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Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Yeah, the still rational and increasingly annoyed portion of her mind agreed. That's where this is going, moron.

Definitely moronic, definitely should be stopped. But instead, her body decided it made more sense to let him push her to the door, let him kiss her. It decided to bite his lip instead of pulling away, tug on his hair instead of pushing him back, moan into his mouth instead of demanding he stop.

Nothing like making a decision with the full and total realization that you'll hate yourself for it soon.

Nothing like! Mostly because he was making a decision with the full and total realization that he would not hate himself for it soon. So, therefore: nothing like her situation at all.

He kept her up against the door, but decided (still not hating himself for it!) it would be a better scene all around if he cupped her face in his hands--gently, softly, as a lover might. She can grip and tug and pull and groan and he would hold her gently and admire her soft skin and her soft soft soft hair. No biting here (not yet, at least), but perhaps his tongue dabbled and touched at her lips.

They certainly could have been something. There was no denying that. Especially not now.

Somehow, the way he was doing that, holding her like that, it was ten times more disturbing than the rest. This man, this man who had talked about dismemberment and murder and dead, crazy wives? Being tender and gentle and caressing her skin? It was twisted.

But apparently, twisted was what she was into right now. Because she didn't ask him to stop, didn't wrench away.

"Tell me," she breathed against his lips. "Tell me you want me."

"I want you," he breathed in reply. "I want you. Of course I want you." Another kiss. "How could I not? How could I not long for this beautiful, clever, bold woman?" He left off her mouth and slipped kisses now along her neck and behind her ear. "I want you. I want to hold you, I want to feel you move. I want to touch you." Well, he was doing that already. "I want to taste you." A kiss to punctuate that declaration because, well, see above. "I want the scent of your skin. I want the curve of your back. I want to see your eyes. I want you."

I want you to want me. I need you to need me. Not the most opportune time to remember that little ditty but, hey. Chicks dig Cheap Trick.

Oh, Cordy. That ego was bound to get you in trouble someday. Apparently that time had arrived, because the declaration was enough to make her growl, grab his hips and yank him close, kiss him again.

Okay, so he was bad. She'd already reminded herself of that, lots of times. The other facts needed to be explored.

One, she wanted him. Had been attracted to him for a long time, no denying that.

Two, it was her mistake to make.

Third, he was incredibly old and incredibly powerful, from everything she had learned, and yes, this was flattering in some dark, horrible way.

"Altar," she pulled away to demand. "The floor is freezing."

Chicks dig bad boys too. That's a truth universally acknowledged.

She pulled away, he pulled her close again. "You're right. It is cold down here."

He collected her gently in his arms and drew her up to her feet.

"Do you think the altar" since that's what she was calling it "will be much better?"

Still, he was pulling her across the floor with him. It might still be cold--he didn't care. It was certainly more symbolic. That much was certain.

She had been so eager to get out of here. She'd just wanted to be free. Now the key was lying on the floor and she was absolutely not leaving, not for anywhere with a down comforter or mattress. Not for warmth.

Cold was what she deserved right now and that aside, she wouldn't risk anyone seeing her, with him, like this.

She followed along, laughing suddenly, not even sure why.

"Tell me something horrible you've done," she said. "Something really bad. Kicking puppies or, I don't know, blinding an old woman."

A reminder, this time. She felt like she needed to remind herself of all that, of who he was. She was going forward with this, but not with the nice widower he'd pretended to be. With the real, honest to goodness creature he was.

Edited 2013-05-15 16:27 (UTC)

Now he laughed and trailed his fingers gently across her face, smoothing her cheeks with his thumbs. He smiled and looked into her eyes (and they really were pretty eyes, for all that, it was true).

"I killed a king," he whispered over her, now stroking her hair just as softly as he had touched her face. "I poisoned him in his nightly cup of wine with a poison that burned him from the inside out. It took three days before he died. Will that do?"

"That'll do."

It chilled her, and for a terrifying flicker of a moment, she wasn't sure if the shiver she gave was for the right reasons or the wrong.

"Help me up," she asked, placing the heel of her right hand against the altar.

"With pleasure."

It was easy to hoist her up onto the altar: just hands around her back, hands around her hips, an easy lift, and holding on good and tight was certainly necessary.

He kept his feet on the ground for a moment and amused himself with her legs, stroking the tops of her thighs, tracing the curve of her hips. He leaned against her knees and looked at her, kindly, openly (because it made for better contrast with his stories).

"I was an executioner once too. I can't tell you how many men--and women, for that matter--I put to death. Maybe I could, if I thought about it. But I remember the swing and fall of the axe, and the sounds of the crowds come to watch."

"Why?" she asked, watching him, watching his eyes and face and most curiously, at those hands that had done so many terrible things.

"Why were you an executioner? Just for fun? Just to watch heads roll?"

She shucked off her shoe, toe to heel and kicking one red pump off, then the other. They clattered onto the floor, loud and bright against the gray stone of the floor.

"Well, someone has to do it," he said, laughing. "It's not a bad job. It's a necessary thing in many places. And an honorable profession. And, besides, the executioner gets his fee--from one side or the other. From the friends of the condemned to keep the axe sharp, from the enemies of the condemned to keep it dull."

He looked down at his hands, then up at her again.

"Do you want more stories or shall I climb up there next to you?"

Capitalism, then? Well, couldn't fault him for that one, really. Not when she had always been the one pushing for Angel to charge people for saving them.

