Chapter Three Hundred and Forty Three

When she gets back home, fingers still clutching at all the paperwork because she can't bear to let go of it, Darla's crying on the couch, soggy Kleenex dabbing away at the tears that've ruined her makeup.

"Mom!" Faith sets down her precious collection of envelopes and rushes over to her. "What's wrong?" Even as she hugs Darla, she's sneaking glances around the room, looking for a glass, a bottle... God, if that's all going to start again – She bites back a whimper because she can't leave Darla if she's drinking again. Not if she wants to still be able to brush her hair in the morning without seeing a fucking ungrateful bitch of a useless, selfish daughter in the mirror anyway. "Ted. Did he, oh God, did you break up? Just before Christmas?"

"What?" Darla raises her head from Faith's shoulder and gives her an astonished look from tear-drenched eyes. "You think I'm crying like this over a man? Never again." Her lips tremble. "It's you. I'm losing my baby and I've only just – oh Faithy, I'm gonna miss you so much!"

"I'm still here," Faith says uneasily. "But –"

Darla sniffs comprehensively and grabs a new Kleenex. "He called me today," she says baldly.

'He' means Wesley. No one else but God goes without saying for Darla, which sometimes makes Faith smile and sometimes freaks her out. "Wesley called here? Why didn't he call me at the office?"

"Because he wanted to speak to me, not you, Missy!" Darla snaps, reviving a little. Faith gapes at her in silence and Darla nods. "Called me and told me what he'd sent you." Not the collar, Faith thinks, please God, not the – "So, do I even need to ask?"

Faith shakes her head. "I've got to go," she says, and any reluctance in her voice is down to not wanting to hurt her mother. "I can't – when I'm not with him, I'm not –" And it sounds so over-the-top, but God, what about her and Wes isn't? "I'm not alive. Not whole. I need him."

Darla sighs and balls up her Kleenex, tossing it in the general direction of the wastepaper bin. "Guess you do, though I still don't know what you see in him." Her gaze drops to the rich, soft gleam of silver and rubies on Faith's wrist and her eyes widen. "Or maybe I do."

"You can't think I'm after his money!" Faith says hotly. "Christ, why does everyone think that?"

"I don't," Darla says, "but you're not going to tell me it doesn't matter?"

Faith opens her mouth to assure her that it doesn't, and then changes her mind. "It's... it's part of him," she says slowly. "It's made him see some stuff differently to the way we do, and it's made him safe in some ways we've never been, but it's not – he's not had it easy, Mom. He –"

"I don't want to know," Darla says flatly. She meets Faith's eyes squarely. "He called and he was all polite, told me he'd sent you some tickets-" She smiles a little sourly. "First-class. With a limo to pick you up and take you to the airport. Guess he doesn't mind spending some of that money on you."

"He loves it," Faith says distractedly. "I haven't spoken to him all day – how did he – how did he sound?"

"Like a kid on Christmas Day," Darla says, sounding a little surprised at her own flight of fancy. "He sounded happy. Didn't think he ever was. Whenever I've seen him he's been so closed-up and cold –"

"Yeah, well you never really saw him at his best, did you?" Faith says wryly, thinking back to the various Darla/Wes encounters with a shudder.

"Somehow I think you're the only one who ever will," Darla says.

Faith thinks about that and shakes her head. "Maybe once, but he's changed," she says. "Got some friends, got a social life –"

"That's not what I mean," Darla says heavily. "I mean when he's really happy. But I don't want to go there."

"Yeah," Faith says uncomfortably, because all the reading and surfing she's done still doesn't mean she wants to go into detail about what she and Wes get up to with her mom for fuck's sake.

"So –"

"I'm going." Faith's head turns and she looks at the bulk of the courier envelope with her tickets and inventory in it. "Tomorrow at nine."

***

She snuggles down under the covers, breathless with excitement, so on edge she can barely stand it. Wes hasn't called, hasn't emailed, but she didn't expect him to. He knows she's coming and he's content to wait out the hours before she arrives without speaking to her.

The only regret she's got is that she's fairly sure he's not gonna be in the limousine picking her up when she arrives; he won't want to be in public when they meet each other and really, as all her visions of the five minutes following, 'Hi, Wes' involve getting naked fast, she supposes that's of the good.

She's spent most of the evening wet; both ways. She's bathed and soaked until she's glowing and squeaky-clean, shaving herself carefully, with hands that stop shaking only because Wes won't like it if there's even the tiniest cut on her skin, rubbing lotion over her still-damp body and remembering how he used to do that as she stood in front of him, forbidden to move. She's packed her bags, putting in everything she's ever worn that he liked, red panties to pink shoes – and she's deliberately disobeyed him because she's been wearing his collar for hours now, feeling the weight of it like his hand on her, a constant, unrelenting touch that she can't get used to, so each time she moves she feels a throb of arousal, dark and joyous.

God, she's never going to sleep... Reluctantly, she unbuckles it and gets out of bed, putting it back in the box and slipping it inside the suitcase. Wes had been pretty fucking clear about what he planned to do - want you naked when I put it on you, with nothing on your body but my collar and my hands. I want to fuck you with it around your neck, want to see it against your skin, your pale, pretty skin. I want to hear you whimper when I fasten it, want to thrust my fingers deep inside you after I've put it on you, feel how wet it's made you...

He wasn't very sympathetic about getting herself off as a way of relaxing enough to sleep either. In fact he'd foreseen it and forbidden it with an uncompromising set of commands, so precise and detailed that there was zero wiggle room.

Which had just turned her on even fucking more...

She gets to sleep after looking at the creased, faded-through-being-stared-at-too-much photograph of him and kissing it, like, a hundred times, whispering his name, which is so unbelievably sappy and she doesn't give a fuck.

Chapter Three Hundred and Forty Four

She tosses and turns fitfully, too excited to fall into a truly deep, restful sleep. Even asleep her mind is reeling with so many imagined moments. They unspool in staccato bursts, these potentialities that all feature with Wes’ fingers tracing lightly over the letters that have been newly embossed onto her flesh, lingering on the slightly raised curves of each one. Or his lips brushing softly against her skin, sounding out each letter in turn with a seemingly endless patience that only serves to inflame her more. The focus isn’t even on fucking so much as the satisfaction of simple touch, rekindling the sense memories she’s filed carefully away. But they’re intense and electric enough to make her wonder what the real thing will be like after so much time away. But she doesn’t want to think about that, not even subconsciously, because she’s been taught to wait and she knows he’ll find a way to surprise her. He always does and he always will.

There’s more, she knows there is –all night she’s plagued by dreams so vivid she’s almost jarred from sleep. So she spends the night feverish with want and frustrated, but willingly so, because she’s promised him. And she’s so close to seeing him, she wouldn’t want to jeopardize that by going against his express order. Not now. By the time she’s awakened by the obnoxious blare of her alarm at the ungodly hour of 5:30 AM, every delicious, imagined moment has dissipated into the ether and she’s left, bleary-eyed and trying to adjust to the slightly harsh light of her bedside lamp. She ducks quickly into the shower, more to wake herself up than anything else, as she’s plucked and shaved and moisturized to within an inch of her life and so very ready to go out that door.

She dresses quietly and wrestles her bag down the stairs as carefully as possible so as not to wake Darla only to find her sitting in the kitchen, two mugs filled with freshly brewed coffee on the table in front of her.

“Mom, you didn’t have to get up to see me off.” She thumps the bag down the rest of the stairs, placing it right by the door.

“I wanted to, honey. I’m happy for you, you know? I really am. Maybe I don’t always like this Wes character, but if he makes you happy, then that’s the most important thing.”

Darla proffers one mug to Faith even as she raises the other in a kind-of toast. It’s preferable to the ones she used to make in her old boozing days. They clink mugs and Faith grins because it’s just so fucking sweet of her mother to be there for her and really, aside from getting to be with Wes for Christmas, it’s the second best Christmas gift she could have asked for.

“Thanks, Mom. It means a lot. And, y’know, we can celebrate Christmas for real when I get back. I’m only going to be gone for–”

Darla looks at her with one of those looks that says, “You can’t fucking fool me.” She smiles, a little sadly. “A couple of weeks? Mm-hmm. Sure. You’re going to breeze back here, floating on cloud nine, and the second you can find a replacement at the office you’ll be outta here for good quicker than a New York minute. Am I right?”

Faith can’t even squirm uncomfortably ‘cause Darla’d pegged it, yeah. Mother’s intuition, or something.

“Maybe?” she ventures, but her tone is distinctly lacking in credibility.

“You’ll let me come visit you in the big city, won’t you? Take me to all those fancy museums and maybe even a party?”

“Mom! I’m not going yet! This is just– it’s like, a trial visit. You just want to get rid of me so you can rent out my room, right?”

“Yup. That’s totally it.” Darla’s laugh is interrupted by the sharp sound of a car horn out front.

“Shit! That’s me. I’ve gotta go.” She gives Darla a big hug and kiss on the cheek, grabs her carry-on bag and purse and races out the door.

She knew to expect a limo, but the whole romantic movie magicalness of it all doesn't really hit her until she sees the liveried driver waiting by the rear door of the long black vehicle with a giant, steaming cup of coffee and white paper sack from the cafe's bakery in his hands.

“Good morning, miss,” he says with a genuine smile, breath puffing in the unusually cold morning air. “Your coffee? And a croissant. There's butter and jam inside as well.” He hands both to her before opening the door.

“Good morning. And, uh, thanks...” she manages to stammer out before sliding into the cushy leather seats in a daze. The only thing that's registering as real is the coffee warming her hands. Taking a tentative sip, the familiar smooth sweetness of the caramel flavoring warms her to her toes.

“My pleasure, miss,” the driver says, still smiling as he closes the door, her suitcase in his other hand.

When they pull away from the curb, she's totally down the spiral in full movie-cliché overload, 'cause she's almost about to cry when she looks back and sees Darla, standing on the front porch wrapped in her housecoat, unfolding her arms to give a little forlorn wave of farewell. She wishes right then she could run back out and give Darla one last hug; thank her again for finally like, being a mom after all these years – or at least give a little wave back, but the limo's tinted glass make that kind of impossible.

And before she can roll down the window to yell out one last goodbye, the driver's voice crackles over the intercom, letting her know that they'll arrive at the airport in thirty minutes and then they're already at the end of the block and it's too far from the house for her voice to carry -- and Darla's already gone back inside anyway.

With a little dramatic sniffle that leaves her wishing for one of Wes' always-handy handkerchiefs, she shoves the coffee into a cup holder, smears the tears from her eyes, smoothes invisible wrinkles out of her red dress with fluttery, nervous hands, and shoves the croissant into her Emily Strange bag. She's not exactly hungry anymore, but maybe she will be later. No, for now she's content, without any regret, to watch the buildings and landmarks roll by as they make their way to the highway, scored by the strains of tasteful popular classical music -- the kind Wes always turned up his nose at – softly emanating from the limo's innumerable speakers.

And everything's kind of a blur after that: The driver's warm smile as he wishes her a good trip as he leaves her at the baggage check-in, then suffering the indignity of removing her stompy boots at the security station and hobbling to the gate in her stocking feet, and the near-endless wait – because of course, she's arrived early to avoid delays – paging mindlessly through the magazines she grabbed at a newsstand and picking at the croissant 'cause her stomach's way too flippy-floppy to take any more food without serious consequences. The airport gradually becomes more and more crowded, and she's so completely absorbed in people-watching by that point that she doesn't realize her phone's ringing until a sweet old lady in the seat opposite tastefully opines that perhaps she should answer it.

It's Wes -- of course.

“Good morning, Faith.” His voice is as warm and welcome as the caramel latte had been an hour and a half earlier and recharges the anticipatory desire, the tingles in all the right places. “I assume you had no trouble waking up on time and meeting your ride, and that you're at the airport?”

“Yeah, I'm sitting at the gate now. The plane's not here yet, but they say we'll be boarding soon. Thanks for the coffee, by the way. I think I'm totally spoiled – Darla's daily pot of Folger's just doesn't do it for me anymore.”

“And you spoke with Darla, and she's all right with your decision to fly up?” he asks a little nervously. She never did find out exactly what Darla had said to him in that conversation, but Faith imagines Darla's newfound-maternal instincts had put the fear of God in him or something.

“She'll be fine,” she says simply, only because she's not sure she won't freakin' burst into tears all over again if she gives any more detail than that.

“Good.”

A long silence hisses across the line until a woman at the check-in counter announces something incomprehensible over the intercom. “Hey, hang on. They're announcing something. God, I hope the plane's not late.”

And no sooner has she said that then the old woman next to her is cursing audibly in a most un-old ladylike fashion. “Don't mean to eavesdrop, young lady, but yes. Delayed for at least 45 minutes.”

She doesn't even need to ask if he's heard that because there's an exasperated sigh in her ear, and it's not the kind that that gives her goose bumps. “I specifically chose this flight because the airline assured me it had the lowest percentage of delays. This is completely unacceptable...”

And she wishes right then she could just kiss him right through the phone because she knows his brow's furrowed and his mouth is drawn thin with disapproval. “Hey, it's okay, Wes. Really. What's another hour or so after this long, huh? Remember, the waiting is the best part? Right?” But as she says the words, she's starting to feel just as peeved as the departure time bumps forward on the digital display at the check-in counter and her fellow passengers start to bitch a little more audibly.

“I do believe I was the person who first made you amenable to that concept,” he says with mock-exasperation. “Well, they will be hearing from me at least...”

“Of course they will,” she says with a little laugh. “I wouldn't expect otherwise.”

And after a few more minutes of idle chatter, they sign off with a totally mushy goodbye that's saccharine enough to make the crabby, eavesdropping old lady smile.

A girl could get used to all this top-notch treatment, she thinks as she slides into the second expansive leather seat of the day, in the first class cabin of the airplane. Luckily the delay had actually only been thirty minutes, but it's enough to send the business travelers complaining and the cabin crew in first class is beyond ingratiating. She doesn't feel a bit guilty about ordering two bloody marys from an unabashedly queer steward who calls her sweetheart --since they're free and in first class and all-- but she promptly conks out before drinking them, lulled to sleep by the independent music station's playlist that's a little heavy on the dream pop and shoegaze-y tunes.

Of course, the only problem with sleeping on a plane, she discovers as she awakens with a start when the steward asks her to put her seat back up for the landing, is that it's really freakin' disorienting, she thinks groggily as she peers out of her window at the impressive New York City skyline below -- not to mention it really fucks up your hair. She may not be fully conscious enough to recognize more landmarks than the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building and all the bridges, but she's totally aware that one half of her hair feels extremely flattened and askew, a fact that's confirmed when she stumbles off the plane and into the nearest powder room. After jostling elbows with a bunch of irate, power-suited Lilah clones at the bank of mirrors in the big, echoing bathroom, she manages to coax her hair back into an acceptable style.

There's another liveried driver waiting for her at the bottom of the escalator to the baggage claim, with a sign that reads, simply, 'Faith.'

“That's me,” she says to the driver, who nods curtly and leads her to the baggage carousel for her flight and lugs her bag out to a limo that's clearly violating all kinds of new Homeland Security regulations about parking in the curbside area, but no one seems to care.

