Title: High Rise
Author: psychofilly
Posted: 06-03-2004
Email: rr1013@ev1.net
Rating: R
Category: Smut, Angst
Content:
Summary: Angel was fifty stories up and caught between a bitch and a hard place.
Spoilers: Season two.
Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Distribution: Posted with Bertha Blue's permission.
Notes:
Feedback:
Thanks/Dedication: Beta’d by the incomperable Claire. This fic is brought to you by Stranger Things very own Bertha Blue for the Angel’s Foodrive in support of the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank. Bertha, this fic and the icons that go with it are yours. I hope you enjoy it. You are one of the sweetest and most generous folks I have ever met and the biggest fucking fan of David Boreanaz ever! Love ya babe.
"Hello Lover,"
The words brought him up short, Cordy too. He could practically see the tension in the steely set of her shoulders.
"Tsk, tsk, darling. Breaking into Fries Tower isn't the smartest move you've ever made. Desmond Keel is a little fish in a big ocean, or is he just the bait for the hook, Angelus?"
Cordelia turned, slowly, as if it took her some time to get that slightly disdainful, blank-behind-the-eyes look in place. They stood like that for a moment, Cordy chilling him to the bone as her ice-cold gaze slid past him to the blonde vampire right behind him. "Darla."
One word frosted the air between them. He didn't have time for this. He wasn't prepared for this, and he hated surprises, especially when he didn't have to be a mind reader to know what Cordelia was thinking. He turned around, caught between a bitch and a hard place. Either way he'd probably be looking at a few pounds of flesh skinned off his hide. Neither Darla nor Cordelia were too happy with him right now, however before Darla had showed up, he'd though he might be making a little headway with Cordy.
"It's been a while..." his sire said, her sarcastic lilt unmistakable.
The tenor of her voice slithered into his head like a snake, soft but sly, curling comfortably into all those dark places. He felt a familiar pull, hypnotic, beautiful, deadly. "I thought I told you the next time I saw you-"
"You'd kill me?" Darla paced the width of the hall, her attention riveted on him. She was a consummate hunter, a rare combination of viciousness and playful whimsy that had spurred him to some of his most imaginative masterpieces. Her mouth swept into a mocking smile. "No, lover, I don't think so. In fact, it looks like you are the one being hunted here."
"Which begs the question, lover." He spat the word out like a rusty nail. "What are *you* doing here?"
The smile froze on her face, her eyes betraying brittle anger. "Doing Lindsey a favor," she purred with fake warmth. "At least he knows how to treat a woman."
"Psycho-lawyer boy?" Behind him, Cordelia snorted. "Yeah, *he's* a prince."
"Hardly," Darla's attention flickered to the woman behind him. Angel had almost hoped she’d dismissed Cordy as inconsequential, but the sharp gleam in her eye sliced that small hope to ribbons. "I'll admit he doesn't have the stamina of my boy here, but he has his uses."
Angel tried to take a step forward, readying himself for an attack, but Darla wasn't naive. She snapped her focus back to him, fully aware of his intentions. Her eyebrow arched up as her lips curled into an appreciative leer. "Besides, after the trouble we caused at the Annual Review, I figured I owed him one."
"Trouble?" Cordelia's voice sounded closer, as if she'd been pulled in - seduced by the charm of the snake.
Darla looked over his shoulder, her eyes wide in a mockery of innocent surprise. "Oh, you mean he didn't tell you?"
***
"Keep up!"
"I'm trying!" Cordelia wheezed, feet pounding the linoleum as she ran behind him.
Without looking back, Angel grabbed her hand and jerked her forward. "Come on!"
In front, the murmur of voices, around the corner and closing on them fast. His eyes scanned the hall for options; he yanked Cordy to a full stop, opened the door to the right and then pushed her towards the door on the left. They slipped in and he pulled it quickly closed behind them.
Cordelia took two steps inside the plush office of Corbin Fries, a soft sound puffing between her lips. "Now *this* is swank, how come we don't get to have offices like this?"
