn't quite the way Angel had kissed her, but it was achingly close. She wondered if she would fall victim to betraying tears. Then his fingers released her nipple, instead delving between her thighs, so that fire licked through her veins, chasing away the sweet melancholy brought on by his kiss.

How many times had he made her come that day? How many times had she shattered for him, screaming his name? How much of this rapturous ecstasy was she supposed to endure from her demon lover, before she utterly lost all sense of who and what she was, her sacred duty, her plans for escape?

Was it already too late? Had she made a fatal error in the last, most desperate weapon she had chosen to use against him, in the tactics desperation had forced her to adopt?

And. . . had it already been too late from the moment she became his prisoner, or even from the moment they had triggered his curse? Perhaps this truly was inevitable, and it had been too late from the moment he had first seen her, watching as Merrick informed her of her Calling. . .

His fingers stroked lightly through her nest of curls, delicately tracing the outlines of her nether lips, brushing gently against the little bud of flesh that quivered deliciously for him. Angelus teased it gently, until Buffy was gasping against his mouth. She parted her thighs, opening for him, wriggling against his touch. He tightened his arm about her, pressing her closer, and increased the pressure of his clever fingers. It was too much, and she bucked up against him, climaxing helplessly at his touch.

The beauty in his arms was giving him the gift of her surrender, and he contented himself with simply drinking down her breathy moans as she found her release. His goddess, his temptress, the mate he would ultimately fit for eternity at his side. Buffy was so sweetly responsive, so innocently sensual, so delightfully carnal that Angelus could feel his hunger rising for her yet again.

He understood that the Lamia venom was fueling his need. Yet only in part. In the past week, he had learned how easily Buffy herself could quickly re-ignite the very fires she had just put out. The combination of the two was incredible.

But Buffy's Slayer stamina had been compromised by his own machinations. As she recovered from the most recent orgasm he had forced upon her, he wondered if he had been hoist by his own petard. She sighed, curling in to him, snuggling right up against his chest. He held her close, one hand slipping down her back and over the firm globes of her ass.

Maybe he wasn't hoisted quite yet. . .

He stood again, and she lifted her head, regarding him curiously. He stood her on the middle step, turning her so she faced the rim of the tub--although the damned thing was more of a pool, than a simple tub. He had known public baths that weren't as commodious. The tiles about a third of the way down were decorative, and had a raised seashell design. The height wasn't perfect, yet, but when he was through. . .

Angelus pressed Buffy right up against he wall of the tub, bending her over the rim, then came up behind her, to stand between her spread thighs.

"You can't possibly think–" her words faded into a moan as he lifted her slightly, pulling her legs up, to wrap them around his thighs, pressing her forward against the tiled wall of the tub, and the suddenly oh-so-convenient decorative shells. Buffy gasped as the tile shell pressed against her aching clit. Then she felt Angel parting the globes of her ass, felt the head of his cock probing at the tight ring of her sphincter, and she gasped again.

The oiled water helped, as did the fact that he had so thoroughly seen to her pleasure that she was pliant in his arms. He forced his way past the resistant muscles. Remembering the first time, Buffy forced herself to relax further, accepting him willingly. Angelus sank in to the hilt, grasping her hips for better purchase.

She was half in a pool of warm water, her tender breasts pressed against the cool tiles surrounding the tub. A firm, smooth surface rubbed against her clit and her demon lover had buried himself inside her body. Buffy whimpered, too much stimulation overwhelming her. Maybe all her worrying was useless, and she was just going to die, right here, right now; die screaming his name as he drove her to one more blistering climax, demanded one more surrender from her.

Angelus realized that she was about at her limit, so he didn't try to hold back. He set up a steady pace, keeping up the pressure on her clit, while driving in to her. The hot, dark tightness surrounding him ensured that his own release wouldn't take long to build.

Buffy clung to the side of the tub, closing her eyes, determined to endure. She couldn't believe how good this felt, how hot it was making her. She slammed her hips backward, meeting his thrusts. With an act of will, she relaxed further, and felt him slide in deeper yet. He growled his satisfaction into her ear, then slid his hands up from her hips to her ribcage and finally to her breasts. He rolled the pebbled nipples between his fingers, making her groan. Buffy reached behind her, grabbing his hips, pulling him toward her, forcing him ever deeper inside her accommodating flesh. He growled and licked at her neck.

When his fangs slid in, she exploded, light bursting behind her eyes. She felt him pump into her wildly, his seed burning her back passage. He didn't drink from her long: he had already taken blood from her that day, and didn't dare risk too much. But it had been enough to send them both over the edge into this final, shattering completion.

When Angelus could trust his legs to hold him upright unaided once more, he gently pulled out of her. Keeping her in his arms, he coaxed her legs from around his thighs until she was standing, trembling, on her own.

Not for long.

He picked her up once more, and carried her out of the now cooling water, snagging yet another bath sheet. She was a little steadier on her feet when he set her down and wrapped her in the bath sheet, then found a smaller towel for her hair. He dried her off, ignoring the water streaming off his own body, until he was sure she was taken care of. Only then did he grab a bath sheet for himself, and wrap it around his hips.

"So," he said turning back to her, gazing into her bemused hazel eyes. "How soon can you be ready for that luau you wanted?"