And holy crap, it's cold outside -- colder than she's ever been ever, like totally edging in on single digits, and she's suddenly wishing that she had gloves and a hat and a scarf, perhaps, and a coat that's just a little more substantial. But then again, she knows Wes will tsk at her disapprovingly and hopefully take her right out shopping to make sure she's got all the right weather-appropriate gear – so maybe it's not all bad after all, 'cause she's in the heated car in a matter of seconds anyway, the bitter cold nearly immediately forgotten.

She tries not to act like a total country bumpkin when the driver wends his way out of the airport and on to the BQE, taking her over the Triborough Bridge into Manhattan, and her heart's starting to beat like a mile a minute when they start driving down Park Avenue. The streets are packed with last minute shoppers toting huge bags, and though she doesn't see any dogs dyed silly colors, she does see more than a few in darling little sweaters leading around women dressed so stylishly she's starting to rethink the whole vintage dress/stompy boot combo, big time.

But then the driver's turning on E. 77th and circling the block to bring her right up to the main entrance to his building, and really, all she cares about is not hyperventilating or passing out -- or both.

Chapter Three Hundred and Forty Five


She stands shivering on the sidewalk as the driver and the doorman who's wearing this fancy gold frogged cap and coat just like in the movies tussle over her cheap suitcase and the plastic bag stuffed full of Darla's presents.

And even though she squints through the ornate glass doors because he might be coming down in the elevator right this second, really she's more worried about tipping the driver 'cause that's what happens in New York. And, like, will she have to tip the doorman too? And just how freaking cold is it going to get?

The doorman though is already slipping the driver a bill in this totally suave move that she'd never be able to master if she lived to be a hundred. And then the door's being held open for her and she's stepping over the threshold into another world of black and white tiles that gleam and polished mahogany and the scent of beeswax and lilies from the huge vase sitting on the reception desk.

There's no time to do more than stare open-mouthed as she's already being ushered towards the elevator and when she tries to play this back all she'll remember are brass fittings and heavy doors that open with an expensive swooshing sound.

"Welcome to Carlyle House, miss," the doorman says after he's placed her battered luggage in the elevator with the kind of reverence that would make you think it was matching set of Louis Vuitton cases. "Mr Wyndam-Pryce is expecting you. 15th floor, apartment A," he adds touching his cap with a gloved hand as she scrabbles for the right button.

And she's watching the floors light up on the numbered display when really she should be trying hard not to pee her pants and maybe check that her hair doesn't look like it fell on her from a great height but she can't do that. All she can do is what she does, which is suddenly smack her hand on the control panel so the elevator grinds to a halt on the 11th floor.

"Fuck, fuck, oh fuck," she chants because this is, like, the hugest moment of her life. Way huger than even the day she first turned the handle on the door and walked into his offices. It's immense and she feels tiny in comparison; insignificant within the enormity of the changing pattern of her own existence. She's going to step out and walk into her future and for one second she's gripped with doubt that she's not ready. That he'll look at her and it's not the same. She's not the same. What he felt, what he thought he felt was just an illusion and it's going to be awful.

But then her chin comes up and she whirls round so she can fix her reflection with a resolute glare. If he realises that he doesn't love her any more than she's just going to have to fucking change his mind.

And in the end, it's easy. She smoothes down her hair, willing it to maybe grow a couple of inches in the next few seconds and presses the button again, trying to ignore the stereophonic lurching of the elevator and her stomach.

The door glides open on an empty hallway, because it's not Wes' style to be hovering on the parquet, and she steps out, hauling her bags with her and looks around to see which way the letters go. And she's walking along, amazed that the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other, brings her nearer to the door at the end of the corridor.

The door, which suddenly opens and he's standing there, a tall, lean figure cast in shadows just like on that first day when she turned up for her interview in her stupid, waterlogged clothes. He's just standing there and she's trying to do the whole one foot in front of the other thing but it's not working. She's rooted to the spot, looking for a sign from him, from above and then he holds out his arms and she's not walking, but running, the suitcase banging against her legs until she drops it because he's taken a step towards her, into the light, and his face is wreathed in smiles and she drops her case and her bag so she can get to him faster, so fast that her feet don't even touch the ground any more because she's flying through the air and his hands… his hands are touching her, around her waist so he can pick her up and spin her round while she clings to him.

All those fancy speeches she worked on; which were this perfect blend of sass and snark and maybe just a little bit of exasperation have fallen out of her head and she's got her face buried against his neck and he still smells the same. Of bergamot and limes and something else that she can't even describe; she'd just call it Wes. And he's warm and a bit soggy 'cause, yeah' she's crying and laughing at the same time and his hands are everywhere, smoothing down her hair, stroking her back, like she's precious, like he has to keep touching her to make sure she's really there.

She can't even look at him, until he gently cups her chin and turns her face towards him and he never looked like that before. Never looked at her like that before.

"Faith," he breathes. "What the hell took you so long?"

Her mouth drops open so she can gasp in outrage because he was the one with the…

With the? She can't remember right now because his lips are on her and she shuts her eyes because it's one of those kisses straight out of the movies and even though he has to shift her higher in his arms so he can walk a few feet and nudge her bags along with his toe, it's still perfect.

He kicks the door shut behind them, which is also perfect because it means he can press her up against it so she's pinned between the wood and his hard body. And she's, like, completely light-headed from all of it. Mostly the nearness of him and how she can be touching him and still be greedy and desperate to touch him again and again. But also the sinuous flicker of his tongue in her mouth, the hard jut of his cock right between her legs when she hitches herself just a few crucial inches up.

"Hey," she whispers when he finally lets go of her mouth so he can kiss the damp path down her cheek that her tears have made. "Hey, Wes."

He's placing her gently on her own two, shaky feet and taking a step back from her. "Hello, my darling girl. Let me have a proper look at you."

She's already trying to tug down the skirt of her dress which is up over her hips and she knows for a fact that his fingers have completely ruined her hair and her lipstick's just a dim and distant memory but his eyes run over her and she can feel them as fervently as his fingers before he smiles.

"I'd forgotten just how beautiful you are," he tells her softly and she grins.

"And you're still fucking pretty yourself, Wes."

He glances at his watch and gives her a smug smile. "Really, Faith, you're slipping. I expected you to mention that odious word at least five minutes ago."

"Whatever," she mock-snarls, bumping him with her hip because she's still got, like, hours to go before she'll run out of excuses to not touch him. "Y'know, I was so fucking nervous when I was coming up in the elevator," she says following him down the halls after he's picked up her bags. "That you'd be there and it would be all weird and awkward and shit and I still feel like I'm about to start crying again but I'm so fucking happy, Wes." And she'd be even fucking happier if she could stop talking but he just looks over his shoulder at her and grins.

"A sentiment I share, I quite assure you. Did you have a good flight?"

He shoulders open a door and she's stepping into a room and yeah, there's furniture and a floor and hey, walls too. There's also a big, comfy bed just made for two.

"It was cool," she says, sitting down on the edge of it and bouncing experimentally. "I fell asleep for most of it."

"Are you hungry? You must want something to drink at least and I had all of your favorite foods delivered under cover of darkness so my reputation as a gourmand remains intact," he continues and his fingers are tracing circles along the top of a chest of drawers and he's barely pausing for breath, which makes her kinda relived that he's just as nervous as her. "And, Faith, really I can’t believe that you came all this way without even a proper coat."

She has to stop herself from doing something completely immature like squealing with delight like a little piggie when he fixes her with a stern glare.

"Well we don't get a lot of arctic winds in Florida," she huffs. "Guess we could go out while the stores are still open. I wanna check out all those fancy New York shops."

He nods in agreement. "We could do that."

"Can we get the subway?" she asks jumping up. Because there was this whole theory she'd had about being naked by now but shopping would be a good second best. "Or a yellow cab? Or… hey! We could get the subway there and a cab back and we could make him drive through Central Park and the ice rink. Where's the ice rink?"

Wes shakes his head slowly, eyes closed, a small smile tugging at his lips. "It's by the Rockefeller Centre," he says and there's this tiny frozen moment when he's staring at her as she stands there, her arms swinging by her sides and she's staring right back at him and he's wearing jeans and a black sweater and he hasn't shaved this morning and she's forgotten what that feels like. Which is why she's suddenly in front of him, hands running over the rough angles of his cheekbones.

"Your hair's gotten grayer," she tells him gravely. "And these little lines on your forehead are deeper and you've lost weight."

His first instinct is to flinch away from her touch, she can tell that by the sudden start he gives but then he stills and his eyes flutter closed for just a second before opening wide so all she can see is blue.

"I've been pining away," he says plaintively and he's still no better at making that sound convincing. "And your hair's a lot shorter and we are going to have a conversation about that, my darling Faith, later on this evening."

"I'm counting on it," she agrees happily, winding her fingers through his because there's no damn good reason why she can't. "So you gonna show me the sights then? And maybe lend me a sweater and a scarf before we go?"

"I've got a couple of things that got shrunk by my laundry service which should suffice."

"Cool. C'mon, Wes, got my Christmas bonus just burning a hole in my pocketbook," she says, trying not to go all googly eyed because he's staring at her again, all intense and his mouth flattened out into a tight line. "And I saw these totally wicked…"

"Oh, sod it!" he groans and she's being hauled into his arms again. "It doesn't matter. I have absolutely no intention of letting you leave this room for the next three days," he says before he kisses her.

Chapter Three Hundred and Forty Six

And it's not like she's going to argue with him, now is it? Because even though if her life depended on it she couldn't say what color the carpet was, or what the room contained beside a bed and the chest of drawers he's standing by, she's ready to swear it's the perfect room for holing up in with him and she's fairly certain he'll relax enough to let them make it to the bathroom for long, splashy soaks, showers where they're clinging together so tightly the soap bubbles can't fit between them, and yeah, trips to wherever he's stashed the food because suddenly she's starving now the butterflies have migrated south.

"Wes," she says when the kiss ends and she's only held up by his arms which are cradling her to him. "This is still, like, majorly weird, y'know."

He stares at her and nods slowly. "It is, a little, yes," he allows. "The expectation, the time apart, the fact that you're more beautiful than I'd remembered which is forcing me to adjust my memories of you - but I think I can restore some small semblance of normality if you like..."

She stares at him and fuck, they've been apart too long, or maybe he's changed too much, because she's not really sure if he's joking or not. Somewhat hesitantly, she returns his nod. "I'd like that..."

"Turn around," he says softly and there's nothing in his voice, no command, no expectation of compliance, but it's Wes telling her to do something and it's the easiest thing in the world to obey instantly, relaxing into the safety of being with him again, with nothing but good surprises.

She's facing a long wall and she gives a gasp because she's there, framed in silver, a dull gleam of metal enclosing the two photographs she'd sent him. They look stunning, carefully lit, placed so that they illuminate the room with the subtle contrast of white and dark.

"What color were you kneeling against?" he asks, slipping his hands around her arms to hold her back when she starts to move towards them.

"Red," she tells him.

"I thought so," he says with satisfaction. "You said you had a third..."

"It's in my case," she says. "Do you want to see it?"

"Very much so," he says, "but not until I've seen the original. I'd like you to undress now, Faith, please."

And she could swear she comes just from that, the drawled command, Wes in total control of himself, of her, of them and she makes a sound that has his hands tightening on her arms as he dips his head and bites the side of her neck, just in the place that sends shivers over her in a tingling rush, hardening her nipples in an sharp throb her clit echoes.

Wordlessly she lifts her hands to start undoing buttons and zips, peeling and stripping away everything that's hiding her body from his eyes and hands and mouth.

He doesn't move far and he stays behind her until the moment when her tattoo's about to be exposed and then he circles around and sits on the bed, gaze locked on her face.

She steps out of the last piece of clothing and lets the damp scrap of her thong fall to the floor, not missing the pursed lips that tell her he's noticed what she was wearing and he doesn't approve.

Which she'd counted on. And it beat handing him a bottle of wine as she arrived, or a bunch of flowers.

Once she's naked, he studies her carefully without moving from the bed, his gaze taking in each gained or lost pound, lingering on her hair, and although he tries, he can't prevent the small smile that follows his detailed examination.

"Yes..." he murmurs finally, answering a question he hasn't voiced. He turns and gives the smallest of gestures towards the photographs. "I'd like you to walk over there and kneel between them, looking towards the wall."

She swallows, because she doesn't want to; she wants to run to him because already she's missing the touch of his hands and this is all so swift, so sudden.

Ten minutes ago she was in the elevator and now she's caught up in one of Wesley's games, and is it too soon, too abrupt–

"It's better this way," he says gently as if he can read her doubts in the small hesitation. 'Trust me."

His voice lifts at the end, just a little, making it a question and she nods. "I do, Wes," she says. "I really do."

"Then walk... and kneel... and wait," he says and he makes it sound so simple that she does just that.

The carpet's a soft pale green she discovers and it's thick enough that her knees sink into it a little and she's trembling slightly as she glances between a scrap of white fluff on the otherwise-pristine surface and the small scar on her left knee from a biking accident years ago...

"You're slouching. Straighten up," he says with a sternness that brings her shoulders back and her chin up. "Good girl," he adds, the quick approval enough to make her smile because it points up the fact that today she's not going to be able to do anything to make him angry, no matter how hard she tries. And she arches her back slightly, proudly, making her position match the twin Faith's who're smiling down at her, wondering if he's allowed himself to read the line across her back yet.

"Look at me," he says finally when her breath's begun to catch because every second that passes with him behind her is leading her deeper into a fevered arousal she's not sure she can control. She imagines if they did this again she'd relax, float into a dream-like state of waiting... but not today. The slick, thick heat between her legs is too insistent to allow that.

She turns her head and stares at him gravely, not smiling because she's held captive by the same sense of significance that had made her halt the elevator. She doesn't want to do this wrong. Doesn't want to disappoint...

"Your hair's already a little longer," he tells her, transferring his gaze from her to the photographs.

"I told you; it grows fast," she whispers. "Wes – "

"Yes?" he asks and she sees that his hand's clinging onto the small post of the footboard and wonders if he's as uncertain and unsettled as she is.

"Can you read it?"

"I haven't tried," he says and his hand slips free and he beckons to her. "Come here, so I can."

She twists around and then pauses. He hasn't told her to – She meets his eyes and they narrow, a wickedly amused gleam brightening them. "Oh, I think so, don't you?" he says and the tension that doesn't belong, the part caused by being apart for so long, the residual bitterness of the way he left, leaves her, and, she thinks, him, in a sudden rush. "As you're about to reveal such a flagrant disregard of my wishes..."

So she crawls to kneel beside him and she knows he's watching the heavy, slow sway of her breasts, tipped with painfully-hard nipples, knows he's running his eyes over the changing curve of her back and ass as her hands lift and fall. Knows because she's staring at him the whole time, seeing the way his jaw tightens as he swallows, how his eyes are darkening to navy...

He looks down at her as she lifts herself to her knees and reaches out his hand, cupping her face. "You did that beautifully," he says.