Angel ignored her, focusing on the sounds in the hall. Someone saw the other door swing shut, and feet pounded, but he knew these guards weren't easily fooled. They'd check this room too. He held his finger to his lips, stilling any protest from Cordelia as he grabbed her elbow and ushered her across the room.
She didn't need an explanation, she just opened the sliding glass door as silently as possible and slipped out onto the offices private balcony, Angel right on her heels. They were trapped, fifty stories up with nowhere to go, and nothing to do except hope they weren't found... In short, they were screwed.
"Wow, I guess being CEO of an evil corporation has it's perks," Cordelia said, voice low, whipped away by the stiff breeze.
"I guess," Angel agreed, just to have something to say. "I'll let you know if I ever take over one..." he finished weakly. There was a time when he could joke with her. Now he stumbled over simple conversations.
"Ha, ha, lame-ass." Cordy sniped, forcing Angel to suppress the distinct urge to throw her through the glass doors they had just come through, but like so many times in the past few weeks, he bit his tongue. Giving her the upper hand meant he could at least warm his hands in the heat of her orbit, but just once, he wanted to remind her that she only had that hand because he let her.
Cordelia turned away from him, leaning over the wide brushed metal railing, her frosted, shoulder-length hair whipping like Medusa's snakes around her head. It should have been ugly, like the last twist of her mouth, and the malicious gleam in her eye, but even the ugliness held it's own appeal though he refused to make the connect in his head.
Darla - mother, lover, the voice in his head, egging him on where Cordy's usually brought him up short. They were the proverbial angel and devil sitting on his shoulders. He wanted to brush them both away and follow the raging darkness that filled him straight to hell - but neither would leave him alone.
The soft click of the door interrupted his thoughts, one good look out to the balcony they were busted. The windows spread uncovered from one end of the thing to the other with nothing but a thin overhang running off to the side and around the face of the building. She wasn't going to like it but it was that or get caught.
"Cordy, over here," he whispered, rushing to the edge of the balcony. He hopped over the rail and landed lightly on the twelve-inch ledge. A half dozen pigeons flew a scattered retreat from his black booted invasion. "Hurry."
"Oh, that's- I can't stress how emphatic of a no that is!" She actually backed up a step, balking like a stubborn mule. "You're insane if you think-"
"It's either this, or you can take your chances with men that are trying to kill us." He stated the options in a clipped matter of fact tone as the wind tried to snatch his coattails and rip him off the building. "Trust me. I won't let you fall."
He hoped.
***
"Oh, you mean he didn't tell you?" Darla mouth curved into a wicked sickle full of ill intent. "My boy here put on quite the performance last month. It's been a while since I've seen him so single-mindedly focused, so willing to do anything, and so deliciously lost in the dark..." Her eyes slithered from Cordelia to lock with his. She clasped her hands over her heart. "Of course he used me shamelessly. Didn't you darling?"
"I -," pinned between both women, Angel floundered. "I'm not proud of what I did, I -"
"You should be," Darla interrupted. "It was quite a ride. Except for the part where you kicked me out and ran back to your whining, sniveling, pathetic, human followers."
"Hey!" Cordy interjected. "So not a follower here, and until just recently you were in the same sniveling, whining boat." She was beside him now, but ignored him when he chanced a look in her direction. Her stance angled slightly away, arms crossed, her expression a harshly drawn sketch of severe lines and hard angles.
Darla snarled, a flash of irritation and something deeper, a hint of pain that Angel was convinced he was imagining. "That's right, and as I recall you were all for letting me rot. Another thing I guess I owe Lindsey for... my existence, such as it is."
An ugly note of spite crept into Cordy's tone, "So, what you're saying is after six-hundred years of existence, you're still some man’s whore." She uncrossed her arms, taking a step forward. "And you call us pathetic?"
"That's enough, Cordelia," he warned, resigned that his choices had so quickly managed to come back and bite his ass. They had other things to worry about, like the distant thud of men running through the halls.
