Go TeamC/A
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Part 3 One Month Later
“This is absolutely ridiculous.” Her voice was an annoyed hiss, sizzling across his ears.
“Hey, you’ve got no argument from me,” he answered, his own feelings on the issue perfectly in line with hers. But damn, this was awkward. “Move your leg a little to the right.”
She complied.
“Yeah, that’s it,” he sighed, much more comfortable with the adjustment.
“Ahhh!” she moaned, her leg twitching.
“What?”
“Cramp! CRAMP! Shit! I have to stand up, Angel, I just can’t get my body into this position without permanent damage. Can’t we just do this the old fashioned way? You know, cheat?”
“It’s too late for that, Cordy. We’re nearly there. Just a few more minutes, and I promise, you’ll be sighing with relief. You have to stay there, Cordy,” he said, sounding desperate. “If you don’t, we have to start this all over again.”
“I can’t stay here, dumbass! I’m balancing in a way that would make David Copperfield jealous! My leg is cramping, my ass is in the air, and all the blood is rushing to my head so I’m dizzy. I can’t do this!”
“But we have to, Cordy,” he said, the desperation now clearly audible. “Doesn’t it feel good? Even just a little bit?” Even he knew he was grasping at straws. It would take a very kinky person to think this was comfortable.
She sighed, trying not to concentrate on the pain in her left leg. “Maybe if you’d help me a little, I wouldn’t be in so much pain. Besides, its your fault anyway. If you weren’t so freaking huge, I wouldn’t be in so much pain.”
He had to agree with her, if only silently. But could he help it? Not exactly. It wasn’t like he’d gotten any complaints before. Most women liked his size. But then again, Cordelia wasn’t most women.
“How is that?” he said, reaching his last free hand down and massaging her, bringing life back to her contorted body.
“Oh. . .unh. . .god, that feels so good,” she groaned as he stroked her.
“Are you two quite finished?” Wesley’s voice, off to their left, broke into their studied concentration.
Cordy sighed again, finally opening her eyes and looking up at him through the fall of her short hair. “Yeah, Wes, go ahead. We’re ready for you.”
“It’s about time,” he muttered, turning to the object in his hand. He flicked his index finger once, and a loud rhythmic clicking was heard. Then, “Angel, left hand, blue.”
“Blue!” he groaned, eyeing the large circle all the way across the plastic mat. To put his left hand there, he’d have to practically plant his face in Cordy’s ass.
Whoever invented Twister needed to have his fingernails removed with hot, dirty pliers.
He squirmed a bit, not losing his place but figuring out how to get his fingers on the blue spot without molesting his seer unnecessarily. His compromise didn’t bring his face into her butt, but it did put his cheek against her side, and that was almost as bad. He couldn’t help but inhale her scent, a spicy combination that seemed almost indefinable. It smelled like home, like security, like friendship, like destiny. And lately, it had suspiciously begun to smell like something that was infinitely more than all of those combined.
“Are you ready, Cordy?” Wesley asked, his hand poised on the spinner again.
“Yeah, whatever,” she griped, blowing a puff of air to move the hair out of her eyes. Angel’s new position had moved his big body in a more comfortable position against hers, helping her regain her balance and reduce the pain. It hadn’t improved her mood, though. “How much longer?”
“Dr. Van Buren’s instructions were quite clear. You are to play this game for one hour. If you quit, you must begin again. The hour is up in . . . fifteen minutes. The person with the highest number of wins is required to be the other person’s servant all day tomorrow.”
“Oh. Yeah. Color me ecstatic.” Her monotone conveyed her lack of enthusiasm.
Angel just smiled , his cheek brushing the soft cotton of her shirt. These homework assignments were definitely among the ridiculous, but he had to admit that they’d definitely been making some progress in their relationship. They’d been with Dr. Van Buren for a month now, and each homework assignment taught them something new about each other. Sometimes the lesson was overt, sometimes subtle. But they’d learned the hard way that blowing off their homework brought more trouble than it was worth.
Just two weeks earlier, Cordelia had opened their third homework assignment. Dr. Van Buren had begun handing them an envelope or a box on their way out the door of the session, not giving them any verbal instructions at all. Their homework assignments had ranged from going to a dance class together to writing notes to each other. But as the time progressed, those assignments had gotten more crazy, and what was more disturbing, the physical contact was increasing in measurable levels.
