The Last Cut is the Deepest

Chapter Two

To Buffy’s surprise, as first dates went, this one pretty much sucked. Not that all the wonderful, romantic trappings weren’t there: the limo, the flowers and chocolate, the amazing ballet, Angel looking completely yum-worthy in his tux.

The problem was, however hot he looked, however hard heed ted to be sweet and attentive, he just wasn’t there with her.

She set down her fork and gave him a hard look. "So, are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or should I start up a round of ’20 Agonizing Questions’?"

Angel was busy glowering at something that must have been fascinating, crawling around in his untouched ziti. He glanced up as if he’d forgotten she was there. "Hm?"

"Angel, you haven’t done more than grunt at me all night. What’s going on? Today on the phone, you were all good-humor-I-can’t-wait-to-be-with-you guy. Now it’s like somebody vacuumed out your personality. You didn’t happen to run into a Hellgod named Glory this afternoon, did you?"

He shook his head and gave her an obviously forced smile. "It’s nothing. I’m sorry. Just some residual work stuff." He reached over and took her hand. "I ’m here now."

Buffy arched an eyebrow at him in reproach. "Have you met me? I’m not letting you get away with blowing me off. You’ve always got work stuff. The last couple of weeks, we’ve had nothing *but* work stuff. So what’s really got you so distracted?"

Angel looked into her eyes for a measure of her strong heartbeats, debating with himself – again – how much of his burden was right to lay on her. But they had agreed from the beginning – no secrets. "I told you that the partners sometimes ask me to do things for them."

Buffy’s chiding demeanor darkened into a frightening glower as she let go of his hand. If there was one thing she would love to do for Angel, it was get him out of Wolfram & Hart. No matter how often he protested that he was needed there... and "satisfied" with the work he was doing, she knew it was crap. His body language – the tension that stormed off him whenever they got together after a day at the office – spoke *way* louder than the words she was fully aware were meant to protect her.

"Yeah..." she replied in short, her tone expressing all she didn’t say.

"Lilah stopped by this afternoon to give me an even more vague and disturbing directive than usual. Some ‘VIP’ is arriving from another dimension shortly. And they want me to see to his ‘comfort’ when he arrives."

Her eyes went wide. "Who?"

"Like I said, they wouldn’t tell me," he shrugged, "But I can guarantee I’m not going to like it. The last time I ‘helped out’ an inter-dimensional client for the Senior Partners, he almost got all of us killed."

Buffy couldn’t hold her tongue anymore, and her fear for him turned her temper into a lash, "I can’t believe you let them keep doing this to you! You’re better than that place, Angel! How could you be so stupid to take a job with the Root of All Evil?"

Knowing where her anger originated, he responded calmly, "I’ve explained this to you before. The resources at Wolfram & Hart..."

The Slayer slammed her fist on the table, interrupting his usual excuses and making the remains of their dinner – and Angel himself—jump violently.

"Who CARES about the stupid resources!? You could do just as much good working with us at the school! Angel..." she took a deep breath and lowered her voice. "That place is eating you up from the inside. I can see it every time you leave there. Please... don’t let them jerk you around like this. I just got you back... I don’t want to lose you to some stupid job."

For the first time that night, he gave her a warm, genuine smile, and reached across the table to reclaim her trembling hand. "You’re never going to lose me."

She softened automatically at the love in his voice, and the gravity of his vow. "But you’re still not going to quit."

He gave a little shake of his head. "I can’t, Buffy. I’ve got too much invested in reining in the evil that place has perpetrated over the centuries. You know I would never do anything for them that would jeopardize that investment," he tugged on her hand, leaning her closer across the table for two. Looking deeply into her eyes, he added softly, "Or my relationship with you. I promise."

Buffy accepted his tender kiss and shoved aside the growing feeling that there was some other reason Angel stayed at Wolfram & Hart that he wasn’t telling her. For now, she had to accept that there were still things between them that they couldn’t – or didn’t want to – share. She knew that was true of herself, at least. For now, just being together had to be enough.

When they parted, Buffy kept her hold on his gaze, and his big, strong cool hands – the only hands that had ever truly felt right in hers. "Okay. But Angel.. please... be careful, okay? And don’t try to protect me from what you do. Two sets of superhuman eyes are always better than one."