Darla laughed, a sound engraved in his every fiber. Once he'd found the sound intoxicating. He had never tired of that free and simplistic expression of her pleasure, even over thousands of kills. It was the laugh she used when their victim begged for mercy, or screamed for death as he perfected the art of pain on their frail canvas. So many works of death and each one had amused her greatly...
"Cordy." Angel grabbed her elbow, scowling when she jerked it free.
Darla fell silent, but her amusement danced behind her eyes, and lived in the way that she could barely keep still as she cocked her head and listened to the growing thunder of boots. "No, Cordelia, I call you dead."
***
Cordy cast a worried glance to the blank wall of glass then hurried over and grabbed his outstretched hand, allowing him to balance her as she eased over the railing and on to the ledge. A crash from the office made them jump, and for a white-knuckled second, they swayed, scrabbled and clutched. Cordy ended up with her face pressed to the side of the building, with Angel's arm wrapped around her chest, half tucked between him and the wall of concrete and steel as he held them both on the ledge with one hand jammed into an overhead seam.
A soft yellow glow reflected in the balcony's railing. Someone had turned on a light. They were stuck on top of the world and he was holding them there by his fingertips. The wind buffeted them, clearly competing with Cordelia in the contest to make him suffer. He gritted his teeth and held on, his nose pressed into Cordy's hair, his body making full contact with hers.
Cordy shifted slightly, turning her head over her shoulder to look down, her hair sliding like mink across his cheek. He shut his eyes and allowed himself a breath, drowning in the fresh citrus scent under his nose, underneath, the tang of sweat, and the sharp and sudden intoxicating smell of terror. Her head whipped around as she tried to burrow deeper underneath him.
"I could have told you not to do that," Angel whispered, his mouth brushing over the shell of her ear.
"That would have been nice," Cordelia said.
"Would you have listened?" he mumbled, not bothering to hide the 'I told you so,' in his tone.
"I think I hate you right now," she hissed.
"Nothing new," he said, realizing too late that he'd slipped his discontent right into her ear. She actually jerked against him, as if he'd hit her, bit her or any of the other ugly things he sometimes envisioned. He tightened his grip, and pressed closer, refusing to think about the firm curve of her ass tightly fitted against his groin. He'd had his fill of angry sex with Darla, or maybe just a first taste that left him with a craving for more.
"Be still, unless you want us both to fall." But not with Cordy, not with the girl who'd ragged him mercilessly even though she was the reason he'd stepped back from the darkness and was struggling to find that pinprick of light again. That narrow gleam was his hope for the future. It used to be so bright, just a few yards from the end of the tunnel, but it had only been her. A beacon that had guided his footsteps, but he'd lost his way, and in the meantime, his bleakness had swallowed her.
She didn't glow any more.
"I was hoping just you," she ground out through clenched jaw, shifting again. "Move your hand."
"What?" he barked at her nearly-growled order, and his fingers instinctively flexed, digging into the soft mound of flesh that he was clutching. The hard pebble of her nipple was pressing into his palm. Angel swallowed, a dry click that made the wind howl in laughter. "Shit." He shifted slightly, tried to slide his hand up but she was plastered against the side of the building and his balance was precarious at best, his shoulder was already quaking at the effort of keeping them stable. "You're just going to have to deal."
"Can you tell if they’re gone yet?" she asked, the timber of her voice resigned and so very tired. She kept her face buried between the wall and his shoulder.
He carefully angled his head up, sputtering as the wind shoved a few wild strands of her hair into his mouth. The glow of the light still painted the railing. "Light's still on."
"Maybe they forgot to turn it off?" she said.
Angel heard the sibilant slide of the glass door opening. "I don't think so." If the man came all the way out, he'd see them here. He wondered if he'd buy it if they said they were just 'hanging out'. Probably not. The guard’s boot scraped against the tile. Angel tensed, realizing with a sinking stomach that not only was the man going to walk out, the way they were positioned, Cordy's side was exposed if the man started shooting...