He smiled as he remembered her reaction to their first “Grope Fest” assignment, as Cordelia had taken to calling them. That smile turned to a grimace as he remembered the torture that followed.
Her tone had been disgusted, her nose scrunched up as she held the sheaf of papers daintily by their edges as if she feared the absurdity of their contents would contaminate her by osmosis. The box it had come from and its remaining contents were scattered near her on the sofa.
“C’mon, Cordy. It can’t be that bad,” Angel said. He stood in front of her, legs spread in a comfortable stance, his arms crossed over his chest. The pose pulled his sweater tight against his shoulders and biceps, accentuating the masculine curves in a way that distracted Cordelia for a moment as she looked up at him.
It was becoming harder and harder not to notice his purely male beauty. The side effects of these touchy-feely sessions with Dr. Van Buren were starting to unnerve her.
After merely a split second, Cordelia shook herself out of the admiration she was sinking into and frowned up at him.
“It is that bad. You haven’t read it yet, have you?” she said, her tone nearly accusing.
“No. You done yet?” he said, raising an eyebrow and holding a hand out for the papers.
She handed them to him silently, then crossed her own arms over her chest and stood waiting as he perused them.
It was satisfying to watch him hold back a growl as he read the directions, then the questions on the papers.
“This is ridiculous,” he muttered, glowering. He turned the page, his frown increasing as the directions became more outrageous. “I do not want to do this,” he said, finally looking up from the papers and looking to Cordelia for some agreement.
“Me either. Give ‘em back,” she demanded, and he placed the papers in her hand. She reread them, a look of disgust marring her pretty face.
Dr. Van Buren had asked them to sit back to back in Angel’s bedroom, their spines aligned and their legs crossed away from each other. They were to lean their heads back against each other until they touched, resting their weight against each other as if leaning up against a wall. Then they were to ask each other a series of questions related to their relationship, and be completely honest in their answers.
After reading the instructions, Cordelia had just rolled her eyes and Pfft’d. Angel had laughed once derisively, and they’d agreed, in a silent visual communication, that there was no way in hell they were going to do something as stupid as that.
When they’d gone to the next session, they’d made the mistake of admitting they hadn’t done the homework. Dr. Van Buren took one look at them, then demanded that they complete the assignment in her presence.
The session had started out all right, each of them feeling like if they just didn’t have to look at one another, they could make it through this. But then Dr. Van Buren went and sent the whole thing to hell in a hand basket. That woman and her damn probing questions. They were here to work on their relationship, not have an emotional enema, damn it.
The therapist stared at Angel’s stoic countenance, then at Cordelia’s neutral one in the reflection of the plate glass window. It was unnerving that she could see both of their expressions at once, when they couldn’t see each other at all. After a moment of palpable silence, she smiled, a wicked baring of teeth that made Cordelia’s original piranha comparison soft, warm and fuzzy. The only true appellation now was ‘demonic.’
Okay, so maybe Cordelia was overreacting. But she was nervous, damn it.
The therapist’s smile held for just a moment longer, then she flayed their chests open with her words. “I gave you a list of questions to answer, questions that would help you to fill in some of the blanks in your knowledge and understanding of each other. You chose to disregard your homework assignment, so now you must deal with the consequences. The questions I gave you were relatively innocuous; uncomfortable at points, but not unbearable. Now that I’m able to be here to monitor your responses, I believe I shall increase the level of intensity. We haven’t been working together very long, but I believe this strategy can be successful.”
She stopped in front of Angel, staring down on him imperiously, looking for all the world like a general who was sending her troops to their untimely deaths.
Even though she held the unflinching gaze of the vampire, it was his seer that she addressed. This first question turned out to be nearly as bad as the one she’d asked the first day in her office.
“Cordelia, you’re answering first. When, most recently, did you have feelings of lust towards Angel?”
Cordelia visibly flinched at the question. Okay, so she’d been having these little tinglies about Angel for awhile now, practically since she’d met the guy. Her emotions had nothing to do with it; it was pure sexual attraction. But what woman in her right mind wouldn’t salivate, even just a little bit, when presented with a face and body like his? Her guard immediately went up, her spine stiffening, as she tried to find an answer to the question that wouldn’t leave her dignity scattered across the carpet like soil from an overturned plant.
“Cordelia?” Dr. Van Buren prompted when Cordelia was silent for a few moments.