He chuckled "Are you saying you’d take on the legions of Hell to defend my blind side?"

"You better believe it, pal," she affirmed, beaming. "The universe conspired to get us back together, so I’m thinking thatns ‘ns ‘no matter what’. Now... eat your ziti. I hear a Death By Chocolate calling me."

Angel grimaced. "They really need to find a better name for that."

Her grin turned mischievous. "Why? Which way of dying would you prefer? My vote is, next time I go, it’s by chocolate."

Angel actually *could* think of a better way to die – especially tonight, seeing her in that barely-there slip dress with the slender straps and the plunging neckline... the way it fit in a carefully planned fashion to accentuate all her most feminine features: the turn of her hip, the cut of her tiny waist, the warm valley between her breasts, her sleek, powerful legs...

Not that he needed any such guidance.

He swallowed stiffly and shifted in his seat. Going there remained a problem, for the time being. He’d known full well that once he and Buffy had rekindled their relationship, they were eventually – and fairly quickly – going to have to deal with the topic of sex.

So he’d spared some of his finest researchers – including two new specialists of Romany descent that he’d personally recruited – to find some way around (or preferably to destroy) the loophole in the curse. They had every possible version of the text – including the one translated by Jenny Calendar – and assured him that they were mere days from finding some solution.

But for now...

"I’ll second that vote," he said with a smile, turning his attention to the now, raising his glass for a toast, "To Death By Chocolate."

Buffy clinked her glass to his. "But only if it’s not some kind of cocoa demon or something."

~

By the time the limousine pulled up to the school, it was after 3 a.m. Angel had all but forgotten his meeting with Lilah, and Buffy was more than a little tipsy from the wine at dinner, and the champagne in the car as they rode around the city, talking, kissing and doing a fair amount of groping.

Angel helped her out, tuckher her arm firmly in his to keep her balanced while she kicked her high-heeled pumps into the nearby bushes. He nodded over his should to the driver, who dutifully went to retrieve them.

"What I don’t get is," Buffy slurred, "How come if I have all these super healing powers and stuff, I still get drunk so easily? Did I ever tell you about the Cave Buffy incident?"

“You did,” he replied. She lurched a little, and Angel shifted his arm up around her shoulders to keep her from careening off into the grass. "Maybe because you weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet? There’s nothing about Slaying that requires an enhanced metabolism. In fact, I’d think that your body would adjust to utilize energy more efficiently. For stamina."

She glanced up at him. "That question didn’t really require a whole thesis. It was sort of rhetorical."

He smiled. "I’m a thinker. I can’t help it."

Buffy snorted at his understatement, and promptly smashed her stocking-ed foot on the bottom step. While she was busy howling in pain, Angel swept her up into the shelof hof his arms and simply carried her the rest of the way up to the door.

"Ooh! I should get drunk more often!" she warbled happily, taking the opportunity to nibble on his jaw.

"Key, Buffy," he requested, his voice husky. He vowed to call his Soul Team in for an update tomorrow morning. Between the sheer joy of just being with her again, and the pure, burning *want* raging through every cell in his body, he figured that time was growing uncomfortably short. He’d already put icallcall to the Madame who had generated the mystical prophylactic for Groo and Cordy a few years ago, as a temporarlutilution... just in case. She assured him she could modify the formula sufficiently to suit his needs.

He only hoped she could do it quickly.

After a lengthy struggle, Buffy finally produced her keys and Angel steadied her as she fought them into the lock. That done, he carried her as quietly as possible up the four flights of winding stairs to the top floor, where she, Faith, Willow and Giles all kept apartments.

The latter was bringing a nightcap into his suite when he spotted the couple.

"Ah, Angel. Good to see you again," he greeted, and to the vampire’s surprise, actually seemed to mean it. His genial expression became slightly less friendly, however, when he noted the condition of Angel’s burden. "Buffy," he said simply, but still easily expressing his disapproval.

"Oh, Giles, save it," she muttered at him, "I’m 25 years old. If I want to get tanked with my honey, that’s my business." She laid a sloppy kiss on Angel’s cheek in illustration.

Giles caught Angel’s eye with a dark frown. "’Honey’?"

"Uh..." Angel gulped.