There was a rough scrape, and the sound of the door shutting. Angel sagged, his full weight crushing Cordelia against him, and for a second he let himself pretend they were right again and lay his cheek against hers while he waited for the light to go off.
"I'm sorry," he said, his lips pressed into her hair. "I didn't know Darla was involved, I swear."
"Is that why you think I'm mad?" she asked, her teeth chattering like fresh bones. For the first time, he noticed the chill bite. Up here, the wind carried a nip.
"I - I don't know why anymore," he finally admitted. "I've forgotten which thing it is I'm supposed to be apologizing for."
"Supposed to be?" she said, her back stiff and brittle under him. Cordelia snorted. "I thought vampires had long memories, or is that elephants?" She tried to turn her head in the same direction as his, but he pressed her into the wall. "I'm not in the mood for empty 'sorry's' Angel."
"Fuck you, Cordy," he whispered hotly, jaws tense- wanting to yell, to scream it in her ear. Fuck her and the white horse she rode in on. The light had gone off and so, fifty stories up, he shoved her towards the railing. She caught it, stiff armed, clutching it as she scrambled over and landed in a crouch. He wouldn't have let her fall.
He hoped.
***
Darla's laugh followed them as he snatched Cordelia's wrist and took off down the hall, dragging her beside him. She yanked her arm but he didn't let her go. Apparently one glance over her shoulder was enough to silence any further protest as a veritable swarm of black-uniformed security men, armed with stakes and handguns, spilled around the corner and sprinted after them.
The laughter died on Darla's lips, but the echo taunted them as they jumped into an elevator that opened to disgorge a night janitor. Angel smirked, enjoying the tight-lipped, exasperated expression on Darla's face as the doors slid closed before security could reach them. Beside him Cordy started punching random buttons. Forty five, Fifty, Fifty five...
***
Angel merely leapt, springing from the narrow lip, sailing over the rail and Cordy's head and landing in front of her. He turned only to get a fist full of Cordelia as she threw a left that swung wide, but followed through with a solid right to the chin. The pain rolled away and he was left to stare. Apparently his little push had pissed her off.
"You asshole!" she yelled, unconcerned if she brought the building's security running. With a wounded, animal cry, she lunged and beat at his chest. "Fuck you Angel." She punched his shoulder. "Fuck," punch, "YOU!" punch.
He took the punishment, refused the call of his blood to hit back. Instead he brought to mind the sucker-punched expression on Cordelia's face as Darla had confessed, with mocking glee, the details of night they'd shared. The night that had brought him as close to rock bottom as he'd been in the hundred years he'd had his soul.
Darla had exposed the one thing he'd tried desperately to keep from Cordy these past weeks, though as she hit him, he realized he'd forgotten why he'd been so shamed by it. It was his fucking bad night, not hers... His hand rose, catching Cordelia's hand mid-slap. Before she could even blink, he'd twisted her arm behind her, locking it in place, bringing them chest to chest, toe to toe, face to face...
"That's enough."
"As if," she said, her lips pulling back into an expression he hadn't seen since her Queen C days. It said 'the bitch is back' and he'd thought it was one of the faces she'd discarded when the ‘new her’ had risen from the ashes of Vocah. Apparently, it had just been in hiding. Well, he had a hidden face too, and all he had to do to disarm her was bite the tongue out of her mouth.
"It happened, I'm sorry, I'd take it back if I could."
She laughed then, Hair flying into her face, caught in the snare of his arms and laughing with the same bitter irony that Darla had used when he'd thrown her on the table and kissed her bloody lips. "God, Angel, I don't care! I just don't care any more, don't you get it?"
Despair welled up, overtaking the last ray of hope he'd been clinging to. He let go of her hand and clutched her shoulders, shaking her like a doll. "Don't SAY that!" He barked, shaking her again. "You can't- not- I *know* you care," he shouted hoarsely, the wind stripping his words to tatters.
"Why should I? You didn't. You think I'm mad because you slept with Darla? Bone her till you both rot!" Her fingers clawed at his arms, scraping across the leather as she curled them into fists. "I'm sick of this Angel. I'm sick of you trying to pretend that you didn't run like a coward when the going got tough, and left us because *you* were having a bad week!"