“I’m thinking, okay?” Cordelia snapped impatiently. Finally, she sighed, a sound that was equal parts resignation and irritation. Finally, she answered, her voice so soft that she almost couldn’t be heard.
“This afternoon,” she answered reluctantly.
She felt Angel’s back tense against hers. She could practically sense his ears perking up, that vampire hearing monitoring her heart rate and breathing. It wasn’t fair, damn it.
“You had feelings of lust toward Angel this afternoon?” Dr. Van Buren clarified, interrupting her thoughts.
“Yes,” Cordelia answered, gritting her teeth.
“Describe them, please,” Dr. Van Buren ordered. “What were the circumstances? What triggered the feelings?”
Cordelia stared unseeingly through her reflection to the night sky beyond. Her face was neutral now, her voice sounding almost detached as she tried to remove herself emotionally from this situation.
“I came to work early, well, for me, early, anyway. I usually get there late afternoon, after Angel wakes up, but today I got there around noon. I was the only one there; Wesley had gone out for lunch. Angel walked down the stairs from his bedroom, just dressed in sweatpants, heading for his breakfast. He was barefoot, obviously having just woken up, his hair all messed up and his eyes sleepy. I looked up at him, and I felt my stomach flip as he stepped into the lobby.”
Angel relaxed against her back. He remembered that moment this morning, had recognized the appreciative look in her eyes in the instant she let it flare, but thought he’d just imagined it. She hid it well, and her arousal wasn’t even noticeable. Not even to him.
But now, in the retelling of it, with her so close, his nostrils flared as he experienced the faint, but heady scent of her lust before she controlled her body’s reactions and it faded. So light was the scent that again, he felt as thought he’d imagined it. It was surreal. He’d never, ever experienced this side of Cordy. She’d never let him this close before. But now, she couldn’t escape. Neither of them could.
Behind him, even in the sterile environment of Dr. Van Buren’s office, Cordelia relived the memory of that afternoon and the stomach clench was there again, the nether regions of her body throbbing in reaction. Then reality set in again, and she remembered that it was Angel she’d lusted after. God, it was embarrassing. She wasn’t in love with him or anything, so why couldn’t she get over this unnatural attraction to him?
Dr. Van Buren prompted her to continue. “What caused this feeling, do you think?”
In answer, she scrunched her face up, forcing the lustful feelings aside, shoving them into a box and analyzing them clinically. “It’s weird. I’ve always thought Angel was attractive; I even tried to snag him in high school before I knew he was a vampire. But after I found out, it kind of turned me off. Then after I’d been working for him a couple of months, after I got to know him, he started to look like a hottie again. Sometimes, the woman in me, the primitive cave woman,” she stressed, wanting to make sure that it was clear to the therapist that this wasn’t really her true feelings, “feels this weird lustful pull toward him as a man. But I have that when I watch Keanu Reeves movies, too.”
At that comment, Angel frowned. What was the girl’s fixation with the eccentric, dark haired actor? It bugged him that she salivated over him, that she was turned on just by watching a movie with him in it.
Oblivious to Angel’s irritation, she looked up into Dr. Van Buren’s eyes, her own glazing over just a little bit. “You know, right? I mean, you’re a woman, too. Sometimes, there’s just something about a good looking man that makes your stomach clench, your body flush, your jaw drop, and your heart race. Like when Russell Crowe takes off his helmet in Gladiator and reveals his identity. Or when you see a beautiful, shirtless man with arms that could crush steel cuddling a baby.”
She stopped and swallowed, her heart racing. “Or when your vampire boss flaunts his sinfully perfect chest and arms in the lobby of your workplace. It’s just lust, just pure horniness, nothing more.”
She breathed a sigh of relief at the last words, confident that she’d explained herself with some dignity. Well, as much dignity as a girl can when she’s talking about getting all hot and bothered.
Angel’s chest nearly burst with male satisfaction at her roundabout compliment, then glowered when she chalked it up to nothing more than raging hormones.
So lost was he in the conflicting emotions racing through his brain that he missed Dr. Van Buren’s transition of the question to him. It was a jab of Cordelia’s elbow into his kidney that brought him back.
“What?” he asked, confused.
“It’s your turn, Angel,” Dr. Van Buren said patiently, coming to stand in front of him once again. “When did you last feel lust toward Cordelia?”
