Go TeamC/A
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Part 3 Waltzing into the salon as if she owned the place, Cordelia confidently strode up to the front desk and explained the reason for their visit. Nodding obligingly, the cool as a cucumber receptionist immediately ushered Angel through to the treatment area out back.
As he reluctantly trailed along at the young woman’s heels, the vampire turned to shoot a beseeching look back at his seer, feeling like a little boy lost in a department store. Wholly indifferent to his plight though, Cordelia just waggled her fingers at him in farewell, her hazel eyes sparkling with silent laughter.
“If you’d like to hop up on the bed, Mr Angel, Shelley will be along in a few moments.” With that bright and breezy instruction, the impossibly manicured female drew the pale blue curtains closed with a smooth swish, and left the jittery vampire to his own devices.
How the hell did I get myself into this? Angel thought to himself, as he sat down on the treatment table and took in his confined surroundings.
The lighting in the small cubicle was subdued, but that didn’t make the place seem any less sterile and uninviting. A glass-fronted cupboard stood against one wall, with row upon tow of beauty products stashed inside, and several neat piles of towels stowed on top. Next to the bed, was a trolley on wheels, which held a trio of white plastic bottles, several pairs of surgical gloves, and – intriguingly - what appeared to be some kind of baseball mitt.
Pushed away in the far corner was some sort of torture device – at least that’s what it looked like to the vampire. The scary-looking machine had several dials on the front, and a metallic probe on the end of a piece of coiled flex, attached to the side. Angel did not even want to *think* about what it was used for; whatever it was, it didn’t look very pleasant, that was for sure.
His vampiric senses tingled then, informing him of another presence in the room, and he whipped his head round to confront the interloper. A small woman, in her mid thirties, stood at the end of the bed, watching him with an amused glint in her eye.
She was dressed in a pastel blue, calf-length dress, its wraparound style obviously chosen to emphasise her curvaceous figure to its maximum effect. Her hair was a deep burnished red and coiled up into a loose topknot, with a few wispy strands left free to frame her strikingly beautiful face. Her large almond-shaped eyes were deep violet in colour, a shade that Angel had never seen in a human before.
“Hello – I’m Shelley. You must be Mr Angel,” she introduced herself in a rich contralto voice, holding out her right hand towards him in greeting.
Angel shook her hand, noting that she had long elegant fingers, despite her short stature, while her slim wrists looked as if they would normally be adorned with a collection on thin, decorative bangles. Sniffing cautiously, he tried to ascertain if she was human or not, but the results proved inconclusive. Beneath the light floral perfume she wore, the beautician smelt mostly homo sapien, but there was an underlying, unearthly aroma there, the origin of which the vampire couldn’t quite place.
Shelley’s generously proportioned lips curled up into a quirky half-smile, and Angel got the distinct impression that she had read his actions like an open book. This opinion was further compounded when her laser-sharp eyes made a slow and deliberate pass over every inch of his muscular body, an unspoken challenge shining in her indigo orbs as she gave him a thorough once over.
“So – you’re here for a self-tan patch test, correct?” she enquired politely, when her calm, unruffled gaze eventually settled back on his face.
“Umm – yeah, I guess I am.”
“Okay then, Mr Angel – if you’d just like to take off your jacket and shirt, we’ll get started.”***
Cordelia absently flipped over the page of the magazine, not really reading it, her thoughts elsewhere. At first, it had seemed funny to abandon the, obviously petrified, Angel to his fate, but then a twisted knot of anxiety had begun to develop in the pit of her stomach.
What if the St Tropez treatment resulted in spontaneous combustion, and he vamped out and went all growly in the middle of the salon? She’d never be able to show her face in here again!
When the horrifying reality of that sank in, the seer bolted out of her seat, knocking her copy of Cosmo to the floor and moving quickly in the direction of the treatment cubicles.
“Excuse me, Miss Chase? You can’t go back there…” the receptionist called after her.
“Pfft!” Cordelia threw back over her shoulder, dismissing the woman’s objections with a curt wave of her hand as she went through into the back.
In her blind haste to get to Angel, before he got her barred from the salon, she pulled back the curtain of the first occupied treatment area, not fully considering the consequences.
“Hey! What the hell?”
Uh-oh!
The indignant objection came from the woman on the bed, who lay, legs akimbo, obviously in the process of having her bikini line waxed.
“Sorry, I was just… Wow! Is that a Brazilian? Doesn’t that hurt like holy hell, and then itch to high heaven afterwards?”
“My boyfriend likes it,” the young woman said defensively, before her blue eyes narrowed frostily when she realised that she’d been tricked into engaging in conversation with this bold as brass intruder.