Challenge flared in the whiskey depths of her eyes, making him a little drunk on her bad attitude and more than ready for a fight.
"It was a hell of a lot more than a bad week, Cordy, and *I'm* sick and fucking tired of you dismissing the fact that Wolfram and Hart were deliberately trying to drive me insane or that I tried like hell to actually help Darla - which, by the way, is what you are always telling me we are supposed to do!" He shoved her away, watching impassively as she stumbled and fell to the ground, scraping her hands on the rough-hewn tiles.
"She was using you," she spat.
Angel shook his head and knelt in front of her, holding by his fingertips from falling into the violent abyss that roiled just under his skin. "Not at the end, not just before Dru-" He closed his eyes, shuddering at the memory. "And if I didn't know better, I'd say the only reason you were so pissed about Darla is because you were jealous." He didn't have time to stop Cordy's hand as she delivered a stinging slap across his cheek.
His tongue darted out, caught a taste of Cordelia's blood that had smudged the corner of his mouth. Another too-short taste of something he craved. "I probably deserved that." He sighed and sat down cross-legged in front of her.
She scooted back until she was leaning against the balcony wall. She mirrored his position; not seeming to care how the grey skirt she was wearing rode up, flashing temptation hidden under a small triangle of black satin. "Drop the probably," she muttered, staring blank-faced at her lonely reflection in the glass. Angel wanted her to see him, for once to catch a glimpse of the real him when she looked past herself.
"I thought when I sent you away, that you would leave," he confessed. "I wanted you to go." He'd wanted it, for selfish reasons as well as her own good, but he'd never been more glad of anything that her stubborn streak was worse than his.
"Go where, Angel?" Finally, she looked into his eyes. He noticed hers were red-rimmed from unshed tears. "The visions were your responsibility. I - I... counted on you. For the first time in my life, I thought I had somebody." Her eyes narrowed, "and not in a 'somebody I want to bone' way either."
Angel nodded, letting her know he understood, and encouraging her to go on.
She took a deep breath and continued. "After Vocah, you were different. *We* were different. We depended on each other, but then you shut us out, all of us, but I thought with the visions, with us - I thought it would be different. But you were so cold, and then I just felt stupid for believing…." She sniffed and wiped at invisible tears. "The first couple of times Wes and Gunn went out and took care of the visions, I was upset that you'd fired us, but it was okay - but then Wes got shot, and I was really pissed at you. We could have died."
"I get that, Cordy, I really do, but I'm not perfect. I've never been dependable at the best of times, but I'm trying." He trailed off, not knowing what else to say that she hadn't heard a million times before and dismissed with a trademark, "Pfft." He sighed, ran his hands through his hair, listened to the wind whistle across the building. "What do you want me to say, Cordy?"
Cordelia lay her head back and regarded him with lidded eyes weighted with fatigue that had nothing to do with running or hanging for their lives on a foot-wide lip of concrete. "Nothing, Angel. I don't want you to say anything, no more apologies, no more attempts at small talk, no more compliments, because I know you're just trying to butter me up..." She raised her hands, a beseeching gesture. "Do, Angel – action - that's what I want."
"That's it?" Angel asked, his eyebrows arching. Action he could do. It was this recent need to know what Cordelia was feeling, and make it better, that was tripping him up. It kept him reeling between the desire to throttle her and the need to run his fingers like whispered promises over the smooth skin of her shoulders.
She nodded, letting her hands fall into her lap. "Stop pretending we are all right, and *make* us all right."
Angel pondered her words as he rose to his feet and offered her his hand. "That might take... a while."
"Exactly," Cordelia said as she took his hand and let him pull her up. "That's my whole point. You've been crowding me for weeks, sucking up worse than Xander on a bad day. You can buy me all the clothes you want. That's not going to make us magically all right, so stop trying to act like if you ignore the fact that you screwed up hard enough, we'll forget too. It grates."