"Hey, I've got poise, remember," she whispers because just forming words is difficult enough without making them audible too.

He smiles. "Indeed you do," he agrees gravely. "Do you think it'll survive the first contact of my hand against your arse?"

She blinks at him, because really, now she's not capable of doing anything but stare.

"Over my knee, Faith," he says calmly. "I think that's the best way for me to view the... addition to your skin, don't you?"

She freezes up and he smiles at her, without much kindness, because she thinks they both know that'd break her, and pats his knee. "I'm waiting."

His jeans are rough enough against her sensitized skin to make her give a gasp that changes to a moan as she wriggles into position. Or maybe that's down to the fact that she's ideally placed to find out just how hard he is, rigid and, yeah, really fucking familiar, there for her breast to brush against as he pulls her forward and adjusts her to his precise requirements.

There's the longest pause and then she feels his finger running along the words as he sounds them out.

"'I love you because I know no other way...'" There's a small silence and then he says quietly, "Yes," and his hand comes to rest, not on her ass, but covering the words, as though he's trying to gather them up and hold them.

"It looks very well," he says, "and the words are perfectly-chosen, but still..." His hand shifts. "This is by no means the full extent of the penalty I'll need to exact," he tells her, with his hand moving restlessly, eagerly over her ass, in a sharp contrast to the measured calm of his voice. "But I want to fuck you, Faith, so very much that I can't wait much longer, and this will serve as a beginning. Nine words. Count them for me."

And she cries out as his hand falls against her skin, not because of the flare of heat within and without, but because his hand slips between her parted legs and strokes across the wet, aching folds of her cunt.

"One," he reminds her, in a voice that's not so fucking steady now he's felt how ready she is.

"One," she manages to say back to him.

By five she's thrusting her ass up to meet each slowly-meted out slap, craving that delicious dip down that follows each one, with his fingers claiming more each time they touch her, delving inside her, tweaking at the hard, swollen bud of her clit, and, soaked with her juices, circling the tightness of her asshole with a questing, testing, maddeningly light touch.

By seven he's slowed down enough that she's ready to scream, taking time out to tap against each tattooed word with a sticky-wet finger as she gasps out a number.

"Nine," she says finally almost shrieking it out. "Nine, Wes, nine!"

"Yes," he says and she's tipped off his knee onto cool sheets and by the time she's rolled onto her back, finger-combing her tangled hair off her face, he's naked, and she doesn't get chance for more than one glance down to his cock, hard and ready, before he's kneeling beside her.

"I want to see you come," he says harshly, and his fingers are between her legs before he's finished speaking, and nothing's changed about the way she responds to his touch, shuddering and clenching around him.

He watches her arch and pant out his name as she's swept up in a climax that's triggered less by the way he's found the perfect combination of thrusting fingers and dexterously rubbing thumb and more by the look in his eyes as he watches her, so totally caught up in her that he doesn't realize how unguarded his own expression is.

He draws his fingers out of her and brings them to his lips, tasting her. "I thought I'd forgotten how you tasted," he says, half to himself, "but I hadn't."

"Wes, I need you to fuck me," she begs. "Please – " The climax hasn't helped at all; she's still quivering, hurting with the need to feel him slide inside her, light-headed and dizzy.

"Shall I promise to never make you wait again?" he asks, shifting so that the head of his cock is nudging against her clit, sending white-hot flashes over her. "Would you like that?"

"No," she bites out. "Just don't make me wait right now."

Chapter Three Hundred and Forty Seven

He tilts his hips just a little so that she feels him stretch her open, start to fill her. She's all set to start begging when he gasps and lunges forward. "God, Faith," he mutters. "Oh God..."

She wraps her legs around him, pulling him deeper, reveling in the weight of him on her, of him inside of her. The feeling is still new and strange, just a little, but that’s all right. She expected that. He rests his head at the hollow of her throat, a sigh escaping from his lips. If it’s a word, she can’t make it out over the pounding of her heart and her own breathless exhortations, which have long ceased to be coherent. She angles her hips forward to meet his, encircling him with her arms, her restless hands roaming across the broad expanse of his back because she can’t stop touching him. He’s clearly still in control enough to give this series of shallow, deliciously slow thrusts in response that leave her practically screaming with frustration. But she doesn’t cry out, just bites the sound back, wanting desperately to come but at the same time wanting this to go on forever, just wave after wave of inchoate pleasure with no end in sight. There’s something so surreal, so heightened about every touch they give to one another, and in that way it feels like the first time again. It is the first time again. For a moment everything’s slow and languid and she feels almost drugged.

Her eyes have drifted shut, and she’s so focused on the sharp little thrusts of his hips and the feeling of his fingertips gripping her arm, so tightly she knows there’ll be bruises there later, that she’s startled when he whispers, “Open your eyes. I want to look at you.” Her eyelids flutter open and he’s gazing at her so adoringly she almost can’t take it. She doesn’t want to cry –not now, not again. Another ragged whisper –“My beautiful girl”– before he dips his head low to kiss each of her breasts in turn. His tongue darts out to encircle one hard kernel of nipple, which makes her moan and arch against him. He nips at it, sharply, and she cries out as he spreads her legs wider so he can thrust more deeply into her. “Fuck me, fuck me,” she whispers hoarsely, scarcely able to force out the words, and she’s shaking like a leaf against him, she’s so close to coming. If he senses it, there’s nothing he can do, because there’s far too much urgency in either of their movements for them to turn back now. They’d shifted irrevocably away from the unhurried; all the hunger and desperation they felt when they were apart colors everything now. He pulls himself out of her abruptly and before she has a chance to cry out in protest he plunges back inside with a single swift, forceful motion, twisting a nipple roughly between his fingers as he does so. It certainly evokes the desired response –sending an electric jolt right to her clit, causing her to clench forcefully around him, her head thrown back as she grips the sheets tightly in her hands.

“I can’t, I can’t–” She’s thrashing under him, her orgasm already starting to plateau and she wants to quell it, wants to wait. She can’t even see him anymore –everything is white-hot and bright and reduced to this frenzy of feeling that’s paradoxically too large to contain. But she can feel him. Can feel the exaggerated rise and fall of his breath against the taut line of her neck, the weight of his hips against hers, his steel grip against her back, fingers splayed across her buttocks, cushioning her from the full force of his thrusts.

“Come for me, please, want you to–” His voice sounds so naked, so vulnerable, and almost faraway, that it hardly sounds like him. But she doesn’t much care, because she can’t hold off any longer; she’s completely lost to it as she shudders uncontrollably against him. One final, violent thrust and he comes too, spurting hotly inside of her as he cries out her name. He falls silent against her chest, breathing heavily.

“Don't want this to end, not yet,” she whispers hoarsely, barely able to squeeze the words out for the pressure of his head against her chest, clamping her still-rippling cunt around his spent and twitching cock. It's still so deliciously hard and slides gently against her over-sensitized flesh and she's got him right where she wants him – in her arms again with his hands cradling her tingling ass, fingers curled protectively over the indelible words etched into her skin. And she can't help it, the moment's so fucking tender that she slips her fingers through his slightly sweat-damp hair and pulls him up for a kiss, his tongue soft and entangled with hers.

There's no measure of time that can accurately measure out how long they stay that way, locked tight in a seemingly-endless embrace, kissing with eyes wide open. She can't look away, and neither can he –even says as much.

“Three days won't be nearly enough,” he whispers in her ear, when their lips finally part and she's all goose bumps and chills and hangs on to him tighter than ever.

When he finally pulls out –slowly, of course and nearly maddeningly so, his eyes are still locked on hers and a sliver of her lower lip caught between her teeth doesn't do much to stop her little moan of dismay.

But it's not over –he's not done, not even by a long shot, 'cause in half a second he's on his side, spooning her into a possessive embrace. His cock –damp and still slightly hard, rests against the cleft of her ass as he lets his hands wander up from the overly sensitive flesh at the small of her back up to her breasts, cupping one in each hand and stroking her nipples lightly with the pads of his thumbs. She can't do anything but whimper as he nuzzles her neck, sucks her earlobe, murmurs: “I go from loving to not loving you, from waiting to not waiting for you, my heart moves from the cold into the fire.”

It's lines from the new Neruda sonnet he'd sent her and she's about to come again right then, just from the warm burr of his voice that's overflowing with a mournful ache that she knows all to well –like he's exorcizing the lost months of their time apart with his voice and his hands and the heat that's rising from their two bodies pressed together.

And they're still moving with some unscripted, mutual rhythm as his hands slide over every exposed inch of her skin and his hand slips between her legs. She's so very slick with their commingled come that his fingers feel like they're dragging the spent fires back inside –especially when he's sliding one finger up, gently teasing and circling her asshole until he gently slips it in. She's pretty sure she's gone from cooing his name to screaming it in record time, his other arm crushing against her chest as he pulls her spasming body in tighter and holds her there as she rides out another rush of pleasure before managing to wiggle out from his embrace. She can't stand not to be lost in that gaze of his, 'cause it's kind of changed in a way she quite pin down. But it's definitely a change for the better.

Barely left with the energy to flop over to face him, she manages somehow, but loses the momentum to plant a kiss on his lips and instead ends up resting her lips against the familiar, faint stubble along his jaw line. “Trying to kill me or something?” she asks, breathless. “I mean, damn, Wes. I just got here!”


Chapter Three Hundred and Forty Eight

They lie curled around each other until the sun fades into smudgy twilight, the words that they haven't yet said spoken for them by soft kisses and the thud of his heart underneath her hand, his fingers winding lazily through her tangled hair.

She wants to stay like that forever. Because, she thinks, she missed this post-fucking intimacy and quiet maybe more than the actual fucking and when she tells him that, he makes a quiet murmur of agreement.

But forever never lasts and eventually she has to wriggle out of his arms and sit up with a stretch and a yawn, unable to wipe the smirk off her face as his gaze rests with fascination on her upthrust breasts.

"Hey, Wes, seen anything you like?" she asks him tartly and he snakes out a hand so he can press against one rosy red nipple with the tip of his finger.

"Well, I rather like this," he purrs and then leans forward to rub his cheek against the curve of her belly. "And I'm inordinately fond of this too especially as you've managed to gain some of the weight you lost."

She gives a giggly sound of protest as his stubble tickles against her stomach. "You saying I've gotten fat?" she asks indignantly and she can feel his smile on her skin.

"Oh yes, disgustingly so," he assures her gravely, ignoring her squeal of outrage and the vicious pinch that she gives his upper arm. "Which is why I have elaborate plans to fatten you up even further starting with dinner. Are you hungry?"

She stops contemplating her thighs, which still seem like a pretty wobble-free zone and gives him a beseeching look. "I'm fucking starving," she announces woefully. "And I totally need to pee too."

He looks startled for a second, like he's forgotten that she's never going to be the poster girl for, what? Like, good manners and breeding but then he's flopping back on the bed and giving an astonished gurgle of laughter.

When he's stopped shaking with mirth and wiping the tears from his eyes, which she knows for a fact he's just doing to get a rise out of her, he strokes his hand gently along the curve of her hip. "I missed you, Faith. More than you'll ever know," he tells her throatily and it's only because all the available liquid in her is already sloshing around in her bladder that she doesn't burst into tears.

"Think I've got a damn good idea," she says quietly and he opens his mouth to say something but she presses her fingers to his lips. "That whole needing to pee thing wasn't an idle threat, Wes."

He shows her in to the en suite which is all black and white and art deco-y, she guesses, and then he's tactfully retreating and, thank fuck, muttering something about food so she can do what a girl has to do.

She's finished attacking her hair with a brush and is just casting longing looks at the bathtub when he's back with a bottle of champagne and a couple of glasses and a delighted smile because it seems that all she has to do is be in his line of vision to get one of those.

"On a scale of one to ten just how fucking starving are you?" he enquires with an arch of his eyebrow and she's glad that he hasn't forgotten how to do that.

She thinks about it for all of a millisecond. "Eleven. I'm fucking starving to eleven. Wes, my stomach's about to start eating itself."

"I did wonder what that alarming noise was," he says with a smile. "In that case, I'm going to start running you a bath and then I'm going to concoct a delicious sandwich for you to eat in it. Does that sound agreeable?"

She's nodding frantically. "A big sandwich, Wes. And are you gonna wash my back for me?"

"That was the general idea." He's already turned on the hot tap so a steaming jet of water gushes out while he adds something that smells wonderful and makes some bigass bubbles too. "What kind of stinky cheese would you like on your sandwich?" he adds but he's already out of the door before she can throw something at him.

She's chin deep in bubbles by the time he comes back with the biggest smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel she's ever seen in his hand.

"Do you think this'll curb your immediate hunger pangs?" he asks doubtfully as she grabs the plate from him, sinks back into the bubbles and takes an enormous bite.

"Worth a try," she mumbles with her mouth full and he's rolling his eyes and muttering something about her deplorable lack of manners as he opens the champagne.

The tub isn't quite as big as the one he used to have but she schooches over as he climbs in and then leans back against his chest so she can finish her bagel.

"Would you like to know what I have planned for the next few days?" he asks casually when she's sipping slowly at her second glass of champagne and wondering if she'll ever get used to how heavenly it is to be skin on skin with him.

"Really would, Wes."

"Well, apart from a brisk walk at least once a day, I have absolutely no desire to share you with New York for a good while," he begins, a hand skimming down the damp slope of her belly so he can rest his palm between her legs. "And I'd like to get started on the contract negotiations as soon as possible, not to mention addressing some of your more severe wrongdoings."

She shifts languidly in the water against his burgeoning erection as his fingers trace against the swollen bud of her clit. "Collar," she mutters indistinctly 'cause her cognitive thought processes have all flown south for the winter because in her mind's eye she's already bent over every flat surface in the apartment. Tied up, held down, toyed with, made to wait, made to beg until all she's sure of is the anchoring weight of it around her neck.

"Oh yes, the collar. It does feature rather heavily in quite a number of the different scenarios I've been devising," he promises darkly. "But I'm afraid that you'll have to give it back to me after we've bathed, Faith, as it does actually belong to me."

He rubs a finger along the slickening walls of her cunt as she parts her legs wider. "Got your initials on it," she reminds him. "Thought about getting your initials tattooed on my ass too."

"Really?" he asks thickly and then he clears his throat as she nods her head. "Anyway back to our itinerary. I'm going to fuck you too… lean back, Faith, and spread your legs a little further, please… I missed fucking you. I'm going to fuck your cunt and your arse and your mouth. And, of course, lots of mindless DVD watching and the eating of vast amounts of carbohydrate-laden food."

And even though he's now got two fingers dipping lazily in and out of her cunt, she tries to swivel round so she can kiss the smirk off his face but his hand grips her shoulder tightly, stilling her movements.

"Don't move, Faith," he orders in his steeliest voice.

"But, I just wanted to…" she begins and then closes her mouth with an almost audible snap.

"I can see that you've forgotten even the most basic rules," he says sorrowfully, fingers driving into her relentlessly so she's squirming back against him, trying to get him even deeper inside her. "You seem to have completely forgotten how to follow even the simplest of instructions, Faith. I just asked you not to move and you're writhing around like a hyperactive lap dancer."