“Okaay… I think I’ll be going now,” Cordelia said, hurriedly backing out of the cubicle and away from the artic death-stare aimed in her direction.
Tugging the curtain closed, the seer shut her eyes and concentrated her senses on locating Angel’s powerful presence in the vicinity.
She didn’t know when, or where, she’d learned how to do this, it just sort of happened. A consequence of being his seer, perhaps? She wasn’t really sure. Not that it mattered – it meant that the vampire could no longer sneak up on her unawares; she always knew his whereabouts when he was close by.
Quickly pinpointing him in the far cubicle on the right, Cordelia opened her eyes and strode down the corridor, quietly slipping into the treatment room, unannounced.
“Cordy!” Angel exclaimed, relief flooding through him as he took in her familiar and soothing countenance.
The vampire sat on the treatment bed, his pale muscular torso exposed from the waist upwards, and the seer’s warm hazel eyes turned to stone-cold flint as she absorbed the scene before her.
Okay, so exactly why does he need to be half-naked for a patch test? she thought to herself, swiftly moving to hover jealously over her man.
She glared at an unrepentant Shelley, who shrugged her shoulders as if to say ‘Hey girl! You can hardly blame me.’
Curiously, the fact that the beautician was completely unapologetic about her actions caused Cordelia to relax her protective stance. She couldn’t say for sure how she knew, but it seemed that Shelley had a look, but don’t touch, policy with regard to her clients.
Given that Angel was the pure definition of the word ‘hottie,’ she couldn’t really condemn the woman for checking out his, not so inconsiderable, attributes. After all, she’d been known to do her fair share of surreptitious ogling of his sculptured form herself. Patching up various minor injuries over the years had often called for the unnecessary removal of the souled vampire’s shirt, for instance.
Shelley’s eyebrows rose imperceptibly, and Cordelia blushed, almost certain that the other woman had sensed the shameful direction that her thoughts were taking. She quickly turned her attention to Angel to cover up her embarrassment, but found that she was unable to stop herself from admiring the planes of muscle that etched out the smooth contours of his toned back.
The vampire, meanwhile, was utterly oblivious to the silent exchange between his seer and the attractive beautician. Although, now that his soul was permanent, he had begun to release the restraints on his inner sensuality, the years of self-enforced celibacy had dulled the vampire’s senses towards the subtle come-on signals from the opposite sex. He was as clueless as ever with regard to his effect on the majority of women.
He did react when he felt the warm caress of gentle fingers, tracing the outline of the tattoo on his shoulder blade though. Turning his dark, mesmerising gaze on his seer, he was suddenly very aware of her presence beside him.
With a sharp intake of breath, Cordelia snatched her hand back, the pink tinge already colouring her cheeks, intensifying to a deep rosy red on being caught with her fingers in the honey-pot.
Angel silently exulted; the barriers between them were slowly coming down, and he couldn’t have been happier. He wanted this amazing woman in his home, his heart, his bed, and everywhere else in between, and it felt good that he had the power to get under her skin in this way. He had not missed Cordelia’s earlier reaction to his touch back at the Hotel, and this was just further evidence that she wasn’t adverse to the idea of being with him.
“Ahem!”
Shelley loudly cleared her throat to disperse the thick cloud of sexual tension that had descended over the pair. Snapping on a pair of gloves, she squeezed a globule of dark brown cream onto a small circular sponge, and approached the bed.
“Shall we get this done?” she asked, her violet eyes questioning.
Angel swallowed hard, and nodded in agreement, reluctantly giving his permission for her to proceed. The short redheaded woman bent over and reached out to dab at the pale skin of his torso with the sponge, but stopped when he involuntarily cringed back from her.
“You can relax,” she said, her rich, smoky voice filled with amusement. “A few vampires have had allergic reactions, but I’ve never known one to burst into flames.”
“What? How did you…?” Cordelia stopped mid-sentence and stared at Shelley, open-mouthed.
“Krevlorneswath of the Deathwok Clan recommended my salon to you, did he not?”
“Yeah, but… that green colour doesn’t come from a bottle, does it?”
Shelley laughed, “No – that’s all natural. Considering who you are, you can’t be oblivious to the extra service I provide here though, Miss Chase.”
“You mean the new age chant that’s really a spell? No, it doesn’t fool me. It works wonders, I might add.”
“That’s why my salon has the reputation for being the best around.”
“You really treat vampires?”
“Yes, there are several on my regular client list.”
“But how do you stop them from – like – eating you?”
Shelley muttered something under her breath, and held out her hand, claw-like, towards Angel. The vampire jumped as a zap of electricity ricocheted through his veins, temporarily paralysing him for a second. He growled, his forehead rippling as the hard ridges and glowing yellow eyes of his demon emerged.