"Jeez! What’s the big! It’s not like we’re having sex or anything!" The intoxicated Slayer cried with a dramatic gesture that almost sent her spilling out of Angel’s embrace. "Just dinner!"

The ex-Watcher rolled his eyes. "Thank you for the information. I’m certain I’ll sleep easier now."

"It’s not... I’m just... uh... helping her get to bed. Uh! I mean her room! Just to her room!" Angel stammered like the teenaged boy busted by his girlfriend’s father he currently resembled. "We’ll, uh... get together soon and you can tell me how Budapest went. Goodnight, Giles."

He hurried down the hall and kicked Buffy’s apartment door in rather than wasting time waiting for her to fumble with the keys again. Safely inside, he closed it behind him with his elbow and made his way over to carefully deposit Buffy on her king-sized bed.

"Well. That was bracing," he observed.

"Guess I don’t need to make you a key," Buffy giggled, and collapsed onto her back. "Ooh! Spinny."

Angel smiled to himself as he made his way to the kitchenette.

"Whatcha doin’?" Buffy called after him.

"I’m going to make you some coffee."

"Hey, haven’t you ever heard that all coffee does is make you a wide-awake drunk?" she quizzed. “Or… make me a wide awake drunk, I guess.”

"I think I’m familiar with the sensation," Angel murmured to himself, recalling the gallons of tea he used to drink trying to fight his hangovers as a human.

And there was another detail he’d neglected to consider when he and Buffy started seeing each other again – if this was going to be the mature partnership they both said they wanted, Buffy was going to have to learn a bit more about the past he’d tried to shelter her from in their early years. And worse, he was actually going to have to tell her about it.

But not tonight.

"It’ll help stave off your inevitable headache," he stated so that she could hear him. "Along with a big glass of water and some aspirin."

" I’m not that drunk! I’m not even sick! Yet..." she called back. "Angel?"

"Mm?"

"I had a really nice time tonight. It’s the first time anybody’s taken me out to dinner since Wood, like ten million years ago."

Angel popped his head out to glare at her… which Buffy, of course, missed completely. "I didn’t know you went out with Robin." Great. Yet more ammunition he didn’t need to add to his paranoid, ‘I’ll never be good enough ’ fantasies. He ducked back into the kitchen and focused on completing the coffee ritual with a bit more gusto.

Buffy laughed as she sat up and yanked her dress over her head. "It was only one date. And then him and Giles went behind my back to try and kill Spike, so that all got shot straight to Hell. It’s a long story. His mom was a Slayer, did I tell you that? Wood, not Spike. Obviously."

"Yes, you told me," Angel ground out through his teeth, and refused to entertain any further thoughts of either Wood or Spike touching Buffy. Or even so much as eating an intimate meal with her.

She struggled with the hooks on her bra for a while, then finally gave up and ripped the thing off. Next came her pantyhose, which were an even bigger aggravation, and wound up little more than a puddle of nylon shreds on the floor at her feet. All the e she she continued to ramble.

"He was really nice. And I have to say, it totally threw me to find out there was a Slayer out there who actually had a *kid*. I mean... why would she do that? She died when he was *four*. Incidentally, killed by Spike, who happened to show up at dinner that night... it’s a whole big thing." The last of her energy used trying to undress, Buffy crawled to the head of the bed and flopped face down on her pile o’ fluffy pillows. The smothering sensation wasn’t cool, thouand and the pressure on her stomach made her rethink the wisdom of her position before her dinner ended up all over her new comforter. So she turned over and stretched out full length, her arms over her head, and found that wiggling her fingers toward the headboard helped distract her from the spinning. "Besides, I think Wood and Faith make a cute couple. He makes her blush all the time, which you can imagine looks pretty funny on ‘I’m such a bad-ass’ Faith. He’s really sweet. And smart. And that bald thing totally works for him. He’s got a nice skull."

Angel scowled darkly at the coffee tray, reminding himself of her inebriated condition as he returned to her room...

And nearly dropped it all over the floor to find her all but naked on the bed, eyes closed and head tilted back as she stretched languidly. He’d forgotten how warm and pink her skin was... how all her toned muscles curved and cut her into such a tiny, perfect feminine form. Her pert little breasts, the nipples hard and champagne pink in the cool air of the room, fairly begging for his touch...