"What about you?" Angel asked as he leaned against the balcony, folding his arms across his chest. He figured if they were laying their cards on the table, he should go for broke. He knew that as Cordy went, Gunn and Wes would follow. "I've admitted my mistakes and I’m doing the best I can, but you keep - pushing me. I've never let anyone get by with -" he gestured vaguely, searching for a nice way to tell her she was being a bitch, "-whatever this is with the attitude and the punishment. This is hard enough. Admitting I need you guys and coming back was hard enough...."
Her eyebrows pulled into delicate frown, then slowly smoothed out, relaxing as she seemed to come to an internal decision. "If you'll stop, I'll stop."
"Stop what?" He asked, confused.
She shrugged, watching him owlishly as the seconds ticked by. "I'll just stop."
Angel suddenly understood. She was offering a truce, a white flag, a lifeline, a start. "Okay," he blurted, swallowing down the gratitude and hope that tried to creep into his voice. "Okay," he said again, steadier.
"Okay," she agreed, nodding slightly as she moved beside him to look down on LA, spread before them, sparkling like a jewel cut for their eyes only. "This is our city. It needs both of us."
And that was final. Angel reached down and touched her hand, drawing back at how icy her skin felt under his fingers. He turned and shrugged out of his coat, stepping behind her to drape it over her shoulders. "You should have told me you were so cold."
"Someone gave away my jacket," she murmured, causing him to wince.
The response was automatic. "I'm sor-"
"Can it Angel, I didn't mean it like that," she said as she turned to face him. The wind swooshed across the exposed space, and a strand of hair blew into her eyes.
Angel reached up and brushed it away, his palm cupping the side of her face briefly. She smiled, sweet and unguarded, tugging his soul and twisting the knife of guilt deeper. He shouldn't have fought with her tonight, at least not here and now, and yet - he couldn't regret it. He was revved, awake after a drugged sleepwalk through the last few weeks. He reached up again, running his fingertips along her hairline, down to trace the shell of her ear. She shut her eyes, shivering, and he burned to know if it was the cold or his touch...
"Cordy," he whispered, stepping closer.
"Mmm?" she said distractedly.
He palmed her cheek, his thumb brushing her lower lip. Her eyes opened, the amber depths swirling with confusion. "I promise, I'll do whatever it takes." He wanted to make her glow again. He wanted to warm himself by her fire. "I won't leave again."
"And when the next blond from your past rides into town?" she asked, never content to leave an issue dead and buried. Cordy had to dig it up and poke it with a stick, to see if it still had any life left.
He chuckled. "You're a pain in the ass."
She smiled, the first wide, bright, real, smile that he'd seen in weeks. "It's my calling."
The wind swirled around them, pushing them closer together. Her hands came up and lay against his chest as she steadied herself.
"You still didn't answer my question," she prodded, amusement sparkling in her eyes like the city lights far below, but there was an underlying vulnerability. She had truly believed him lost to her. He nearly had been. Still might be a little. He needed his guide.
Angel answered it with a kiss, stooping down to cover her lips with his own, tugging at the lapels of his coat until she was trapped against his chest, and then wrapping his arms around her back and holding her there. He wanted to steal as much warmth as possible before she pushed him away.
Only, she didn't push him away, just drew back, breaking the seal of his kiss with a soft wet sound, her expression a question mark. One eyebrow slowly rose as suspicions clouded her eyes.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said, his voice a low rumble.
"What is this, Angel?" she began, working up a head of steam as she went. "What's with the grabby hands all of a sudden? You're a real crap-weasel if you think you can just kiss and make up by - kissing me!" She pushed, but he was immovable.
The heat he'd been searching for so long to find flared in his belly. Darla had let him map her skin with his violence, to take her with raw, animal brutality, but it had left him cold, despairing. As much of a turn-on the thought of drawing a masterwork of pain across Cordy's skin was, it was the eternal conflict with her soul that he craved. She had a strength that couldn't be measured by the easy crack of her bones, or the fragility of human life.