Despite the fact that he's finger fucking her godholy that sure gets her attention and she's moving plenty so she can whip her head round and glare at him. "How the fuck would you know what a hyperactive lap dancer writhes like? Anything you want to tell me, Wes?"

"Yes," he snaps out, pulling his fingers out of her, eyes dancing wickedly. "I'm telling you to get out of the bath now. Then go over to the counter and assume the position."

She's already scrambling out of the bath, causing a veritable slooge of water to spill over the side of the tub as she skids over to the vanity unit and arranges herself over it, making sure to spread her legs and arch her back so her ass is thrust out.

He makes her stay like that for the time it takes him to slowly sip a glass of champagne and wash himself while she pouts at him in the mirror. Then he's climbing out of the bath and fussing with the plug and towels until it's taking all her willpower not to scream at him to get the fuck on with it already. As it is, she's sure there's a little puddle of her juices pooling at her feet.

Then he's disappearing out of the door and he even has the nerve to whistle a fucking jaunty tune while he's at it. She's ready to cry real tears of frustration by the time he comes back, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and clutching something in his head that she can't quite make out in the steamed over glass of the mirror.

"I hope you don't mind, Faith," he says, honeyed sweetness dripping from every syllable. "But I took the liberty of fetching something from your suitcase."

Her breath catches in her throat as he slowly uncoils the length of leather from around his palm and dangles it so the buckle glances across her buttocks.

"I'd like to ask you something, Faith, and I'd like you to be honest with me," he says carefully and it's déjà vu time all over again until she remembers that all those bad, dirty secrets that built a wall between them have been smashed down.

"What do you want to know?"

"That time I hit you with your belt in the office and you said that you didn't want to do that ever again…" He's almost hesitant but then she sees his chin lift up and his shoulders straighten. "Was that because it hurt too much?"

Her fingers flex against the damp tiles and she takes a deep breath. "It did hurt, Wes, like, a bearable hurt but I didn't want to do it again 'cause it made me feel too vulnerable and there was all the stuff going on with my Dad and when you hit me with the belt it took me to this place that made me, like… exposed and I'd told you too many lies…" She can't finish what she's saying because she's getting too choked up and the tears aren't too far behind.

"Ssshhh, ssshhhh," he soothes, leaning over her so he can dot kisses along her shoulder blades. "I didn't mean to dredge up so many bad memories, Faith."

She raises her head so she can see his eyes in the mirror, how tenderly they look at her. "Think we’re both gonna have to get used to that, Wes," she tells him with just a tinge of sadness. "Still got stuff to work through, haven't we?"

"I'm so sorry," he says helplessly, putting the collar down on the top. "For every single stupid and thoughtless thing I did or said. When I think…"

"I know," she says simply. "Wes, I know."

And she knew this conversation was going to happen, but she didn't expect to be completely naked with her ass stuck in the air while they were having it but then it kinda feels normal. Because normal for her and Wes, is about a thousand fucking miles away from anyone else's idea of normal.

There's a featherlight touch across her cheeks, four straight lines traced by his fingers and she doesn't even need to think to know that he's discovered the scars from the switch.

"They're almost beautiful in a terrible kind of way," he remarks softly and the rules can go fuck themselves because she's turning her head so she can smile at him.

"They really fucking are," she says fiercely. "Glad that you put your mark on me, Wes, and I don't regret them for a second."

"Faith…"

"And I want you to whip me with the collar," she adds, wiggling her ass and already craving the bite of the leather on it. "Couldn't sleep last night for thinking about it and I know you want to do it too. And if I don't like it or it hurts too much, you're gonna hear me fucking screaming out my safe word. Anything you want clarified, Wesley?"

He doesn't reply at first and the steam has cleared the mirror enough that she can see the flush pinking up his cheeks as he gives this almost dreamy little sigh. "You are an impossible, absolutely imperious, little bitch," he tells her fondly, picking up the collar. "Five strokes, Faith, and you promise…?"

"I promise, Wes," she assures him, staring at his reflection at he brings his hand up.

The leather stings against her slightly damp skin, burning where it touches so she's nothing more than the sensation and she knows he's holding back from really going to town so all she's getting is this delicious, slowly blossoming hurt that heats her up and leaves her gasping as the fifth stroke lands across her buttocks.

"Wes…" she pleads but he's already dropping to his knees, spreading her open and fastening his mouth to her soaking cunt. She pushes back against him hard, moaning as his tongue drills into her again and again and again until she comes with a cry that might be his name.

It takes her long moments to come down, to stop shaking, to stop clinging to him even as he cleans her up with a warm flannel. Then he tucks one of the soft, fluffy towels that he still seems to be buying by the dozen around her and kisses the top of her head gently.

"I think that's quite enough for now, don't you?" he drawls, leading her back into the bedroom. "Nothing more strenuous for the time being but one of your famous cuddling sessions and a good film."

"And ice cream," she insists weakly as she drags her case open. "You'd better have some ice cream stashed away somewhere, Wes, or there's gonna be trouble."

She's already pulling on her pajama bottoms and digging around for a tank top when he coughs meaningfully.

"I'd like you to be naked please, Faith," he informs her quietly and she ignores him while she tugs out her favorite black wifebeater.

"Neruda," she says firmly, yanking it over her head quickly so she doesn't miss the astonished expression on his face. She wishes she had a camera 'cause, man, he's gone all bug eyed and slack-jawed.

"I beg your pardon," he splutters.

"Neruda," she replies sweetly. "And just to clarify, Wes, I'm not spending all my time bare ass any more. Girl's gotta have some mystique, you know. But if you want to shuck off your clothes then we could have some quid pro quo thing happening."

They have this Mexican stand-off for all of three seconds and yup, his hands are actually toying with the button on his jeans before he shakes his head. "Maybe we could forgo the movie and start on those contract negotiations?" he suggests with a wry grin.

"Nuh-huh, Wes," she says, wagging her finger at him. "Movie, ice-cream, cuddles. In that order."

He doesn't say anything, just gives her a thoughtful look before he takes her hand and leads her out of the room.

Chapter Three Hundred and Forty Nine

The remnants of the ice cream are melting in a bowl on the coffee table and the credits are rolling when he clears his throat, the way he always does before he's about to say something he's not sure about.

As she's draped across him like his very own Faith blankie, she can't see his face without way more effort than she's capable of making right now. The early start, the disturbed night – she's all but drifting off to sleep, stretched out on this huge, black leather couch that's wide enough for them to lie side-by-side, she bets, though she prefers it this way.

"What, Wes?" she murmurs, pursing her lips and kissing his chest because it's right there and why not?

"I'm pleased that you used your safe word of course," he begins carefully, not sounding pleased at all, "but now you've decided to utilize it, I do hope that you don't use it... frivolously."

"I get it," she says calmly. "I understand how it works."

"Yes," he says, in a way that means 'but' is a breath away. "But –" Thought so.

"Wes," she says, propping herself up on her elbow and ignoring his 'oof' as it digs into his ribs. "If I get how it works, I can't use it frivolously, can I? Because it's meant for serious times. For when I don't want to do something. Really don't want to, for whatever reason."

He looks just the tiniest bit miffed and a whole lot disturbed. "You don't want to be naked around me?" he asks. "Because it's never –"

She pushes herself to sitting and curls up beside him, waiting for him to struggle into a position that's a bit less recumbent. Damn, this couch is like quicksand...

"Fine, Wes. Let's get this done now, 'cause I'd rather get it over with."

"Yes," he says, with a small smile. "I remember that about you. You're not a toe-dipper, are you?"

She smiles back. "Really aren't," she agrees. "And, no, of course I don't mind being naked around you. As if! But naked when you're not is different and you know it."

A slight frown furrows the skin between his eyebrows. "Yes, of course I do. But, well –"

"Yeah," she says. "It's a game. I get that, Wes, I do, and if you told me tomorrow, or next Tuesday you were going to keep me naked all day, gave me time to think about it, I'd be fine with it. Maybe. And if, two months from now you said it casually, just like you did tonight–" She pauses. Two months. Will she-? God, how does she know – She realizes with a burst of panic, sour-sweet in her mouth that she still doesn't feel fucking safe –

His hand's hard and warm and painfully tight around her wrist, dragging her back from the edge. "I'll make a note of it," he says, eyes searching her face. "February 24. Tell Faith to remove her clothing at a time and place as yet undetermined, while I watch."

She gives him a grateful smile. "And I might say, 'yes', and I might say – well, not 'no'. I suppose I don't get to say that, do I?"

He shakes his head, trying to look regretful. "I don't think you do, although I'm fairly certain you will. But you can always say your safe word. I'm really not trying to argue with your use of it –"

She gives his knee a solid thunk with her elbow. "You totally were!" she says, outraged. "But that's what I get for hooking up with a lawyer. Just lucky for me that I'm way sneakier, being a teenage girl."

"You're terrifying me," he murmurs giving this little wiggle of his eyebrows.

"I'm so not. But I'm getting all kinds of sleepy and I don't wanna argue with you –"

He sits up abruptly and kisses her. "We're not," he says firmly. "We're having a rational discussion about an important matter and we are not arguing because I simply won't allow that on our first night together."

She traces the shape of his lips and smiles. "Yes, Wesley," she says meekly, spoiling it entirely by giggling.

"Faith," he drawls, "it occurs to me that we've moved into uncharted territory now that the movie, ice cream and uh, cuddles are over, so before I schedule an unprecedented third assault on your arse for being deplorably cheeky, perhaps you'd like to summarize your position?" He smirks. "It's what sneaky lawyers do."

She nods, not letting herself get side-tracked, even though his hands are still on her, sliding up her sides and skimming the curve of her breasts with his thumbs. "You wanting me to strip was a whim."

"Well, I –"

"A whim. I'd been naked for hours."

"It's not enough," he says and there's nothing but longing in his voice. "Do you know how much I've missed the sight of you? The way you feel when I'm holding you?"

She strokes a hand down his arm. "Yeah. But it was still a whim, and guess what, Wes? I'm allowed to have them too. And I just got here and I'm tired and this has been one hell of a few weeks – months – and I thought I wasn't gonna see you until February, and you've been fucking me long-distance, and not in a good way, and you fucking bastard, you left me."

Her voice starting to rise, and the sudden spill of hot tears, comes about three words in and she watches his face tighten as he hears her out in silence, not trying to interrupt her with stammered excuses the way Xander would have, not trying to calm her down.

"I'm sorry," she says, wiping at the tears and looking around for something better than the back of her hand, but this is a swanky New York apartment and boxes of Kleenex don't seem to be in this year.

"Here," he says, and yeah, it's a Wes hanky, impeccable folds, blindingly-white and she grabs it and stands up, moving away from him over to the window with the view out over the city.

He gives her time to snuffle the tears away and then sighs and she hears the creak of the leather as he stands up and walks over to her, moving quickly. His hands curve over her shoulders and then he slips his arms around her waist, hugging her to him. "Do you like the view?" he asks quietly.

She nods. It's spectacular. Ribbons of light on the biggest present of them all; New York with Wes on Christmas Eve.

"Did you hate me very much?" he asks next and there's something in his voice that's close to the cringe an animal gives as it readies itself for a blow because she's guessing he thinks she did and hearing it from her is something he's been expecting – dreading - no matter how much they kissed and made-up while they were apart.

"Not enough to ever stop loving you," she says, turning to face him. "And I can get why you did it, and why we needed to be apart, but it doesn't mean I liked it. It doesn't mean I'd have chosen it, or maybe, if we'd discussed it, we couldn't have come up with a better way."

"Possibly we could," he says. "In fact, as I've spent the time away from you feeling bereft and utterly miserable, I'm certain we could have. But I was so sure –" He sighs and his head drops down onto her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Faith," he says, speaking softly against her bare skin. "Sorry for rushing you tonight, too, for overwhelming you because I still can't help feeling you're not really here, it's all just too perfect –"

"You too?" she interrupts, blurting out the words.

He raises his head and blinks. "I'm sorry?"

She rolls her eyes. "The panic thing, Wes. This – " She waves her arm at the view, the apartment. "It's all so fucking fast." She stares at him suspiciously as he clears his throat. "What?"

"I've been planning it for weeks," he confesses.

"Say what?" she says dangerously.

"I thought it would be a surprise –"

"Got that right..."

"I've been working late to clear my desk so I could take these two weeks off, the plane tickets and the limousines were booked ages ago –"

"Wes, you –"

"And I was utterly fucking terrified that you wouldn't come," he says, silencing her splutters of sheer fury. "Every preparation I made, every item ticked off my to-do list... it all let me believe that I was a step closer to seeing you again." He glances away. "When you contacted me... you thought it odd that I took so long to speak to you, I suppose."

"Yeah," she mutters, moving to perch on the arm of the chair that goes with the couch. He stays by the window, gazing out at the light show and the invisible sky.

"I was stunned, Faith. I never expected – I'd begun to adjust –"

"Sorry I fucked all that up," she says and it's like they've stepped back a few months, because aren't they past all this? Didn't they do this already?

And, no, when she thinks about it, they didn't. Not face-to-face and not really in any of the letters or calls.

One final fucking hurdle then.

"You didn't," he says harshly. "Never think that. I wanted you with me desperately, Faith. Desperately. That didn't change. I missed you so much – but just as you did, I coped."

And, yeah, she supposes she did but viewed at a distance those small, personal victories, like starting to read again, to go out clubbing, to stop – what had he called it? Dipping her toe in? Yeah – seemed pretty fucking trivial.

"You split us up," she says without making it sound like an accusation.

"And you brought us back together," he says. He smiles a little sadly. "And if you want to add one more thing to my list of transgressions, it's that, being who I am, I rather selfishly wanted to be the one to arrange the time and place of our reunion, once you'd made me see how inevitable it was, and I lived in daily expectation and dread of looking up from my desk to see you trample over Anya and hurtle through the door towards me, having taken matters into your own hands."

She snorts. "You're forgetting the poise again" she says. "I'd have waited until she went to pee and snuck past her desk."

"No, you wouldn't," he says with certainty, walking over to her.

She pouts. "Made an appointment?"

He kneels beside her and rests his head in her lap. "I'd left strict instructions that you weren't to be permitted to do that."

Her hand caresses his hair, combing through it and smoothing it into place. "Better change them."

"Why?" he says, sounding drowsy. "You can't afford my hourly rates and it would be unethical of me to act as your lawyer given our close, personal relationship."

"So how do I get to see you when you're at work?" she demands.

He tilts his head to the side, looks up, and gives her a sweet smile that melts away the last of an anger that was more an echo of a past emotion than anything else. "Faith, my darling, you're far too distracting for me to be able to work while you're there, but if you time your visits to coincide with lunch, I think all you'll need to do is walk in." He frowns. "Unless I'm with a client. Or taking a call. Or –"

"Wesley ..."

He stands up, abandoning the teasing, and holds out his hand. "Come to bed, Faith."

And he's not asking for a truce, and he's not asking that they forget – but they can't do this easily, they can't do this fast, and she's so fucking tired right now, and he is too, because somehow she doesn't think he slept all that well either.