“Vampires find the sensation extremely unpleasant for some reason,” Shelley explained. “It doesn’t hold them for long, but I have this,” she pulled a wooden stake from the treatment trolley, “For the more troublesome ones. The majority are well behaved, however. This is LA – everyone wants to look good, even the un-dead.”
“So, you know who I am?” Angel asked the beautician.
“You’re reputation proceeds you, Mr Angel.”
“It’s just Angel.”
Shelley nodded and raised the sponge that she still held in her fingers. Angel inclined his head, and she began to paint a square patch of his skin with the brown lotion.
“Miss Chase here likes to talk – a lot,” she continued conversationally. “And you’re her favourite topic of discussion. I have to say her ways of trying to conceal the fact that you’re a vampire are *very* inventive.”
“You could have just told me you knew,” Cordelia reproved, her bottom lip jutting out into a slight pout.
“Ahh – but where would be the fun in that?” Shelley said with a smile.
She stepped back and threw the used sponge away. “Okay – just give that a few minutes to dry and then you can put your shirt back on. If there’s no reaction in half an hour, you’re good to go.”
“Do you think he could get an appointment this morning?” Cordelia queried.
“Well, I’m all booked up, but I’m sure one of my colleagues is free. I don’t remember there being a full appointment schedule today. Ask Heather on reception – she’ll sort something out for you,” Shelley answered, as she tugged off her soiled gloves and tossed them into the bin.
“Nice to meet you, Angel,” she added, bidding him farewell with a congenial nod of her head. “Miss Chase - I’ll see you next week for your regular appointment.”
Forty-five minutes later, Angel and Cordelia sat in reception, away from the windows, waiting patiently for an appointment at 10am. At least, the seer was waiting patiently, happily engrossed in the latest copy of Cosmo. The vampire, however, was bored silly and growing increasingly restless. Looking around for something to do, he strode over to the counter and grabbed a handful of advertising literature to peruse.
He let out a deep put-upon sigh as he sat back down next to Cordelia, but she purposely ignored him and continued reading. Angel sifted through the glossy leaflets and absently flipped open the salon’s price-list, skimming his eyes down over the range of treatments and their respective fees.
“How much?” he choked back a startled exclamation, causing his seer to look up from her magazine article. “Have you seen what a St. Tropez treatment costs?” he asked her.
“If you want the best, you have to pay premium rate prices,” Cordelia told him primly.
“Shelley said you had a regular appointment – how do you afford that?”
“I put it on the company credit card.”
“And Wesley agrees to this?”
“Not exactly,” the seer admitted sheepishly, her eyes downcast. “He doesn’t know Shelley’s a beauty salon - I told him it was a stationary supplier.”
“Cordelia!”
“Hey – you fell for it too, buddy. Besides, it’s a legitimate business expense. It’s your fault; I can’t go out in the sun.”
Angel would have taken that to heart if she hadn’t kept her tone of voice deliberately light and teasing. “That’s a low blow,” he informed her.
“I know,” Cordelia said, gracing him with her wide beautiful smile. “True though,” she added.
Angel frowned, everything in him baulking at paying out that kind of money for someone to rub cream into his skin. “Can’t I just buy the stuff and do it myself?” he asked plaintively.
The seer turned her head to look steadily at him, disapproval written all over her beautiful face. The vampire stared back at her, completely unfazed by her icy stare. It was just cream – how complicated could it be for god’s sake?
Seeing he wasn’t going to back down, Cordelia rose to her feet with a loud huff and a disdainful toss of her head, and made her way over to the reception desk.
“I’m really sorry,” she told the young woman behind the counter. “But I think we’re going to have to cancel that appointment.”
“Oh?”
Cordelia leaned forward conspiratorially. “He’s kind of shy around women,” she said in a low voice. “He’s gonna need a bit more persuasion to go through with it.”
“Oh, I see,” Heather said, with an understanding nod of her head. “We do have a qualified male beautician, you know. I think Andre is free in an hour if your friend would be more comfortable with him performing the procedure?”
Cordelia was sorely tempted, but wisely decided against it, remembering the vampire’s swift backtrack when she suggested that he would have to shower with a load of men if he joined a gym. “Thanks, but we’ll leave it for now. I don’t want to push it – I think a subtle campaign of feminine persuasion is the best way to go.”
“Works every time,” Heather agreed, with a sly wink. “Men are so gullible.”
“Not to mention extremely tight with a buck,” Cordelia muttered under her breath as she strode back across the room towards a completely unremorseful Angel.***
Gunn looked up from his Game-boy as the Lobby doors crashed open, and Cordelia and a blanket-wrapped Angel came through. “Hey guys! We were wondering where you two had got to – whatcha been up to?”