That was an easy answer. “In the car on the way over here.”
It was all Cordelia could do not to whip around and stare at him. She hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary. She’d even dressed conservatively today.
It turned out that it was that very choice of clothing that had turned him on.
“She’s been dressing less provocatively lately, and I’ve noticed,” he said. His voice turned wry as he continued. “The problem is, by covering it up, there are times when I just imagine what I’m missing. That’s almost worse than before.”
“And in the car?” Dr. Van Buren prompted.
“You see the skirt she’s wearing?” he asked rhetorically. “It has a slit up the front.”
Cordelia looked down at her outfit. She was wearing an A-line, floor length denim skirt with raw edges at the bottom. There was a slit going up the front, so she didn’t have to walk like Morticia Adams all the time. It wasn’t until she noticed that the slit went up to mid thigh that she realized what had happened.
He was still talking as she made her discovery. “My car is low to the ground, and when she stepped in, I saw the length of her leg before she sat down.”
He stopped, looking up at Dr. Van Buren. He didn’t like the stare she was giving him, and felt a sudden, unavoidable urge to justify himself.
“I mean, Cordelia is a beautiful woman, after all. Every man I’ve ever seen notices her. It would be unnatural not to. But it’s just lust. Intermittent, infrequent lust at that. Sometimes my demon just pops up to the surface and I lust after her. I care about her, but it isn’t like I’m in love with her, or anything.”
Cordelia was irritated at his words, and equally angry at herself for that irritation. Why should she care about his lack of romantic feelings toward her?
“Anyway, I didn’t see anything, um, really personal, but it was enough to . . .” he trailed off.
“Flip your switch?” Dr. Van Buren said with a smile. Euphemisms were always so much fun.
Her patients looked at her with raised eyebrows.
“I know it wasn’t a clinical term, but sometimes comfort in terminology is more beneficial than professionalism.”
They just stared at her. This woman was certifiable, and she was their therapist. Wasn’t there something wrong with that?
Seeming to shake herself out of a mental wandering, Dr. Van Buren’s smile slipped from her face. Back to work.
“Very good, both of you. Admitting feelings of lust toward friends is not easy, but they are a fact of life. Those lustful pulls are not necessarily indicative of stronger feelings, but they are important to this therapy none the less. Now then, let’s move on.”
Somehow, both of them knew at that point that this uncomfortable subject would be revisited.
After that, Dr. Van Buren had made them go through even more questions, exploring tense emotions, including anger, frustration, joy, and sadness. Not seeing each other’s faces had made their declarations and revelations flow freely. It wasn’t until late in the session that they began to realize the repercussions of their loose tongues.
Angel and Cordelia had been so uncomfortable by the end of the session that they’d nearly gone home separately. Not looking at each other while they bared their souls had unearthed a mountain of uncertainty, and they’d been too worked up to work through it. What had seemed like a blessing at the beginning, not being able to see each other, had turned into a curse. With each revelation forced from them, being denied the body language of each other’s reactions was torturous. As they recalled their words, the answers they’d given to her queries about each emotion, it felt as though they’d been struck with a whip, their skin shredded until their souls were laid raw and bleeding before each other. They couldn’t gauge where they stood with each other, and revealing such intimate details without eye contact was threatening to destroy them emotionally.
After a tense day of separation, they’d met at the office and quietly agreed never to defy the psychiatrist again, never to ignore their homework, no matter how silly it sounded. There was no telling what she might want them to do next.
Shaking himself out of the uncomfortable memory of that session, Angel reluctantly admitted that their agreement to follow Dr. Van Buren’s instructions hadn’t made following this particular assignment any easier, though.
“Cordelia, left foot, yellow,” Wesley’s bored voice brought him completely back to the present and this ridiculous game they were playing.
The memories of their discussion of lust were fresh on the surface of his mind, and Angel watched with barely disguised appreciation as Cordelia’s body shifted as she found her new position on the plastic mat, contorting her body so that she was facing him now. In the process, her neckline drooped, giving him a teenage boy’s fantasy view down the front of her shirt.
Cordelia noticed the direction of his stare, then looked down at herself. Sure enough, the girls were displayed in all their glory. She just smiled and shook her head, cocking an eyebrow at him.
“Perv,” she teased, making the word sound like an endearment.