And she wants to fall asleep with him beside her, wake up with him smiling down at her, and so she takes his hand and lets him lead her to the bedroom.

Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty

There hadn't been time to do anything last night but to fall into bed, tug his arms around her and her clothes still on, which had to be a first.

And as she slowly comes to the next morning, she's disorientated by the way the light comes slanting in through windows that are in the wrong place and a warm body pressed up against hers. For a moment she thinks it's just another sense memory until she remembers that it's not. It's real. He's real again. Not just a voice on the telephone and a series of pictures in her mind but someone she fucked and argued with and cuddled yesterday.

Yeah, there's still stuff to be worked out. Words that are difficult to think about, much less sound out and see the way he frowns and his eyes shadow when she says them. But right now on a winter bright, New York morning with the weight and feel and smell of him all around her, it can all wait.

They're together again and she allows herself a sleepy smile before she gets back to the serious business of trying to get some more shut-eye. And he'd made it pretty obvious how much he detested her choice of sleepwear so it's no wonder that her tank top's been rucked up so he can clamp one hand possessively over her breast. And the waistband of her pajama bottoms has been pushed down so his other hand can burrow between her legs and stay there, guarding her snatch from any intruders.

"I know you're awake, Faith," he whispers, her breath tickling in her ear.

"No, you don't," she mumbles, wrapping the quilt tighter round her.

His thumb is absent-mindedly brushing her nipple, which ignores the fact that the rest of her is trying to go back to sleep and stands up to say hello. "Well, you've stopped snoring for one thing."

OK, now she's awake. "Hey, I don't snore," she protests indignantly. "Might snuffle a bit."

"Have you ever stayed awake to find out?" he points out with infuriating Wes logic and she's wriggling out of his hold and turning around so she can narrow her eyes at him even as she's reaching up to buss his lips in a noisy kiss.

"Happy Christmas, Wes," she grins, wrapping her hand around his attentive cock. "Do you want your present now?"

His eyes are all slits as she strokes him to hardness. "Would this require me to get out of bed and unwrap it?" he asks with the closest he ever comes to a leer.

"Nope, you have to stay in bed while I unwrap it." And he's rolling onto his back and lifting his hips so she can yank his shorts down and it's the best present she ever had. Hard and wet and all hers. She slides down the bed so she's lying between his spread legs and she was going to tease him, she really fucking was, but as she swipes her tongue over the head, gets that first bead of spunk on her tongue, just the taste of him makes her moan.

And the solid weight of him in her hand makes her whimper and like a chain reaction the sounds she's making, her lips trembling around him makes him whimper and tremble too and she's jacking him off with shaking hands and licking frantically at every bit of his cock that she can get near her greedy mouth.

He's trying really hard not to thrust but his hips are jerking off the bed and when she looks up at him, his head's flung back and he looks like he's about bite clean through his bottom lip. And she ignores the insistent throb of her clit, the ache in her cunt which wants his cock as much as her mouth does because this is all for Wes.

"Oh God, my Faith," he groans when she nibbles the edge of his foreskin and she's just got time to suck him down hard, moaning again as the sea-salt tang of him explodes on her tongue before he's coming in violent spurts.

And she's not missing a second of it. The strangled moan that's torn out of him. The way his fingers clench around handfuls of sheet. 'Cause in those seconds she's seeing Wes in a way no one else ever will. When he's incapable of holding anything back and all his artifice and bullshit is blown away because of what she's doing to him. He's completely and totally hers. He belongs to her. She owns him.

She curls her tongue around him one last time before she lets him sinks back down on the pillows with a gasp and she's crawling back up the bed so she can snuggle against him.

"Did you like your present, Wes?" she asks him smugly because his ragged breathing is the only answer she needs. "Took me ages to work out what to get you."

"It was wonderful," he sighs, raising her hands to his lips and pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the back of her knuckles. "I wonder if that particular store does gift certificates."

"Guess we could sort something out. Got some other stuff for you too in my case," she adds because there's the photo and she had enough time at the airport to buy him a bag load of silly things that were more about having something to give him, than angsting about finding the perfect gift.

"I have a few small trifles for you too," he says and he's not sounding quite so much like he's just run a marathon. "Of course, it's a tradition in my family to open presents after lunch."

"You're kidding, right?"

He gives her a lazy smile. "I'm afraid not. Though I suppose I could be prevailed upon to let you open some now and we can think of something else to do after lunch."

His heavy-lidded look promises the kind of things that she's not going to be able to take back if the size is wrong, not like she thinks that's gonna be a problem.

"If you let me open them now, then after lunch I've got something for you from the same place that I got the last thing," she pouts, running a finger along his spent cock, just in case he needed a clue.

His hand comes down on her ass with a resounding, stinging slap so she guesses he doesn't.

“Presents – the under the tree kind? Now?” she asks, bright eyed and grinning, shaking the bed while her tummy rumbles loudly. “And breakfast? Totally starving over here, man.”

He sighs, rolling his eyes. “Yes, very well. Presents it is, you naughty, demanding girl. And I'll make you eggs and waffles and bacon and anything else you'd like...”

She snatches his hand and pulls him out of bed. “C'mon, then! Enough talking, more doing!” She realizes as she dashes ahead to the living room that she's never been this excited on Christmas morning, not like ever.

The front rooms of the open, airy apartment are filled with bright, hard winter light and look so different from the night before. The shadows are out of the corners and though it's not filled with any of his own things, it's still very lovely. Most notable of all, though, is a little live Christmas tree with long, delicate needles in a pot  that she hadn't noticed before, sitting on the glass and steel coffee table and decorated with a few strands of perfectly arranged white lights and a bunting of gold ribbon. And a stack of perfectly wrapped boxes as well, the kind with giant silver ribbons that some shop assistant probably took ages to wrap up under his watchful eye.

“Hey, wait. That wasn't there before...” she says, looking at him incredulously. “Where exactly did all this come from?”

“Must have been Santa Claus, though I'm surprised he left you anything, seeing as you didn't leave out the milk and cookies,” he says with an innocent smile. “So, shall I make some coffee first?”

“Don't change the subject!” She pokes him in the ribs and it nets her another cheery smack on the ass. “I mean, yeah, coffee, please. But seriously...”

“Faith, you're really too demanding sometimes. Correction: all of the time.” He moves off to the little kitchen area, ignoring her pointed glare and fires up the gas range under a tea kettle, pulling a french press out of the dish rack. “Why should it matter? It's all here now.”

“But...” She's forced to trail off as he turns on the coffee grinder so she settles onto a tall stool on one side of the black granite bar that separates the kitchen from the apartment's dining area.

He gives the grinder a few extra-long pulses with a naughty grin. “I would have thought you of all people, Faith, would believe in the magic of Christmas...”

She looks for something to throw at him, but comes up empty-handed and settles for sticking her tongue out instead. “You must have done it while I was asleep. Just admit it, Wes.”

“I deny everything!” he says with a laugh. “Do you want your orange now, or later?”

“What? My orange?”

“Well, Clementine, to be precise.” He goes all stiff and proper after tossing her a little orange, not much bigger than a tangerine, from a bowl on the counter. Even when it's just in her hands it smells lovely, the crisp, citrus fragrance a making her feel a little homesick for the spindly orange trees that grew in her Gran's backyard. “Wasn't so long ago that a girl would consider herself very lucky indeed if she was presented with a Clementine orange for Christmas by her suitor...”

“Obviously, those poor girls had never been to Florida in the winter. Not so special now, are they?”

“Oh, on the contrary. These are from Spain. They've only just ripened; this is the best season for them,” he says with a wink before turning to remove the whistling tea kettle off the burner.

“Whatever!” she bristles, but as soon as his back's turned, she's enraptured with the smooth, shiny rind that's a million miles prettier than the tough hide of the navel oranges she's used to eating. “Can I eat it now?”

“Perhaps you'd best wait until the presents are done – I'd hate for you to get your sticky fingers on your gifts...”

“You know, I could throw this at you. I've got mad good aim...” she says, cocking her arm back menacingly.

“I did keep all the receipts. I can always send everything back...”

“You wouldn't,” she mutters, eyes flinty.

“Oh wouldn't I?” His glare matches her own and they're locked in another standoff until, near simultaneously, their resolve collapses into giggles. “Go sit on that sofa now like a good girl, Faith, while I finish up in here.”

“Oh, wait. But I have presents for you too! I almost forgot!” And before he can protest, she dashes back to the bedroom to dig them out of the bottom of her suitcase.

The pungent smell of the coffee brewing makes sure she doesn't stay away too long, even with a pit stop and a quick second in front of the bathroom mirror to make sure that her hair's not too freakin' birdsnesty, and he's waiting for her on the sofa, all smiles and really looking too damn pretty for words when she sneaks back into the room, hands clutching the plastic bag from the airport shops behind her back.

“Didn't have time to wrap things, but...” She stashes the bag behind a cushion and snuggles up next to him, planting a kiss on his lips.

“Faith, you didn't need to get me anything else. The pictures and ... just the fact that you're here now...” he sighs, pulling her close and letting his hands wander under her top, one skimming her breasts, the other making a beeline for the small of her back. “That's enough for me.”

She doesn't pull away, 'cause his warm hands are really doing the talking, and instead looks up at him with a laugh. “Oh whatever -- don't be such a sap. You want presents. Admit it!”

“You know, you really have regressed completely in our time apart and become quite truculent all over again,” he says, punctuating the five dollar word with the tweak of a nipple and dragging his lips lightly along the curve of her neck.

“I think it came in the package with the poise,” she says, trying not to melt in his wandering hands and finally manages to wriggle away to grab the first box on the pile and give it a good shake.

"I wouldn't shake that too vigorously, Faith," Wes drawls, looking really fucking amused.

Momentarily chastened, she peers at the box intently, as though she might develop x-ray vision any second and be able to see right through it. She puts it back down. "No, I should wait. After lunch you said, right? I can wait." She crosses her arms across her chest with what she hopes is a kind of resolve, even as she eyes the daintily wrapped,
monstrously enticing package one more time before glancing pointedly towards the kitchen, where there's coffee brewing and the enticing promise of a cholesterol-laden breakfast feast.

Wes surprises her by saying, "No, I think you should open that one." He gives her a quick kiss on the top of her head. "You picked very well indeed. Good things do come in small packages, after all."

"You feeling all right Wes? Are you actually advising me not to freakin' wait?" She reaches up to feel his forehead. "Hmm, you do feel a little warm. All that exertion this morning too much for you?"

"Clearly. The air must be quite thin up here. I do believe I'm light-headed from the acute lack of caffeine," he mutters, perfectly stone-faced, before getting up to finish fixing the coffee. By the time he comes back with two steaming mugs filled to the brim with the
most heavenly smelling brew she's ever encountered, she's already sized-up the rest of the packages, weeding out the book-shaped ones and trying to decide if the medium-sized, rectangular one is another bag or a pair of shoes. She's secretly hoping shoes, but either way... Then she stops herself, mid-thought, because, really, she doesn't need
all this –this stuff, and she hopes to God it's not something Wes has done to assuage his guilt, or by way of apology, or-

"Wes?"

He's rooting deep in the fridge for creamer and his head pokes out from behind the door. "Yes?"

"Would you come here?"

He sits down on the couch next to her, picking up a mug and taking an exploratory sip. His other hand rests warmly, heavily on her knee.

"I'm not used to a real Christmas, you know. Christmas to me is, like, a time of drunken inappropriateness and arguments and if there were any gifts under the tree they were usually hocked in record time. So, y'know–" –and here she pauses and takes Wes' hand in hers, squeezing it– "This is, like, all new to me. And I don't want you to think you have to spend money on me, because I can't return the favor and it makes me feel all uncomfortable, a little bit, and just being here is the best gift you could give me anyway and I-"

"Faith."

She looks up at him. "What?"

"You're babbling a mile a minute. And I know." He wraps his arm around her and leans close, kissing her neck gently and working his way slowly towards her lips. "I got you these things because I wanted to. Upsetting you was the furthest thing from my mind."

"I know, I just..."

"I think you should open one of your presents and not worry about another thing. Except, perhaps, which one to open first. Although I do rather think you got it right the first time."


Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty One

She reaches out and the paper's fluttering to the floor before he's had time to wince because she's not, like, unpeeling the tape carefully, folding the paper neatly and putting it to one side.

When she sees what's slipped out into her lap she gives a yelp that reaches bat-high levels of squeakiness. "Wes, this is –"

"Pink. I know," he says with a shudder, averting his eyes from the iPod she's clutching possessively but sneaking a pleased peek at her when he thinks she isn't looking.

Which she's not, 'cause she's totally engrossed in getting rid of all the packaging and stroking the shiny flat sides.

He reaches out and sorts through the presents and tosses her one that's she's only persuaded to open when he glares at her. It's full of just about every accessory they do for her new gadget and she's cooing over them adoringly when she realizes she hasn't actually said 'thank you' yet. Darla would be mortified.

Placing her lapful of goodies aside, she launches herself at Wes, who's sipping his coffee in a slightly martyred way. "I love it. I love you," she says, giving him kiss after kiss until he leans sideways, deposits his coffee on the table and pulls her onto his lap.

"If you don't like the color, I can exchange it for the silver one," he says, tucking a bit of her hair behind her ear and frowning when it falls back again, because it's too short to do that anymore. "That pink's entirely too... pink for my liking."

"Hey!" She drills her finger into his chest. "I want the pink one!"

"You have it," he points out.

"I do, I totally do!"

And it makes up for all the Barbie-pink stuff she never got which is probably why she sounds about seven with the gleeful hand-clapping and all, but Wes doesn't really seem to mind. There's a flicker of amusement in his eyes and he picks up her hand and kisses it. "I took the liberty of ordering it with a selection of music I remembered you liked," he says. "And some Molly seemed fond of." She narrows her eyes but lets that pass. If Goth-girl has, like, atrocious taste, she can always delete 'em, and it's beyond sweet to think of Wes being that thoughtful. "Open some more," he says, and damn, he sounds as eager as she is.

"No," she decides. "It's your turn."

He nods at the presents. "There's one there for me from Rupert –"

"From me," she says indignantly, because she's still not big with the Rupert Giles-love after the whole setting Wes up with a date thing.

"It's a bottle of single-malt, I'm sure of it," Wesley says. He frowns pensively at the present. "Although I don't know which one..."

"Wesley..." she says ominously.

"I'll open it later," he says hastily. "In fact –" He stands up and hauls her to her feet. "I'm going to let you play with that gadget while you keep me company as I cook us some breakfast. I have plans for later that don't include you demanding food at inopportune moments."

"Whatever" she says, scooping up her pretty pink shiny thing.

He pauses. "I've actually missed you saying that," he says, shaking his head. "Remarkable."

"Oh, you," she says, and gives his ass a smart smack as she goes past him. The death-glare he gives her is only around level three, so she doesn't think he minds that much.

After she's done justice to Wesley's promised breakfast she drags him back to the entrancingly enticing heap of gifts, ignoring his longing looks at the dishwasher which he'd just dying to fill according to his own weird-ass system.