In answer, Cordelia dumped a non-descript brown paper bag down in front of him, while Angel tossed aside his, slightly smoking, blanket and sat down on the sofa opposite.
His curiosity piqued, Gunn emptied out the contents of the shopping bag onto the low table. “Kinky,” he remarked as he picked up and set aside a box of surgical gloves.
Turning over one of the bottles, he laughed out loud. “Self-tan – got to look the part, huh? Cool! This your idea, Barbie girl?”
“Oh no!” Cordelia said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “*My* idea was for him to get it done professionally at a salon, but no, Mr I’m-not-cheap-I’m-just-old decided he could do it himself.”
Ignoring his seer’s pointed jibe, Angel picked up one of the other two bottles. “What’s an exfoliant?” he asked, his broad brow creased in puzzlement.
“You see what I mean?” Cordelia exclaimed in exasperation, throwing her hands up in despair at the vampire’s naivety.
“It’s a beauty product that removes the top layer of dead skin cells,” Wesley said automatically, and then shook his head. “And I don’t even want to know how I know that.”
“Me neither, English,” Gunn replied, as he studied the bottle of self-tan lotion in his hands.
“Given what those life-guards have to wear, you gonna have to rub this in some interesting places,” he remarked to Angel with a wicked grin.
“Mmm,” the vampire absently agreed, and then it finally occurred to him. “I’m going to need some help,” he said, lifting his eyes to look directly at the young black man, sitting across from him.
Their gaze held for a brief instant, and then speedily shifted in opposite directions, both of them fidgeting uncomfortably in their seats.
“Well,” Gunn said, rising purposely to his feet. “I promised my old crew, I’d check in on them to see how they’re doing after the debacle at Caritas. I’ll see you guys later.”
With that, the former street-kid turned on his heel and made a fast exit.
“And I should *really* be getting back to my research,” Wesley put in, scrambling quickly to his feet. “Coming Fred?” he asked, hooking his hand under the pretty brunette’s elbow and practically dragging her from the room.
Cordelia’s head swivelled from one swinging door to the other, and then she rolled her eyes in derision.
“Men! They’re all the same,” she snorted, gathering up the self-tan supplies in her arms. “I should have made you that appointment with Andre; it would have served you right.”
Angel stared at her blankly and she clucked her tongue. “Come on then - I see that I’m going to have to be the one who helps you with this. If you go to that interview with tiger stripes, you’ll never live it down.”
The seer turned towards the staircase, fully expecting him to follow her, but Angel remained where he was, thinking about the decision he had made in the car on the way back to the Hyperion. He had come to the conclusion that it was finally time to move their relationship onto the next level, and had therefore been planning to bite the bullet and confess his feelings. This unexpected turn of events had him reconsidering that course of action, however.
Watching as Cordelia climbed the Lobby steps, he gazed appreciably at the gentle sway of her curvy backside beneath the thin cotton skirt that she wore, his mind working overtime. The seer had been extremely flustered both times the boundaries of friendship had been stretched today, and he simply couldn’t resist this golden opportunity to tease her some more.
Cordelia turned to look down on the still stationary vampire. “Are we going to do this, or not?” she demanded wilfully.
Angel’s mouth curled up in a slow, sexy smile at her question. He pushed himself upright and was by her side in a blink of an eye. Placing one hand on her hipbone, his cool fingers brushed the silky strands of her hair away from her neck, before he bent to speak softly in her ear.
“Oh yes – I think we are,” he murmured, his gravelly voice low and seductive, despite the relative innocence of his words.
Cordelia Elizabeth Chase was suddenly a whole lot less sure of herself…
Part 4
Leaning casually against the mahogany dresser, his arms folded across his chest, Angel watched in amused silence as Cordelia moved purposely about the room, arranging the furniture to her liking. After neatly lining up the self-tan supplies on the cabinet, she stripped the sheets and comforter from the bed, and spread several large bath-towels over the bare mattress, smoothing out the wrinkles with the flats of her hands.
Tucking her hair behind her ears, the seer paused to survey the makeshift treatment table that she’d created, her teeth worrying at her lower lip. Her heart was thudding at a rapid rate inside her chest, a detail that betrayed her lack of internal composure to the vampire, who delighted at having successfully knocked her off balance.
Sucking in a deep calming breath, Cordelia eventually plucked up the courage to turn around and face him, but kept her eyes downcast, refusing to look him directly in the eye.
“Umm – everything’s ready,” she told him, powerless to conceal the uneasy tremor in her voice.
“Okay,” Angel replied, matter-of-factly. “Guess it’s time for me to get naked then.”
“What? No!”