She watched his face color just slightly, the vampire’s version of a blush. Had she not known him so well, she never would’ve noticed it. She smiled inwardly, gleeful that she could unnerve him once in awhile.
As Wesley gave Angel his next instruction, it was Cordelia’s turn to contemplate, her sigh a soft breath of air in the near silence. She, too, remembered the directions in that third homework assignment that had seemed like a death warrant. In a way, it was. It was a death warrant to her anger, to the grudge she’d held against Angel since the day he’d fired her. She’d known that if she had to ask and answer the questions on those papers, if she had to bare her soul to him and have him do the same for her, she’d be lost. That was why she’d scoffed at the assignment and blown it off.
Then when they’d had to do the assignment in front of Dr. Van Buren, it had just proved her fears correct. After those questions, those intimate, probing questions, she had been lost. She’d lost a battle within herself: her battle to hold on to her anger at Angel.
Because damn it, she was actually starting to like him again. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Sure, she loved him with a loyalty that hadn’t died even when he’d abandoned her, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever actually enjoyed him before, took pleasure in his presence. Really liked him, as a friend, someone she could hang out with and laugh with. When she was first hired, he’d been a kind of pet project to her, someone she needed to cheer up, someone she worked on to live a little, to come into the 21st century and loosen up a little bit. But she’d never actually considered him her best friend.
That one assignment, one hour of emotional torture, had only underscored the fact that Angel meant more to her than anyone. By answering the questions out loud, she’d had to admit to herself that he was fast becoming the most important person in her life, the one person who had the power to uplift or destroy her. It wasn’t that she was in love with him, because it was on a completely different level. It was a binding of souls, a connection on a plane that she’d never known existed.
Ever since that day, the glacier they’d erected between them had begun to melt. Now, she anticipated Angel walking into the room. She tingled when he was near. It was a very intense experience, something that she had yet to figure out.
“Cordy, right hand, green.”
“Oh, god,” she groaned, figuring out that if she moved like that, she’d have to straddle Angel or slide under him. Neither was safe. Straddling meant that her breasts would be pressed against his shoulders, her face at his lower back. Sliding under him meant that she’d be practically kissing his fly. She opted for straddling.
She didn’t make it. One slight slip of her sock on the mat and she came crashing down, pausing briefly as she hit Angel and he tried to hold her, then crashing to the floor together.
They just laid there for a minute, her face buried in the small of his back, one hand gripping his ass and the other his bicep, his head at her side, before she began to giggle. She rolled off of him, laughing hysterically, releasing the tension that had gripped her at their close proximity.
Angel just stared at her for a moment, then a smile slowly stretched across his face, his laugh starting deep within his chest and spreading outward like booming thunder. They laughed until they cried, tears streaming down their faces, Cordelia clutching her sides as if she were afraid they would burst.
Wesley just looked on, shaking his head, smiling slightly as he saw the progress that they were making. They may not actually be reconciled yet, but they were well on their way to a healthy relationship.***
Across the city, the therapist sat in her darkened office, staring out the window at the night sky. The city’s lights twinkled back at her, a field of stars that were no less beautiful in their artificiality than the night sky itself.
Something was troubling her greatly. Dr. Van Buren’s star patients were not on their way to a healthy relationship. Despite all of her efforts, each session with Cordelia and Angel brought evidence that they had not yet admitted their feelings to one another. The latest assignment, a ridiculous game that practically forced physical contact, had been a desperate scramble at the last minute. It was obvious that some drastic measures needed to be taken, but Dr. Van Buren had yet to figure out what they were.
Time was definitely not on her side.
Her meeting with the Elders had not gone well. She’d met with them, made her case politely, but had been summarily shoved aside as if she were a teenager asking for permission to use the school gym. Her anger had swelled, making it difficult for her to control the power that flowed through her. Angel’s curse was an abomination, a blemish on the hallowed history of her people, and she was determined to see it removed. The Elders had made it clear that they were entirely apathetic to the situation, and Dr. Van Buren took that to mean that she had license to do as she wished.
Not that she needed their approval, anyway. After the disastrous meeting, she’d set plans in motion for Angel’s curse to be modified immediately. Her people had chanted the words from afar less than two days later, retracting the old curse and initiating the new one simultaneously. The new version of the curse still granted Angel his soul. But instead of losing it when achieving perfect happiness, it would be secured for eternity in that moment of bliss.