"Are you picking the beans in there? I’m getting lonnnnelllyyyy..." she sing-songed, not realized that he was standing not ten feet away, utterly frozen, and trembling with the effort of resisting the urge to charge over there and take her like some deranged animal.

Angel cleared his throat, planted thoughts of bloodthirsty monsters and dirty dishes firmly in the front of his mind, and finally, resolutely, marched toward the bed.

Buffy cracked one eye open and watched him set the coffee tray down, then turn, his gaze averted. Oblivious, she sat up and patted the bed beside her.

Before he accepted the invitation, Angel grabbed the robe off the bedpost and handed it to her. "You’ll catch cold."

Buffy tossed the garment away without a thought, and moved to straddle him the moment he sat down, grinding herself into his lap. "Mmmm. So maybe you should warm me up." She claimed his hands from their clutching place on the comforter and placed them on her hips, smoothing them upward until they were cupping her breasts. She sighed. "Touch me, Angel. I need you to."

"Buffy, I..." he began to protest, but she silenced him with a long, deep kiss. His brain shorted out as her tongue slipped into his mouth to twine with his, teasing, drawing it forth so she could suckle it with a gentle ferocity thate hie him moan. His body took over, and he claimed her breasts of his own accord, teasing their hard points with the pads of his thumbs. "God, Buffy," he gasped, thrusting up into the warmth between her legs as his kisses wandered down to her throat. "God, you feel so good..."

"Yes...I want you so much... I’ve been dreaming of this... forever..." she moaned, tangling her hands in his hair, urging him further. Needing him to taste the fire burning under her skin before it consumed her.

Lost in a passion that had lain dormant for nearly a decade, Angel eased her gently back onto the bed and continued devouring her, his hands trembling as they smoothed down to explore her legs, slipping beneath to cup her thong-bared rear, fitting her lower body to his like pieces of some sacred puzzle. He moved to take one turgid nipple into his mouth, rolling his tongue around the nub before drawing it between his teeth and gently biting down.

Buffy cried out, thrusting her hips up into him, and the scent of her arousal nearly snapped the last of his extremely tenuous control.

Instead, it reawakened it. He reluctantly released her and leaned up on his hands.

"Buffy..."

Bereft, starving, frozen, dizzy, she peered up at him, her face flushed with champagne and unspent passion. "Please don’t stop."

"We can’t do this," he reminded her. "Not yet. It’s too danus. us. And besides, you’re drunk. It wouldn’t be right even if we could."

"I don’t care," Buffy growled, pulling him back on top of her. "I need you. There’s not going to be any Perfect Happiness, I promise. I swear. Please, just don’t stop."

The frustration he hadn’t had to deal with in years ripped through him. All this time, and it was still next to impossible to resist becoming one with her. If anything, the ways she had matured, body and soul, only made him want her more.

Maybe they couldn’t find bliss together... yet. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t attain some pleasure in granting her what he was currently denied.

He nibbled the sensitive underside of her breast and moved downward, following the meridian of her form to her belly. He lingered there, taking the time to carefully attend every inch of the tender curve, feeling her body tense, shiver and relax beneath him, hearing her soft sigh before he continued. He traced the strong line of one hipbone with flickering strokes of his tongue, and then made his way across her pelvis, kissing the silk and lace-sheathed heat at her core before repeating the same on the other side. He laced his finger under the strap of her thong, and glanced up to memorize the look of passion on her beautiful face before he unveiled her.

Only... it wasn’t so much passion he found on her features as the peaceful bliss of sleep. She snored softly.

He chuckled wryly to himself and rose. "Well. That takes care of that problem, I guess." Gently, he lifted Buffy from the bed, turned down the covers, and tucked her in with a soft kiss to her forehead.

She gave a deep, satisfied sigh, and murmured in her sleep, "Love you..."

Angel smiled and brushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes, traced the turn of her cheekbone, the pert line of her nose, and finally the full curve of her lips before he turned off the light.

"I love you too, sweetheart. Dream well," he whispered, and made his way to the door.

There would be another night for them – a lifetime’s worth, if he had anything to say about it. But when that night came, it would be both of them there, sure of the rightness of the moment, sober and eyes open, hearts and bodies laid bare, together.

For now, though, a cold shower was definitely in order. Several of them, in fact.

~