Her expression aghast, Cordelia snapped horrified eyes up to his face, her voice coming out in a high-pitched squeak. Cringing in mortification, she tried to cover up her over-the-top reaction by offering some sort of vague explanation for it.
“I mean - that’s not necessary. You can keep your boxers on, at least to start with anyway, and then we can use a towel to cover… that area,” she said, gesturing at his groin with an embarrassed wave of her hand, a ruby-red flush staining her cheeks.
Trying not to laugh, Angel schooled his features into a solemn expression, resisting the urge to crow with masculine delight. His seer was adorable when she was all flustered. It sure made a refreshing change from the aura of self-assurance that she usually radiated in his presence - although he had to admit that that side of her nature attracted him also.
“Okay – you’re the boss,” he agreed, shrugging his leather coat off his shoulders and hanging it up on the hook on the back of the door.
He toed off his boots and socks, then turned back towards her and began to unfasten his shirt with deliberate slowness, unhurriedly slipping the tiny buttons from their holes, his big fingers surprisingly dextrous.
Unable to tear her eyes off him, Cordelia stood transfixed as the muscular flesh of his chest and abdomen was systematically exposed to her appreciative gaze.
Oh yeah – I’ve still got what it takes to make ‘em weak at the knees, Angel thought jubilantly, a rush of Liam and Angelus pushing to the fore-front of his consciousness as he watched her pupils dilate to black, until they virtually obliterated the caramel hue of her iris’s.
Finally dispensing with his shirt, the vampire laid it over the back of a chair and dropped his hands to the waistband of his pants. Then, with the same teasing slowness with which he had removed his shirt, he unbuckled his belt and pulled the strip of leather through its fabric loops.
It was the harsh sound of his zipper being lowered that finally broke through Cordelia’s spellbound stupor though. She suddenly realised that her mesmerised eyes had unconsciously followed the downward movement of his hands to his crotch, and spun around with a shocked gasp, refusing to look at him as he finished disrobing.
Once he was clad in just his navy-blue underwear, Angel crossed the room to stand, barefoot, by the bed.
“So, where do you want me?” he asked of his seer’s rigidly turned back, fully aware of the double entendre in his chosen words.
“Just sit on the edge of the mattress,” she shot back in a sharp tone, her nervousness making her irritable.
Angel obediently sat down, and Cordelia blew out a breath through pursed lips, attempting to quell the butterflies that fluttered about in her stomach at the mere thought of running her hands over all that exposed male flesh. She eventually pulled herself together and climbed up onto the bed, the bottle of self-tan lotion clutched tightly in her hand.
Angel felt the warmth from the seer’s body-heat spreading across the uncovered expanse of his back as she moved to kneel behind him. He heard the pop of a bottle opening, and then experienced a scratchy sensation against his back as she liberally applied a gritty substance to his skin, working it into his flesh with the tips of her fingers.
“Why is this necessary?” he asked, curious as to the reason for the exfoliation process.
“It stops the tan from streaking,” Cordelia explained, relieved that the conversation had moved onto safer ground.
Frowning in concentration, she focused on what she was doing, trying not to think of the vampire’s state of undress as she moved her fingers in concentric circles, rubbing the bright blue concoction over the broad extent of his shoulders and back.
“Here,” she said, reaching over his shoulder and handing him the bottle when she’d finished. “Do your arms, legs and front, then take a shower and wash it off.”
“You’re not going to help me?”
Cordelia shifted backwards off the bed and stood up. “I think you can manage by yourself.”
She turned to pick up another white plastic bottle from the cabinet, and tossed it to him as he rose to his feet. Angel easily caught it in his free hand. “What’s this for?”
“Moisturiser,” came the reply. “Apply it to the rougher areas of your skin when you’ve dried off.”
“Rougher areas?”
The seer rolled her eyes in exasperation at his mystified question. “You know - your knees, elbows, the backs of your heels. Geez! Do I have to explain everything? You’d think someone who uses the amount of hair product that you do would have more of a clue.”
Angel finally retreated into the bathroom, closing the door behind him, and Cordelia went to wash her hands in the hotel suite’s small kitchenette.
“Come on Cor, get a grip,” she murmured to herself as she rinsed her shaking fingers under the warm running water. “You can do this. I mean, rubbing self-tan lotion over practically every inch of that gorgeous bod will be a cinch, right?”
The irony of that statement was not lost on the jumpy young woman - Angel obviously intended to make this experience as humiliating as possible, and she cursed her defencelessness against his subtle teasing. When he threw that cocky, self-confident and, intrinsically male, attitude at her, she just melted into a seer-sized puddle at his feet. It was akin to the no-nonsense, take-charge mindset that came over him when he had a demon to vanquish, and that never failed to get her hot under the collar either.