"I believe it was my turn?" he says, giving into her suspiciously soon, and damn if he doesn't look kind of lit-up, as if this isn't something he's used to either.

She nods and scrabbles behind the cushion. "Close your eyes," she says.

"Really, Faith," he protests, "is that absolutely necessary?"

"Really is."

"Oh, very well." He closes his eyes, and one thing about Wes, if he plays, he does it properly; there's not even a glimmer of blue showing. She rewards him with a kiss and drops the first of his presents into his waiting hands.

He blinks with bemusement at a thick, white novelty mug bearing the slogan, 'Lawyers Do It In Briefs'. "I – don't know what to say," he confesses.

She smirks. "Couldn't resist it, but you don't have to – oh!"

She watches as he carefully pours his coffee into it, not spilling a drop of course, and takes a small sip. "Thank you," he says politely, raising it to her in a small salute. "I'll take it into work with me, I think." He smiles to himself. "Anya usually gets my coffee. I'm sure she'll find it amusing."

Yeah, like that's gonna happen!

"My turn," she says, fingers twitching.

"It is," he agrees.

Next up is a box that's full of soft wool, and she's savvy enough to recognise the Marc by Marc Jacobs label when she sees it.

"You got me warm stuff," she says with delight, investigating. "Scarf... hat... gloves. They're lovely, Wes." She puts them all on and goes to look in the mirror on one wall, admiring herself. There's this cute little knitted flower on the side of the hat and the scarf and gloves have a frill on them that makes them a million years away from the clumpy, heavy, itchy ones her Gran used to knit her in the unlikely event the temperature plummeted below 60.

"You might need this too," Wesley says, coming up behind her. "I unwrapped it and hung it up." He gives her a rueful smile as he helps her into a Miu Miu coat that does a pretty good job of transforming her into someone who looks special, someone who matters. And, yeah, clothes shouldn't do that, but this does, because it's beautiful and when she fastens the three buttons and watches it flare elegantly out, she sighs. "I dashed out at the last minute yesterday when it occurred to me that, you being you, it was highly unlikely that you'd come prepared for the weather. I made myself incredibly unpopular by being in a hurry on the busiest shopping day of the year, but I was worried that you'd arrive before I got back." His lips twist in a grin. "I got sworn at by at least three women," he says, "all of whom looked ready to murder me for pushing in front of them."

"Wes, you really do like to live dangerously," she murmurs. "That's not like you... being impolite and all."

"It was an emergency," he says, helping her out of the coat. "And I'm not likely to ever see them again, after all."

"You hope," she says darkly, going back to the presents and taking off the mitts so she can open them. "And, hey," she says, "if all this was waiting for me, how come I got, like, totally nagged for not bringing my own winter woolies?"

She gives him a stern look but it slides off him. "Had you come equipped I would have been astonished," he tells her smoothly, "but in that unlikely event, you'd simply have had a spare set, wouldn't you?"

"You wouldn't have taken them back?" she asks him.

He looks astonished. "Hardly. Unless you didn't like them, or they didn't fit, of course."

"Not much chance of that," she says, her mild indignation dissipating. "You always know what to get me."

"I'm looking forward to shopping with you though," he says thoughtfully. "Seeing what you choose yourself. I think it'll be very interesting. Illuminating even"

He's got this possessive look on his face as he contemplates that, and she knows he gets off on working out what makes her tick, but that's usually connected with making her whimper needily. Or so she'd thought... but really, this is Wes; he's an all-or-nothing type. She doesn't say anything, just swallows and reaches for a present without really thinking about it.

"I believe it's my turn," he says smartly, whipping it right out of her hands as she tears at the paper and looking expectant.

She gives him a major pout, because it might be, but she'd already started unwrapping that one.

"If you pout like that, I might be forced to call a halt to this, and administer some much needed reminders about taking turns in the form of..." He studies her. "Kisses," he decides, edging towards her until she's close enough to grab. She starts to pucker up and finds herself face down over his knees. "Or, on second thoughts...."

She lets him get in three completely playful swats before twisting over and grinning up at him. "I'll be good," she says.

"Hmmm. Doubtful," he tells her, bending down to kiss her and helping her off his lap. "But, somehow, you're so charmingly naughty that I think Santa forgave you."

"He really did," she says, eying the stack of presents meaningfully. She reaches out and grabs the one from Rupert, passing it over to Wes with a smug smile of being good plastered on her face.

"Why, thank you," he says. He unwraps it and stares at a fugly-cheap looking wooden box, looking stunned.

"So what is it?" she asks curiously as he slides the top off the box and eases out a bottle of what, yeah, looks like whiskey.

"25 year-old Macallan," he says in a reverential tone she thinks is totally over the top.

"Oh. Uh, good. It is good, right?"

"Very much so," he assures her, putting it back in the box. "A little early for it yet, but I look forward to trying it later."

"What did you get him?" she asks curiously.

Wesley smiles a little uncomfortably and points at the box.

"You're kidding! Are you two, like, separated-at-birth twins, or something?" she asks.

"Hardly. But we do share an appreciation of many things." His gaze goes from the whiskey to her and he smiles slightly. "He'll be captivated by you, I'm sure."

"Yeah, well..." she mutters, because apart from Lilah, who really doesn't count, she's not met any of his friends and she's more than a little freaked at the prospect.

"Oh, Faith," he says, chiding her gently. "You've only to be yourself. And I'll make sure you're seated close to me..."

"What?" She gives him a suspicious look. "Did I miss something? Seated where? When? What?"

Wesley clears his throat. "It's my birthday on the second... I wasn't going to do anything in particular, but he knew you would be here and suggested we all go out for dinner to celebrate. It seemed like a delightful idea."

"Oh God..."

He staves off a total panic attack by giving her something to open from the pile of Darla presents she'd brought with her and then wanders into the kitchen, coming back with flutes filled with champagne and freshly-squeezed orange juice as she takes out an assortment of bath gel and soap.

He watches as she twists the top off and sniffs at the pale green goop. "Does it smell nice?" he asks cautiously.

"Yeah, it really does," she assures him, delving in deeper and seeing that Darla's gone to town on all sorts of face scrubs and masks and stuff. She catches sight of the tag and blinks away the dampness that brings to her eyes, because although she doesn't want Darla here exactly, she wants her –

A phone starts to ring and Wesley raises his eyebrows in pretended surprise. "I wonder who that could be?" he asks the air.

Faith takes off across the floor and dives at her bag, dragging out her phone just before it clicks on to voice mail. "Hello?" she says.

"Faithy?" Her mother's voice sounds uncertain. "It's me. Just called to wish you Merry Christmas, sweetie." Her voice drops. "He said to call now; said he'd make sure you were up."

"Mom! It's Christmas Day! I've been up for, like, hours," she says.

Darla chuckles, relaxing. "Bet you have. So, what did Santa bring you then?"

She perches on the edge of a chair and sees Wes start to tactfully busy himself with clearing away some of the debris. She's all set to launch into fancy clothes and iPods when she stops herself. "Don't know about him, but got some nice stuff from you," she says gently. "Thanks."

"Oh, now I'm working, I can do it," Darla says. "And thanks for the –"

They carry on talking and then Darla giggles. "Ted's here, and he's carrying so much stuff, he's never gonna be able to ring the bell," she says. "I'll see you in the new year, right?"

"Right," Faith says. "And give Ted a smooch from me."

"Go and kiss your own honey," Darla says with a haughty sniff followed by another giggle before ringing off.

Faith glances over at Wesley. "That was nice of you," she says quietly. "I was gonna ring her later but I know she'd never have called me if you hadn't said it was OK."

Wesley flushes. "I do feel a little guilty about both our mothers," he says, startling her. "I think they'd both have liked us to be with them as this is the first Christmas since we, ah, reached a better understanding, but we've been selfish and –" He shakes his head. "No. Not selfish. I needed you. This."

"Me too," she says, walking over to him. There's a load of gifts left but she's willing to wait. "Wes? Can we time out on the unwrapping and just, well –"

"Yes," he says with the gentlest of sighs, translating her incoherence without even trying. "I'd like that."

He presses the lightest of kisses onto her lips and then runs his finger across her collarbone. "It occurs to me that I still haven't seen you wearing your collar, Faith."

She'd been thinking more along the lines of a quick, if tender, encounter, just to give her chance to unload some of her pent-up emotions, but the way his lips shape the word 'collar' give her all sorts of thoughts that lead to the presents waiting until what Wes calls Boxing Day if they have to.

"It's your collar, remember," she says, rubbing against him and feeling his cock harden. "So you get to tell me when to put it on."

"I do, don't I?" he muses. "Well, as this is traditionally a time of self-indulgence, who am I to argue?" His voice settles into a completely assured drawl. "Go to the bedroom, undress and wait for me, Faith, standing facing the door, to the left of the bed."

And she's missed those detailed, fussy instructions of his that make it all so simple because there's no room left for her to do it wrong, to make a mistake. She closes her eyes against the stab of desire that follows and then goes to the bedroom, knowing that he's watching her every step of the way.

Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty Two

When he appears in the doorway he's got the collar in his hand and a familiar gleam in his eyes as he stares at her.

He walks over to a wide, cushioned, armless chair and pulls it away from the wall slightly before sitting down.

"Come here," he says quietly.

She walks to him and at his nod falls to her knees so he can slip the leather around her neck. It's so easy to kneel for Wesley, she thinks, with the part of her brain that isn't dazzled by arousal, mostly because he wants her like this for no other reason than to bring her neck within reach. Well, mostly...

His fingers are warm on her skin as he buckles it and adjusts it with his customary precision.

"So very lovely," he says simply, touching it with the back of his fingers, a hum of approval in his voice. "Stand now, please."

He leans back to give her room and waits until she's standing in front of him, her feet apart a little, before thrusting his fingers inside her wet, waiting cunt, forcing a cry of surprise from her that ends in a whimper as his hand works at her as she sways, hips tilted forward, mutely begging him for more as her fingers clench by her sides.

"So wet," he says. "Does it feel good on you, Faith? Do you like wearing my collar?"

His thumb gets in on the act, rubbing against her clit in a maddeningly delicate circle he repeats over and over as he waits for her to be able to answer him.

"I fucking love it," she manages. "Wes, you keep doing that and I'll come..."

"Then I'll take the collar off you," he says imperturbably. "And I'll use it to give your impatient, disobedient cunt three strokes, as hard as I think you can bear." He tilts his head back and looks at her. "Do you still want to come before I give you permission, Faith?"

She's so very fucking tempted but she sees the challenge in his look and manages to dredge up enough control to shake her head. There's something dark and relentless in his eyes now and it might scare her, if she wasn't sure her own eyes held the same expression.

This is what she's here for. This is what she chose over Xander's friendship; this chance to see her own desires mirrored so perfectly in his eyes.

It was easier on the phone when he'd made her wait -- but now, here, with his fingers arching deep inside and his thumb still stroking her clit with a cruel tenderness, she just can't do it. Can't prevent the crawling, tingling sensation deep inside from overflowing to the rest of her body. Can't push it down, make it wait. Can't ...

“Stop,” she hisses through clenched teeth. All she can see is his eyes, and everything else is swimming out of focus. “If you don't want me to come yet ... then... stop...” But of course, he won't and doesn't, and she's digging her heels into the plush carpet, knees locking so that she comes dangerously close to swaying over right on top of him. But those fingers of his, always in control, twist roughly for a fleeting moment, slamming everything back to focus and setting her back on balance again.

“Now, Faith. You know better than that. You know the only way I'll stop is if that word crosses your lips. But then we'd need to stop everything now,” he drawls, still unperturbed. As a reminder, or a gentle threat, or maybe even a tease, he pulls his thumb away, slides his fingers down just a little so they're barely inside her. “I don't think you want me to stop.”

“No, don't...” she cries out, more sharply than she intended. “God, don't stop, Wes. But please...”

And the sharp gasp he gives as his thumb slides back over her clit and her cunt clutches possessively at his fingers is almost enough to send her over the edge, his command be damned.

“Please, what, Faith?” He drags out the question and every inch of her flesh touched by his busy fingers is burning with an insatiable need for a release.

“Please let me come for you...” The words barely form on her lips before she's sure that she'll probably pass out first and she squeezes her eyes shut just to make the room stop going in and out of focus so jarringly.

He doesn't reply, just lets his free hand slide up over her hip to cradle the small of her back. And she's not sure if the little whimper ringing in her ears is hers or his as she leans back on his steadying hand. He's there to hold her, fingers caressing the cleft of her ass – there to hold her up and keep her safe even if he is torturing her at the same time.

And before she's even aware of it, her hand clamps tightly 'round his forearm, her other hand sliding up roughly over an achingly hard nipple, her fingers finding their target, skimming the leather of the collar and the charged skin around it, throwing her head back at the shock of sensation from her own forbidden touch.

And as she comes with a pained cry that's nearly a closer neighbor to distress than pleasure, he's sweeping her up into his arms and pushing her backwards towards the bed. In a tangle of feet and shed trousers, he shoves her up and over the edge of the mattress, his cock bumping against her clit as she begs incoherently for him to hurry, faster, now.

“You're impossibly impatient.” It's his turn to grit out the words as she shudders and bucks beneath him, her fierce guttural moans nearly drowning out the sound of his voice in her ear. “Do you have any idea how much harder it is for me to stay in control than it is for you?”

And she can't answer that, just whimpers as he slips into her dripping cunt easily, sliding his hands under her ass to tip her open just as she locks her legs around him, pulling him in fast and deep, as deep as he'll go.

Her hands flutter uselessly as she tries to pull him down to kiss her, suck on her nipples, run his tongue along the curve of her neck -- anything to get that wicked mouth of his on her – but he won't have any of that. Freeing his hands from under her weight, he pins her wrists to the mattress and pounds away at her cunt, jarring her locked legs open. She manages to get some purchase on the edge of the bed, tilting herself up to meet each thrust until they're synchronized in a perfect give and take of motion that pushes him in further each time.

And it may just be that they haven't fucked like this in months, and it may just be that she's distracted by the intensity of his gaze as they greedily push their bodies together, but she's pretty sure the head of his cock is rubbing against parts of her he's never reached before, that his hands never gripped her wrists quite so tightly, that the quiet growl in the back of his throat was never more needy.

But there's one thing she can tell: he's holding back, making himself wait to come, making himself take on the discipline that she'd lacked moments before. And in what she knows is a possibly fruitless move she struggles against his grip, to at least get up on her elbows, 'cause then she might have a chance to pull him down to kiss her finally, to run her fingers through his hair and trace lightly across his back – and to her surprise, instead of twisting his hands more tightly around her wrists, he lets her go.

And just when she thinks she's got an in to clasp her hands around his neck, he pulls out completely, shoving her up the mattress and crawling up on it himself, hovering for a moment with his cock lightly resting against her hole before thrusting it back inside her and dipping his head to take to greedily snatch her mouth into a kiss that leaves her breathless and seeing stars.

She's not ready for what comes next though – as if she wasn't already about to spontaneously combust from sensory overload, he nuzzles forcefully against her neck, pulling the collar tight across her throat. His tongue traces along the edge where the leather meets her flesh and he comes as she breathes his name between her screams of pleasure.