The only catch, and it was a big one, was that the curse had a time limit. If Angel didn’t experience perfect happiness again within the next month, the curse would lift and Angel’s soul would depart forever. Angelus would be loosed upon the world again, and nothing but death would stop him this time.
There was only one clear answer. Dr. Marsha Van Buren, world-renowned licensed sex therapist, had to get Angel and Cordelia to make love. But the trouble with those two was that it wouldn’t do just to lock them in a bedroom for a couple of days. She had to be subtle, yet intense. She had to be convincing. She had to be manipulative. She had to get them to admit they were in love with each other even though they denied it.
With purpose, she turned away from the window and rifled through a stack of books on her desk.
“Where is that damn thing?” she muttered.
She sighed with relief as she spied the slim volume. Snatching it up, she read the title reverently to herself, her voice a soft whisper in the silent room.
“Touch Me, Baby: A Lover’s Guide to Sexual Nirvana.” She stroked the embossed letters on the well-worn cover as if caressing the face of a dear friend. “Well, looks like you’re my last hope. Don’t let me down, okay?”
Part 4Dr. Marsha Van Buren sat in the quiet corner of her office, her eyes once again on the backside of the door where her most interesting patients had just left. She’d given them a doozy of an assignment, the first one that really promised some results. She’d known that she had little time, but she hadn’t counted on the fact that the book she’d chosen would give her so many good ideas.
The first chapter, entitled “Sensual Massage: A Pleasure Map of Your Partner’s Body,” had given her an insane yet totally logical idea. She’d written the assignment with shaky hands, then slid it into the envelope and sent it along with her unsuspecting patients. Her own body tightened at the image of those two beautiful people touching each other in such a sensual yet platonic way.
That, coupled with their other instructions, was bound to make the sparks fly. It had to work. It just had to. Because there were only three weeks left, and she only had a few tricks left up her sleeve.
If Cordelia and Angel didn’t get their groove on soon, Angel’s psyche would be split, and she’d have to figure out how to give therapy to a psychotic killer. What little she’d heard of Angelus made her teeth chatter in trepidation; she was bound and determined to see that the crazy vampire was banished forever.***
The thwack of Angel’s fist hitting the punching bag reverberated off the basement walls. He punched it again, his hits repeating so quickly that his fists were nearly blurs of movement. The force was so much that he was hitting the bag farther and further back, not allowing time for it to settle to vertical again. His frustrations were mounting, and the physical exertion was doing nothing to alleviate them.
His mind was obviously preoccupied. It wasn‘t in this basement, in his head where it was supposed to be. His mind was upstairs, in his room, with Cordelia an hour or so in the future. His mind was on their next homework assignment.
The problem was that his mind kept trying to add some extra credit. Very pleasurable extra credit. He imagined going beyond their assignment, beyond the instructions and making love to her. Touching her all over, bringing her pleasure so great that she wept with it. And once the imaginary scenes of making love to her began playing in his head, he couldn’t make them stop.
Their homework assignment tonight involved a lot more physical contact than they’d had before, and while he mostly bought Dr. Van Buren’s theories on the importance of physical touch in his relationship with Cordy, he wasn’t so sure that he could restrain himself if she kept cooking up these erotic scenes for them. Okay, so maybe playing Twister wasn’t erotic in anyone else’s mind, but getting such a close view of Cordelia’s body, not to mention the heightened sensation of her scent surrounding him, had nearly destroyed his carefully erected emotional walls.
During the game, he’d been okay, his mind on other things, but afterward, all day long, her scent had taunted him. Such close proximity to her had awakened something in him, a hunger for intimacy that had lain dormant since he’d realized his relationship with Buffy was doomed to failure.
Now, he was faced with a strangely similar yet startlingly different scenario with Cordelia. He wasn’t in love with her, not yet, but he found every part of his being infused with her in a way that made him nervous. The common bond between his relationship with Cordy and his past love of Buffy was that both women brought very strong, very protective feelings of loyalty to the surface of his soul. They both called to his humanity, called to him to be a man in his own right, not just a man-demon hybrid. They both arose in him a fierce need to protect, nurture and love.
It was the loving that scared him.