The nature of their relationship was inexplicably changing, which both confused and excited her in equal measure. While Cordelia had acknowledged her undeniable attraction to Angel a while ago, she had never dared dream that anything could ever come of it. For starters, there was his curse - which admittedly wasn’t an issue anymore - but the main obstacle had always been Buffy Summers, slayer extraordinaire and one true love of the brooding vamp with a soul, anyway.
The seer wasn’t blind to the effect that she had on the majority of the male population, and therefore accepted that it was possible for Angel to feel sexual desire for her. She just couldn’t see how he could possibly love her like she wanted him to though. Buffy was everything he ever wanted, whereas she would always be second best, a substitute.
No, it was best to keep things on a platonic footing and lock away her secret yearning deep inside her heart. Angel wouldn’t push the issue if she made it clear that she couldn’t accept casual from him. He cared about her too much to treat her in that way, she felt sure of that. She could claim the title of ‘best friend and confidante’ at least. That was something, wasn’t it?
The bathroom door creaked open then, interrupting the jumbled flow of Cordelia’s muddled thoughts. Swinging around, she swallowed hard when she saw Angel emerge from the on-suite, his mid-section wrapped in what had to be the smallest towel on the face of the planet. The white fabric just about covered the firm globes of his ass, but barely concealed the rest of his manly assets from her gaze as he strode confidently across the room towards her.
Oh God! Why is he doing this to me? she silently wailed as her, already rapid, heart rate went through the roof.
Seeing the look of panic that flitted across her features, Angel almost took pity on her – except that he was having far too much fun. It wasn’t often that he got the upper hand with his beautiful seer, and he was determined to make the most of it. The vampire was surprising himself with the ease in which he was stirring up the sexual tension between the two of them, although, deep down, he knew he probably shouldn’t be.
Contrary to popular opinion, sensual mind games were not an exclusive by-product of his soulless self; it was simply that the lack of a soul had turned a once pleasant pastime into something cruel and maliciously twisted. The talent was inborn, but, for obvious reasons, Angel had subjugated it over the years. However, as there was no motive for him to do that anymore, that part of his personality was gradually reasserting itself - much to his immense enjoyment and Cordelia’s noticeable chagrin.
“Front or back first?” he asked, totally ignoring the seer’s unmistakable discomfort.
“Front… I mean, lie on your front,” she hurriedly clarified before the annoyingly self-possessed vampire took her literally.
Suppressing a grin, Angel did as instructed, resting his forehead against the mattress and folding his arms in a diamond shape above his head.
Okay, you can do this, Cordelia silently coached herself as she snapped on a pair of surgical gloves to protect her hands from the tanning mixture. Just don’t think about what’s under that towel whatever you do. Think unpleasant thoughts - putting out the garbage, cleaning up demon entrails, you know the kind of thing.
Placing first one knee, and then the other, on the bed, she gingerly knelt alongside Angel’s prone form, her movements causing the mattress to dip slightly. Squeezing a dollop of the dark brown lotion into her cupped palm, she set the bottle aside and started to apply it across the breadth of his shoulders and neck.
She then smoothed the cream down the sides of his body to where his flesh met the edge of the towel that was secured snugly around his hips. Moving her hands in long, broad strokes over the vampire’s pale skin, the seer focussed her efforts on getting an even coverage, taking care not to miss any spots.
Angel closed his eyes, hidden tension draining unbidden from his body under the powerful sway of Cordelia’s gentle ministrations. The warmth from her palms seeped into his skin and acted as a muscle relaxant, helping him unwind. The fact that the skilfully massaging hands belonged to the woman he had grown to love, only heightened the experience for him. It was utter heaven, and all thoughts of having fun at her expense fled from his mind as he submitted to her touch. This level of human contact had been missing from his life for such a long time and he revelled in the pleasure of it.
As she ran her hands down the concave curve of his spine and over the ropy tendons in his back, Cordelia couldn’t help notice that everything about Angel’s body was firm and toned. The recent frenzy of training had clearly paid off - there wasn’t an ounce of extra flab on him anywhere, any added bulk being pure, solid muscle. Despite this, he was still perfectly proportioned and not over-developed like those body-builder types. They did nothing for her sexually, whereas the vampire’s muscular form….
Okay – stop that! she mentally chastised herself, trying to clear the inappropriate thoughts swirling around inside her head.
She shifted position and turned around to work on the backs of his legs, squeezing out some more of the self-tan lotion as she did so. After she’d finished smearing a coat of the thick brown mixture over his calves and upper thighs, Cordelia hesitated for a second before bravely venturing into significantly more dangerous territory. Tentatively raising the towel, she pulled it back to expose the crease where his ass met the tops of his thighs.