Cordelia was loud, at times still selfish, and always annoying, but most of all, she was indomitable. He'd had to almost lose her to realize he needed her, and now the final piece fell into place as sparks ignited in Cordy's eyes. Angel finally understood that Cordy couldn't abide those who rolled over and gave up, and she sure as hell didn't respect people who let her walk all over them. Now he realized that she craved a good bare-knuckled fight as much as he.
She poked him in the chest. "Back off, dumbass," she huffed, words too breathless to be angry.
"Not a chance," he growled, tangling his fingers in her hair and yanking her into a brutal, shattering kiss. His world was torn down and remade as his tongue thrust against hers, darkest midnight giving way to the purple and blue hued herald of approaching dawn. Inside her, he could believe that he'd live to see the golden light of sunrise. He backed her towards the railing, grunting with satisfaction as they bumped up against each other with nowhere left to go.
“Angel, this is stupid," she said, as she stole a breath, and her fingertips skittered along his sides. She picked at the fabric of his shirt, nervous and unsure as a virgin on prom night. "They could catch us."
Angel trapped her between the railing and his chest, "We've been arguing for the last half hour, if they were going to catch us, it would have been while you were yelling." He leaned in, and she leaned back, eyes widening, hands pushing him away. He was tired of being turned away from her warmth, just tired enough to push back.
"No," she said, firmly, as if scolding a dog. She raised her hand between them, palm out, signaling he should stop. Instead he brought her palm to his lips, kissing the raw scrape where she's caught herself on the pavement. The copper tang of blood hit his tongue, chording his muscles with tense anticipation. He opened his mouth over the tender skin, scraped his teeth down over red flesh, nipped at her wrist as his canines elongated and his demon pressed against the bones of his face. She gasped when his eyes went gold, but he held himself there, not fully one or the other.
"I need you." The words rasped against her skin as the wind wrapped around them. "I need to show you..." He pounced, catching her lips as they parted in protest and plundering the raw silk of her mouth. If he could make her need him as much as he needed her... of course that was the rub. She never had. She had only needed a job. He was the one that had needed a savior.
This kiss was an outpouring of the desperation and loneliness he carried, dammed up only to break into a tidal wave that thundered through them and scoured away all the detritus of the last few weeks, leaving them both tumbled head over feet, gasping, clinging to each other for support.
"We can't," she whispered.
"I know," he said, placing her left hand on the railing. He cupped her cheek, bringing her chin up until she met his eyes. It might be dangerous, they might get caught -or worse- might fall, but he knew from the hard black want in the depth of his being that it was *going* to happen. He placed her right hand on the rail. "Hold on."
She did as he asked, not quite trusting, but not fighting him either as he nipped at her ear lobe and suckled open-mouthed down the slope of her neck, his teeth scraping the hollow of her throat, fingertips mapping the curve of her clavicle. He unbuttoned the third button on her sensible white blouse. The low moan that escaped from her throat spurred him on. He cupped a satin covered mound in his hand, pushing it up until the hardened peak almost spilled over the cup of her bra and then buried his face in the soft valley of skin.
He lay his ear against her chest, listening to her heart beating, fast as pigeon wings in the cage of her ribs. Angel took a deep breath, memorizing her natural musk and the golden honey of arousal. Her skin grew prickly-hot as uncertainty made her blush, then a touch – feather-light - tickled his skin as Cordelia tentatively ran her fingers over his ear and down his neck. The innocence of it fueled the fire, sparking him once more into action. He slid his cheek up, burrowed his face into her neck, finding home as his hands slid down the ladder of her ribs, across the planes of her hip and down the length of her Donna Karan skirt.
A soft sound of encouragement slipped from her lips. His hands crept under the fabric, slowly bunching it as they glided back up. She gripped his shoulder with one hand as she cupped his chin with the other, pulling his head up. He blinked, smiling when her mouth inched closer to his. Their lips touched briefly, a ghost of a caress that set his nerves ablaze, leaving him hungry, wolfish, wanting. The edge of her mouth quirked upwards, a little ‘come hither’ smirk that made him chuckle even as she moved in to kiss him again. Her tongue flicked against his mouth, stealing a taste, and he grunted his approval. He stepped closer as his fingers danced seduction along the edge of her panties. She nipped his bottom lip, her mouth pulling into a sneer when he growled.