Loving Buffy had nearly killed him. Leaving her was harder than he’d ever thought possible, even though he’d always known in the back of his mind that his relationship with Buffy was doomed. Even when he’d first glimpsed her, first felt the stirrings of attraction in him that were so new, so different, he’d known that a vampire and a Slayer couldn’t last. He hadn’t known about the insane clause in his curse then, but he’d known that being with her forever was impossible. And as they’d fallen in love with each other, he’d begun to understand that it wasn’t just because of their roles, it wasn’t just because he was a vampire and she was the Slayer. It was also because of who they were. It was because they were Angel and Buffy. Their personalities meshed well in some ways, but in others, especially the most important ways, they were too much alike.
Although he’d known they couldn’t last, he’d tried to make it work anyway. Angel’s heart had been stolen by Buffy, and he couldn’t just give up. But when he realized what life would be like for her with him, when he’d realized that her life would be a constant balancing act between her natural instincts and her love for him, he knew he had to leave.
More importantly, he’d left for himself. For his own mental health. For his own self-image, his own identity. Sunnydale, the place that had witnessed his salvation, had become his prison, and he needed to get out and make a name for himself by himself. He had to be a person, an entity, a force for good on his own, not just as the vampire boyfriend of the Slayer. Not just a man who tried to hide the darker side of himself, whose girlfriend wished daily that he were fully human and not the demon that he was. It didn’t matter that he had the same wish. What mattered was that she couldn’t truly accept him, all of him, and that was the hardest thing of all to love about her.
But where Buffy had reluctantly tolerated his demon and embraced his man, Cordelia whole-heartedly embraced them both. There were times when he even thought she was more comfortable with his demon that she was with him as a man. Up until they’d begun these sessions with Dr. Van Buren, Angel had thought that Cordelia was just a breath of fresh air. Okay, maybe a whirlwind instead of a breath sometimes, but still, she was a force of humanity in his life that couldn’t and wouldn’t be ignored. At first, he’d tolerated her foibles, then allowed himself to be annoyed by her. But eventually, he’d gone from being irritated with her to needing her. To relying on her to make him laugh inside, to make him smile. To be her quirky, friendly self and chase away the darkness that always haunted him.
Leaving because of Darla was the worst mistake he could’ve made.
Even now, beating the hell out of this punching bag, he mentally flagellated himself for his stupidity. It didn’t matter that he’d finally hit lower than rock bottom and realized how much he needed her. How much he needed Wesley and Gunn, too. The worst mistake, by far, was that he’d taken Cordelia’s loyalty, her friendship, and ground it under his heel like yesterday’s trash. He’d thought he didn’t need her, and he had never been more wrong.
When he finally came to his senses and returned, there’d been a rift so wide between them that it might as well have been the Grand Canyon. He’d done everything he’d thought possible to get back in her good graces, even buying her new clothes to replace the ones he’d so thoughtlessly given away. But doing that had almost made the situation worse. That’s when their arguing had begun. Over petty things. She was the queen of petty arguments. She was always finding something he’d done and making it seem like he’d just ordered her execution. So he’d get mad and yell back.
And here they were, a month after Wesley had had enough, still mired in confusion and no closer to a comfortable relationship than they had been when they’d started.
Okay, so the discomfort had shifted somewhat. At the beginning, the only sexual awareness he’d had of Cordelia was when his demon spoke its lascivious thoughts in his ear. The same demon that made the same types of comments about any curvy blond or brunette that he saw, whether she was the waitress at Starbucks or the delivery girl. He’d just chalked the errant thoughts up to the impulsivity of his demon, nothing more.
Now, though, thoughts of making love to Cordelia haunted his dreams. The Twister game last week had only served to increase his confusion, with her drugging, intoxicating scent playing havoc with his senses and infiltrating his thoughts. He couldn’t’ seem to escape her, couldn’t seem to think about anyone but her, and it was frustrating him to no end.
So here he was, taking his anger, confusion and frustration out on a defenseless piece of cowhide and stuffing. His knuckles were undoubtedly bruised, but the pain felt good. The pain was real. The pain was something he could deal with. These swirling emotions that bound the soul, the demon, and the man in a tangled web of desire were disconcerting. They didn’t make sense. If anything, she was his best friend, not a sex object.
And yet, in less than an hour. He had to see her naked. Well, nearly naked. And he had to touch her.
What would that do to his dreams?***
Carefully, Cordelia struck the match to the side of the box and it flared to life with a hiss. She placed the burning match against the wick of the candle, watching as the flame transferred and the candle began to glow. She repeated the process with several more candles, until Angel’s room was suffused with a soft golden light, and the very faint scent of vanilla frosted the air.