Cordy didn't answer, but she laid back on the altar, knees up, hair spreading around her head like a dark halo, while her arms curled up above.

Either presenting herself as a virgin (ha!) sacrifice or waiting for Leonardo DiCaprio to come paint her.

He would take that as an invitation, thank you very much, and so hopped up there himself. He shook his boots off to let them lie with her shoes (hey, nice little referential pun there, when one thought about it...if shoes were wont to copulate; fucking shoes).

Well, anyway: he sat there alongside her, leaning over her, considering her again, and twining a lock of her hair in his fingers. Another smile--one of his sweeter, more charming ones.

"Look at you. How did you get yourself into this strange set of circumstances?"

And he bent to kiss her again.

She allowed it. Not much point in pushing him away now, was there? She'd surrendered easily. Like Caesar, he had come and seen and conquered (although perhaps not all as of yet and not in that order). If she was parting her legs for the man who had laughed and said what a handsome torso she would make, then why not lips? Much less intimate, after all.

Still a betrayal, though.

"Would you still want me," Cordelia asked against his lips, "If Bert didn't?"

"I think I would. After all, I wanted you before I even knew he wanted you."

He smiled and kissed her again.

"Now, of course knowing that he wants you too--maybe that makes the wanting all the better. Can you blame me for it? Everyone wants what they don't have."

True. They did.

It was what had driven her to make most of her decisions in life and love, after all. Wanting that thing that was just out of reach.

Of course, getting it had never been as satisfying as she'd hoped. That was life, of course, the bitch.

"Can't blame you," she agreed. "Not for that." And fingers swift and nimble, she was unbuttoning his shirt.

"I knew you'd understand," he said and took to tugging at her clothes too.

And now it was beginning to come over him, that feeling of want, that feeling of animal want, of metaphorical hunger, of wanting to literally bite. It settled over him and down in his belly somewhere and sent him back to her neck again, to nibble and to nip.

The bites didn't hurt, but she gasped anyway. For a flicker of a moment, for the briefest second of time, she had wondered if he would really bite down.

She could see it. Her body, sprawled across the altar as he tore at her flesh, biting past flesh and muscle and skin, tearing her throat out completely as her own innards dyed the stone crimson.

Cordelia shook her head, clearing the thought. No. Maybe another time, another place. Not now. Surely, he wouldn't be tearing her to pieces now.

Instead of running, she tossed his shirt to the ground.

He could, of course. Sharp teeth--sharper teeth, anyway--were nothing new. He could bite and tear, if he wanted. And in such a locked and stony room he could fall on his slender prey roaring as loud as he felt like, and guzzle her blood with open joy.

But not for the time being. Not for now. He bit (gently), she gasped, and he pulled back just enough.

"I know," he smiled, "I bet I'll leave a mark. I have a bad habit of that. Wouldn't it be a shame if someone saw it, too."

Lovebites as red as scarlet letters, left--sent, perhaps, if they were the other sort of letters, to those who would best be able to read them.

His hands were up under the hem of her skirt now, sliding up, seeking her skin and her shape, slipping up the outsides of her thighs, slipping down the insides. Closer closer, but not too close yet.

Cordelia imagined it.

She imagined Bert finding the mark, and asking her, and she didn't know what she would say. Nonsense, it wasn't what it looked like, it was just--what? A rash, a mark from a curling iron, a scratch?

The nerves should have hit her, but they didn't. Maybe that's what this was, after all. A way to push him away, or to pull back after how quickly things had been moving. And who would be a better pick for that sort of game than the man hovering above her right now?

"How often do people know?" she asked. "When you take people to bed, how often do they know who you are?"

"It's not so much 'who' as 'what.' And it's not so much 'what' as 'how much.' Think about it that way."

He hummed quietly against her skin. She was beginning to look an enticing mess, he thought, with her hair spread across that stone table and with her skirt hiked up around her hips. He was contentedly and aimlessly running his thumbs along her stomach.

"I think some of them had no idea--at least, not until after. I think they caught on then. Some knew. The really clever ones knew. And some--a very, very few--I told." He touched her nose, teasing. "Count yourself lucky again, you among these chosen few."

"I've always been one of those 'lucky few' who know what really goes bump in the night."

Her gaze was cool, then, level in its approximation of him. A moment, though, and she turned to nip at his finger, drawing it into her mouth, running her tongue along the tip of it:

When she bit down on him, it was hard enough to hurt.

And it did hurt--in the most wonderful, painful, beautiful, pleasurable way. He groaned--it was almost a growl. The warmth of her mouth and the thought that she had already taken him inside her (imagine this to be the first invasion of her body) and she had bitten him (which was only turnabout being fair play). She had bitten on this finger, on this hand, that had done such remarkable and horrible things.

He hoped it left a mark to linger for a few days. He would admire it at whiles, if it did, and remember this little encounter.

"You sharp, wicked thing." His other hand went up under her shirt. "Are you sure that was wise? You shouldn't put things like that in your mouth. There could be horrible diseases or poisons there. You don't know where it's been. Whatever I have might be catching."

"If I'm going to catch a disease from you," she said, "I doubt it's your finger that's going to do it."

A pointed once over, then.

Would he, though? Did he spread disease, did his body do that? The great, almighty Wizard that apparently spread chaos and destruction through the universe--could he catch chlamydia?

She laughed, suddenly, though it was swallowed up in a cough.

"Should I be concerned about poisonous body parts?" she asked, as she set to work on his belt.

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