“Umm – could you open your legs a bit?” she asked tremulously, glad that he couldn’t see her beet-red face in their current positions.
Angel obliged readily enough, but tensed when her fingers traced a path that skimmed the edge of his buttocks. Her touch was starting to invoke a different kind of pleasure now, one that wasn’t quite so relaxing.
When her deliciously warm hands unexpectedly slipped down between his thighs, Angel had to bite his lip to stifle the strangled groan that threatened to escape. While the swift response of his lower body was proof positive that he was extremely aware that her fingers had lightly brushed the backs of his balls, he didn’t think that the seer was cognisant of the fact at all.
As the vampire had correctly deduced, Cordelia was indeed oblivious to his predicament. Glad that the first part of the ordeal was over, she let go of the breath that she’d been holding and stood up, tugging off her soiled gloves and throwing them in the bin.
“Don’t move!” she warned sharply when Angel shifted on the bed, desperately willing his thrumming body to calm down. “You have to leave it to dry first, or it’ll go all streaky.”
Once he had alleviated the pressure off his aching groin somewhat, the vampire duly complied with her instructions, but, on hearing the clanking of pots and pans from the far side of the room, he lifted his head again, curious as to what she was doing.
Cordelia was standing on her tiptoes, rummaging through the kitchen cupboards, obviously searching for something. She finally found what she was looking for and came back towards him, carrying a medium-sized cappuccino cup in her hands.
“What’s that for?” he asked, decidedly puzzled.
Cordelia blushed from the rounded neckline of her t-shirt, right up to the roots of her hair before answering his question.
“Those Speedos are cut quite high at the front, so… err… the towel is – umm – going to be too bulky. So, I thought…” the seer broke off her stuttering explanation and upended the cup she was holding to illustrate her point.
I suppose I should be grateful, she didn’t pick a teacup, Angel thought, highly insulted at her choice of cover up object. Before he could voice his objections though, something occurred to him.
“Cordelia – have you ever seen a naked, fully-grown man before?”
“That’s non of your business,” she retorted hotly.
The vampire shrugged. “Okay – have it your way, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The seer looked down at her feet and shifted uncomfortably, turning the cappuccino cup repeatedly over in her hands. “I… umm… I never saw my father when I was growing up, and it was dark in the school janitor’s closet with Xander, so…”
“You had sex with Xander in a closet?”
Shaking his head, Angel tried to banish the image, that that particular piece of information conjured up in his mind’s eye.
“No! We just fumbled around a bit. Anyway, it was pitch black, so I didn’t really see anything. And then, with Wilson, the lights were out so I never saw his body either.”
Reading between the lines, Angel’s eyes widened as the implications of what she had just said sank in. “Wilson was your first?”
Cordelia briefly flickered her eyes up to meet his, then looked down at her feet again and nodded.
“Jesus Cordy! Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Yeah right!” she snorted, letting out a short, bitter laugh.
“Cordy…”
“Back then – well, it wasn’t like it is now, Angel.”
The vampire nodded, acknowledging that the intervening years had deepened their friendship and brought them much closer emotionally. “And since Wilson?”
“No-one – I mean, I’ve been on dates, but getting impregnated by demon spawn kind of makes you cautious, you know?”
Knowing her as he did, Angel already knew that the rumours that used to circulate Sunnydale about Cordelia’s promiscuity were complete crap, but he was nevertheless shocked at how inexperienced she actually was. It made him rethink the game he was currently playing with her for a start.
He reasoned that it was okay to continue to flirt with her, but he definitely needed to temper his original approach a little. The last thing he wanted to do was push things too far and step over the boundary of what his relatively innocent best friend - and potential lover - would be comfortable with.
“If you look in the cupboard by the sink, you’ll find a small opaque mixing bowl. I think that might be more appropriate than what you’ve got,” he said, inclining his head towards the cup in her hands.
Relieved that he wasn’t going to pursue the conversation about her rather dismal love life any further, Cordelia heeded his quiet suggestion and fished out the basin from the back of the cupboard.
Whoa! she thought, gulping when she compared the relative size of the two objects in her hands.
Angel grinned at her reaction, his ego doing a happy dance inside his chest. Okay, so maybe he was exaggerating his measurements a little bit, but his choice was certainly more fitting than the miniscule piece of crockery that she’d selected for the job.
Placing the bowl on the bedside cabinet, Cordelia reached out and lightly brushed his shoulder with two fingers to ascertain whether the tanning lotion had suitably dried out. Satisfied with what she discovered, she pulled on the buffing mitt and polished off the residual lotion with short, brisk strokes that encouraged his borrowed blood to rise to the surface of his skin.