The Zen-like quality of lighting the candles helped to calm her, but it only delayed the inevitable nervousness that she’d been holding back since they’d opened their homework assignment this afternoon. A quick glance at the clock both relieved her and intensified her jitters. 32 minutes and counting. 32 minutes until Angel would join her in this cozy, golden den. 32 minutes until she would stand with a towel clutched securely around her, and he with one around him. 32 minutes until she would release it, lay down, and feel his hands on her body.
32 minutes until total, complete psychological and emotional meltdown.
Because sure as she was standing here, feeling Angel’s hands on her skin was going to make her burn from the inside out. Feeling him touch her back, trace the line of her spine with his thick, long fingers, would be her undoing. He wasn’t even here in the room with her right now, and already her skin felt hot. Her face was flushed, her heartbeat elevated, her breathing erratic. If just thinking about him made her like this, how would the real thing affect her?
Cordelia couldn’t say for sure when this transition from buddies to would-be lovers had happened. Even a week ago, before the Twister assignment, she’d still only thought of him as a friend. Okay, so a sinfully good looking, hot-bodied, emotionally close friend, but a friend nonetheless. But during the twister game, remembering their sessions with Dr. Van Buren and the talks about lust and their feelings, had stirred to life something inside her that she wasn’t sure had ever been evoked before. She’d felt desire before, felt physical pleasure, but she didn’t ever remember her very essence being challenged by someone. Her attraction to Angel had wormed its way down to her very soul, and she wasn’t sure how to handle it. How to process it. Or even worse, how to control it around him.
Still more frustrating were the dreams she’d had every night for the past week. The first night had been a faceless onslaught of pleasure, only a shadow above her that stirred her body to life and taunted her until she woke up in a breathless, dizzy sweat, wanting, needing and craving some satisfaction. It wasn’t until two nights later that the shadow had been given a face. That the shadow became Angel. That she’d realized with startling, jump-in-a-cold-lake clarity that she lusted after Angel in more than just a casual way.
Tonight’s homework assignment wasn’t going to help matters at all. Shaking herself out of her growing worries, Cordelia walked into the adjoining bathroom and retrieved several fluffy towels, then took them to the make-shift table set up in the middle of the room next to Angel’s bed. Candles surrounded her on all sides, and in the dim light, the shadows wavered as she shook a few of the towels out and placed them strategically on the table top. A small stand nearby held various fragrant oils, and she shook them up for a bit before rearranging them fussily. Then, placing a rolled towel at the head of the table, she stood back and surveyed her work.
With nothing to do, her mind immediately went back to the instructions for tonight. They were both to strip naked, then wrap themselves in towels, and give each other full body (or as full-body as they dared) massages. During the massage, the massager was instructed to talk about his or her past loves, to state why they’d fallen in love (or been attracted), what the relationship had been like, and why they’d parted. They were to spare no details, and the person being massaged was allowed to ask any clarifying questions he or she wanted.
Cordy wasn’t nervous at all about going through her rather short list of exes. She hadn’t been truly in love with any of them, even Xander, and it would be no problem to rehash all of that with Angel. He knew most of it anyway.
The part that worried her was hearing him talk about Buffy.
She didn’t know why it brought such fear to her heart, but it did. If anything, Cordelia just wanted to pretend that Buffy didn’t exist. These weird, new, disconcerting feelings for Angel aside, Buffy’s return, or more aptly, Angel’s return to Buffy, meant a total upheaval of Cordelia’s life. Even if Cordy and Angel never got to a point where they were together as lovers, Buffy’s return to his life would still feel like a total abandonment. Cordy would be losing, at the very least, her best friend, and it hurt to think about him leaving again.
She would just rather not talk about it at all. She didn’t want to hear him say he was still in love with the Slayer. She didn’t want to hear him lament the curse and how he’d be with her if he didn’t have it. She didn’t want to hear him reminisce about the time before he found out about the Angelus clause, and she didn’t want to sit around and wither inside as the topic made him sink further back into his broody self and away from her.
But she had to. She had to listen to him talk about her, because that was their assignment. And she had to listen to it with the added torture of his strong hands on her skin.
A glance at the clock again. Oh, god. 21 minutes. 21 minutes until her life was over.