He doesn't stay inside her for long, pulling out quickly and dragging his still-twitching cock across her thigh, rolling over and pulling in her close, kissing her lightly over and over again, fingers stroking her neck and tangling in her hair. They're breathing in heavy, desperate unison and she thinks if he moves away from her she'll cry... love you because I know no other way...there is no I or you... so close that your hand on my chest, is my hand... so close that when you close your eyes, I fall asleep...

He shifts so that she's lying on her back, smiling down at her, but there's something in the smile that's – expectant? Hopeful? His finger comes up and hooks under the collar and she gets it.

"I came before you said," she tells him. "I guess you missed something out."

His eyebrow arches. "Did I?" he asks smoothly. "I think you'll have to remind me, Faith. In what area was I remiss?"

And suddenly being fucked feels like foreplay.

"You said," and she takes a deep breath because this isn't the same as writing it, or whispering it into a phone. "You said if I came before you gave me permission, you'd take my collar off. And it's still on."

His finger is still hooked in the collar and he slides it around so that he can reach the buckle, undoing it without taking his eyes off her flushed face.

The collar loosens and splits apart; still behind her neck as she lies back against the pillow but no longer fastened. He grips the buckle end and pulls sharply, so that the leather burns her skin hotly as it's freed. She misses its weight, feels naked without it.

"Was that all I said?" he asks her, sitting up a little and drawing the collar through his fingers. "So warm when it's been on you," he murmurs reflectively.

"No."

"Well?" he drawls, sounding impatient and even though he isn't, not really, she hurries, stumbling over the words.

"You said – told me – oh, God, Wes, if you hadn't I wouldn't have come, you –"

The collar's wrapped around his hand and he places his hand across her mouth to silence her, so her lips are brushed by the leather, warm, like he said. "Careful," he warns her lightly. "I think you should choose your next word with a view to my dislike at being called names, don't you?"

She smiles and his hand's lifted.

" – wouldn't have come, you fucking bastard," she enunciates with as much clarity as she's capable of. He sighs regretfully and shakes his head but she carries on. "And I want that, Wes, I want it..."

He moves to straddle her, idly flicking her breasts with the end of the collar. "You still haven't reminded me what I said," he points out blandly.

"You said you'd give my cunt three strokes with my –"

"My."

"- your collar," she hisses. "And you didn't."

He leans forward and whispers in her ear. "I never said when I was going to do it, Faith. But as you're so eager, I think I can safely say it won't be just yet. Consider that the price to be paid for your poor word-choice." He traces a place on her neck, that the mirror tells her later is slightly bruised, with his tongue, biting down on it so she feels a throb of pain jolt through her. "But it will be today, if that's any consolation."

She twists her head and kisses him fiercely. "Thank you," she says.

He looks momentarily astonished and then he smiles. "You're very welcome," he says softly, taking her in his arms again and letting her wrap herself around him.

“No offense to the rest of the gifts you've given me,” she whispers, snuggling even closer. “But this was like, totally the best present of all.”

“Better than that ridiculously overpriced, pink high-tech transistor radio...?” he teases, shifting the mood smoothly and she has to kiss him to get him to shut up all over again.

“'s not ridiculous! You'll be grateful for it when I want to listen to like, something that's really totally obnoxious.”

“Like that Bright Eyes fellow? I don't believe I can stand much of his melodramatic caterwauling...”

“Ha! So you did listen to some of the songs on it!”

“I admit, I was curious as to where Molly's tastes were running,” he sighs. “Some of it was interesting...”

“Yeah, yeah. Bet you didn't last five minutes. I'll add that to the list of stuff to listen to when you're not around.”

“Thank goodness,” he murmurs, planting a kiss on her forehead. “Dreadful stuff...”

Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty Three

It's like no other Christmas Day she's had. But with the whole having to get up all over again when Wes tugs her out of her bed, it's more like Groundhog Day. He shaves while she's having a shower and she knows that she's going to have to get used to seeing herself reflected in his eyes all over again - that relentless scrutiny of his that makes her feel safe, but on edge all at the same time.

As she steps out of the shower and he's already there with a towel, it feels like she's come home. And she's getting her fair share of sneaked glances in too. All the little things she used to take for… well, not granted but she'd got used to them. It's kinda weird to stand there and watch the intent look on his face, the way his tongue pokes out the corner of his mouth as he concentrates on smoothing moisturizer everywhere – between her toes, behind her knees until she's squirming under a touch that's a little too ticklish for her liking.

"Stand still," he snaps at her even as his hands are heart-breakingly gentle.

None of it's easy. Not when she's used to making her own wardrobe choices and quickly yanking a brush through her own hair. Not easy to stand there patiently while his hands brush over her aching nipples before he secures her bra, because the sharp throb of arousal is already making her grit her teeth as she resists the urge to tug him down on the bed and demand that he fuck her all over again.

"Now why have you got such a sulky little pout on your pretty face?" he asks her teasingly as he buttons up his shirt before she can see the light bulb ping over his head. "Habits die hard, don't they, Faith? Even the ones you so recently acquired?"

"Thought it would be easier than this," she admits with a shrug. "Y'know, that we'd just slot right back into it."

"You've changed," he says simply. "We both have. We've both grown. But then again, we needed to, yes?"

And when he says that she can feel the panic mounting because maybe he didn't mean grown so much as grown apart and her independence isn't so much a challenge as, like, a complication. And what if…

"Stop it, Faith," he says sharply enough that it's an order and that makes everything so much simpler. Gets even simpler when he moves across the room so he can press a kiss to her forehead. "I love you. I love the girl you've become. I love the girl you were. Now stop frowning or I won't let you go out on the balcony to have a cigarette."

"Oh, like you could even stop me!" she hisses, snatching up her Marlboros and lighter from the top of the chest of drawers, because she hasn't had a good lungful of nicotine since she got to the airport yesterday and that has to account for about 80% of her jumpiness.

When she gets back inside after two cigarettes that tasted yummy even though she could have done without the biting cold, he's already sorting through the rest of the presents and yeah, there's all kinds of intriguingly shaped packages but he the most intriguing one of all. And she stands at the French doors for just a second so she can familiarize herself with the way his eyebrows draw together when he's concentrating on something, those beautiful long fingers that can be so careful but cause so much havoc. How blue his eyes are when he glances up and sees her watching him, how his smile can be so unguarded, so kissable and she's hurrying over to him so she can do just that.

"No, Wes, let's leave the rest of the presents 'til after lunch," she says when she finally manages to tear her lips away from re- acquainting themselves with the sharp angles of his cheekbones. "I'm trying to work on my whole delayed gratification response times."

Which isn't really true. But he's taught her that anticipation is, like, say 50% of the pleasure and if this is going to be her best Christmas Day ever she wants to eke it out, make all of it last a bit longer. Like, how she could make a bag of M&Ms last an hour when she was a kid by sorting them into colors and then sucking off the candy before she could even think about eating the chocolate.

They have a little tussle about that and another argument, though he insists it's a discussion, about how there's no way in hell that she's eating a mince pie, because why the fuck do the British think that ground beef and pastry goes with brandy butter and he's snickering to himself like she's trying to be funny rather than totally grossed out. And the panic dissipates as she remembers that this is her and Wes and they never agree on, well, anything. Whether it's food or the appropriate time of day for opening presents or how long before she's allowed to come.

And once she realises that that's never going to change, she calms down and gives him a smirky, little smile that sends his eyebrows shooting up as he demands to know what she's looking so smug about.

Half an hour later she's top and tailing Brussels sprouts (and that little order sure didn't get her wet) which no way in hell is she going to eat and Wes is on the other side of the kitchen tutting about how the butcher has trussed up the chicken all wrong, when the phone goes.

That's kinda freaky in itself because Wes never used to get phone-calls outside of work time but he's already reaching for the phone and tucking it between his head and shoulder and muttering "hello?" as he smears his garlic and herb butter over the chicken.

She's trying really hard not to listen. Oh, whatever. Her ears are totally peeled and she almost slices her thumb open when she hears him laugh and say, "And Happy Christmas to you too, Mum."

Then there's this whole conversation about the weather before she realises that even she's been brought up better than to listen in on phone calls and she's putting the knife down and edging towards the door.

"No, Faith…" he mumbles, gently latching on to her wrist as she brushes past him and pulling her into the cradle of his arms. "Yes, she's right here, do you want to talk to her?"

She knows her mouth and eyes are three wide circles of horror as Wes offers her the phone and tightens his hold on her as she tries to back away.

"Wes!" she hisses, waving her hands in front of her while he gives her one of his patented looks of exasperated tenderness. "I can't!"

"Sorry, Mum, she's being uncharacteristically shy," he chuckles into the phone before holding it to her ear. "Say hello, Faith."

She gives him the mother (pun intended) of all glares but grabs the phone and shows willing. "Er, hi… I mean hello, Mrs Wyndam-Pryce," she chirps as perkily as she can and there's that weird delay on the line that she remembers from when Wes was in England before she hears a strangely familiar little laugh and then some lady who sounds just like the goddamn Queen says, "Happy Christmas, Faith. And please, call me Sylvia. Wesley has told me so much about you. Tell me, are you liking New York? And I do hope Wesley's looking after you…"

Turns out that she doesn't so much chat politely to Mrs Wyn… Sylvia but have her ear talked off for fifteen minutes about Orange Kit Kats ("they've very more-ish, aren't they, dear?"), the weird-assness that is mince pies ("did he tell you that? He really is absolutely impossible sometimes. No, dear, they have currants and mixed peel and apples in them") and she's just spilling the dirt on Wes' sixth Christmas ("And I heard a strange noise and came down to find him halfway up the chimney with a glass of milk for Santa…") when the phone's taken away from her.

"Mum," he says firmly. "It was lovely to talk to you or hang around while you talked to Faith but she's neglecting her Brussels sprouts… yes… yes… really, yes, Mum…"

He doesn't manage to escape for another five minutes, periodically rolling his eyes at her, until Sylvia probably needs to hook herself up to some oxygen.

"I'm sorry about that," he says smoothly. "Honestly that woman could talk for England." But he's all pink-faced and pleased and she can tell that he's glad she called.

"Didn't think you'd tell your mom about me," she says, trying to sound all casual, as she finishes the last of the sprouts. "With the age difference and all that."

She feels his hand rest on her shoulder before he bends down and kisses the nape of her neck.

"When I went home, you were all I could talk about," he tells her quietly. "She knew the moment she saw me. She gave me a very piercing look and decreed, 'Oh, Wesley, some girl's gone and broken your heart.'"

And she can't help but giggle at his lame impersonation of his mother before she turns around and whacks him on the shoulder. "Hey! You broke my heart first, Wes," she tells him fiercely and his face blanks out and shuts down and she's already running her fingers over the spot that she's just hit. "Not gonna hold it against you, Wes, well, not much. Just… this is fucking hard, you know. I keep saying the wrong thing and shouldn't there just be something I can say and it all becomes right again?"

"I rather think that should be my task, don't you?" he asks her helplessly, tipping up her chin with his garlicky hands so she can see the troubled expression on his face. "But I seem to be stuck on saying that I'm sorry and that I love you and though I mean both those statements fervently, I think that we have to just muddle through."

"I know," she nods, reaching up to kiss him. "And I'm so fucking glad to be here, Wes."

"I know. And, for the record, I'm sorry if I broke your heart."

She pulls his hand to where it's still beating and she doesn't even care if he gets butter stains on her new green top. "See? It's almost mended. 'Sides, Monty says that broken hearts make the best vessels."

"Well, he's a very wise man," Wes says stoutly, before pushing her away and turning her round to face the worktop. "Now if this is just an elaborate plan to wriggle out of peeling potatoes, it's not working, Faith. Not if you plan to eat lunch with me."

And yeah, they're swinging back and forth like a frickin' yoyo but she's going to have to get used to that too.

But once the chicken's on and Wes has done whatever he does to the potatoes that had her missing them desperately during the months they were apart, they curl up on the sofa and they talk.

She tells him how much she misses Xander, and about the yoga course she's been on, and he tells her how his mother called him a 'bloody fool' when he gave her a heavily edited account of why he left her and by the time she's sitting at the table and practically drooling at the mouth while he heaps chicken and potatoes and green beans on her plate, the only thing she's worried about is how quickly she can get it all into her stomach.

"Man, Wes, I used to dream about your roast chicken," she breathes as he gives her a generous helping of stuffing. "No fucking way, Wes," she adds, as the serving spoon hovers over the dish of sprouts which are just as stinky as she thought they would be. "You are not putting them anywhere near my plate. And don't fucking glare at me either 'cause it's not gonna work."

He gives her this totally patronizing look, which is designed to have her bottom lip jutting out. "Really, Faith, I forgot how emotional you get about vegetables. Why don't you try just one?"

"And why don't you bite me?" she asks him sweetly, spearing a crispy, golden potato with her fork and biting into it while he walks out of the room. Probably gone to bang his head against the wall, she figures, as she moans in ecstasy and crams the whole potato into her mouth.

He's back before she can even get started on the roast chicken and she gives him a suspicious glance when she sees the shit-eating grin on her face.

"What?"

He doesn't say anything, just places the collar next to her wineglass and takes his own seat.

"I was going to make a traditional Christmas dinner with turkey but it seemed rather excessive just for the two of us," he remarks conversationally and she's not even listening because all she can do is stare at the coiled length of leather and remember how it felt against her neck. What he said he was going to do with it and she shifts in her seat as she realises, startled, that she's already wet.

And the collar simplifies everything. Because when it's there, within touching distance, it reminds her of all sorts of things that are way more delicious than his roast chicken. That she belongs to him, that the game is always being played and she's got the power to stop it if she wants.

"Wes…" It comes out as a plaintive moan. "Can I put it on?"

He puts down his fork and takes a sip of his wine with a hand that's not quite steady. "No," he says firmly. "You don't deserve such a special treat."

There's all sorts of comebacks to that but instead she leans across the table and digs her fork viciously into the bowl of sprouts and crams one into her mouth before she loses her nerve.

It tastes just as gross as she thought it would, despite the hazelnut puree. All cabbagey and swampy and she's swallowing it down quickly so she can pick up her wine glass and start chugging back the champagne to try and get the taste out of her mouth.

"There!" she announces dramatically. "I ate one and it was totally disgusting. You happy?"

He gives her a slow hand-clap and a smug smile. "Blissfully, my darling girl."

"Can I put it on now, Wes? Please."

"Maybe later," he says vaguely and all of a sudden she's not as hungry as she thought she was. Still manages to come back for seconds and two mince pies, which she's relieved to find out are just as Sylvia promised they would be. And then there's coffee and petit fours and she's practically staggering to her feet so she can help him clear the table.

"I'm stuffed," she groans, following him into the kitchen. "Might have to have a lie down, Wes, on that big bed and I might have to take all my clothes off because I don't think they're going to fit any more."

His hand rubs caressingly over her belly, which she swears has expanded. "Stop being such a little minx and go and put your coat on. I think a bracing walk will work off those extra pounds from the seven potatoes you managed to eat."