“I wondered what a beautician needed a baseball mitt for,” he commented blandly as she made quick work of the back of his legs.
“Well now you know.”
“Yeah, guess I do. It’s true what they say - you learn something new everyday.”
“Even when you’ve lived for over two hundred years?”
“Even then.”
“Okay, you can turn over now.”
Cordelia handed the vampire the basin, and then swiftly turned her back under the pretext of putting on another pair of surgical gloves. Angel flipped over and concealed his private parts, before playfully flicking the towel at her curvy backside to regain her attention.
With two bright spots of pink suffusing the apples of her cheeks, the seer moved back towards him and perched on the mattress next to his shoulder, deliberately avoiding looking at his barely covered lower half.
“We need to tone it down a bit on your face, or it’ll be too dark,” she told him conversationally in an effort to hide her embarrassment.
After mixing up an equal amount of tanning lotion and moisturiser in her hands, she leaned over and traced the angular contours of his face with her fingers, unaware that he could see down the front of her top as she did so. Entertaining himself by surreptitiously admiring her womanly curves, Angel chose not to inform her of that pertinent fact.
The next few minutes passed in companionable silence as the seer covered the front half of the vampire’s body in the dark brown cream, working in a circle around the dreaded area of his obscured groin. Eventually though, she could no longer avoid the inevitable, and sat back to contemplate how best to go about the delicate procedure.
Observing the look of consternation on her face, Angel was about to offer to do the last bit himself, but then she squared her shoulders and determinedly reached for the bottle of lotion. To his utmost surprise, and supreme delight, she then proceeded to hitch up her cotton skirt and tuck it into the sides of her panties. Throwing one slim leg over his body, she straddled his torso, facing towards his feet.
To Cordelia, it had, at first, seemed preferable not look at him while she rubbed the tanning cream into this most intimate of areas. Unfortunately, once she was in position, she belatedly realised that she was giving him the perfect view up her skirt. She couldn’t sit down because that would result in smudging the already applied lotion on his chest, and so, stuck in an awkward situation of her own making, she had to make the best of it. She could crawl into a hole and die of untold embarrassment later, she reasoned.
Carefully adjusting the position of the basin, she quickly applied the self-tan to the vampire’s lower abdomen, skirting the top half of his groin. She registered the faint grunt that escaped Angel when she did this, but did not see how his fingers dug into the mattress, or the way his eyes rolled into the back of his head, as he reacted to the exquisiteness of her hesitant touch.
When she moved her hand to the strip of flesh between his groin and inner thigh however, the seer felt his muscles jump and tighten under her fingertips and realised, with a sudden flash of clarity, that he was getting a hard-on. To her intense discomfort, her body responded to his of its own accord, her nipples tightening to hard points and a gush of wetness dampening her panties.
Unable to help himself, Angel let out a low groan as the sweet fragrance of her excitement filled his nostrils. “Oh God Cordy, you smell so damned good.”
The seer froze at that, immediately recognizing that his supernatural senses had detected her arousal.
Oh.. My... God!
Panic rising like a tidal wave within her, Cordelia quickly scrambled off the bed and stripped the brown-stained gloves from her hands in agitation. While she nervously bounced on the balls of her feet and ran her fingers through her hair, a flood of disjointed instructions tumbled forth from her lips.
“Let it dry, and then rub yourself down with the mitt. If you get dressed, wear loose clothing. You’ll get better results if you stay in your underwear though. You need to leave the tan on for six to eight hours, but then you can shower it off. I have to go – I’ve just remembered something that I’ve got to do today. See ya!”
With that, the seer bolted from the room like a frightened rabbit, not giving the vampire chance to respond.
“Cordelia wait! Come back!” Angel called after the fleeing young woman, struggling into an upright position.
He cursed under his breath when he realised he was too late. He couldn’t chase after her when he was completely naked, covered head-to-toe in brown lotion, and sporting an erection that wasn’t about to subside any time soon.
Suddenly, the subtle game he’d been playing with her over the past hour or so, no longer seemed like the great idea it had been earlier. He should have laid his cards on the table, and told her how he felt before embarking on this campaign of seduction. He’d not given her any indication that this was about more than just sexual attraction, so it was his own stupid fault that things had ended in this unsatisfactory manner.
It was down to him to make things right again, although how he was going to do that, god only knew. His seer could be the queen of avoidance when it came down to dealing with her own feelings, in spite of her directness with regard to other people’s emotional issues.
Determined to tackle the situation head on from here on in, Angel vowed to sit Cordelia down and talk to her about the direction in which their relationship was heading. It would happen at the earliest opportunity because this dancing around the issue just had to stop. In his opinion, it had gone on long enough already.