In response Angel grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head to the side and bit her jaw. He found the tendon in her neck and pinched it hard between his teeth, causing her to cry out. His erection dug into the soft skin of Cordelia's hip as he quit teasing them both and pressed his fingers into the damp satin covering her sex. She hissed, and the light in her eyes changed, losing whatever innocence reflected out of their depths. His mouth drew back from his fangs; her heated gaze locked on to the jagged row of teeth and her tongue darted out to wet her lips.
There was a tug, the rasp of fabric on fabric and then suddenly hot hands were branding his back, snaking up his spine and pulling him closer. The same tongue that had flayed him alive the past few weeks slid like satin between his fangs. She was kissing him with all the passion he'd lost, filling him like the empty vessel he was, burning him from the inside out. Her fingers dug into the muscles of his back, scrabbling for purchase as he lifted her up against the railing. She held on as he fumbled with his belt buckle and the button of his jeans. Gasped and threw her head back as he freed himself, yanked her underwear to the side and slid into her ready depths.
"Cordelia," he groaned, once more burying his head into her chest.
She didn't answer, just arched backwards, trusting his hands to keep her safe. She held on to the railing, grinding down on his cock. It was nothing for him to hold her in place one-handed while he fingered open the buttons of her blouse with the other. The shirt slowly parted, fully revealing the grey silk bra and golden skin hidden underneath. The city lights spread below them like a hand-stitched quilt of stars... and here, above the pain, the guilt, the grit of the city, Angel ran his hand over Cordy's stomach, slowly up, over her breasts to linger over the enticing tub-thump of her heartbeat before wrapping his long fingers around her throat.
Her head snapped down, her eyes locking with his. The uncertainty there made his cock throb inside her. He let go of her back, held her by the throat as he thrust deep and hard, increasing the pace. Before the temptation to squeeze and watch her gasp for the next breath became to great, his fingers loosened, sliding to the side to cup her neck.
Cordy wrapped her long tanned legs around his waist and gripped the rail, knuckles peeking out from under the too-long sleeves of his coat - white from holding on - but she didn't struggle. Angel wasn't sure what he would have done if she had fought him. His demon clawed too close to the surface, ready to pounce on any sign of weakness, but Cordy steadily held his gaze, moaning loudly when he hit a spot inside that had her thighs quivering against him.
"Angel."
He pulled her to him and her trembling arms wrapped around his neck, her mouth meeting his as if he were her savior and she was tasting communion. She wrapped him up in her arms, surrounding him, letting him borrow her breath and her pulse. This wasn't innocence, unsure and virginal. This wasn't the hard, practiced fucking of a whore. This wasn't the crazed sensuality of a woman he'd destroyed. This was Cordelia, with her sharp tongue and soft heart, his perfect mix of the shattered women he'd left behind. His holy trinity.
Angel gasped as pressure built in his groin and his skin stretched impossibly tight over age-old bone and sinew. His hands dug into her hips, guiding her movements as the unyielding length of his cock slammed home again, and again. He nipped at her lips until they parted, kissing him with blinding intensity. Electric arcs of desire zinged down his spine as heat spread from the center of his groin and warm languid light pulsed behind his tightly-shut lids.
When he opened his eyes, all he could see was wild hair highlighted by the red lights of the freeway traffic far below, and flushed skin backlit by the light of the building across from them. Cordelia was glowing; light flowed from her smile, danced in her eyes, traced in random patterns across his skin by her fingertips. The glow seeped through his greedy pores, infecting him with her heat, her life... the throb of her walls fisting around his cock was his pulse, the warm trickle of breath in her kiss filled his lungs... Not bliss, not this time, but in that moment of oblivion when he came, he found something far more precious.
He found his hope.
Continue on...