And if he doesn't want to get all snugly and naked with her, then that's his loss, she thinks sulkily as she flounces out to retrieve her coat.

He comes up behind her with her new winter woollies, as she's buttoning up and she turns round expectantly. "You can put them on me if you like," she says because she's being a brat and if she's extra 'specially nice to him he night relent about the collar. Not like anyone's going to see it underneath her scarf.

But this is Wes and now he knows how much she fucking wants it, he's going to make her wait even longer. It's what he does and she wouldn't have it any other way.

Then he takes her mittened hand and doesn't stop holding it as they step out of the main doors and into, like, this arctic wind. They walk up to the Met and he promises to take her back when it's open because there's this fashion exhibition on and then they stroll over to the turtle pond because she read about it in The Catcher In The Rye and she wants to see for herself if the ducks have skedaddled for the winter.

It's a good half of all her New York fantasies all rolled into two short hours and as they start trudging back through the park when the daylight begins to fade, she feels the fucking tiresome prickle of tears irritating her eyes.

"Faith," he sighs with just a hint of reproach. "Please, don't."

"It's the wind," she insists, scrubbing her face with the back of her hand and then giving him a crooked smile. "And it's being here, in New York, with you. Can't believe it's real, you know? Keep thinking I'm going to wake up back home and none of this ever happened."

He doesn't reply and then he gives her an evil grin and pinches her arm hard enough through her coat that she gives an indignant squawk.

"Ow! What the fuck did you do that for?"

"Did it wake you up?" he asks her solicitously.

"No 'cause I wasn't asleep, you… you pig."

"Well, then you can't be dreaming," he points out. "And I think that last little endearment has convinced me that it's time to curtail our walk and head back home so we can start working on that list."

They walk back in silence, the tension thrumming between then and she can feel it unfurling in her belly as his pace picks up as they clear the park and cross the road.

"Don't dawdle, Faith," he drawls, even though she's scurrying to keep up with him. "I'm trusting you to start making your reparations with a good grace."

He practically drags her the rest of the way and the elevator doors have barely shut behind them when he's pushing her against the wood panels and snatching off her hat before he can kiss her senseless.

It takes both of them a little while to realise that they're on the 15th floor and the door's opened before he's pulling her out and down the hall.

"I want you to go into the bedroom," he tells her before he's even fished his keys out, and his voice is so clipped, so controlled that all the hairs on her body are standing to attention because she knows what that means. "You're to take off all your clothes and lay down in the centre of the bed and wait for me. Is that clear, Faith."

"Yes sir," she says and his eyes light up, like the fucking little stars on the Christmas tree, as he brushes his hand across her cheek.

He doesn't make her wait this time and her back's barely hit the Egyptian cotton before he's slouched in the doorway.

"There's my little Olympia," he purrs and he steps towards her so she can see that he's got the collar and one long, white candle in his hands. "I thought I'd address the issue of all those expensive books you burnt first."

Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty Four


It’s not even the thought of the collar or the candle so much as the gleam in his eyes, full of all sorts of dark promise, that’s got her so fucking wet she can’t concentrate. Luckily he’s got more than enough focus for both of them.

“Was it satisfying, Faith? To watch all that paper flare and burn, see all those words vanish in a thick haze of smoke? Watch them curl and warp, then disappear into ash?” As he speaks, his tone unwavering, his voice even and his words deliberate, he steps forward, cradling one hand under her head, angling her into position so he can buckle the collar around her neck. She shivers a little under his touch. He steps back, his gaze travelling along the length of her supine body. “How good did it feel to give in to that urge again, that release that I’d expressly withheld from you? Did you think that act of wanton destructiveness would even things out between us? Make everything simpler?”

The involuntary flush of arousal she feels at the sound of his voice is more acute than the dull, aching throb of recognition at what he’s asking her, the yes yes yes to all of it. All she knew at that moment when she’d thrown the lit match was that he was gone irrevocably from her life, and she had no other way of coping. She’d just wanted to burn it all back, hurt him as he’d hurt her. And she knows, more than he ever will, how that moment of decisive, chaotic desperation marked the turning point. That everything that was happening to her –to both of them– right now had sprung from the ashes.

But when she gives him this slight little Mona Lisa smile by way of an answer, his eyes lock into hers like he knows. He knows. And he doesn’t need to say as much, because it’s there, in every calm, measured word.

“Honestly, I don’t know how I’m to even begin properly addressing the magnitude of your disobedience.” He runs his hand lightly along her stomach, inching slowly down toward the vertex of her sex, and she can’t help but part her thighs to him. “So wanton, always, aren’t you?” he whispers, withdrawing a slick finger from her cunt. She can’t help but arch her hips up slightly in response, a tiny moan escaping her lips. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t move, Faith. Am I going to have to restrain you?” he asks, darkly, and she nods dumbly because she seems to have been reduced to this mute creature of sensation.

Now it’s his turn to smile enigmatically, like he’s been planning this for so long, turning it over and over in his mind, smoothing out the rough edges and making it perfect, that he can’t believe it’s time to make it a reality. While she’s spread out on the bed, waiting impatiently for the game to begin and slowly liquefying on his 350-thread count sheets, he looks as fucking composed and unruffled as always, the only outward sign of his desire his really promising erection. She tries not to concentrate on that too much, as she knows damn well that he’s going to make her wait for his cock the same way he makes her wait for everything else.

“You’re always so willful, Faith, so intractable. And, of course, I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He chuckles, but catches himself. “I’m going to make this simple for you, since you seem to have such trouble being obedient. Close your eyes, and place your hands flat upon the bed. Please.” The last word isn’t strictly necessary but he must know how wet it gets her, the inflection and the formality and most of all, the control.

“Please,” she echoes quietly, her voice tinged with desperation.

He clucks his tongue to silence her, brushing her hair gently off of her forehead at the same time. She almost cries out at the touch. “Close your eyes,” he says again. This time his voice isn’t nearly so polite. No, it’s all kinds of terse and that means he’s gonna deliver on all that dark promise and isn’t she a lucky girl...? Oh yes.

She complies. Once her eyes adjust to the darkness she can hear everything in the room so clearly, from the smooth whirr of the bedside drawer being opened to the slight squeak of one of his shoes as he takes a step toward the bed. He grips one of her wrists, gently drawing it up so that he can lash it to the headboard. She’d know the feel of that black silk anywhere. It’s been far too long...

Once her other wrist is firmly bound, she hears him step back, and she’s just about to open her eyes when she’s surprised by the feather-light, cool weight of the silk resting across her brow. She draws in this sharp little breath as he tightens the loop of silk behind her head. “Was that a complaint, Faith? Because I don’t have to make this easy for you. Not at all.”

She nods, no. In the darkness, she can hear her swallow as loudly as if it were a gunshot.
After that there’s silence and she waits, not a little anxiously.

Suddenly the bed tips precipitously and she can feel the weight of him on the bed. Is he kneeling beside her? She’s not sure. He’s close, but not touching her. Not yet. Then she hears a familiar click –the sound of her lighter snapping open; the sneaky bastard must have filched it from her purse when she wasn’t looking– then she can see the soft yellowish glow of candlelight through the folds of the silk. She swallows again, trying to will herself to stay still and calm and god if only he’d fuck her right now–

His hand reaches out to still her, spreading flat across her abdomen, rising and falling with it. The candlelight is gone and there’s total darkness again and just when she’s wondering what he’s got planned after all when there’s a sharp, not unpleasant heat blooming next to his hand. The sting is intense and then it retreats, leaving a lingering warmth as the wax cools and hardens. There’s another, and another, and she’s biting back a cry as his hand slowly glides inexorably back to her cunt. “I’ve never seen you so wet, Faith. Perhaps I’m punishing you too hard,” he drawls as he twists three fingers roughly up inside her. “God,” she grits out, trying hard not to buck against him. There’s not much give in the silk, but just enough that she can writhe a little. “You moved.” He sounds almost disappointed, and she’s rewarded with heat, the locus being one nipple, then the other. He removes his nimble fingers from her greedy cunt and just as quickly they’re circling her nipple, which is now encased in rapidly cooling wax. He peels the wax back, slowly, and she revels in the feel of it slowly being revealed to the crisp air; then his mouth is on her even as his fingers are peeling back the other hardened bit of wax and her nipple’s standing to attention as the air hits it. His tongue circles one nipple while his fingers pinch roughly at the other; there’s another spatter of wax against her belly, and another, the heat flaring through her body like a wildfire, causing her cunt to clutch feverishly at nothing. Juices spilling out of her like a flood and she can’t control them, can’t control anything...

“Do you want my cock?” Another sharp tweak of her nipple and she groans.

“Yes, God, yes. Please, Wes, fuck me. You can finish this later, whatever you want, just–”

Everything goes pitch black again and the bed creaks and dips and he must be setting the candle aside. She guesses. Nothing follows but a long stretch of dead silence and she’s getting nervous, wondering if he’s left her there. Left her wet and wanting, in the dark, just like he’d promised in a certain e-mail to her. So long as he doesn’t show up with some skanky blonde ho she figures that’s okay, even if she fervently hopes she gets to come soon. She doesn’t much like the idea of waiting there for hours, she’s gotta admit.

She can hear him again. She’s relieved. Maybe he’ll fuck her now–

He’s back on the bed, kneeling next to her. He’s still dressed; she can feel the roughness of his wool trousers next to her skin. The slight friction of it against her nakedness raises the goose pimples and she can’t help but shiver. “Lie still, Faith,” he admonishes, his voice cold. That’s when he straddles her chest, the weight of him hard and definitive and a bit of a shock, leaving her a little breathless. He settles in, gripping a lock of her hair in one hand, tilting her head back roughly. She hears the pop of a button, the rasp of a zipper slowly being undone.

“Open your mouth, Faith.”

She wants to. God, how she wants to. But she really wants his cock where she's wet and aching for him. And the part of her brain that hasn't been consumed by this deafening mantra of "fuck me now, just fuck me", can't help but wonder just how deep his delight in her disobedience goes. Just how much power she really has. So she does the unthinkable.

She keeps her mouth shut and turns her head away from the wet nudge of his cock.

His fingers trace the tight seam of her lips and not sucking them into the moist heat of her mouth is maybe the hardest thing she's ever done but she's drunk on the need to snatch the script away from him and see how he improvises.

She can feel the warm gust of air as he sighs heavily. "Three choices, Faith," he tells her curtly. "You open your mouth so I can fuck it with my cock, you say your safe word or you suffer the consequences of your deplorable behaviour. Now, which is it to be?"

The cat-that-got-the-cream smile is how she replies and then it's his turn to do the unthinkable. His weight shifts down and then her ears strain to catch the sound of his fingers moving easily, slowly, against the length of his cock.

"You gonna come on my face, Wes?" she taunts him. "Or how about my tits? Wanna fuck them?"

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" he breathes and he doesn't sound quite so fucking sure of himself now. "Love to feel me touching you?" And he punctuates the question by slapping his cock against the soft curve of her belly and he's right, she does love it, arches up to try and get more than just a wet promise and weight against her skin.

But she's not going to beg him because this is such a lovely, new way to play the game, especially when he pins her down and she can feel his cock rubbing between them as his movements pick up and he's hissing in her ear: "Do you want me to fuck your tight, wet cunt, Faith? Is that what you want? Is that they you're being such a naughty, little girl?"

And not speaking is easy but there's nothing she can do about the way she's bucking under him, speeding him along until he gives this anguished cry and she feels the spatter of his spunk on her stomach like warm, summer rain.

"You're such a fucking jerk," she spits out, willed into furious speech by the waste of it clinging to her instead of spurting inside her pussy.

He drags a finger through the sticky trail before his weight moves off her and she arches her hips imperiously. "You've picked up more bad habits than I could ever have imagined," her tells her sorrowfully but she doesn't care because his hand's stealing around her ankle, holding her open so he's going to have to be fucking blind not to notice how needy she is.

She gives a purr of satisfaction as he secures both ankles to the footboard, which swiftly upgrades to a growl of pure frustration as she hears his footsteps move away from her. "Maybe you should use this time for some quiet reflection, Faith," he says smugly, before he closes the door with a gentle click.

Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty Five

Time goes slower in the dark. She counts out the seconds by the correspondent throb of her clit, the frantic pounding of her heart and it feels like hours until she hears his quiet tread in the hall and the door opening.

"Have you seen the error of your ways, Faith?" he asks softly and she manages to raise her head in his general direction.

"Maybe," she says sulkily.

He tuts and she just bets he's shaking his head but he comes nearer and she hears him place something heavy on the nightstand before his hand curls round her neck, lifting her head up.

"I'll take that under advisement," he purrs. "But you should have some water to replace all the liquid that's pouring out of your demanding, little cunt."

She can feel the cool rim of a glass against her lips and she's gratefully gulping down the icy water before he takes it away.

"That's enough, Faith. Now you've made a terrible mess and I want you to hold perfectly still while I clean you up."

That's one order she's happy to follow and she lies still, almost boneless, as he dabs his dried spunk off her with a damp cloth, stifling the giggles when he carefully peels off the hardened spots of wax and kisses the skin underneath each one.

"Oh dear," he drawls as he sits down on the edge of the bed and she hears him dip the cloth into what has to be a bowl of warm water on the bedside table. "This is very messy."

And then the cloth is stroking her pussy and not doing a very good job of cleaning her up at all, because he's pressing one towel-covered finger right against her clit so she can writhe against it.

"Perfectly still, Faith," he admonishes her and she locks her muscles into place before giving a startled cry as he inserts the cloth into her cunt in a futile attempt to mop up her ever flowing juices.

"Wes… please!" Yeah, she's begging now because it has to have been fucking hours and she's going to dissolve on his sheets if he doesn't let her come soon.

"There, that's a little better," he says fussily, pulling the twisted-up length out of her cunt so she can give a sigh of relief. "Now, Faith, are you ready to apologize?"

"What for?" she asks him and she's genuinely curious. "For not sucking you off?"

"One thing at a time. Are you sorry for burning all those books?"

She thinks about it for a little while and she has to be honest. He doesn't like it when she lies to him. "No," she says simply. "You left me. You hurt me and I'm glad I hurt you back."

"That's commendably honest of you, Faith," he says, sounding more pleased than she expected. "But unfortunately you're being punished for the action, rather than the cause."

And in their skewed little world, it makes perfect sense. So does the way her cunt starts slicking up as she hears the click of her lighter again.

This time he's holding the candle nearer so the wax doesn't have so far to drop, doesn't have so much time to cool before it lands in these stinging, hot little pools on her breasts and she's sucking in a breath as they connect and it seems almost as if he's letting out each one for her with his ragged pants.

The drops fall in a biting, downwards pattern and she can feel the heat of the candle right over her shaved mound and she should be shrinking away. She knows she should. But instead she's trying to arch her hips nearer.

"Stop that," he barks, one hand hard on her hip as he presses her down into the mattress. "I'm going to ask you again, Faith, are you sorry?"

She's not going to lie to him. Not ever again. "No!" she practically screams at him and he's not doing anything, just holding the candle and not touching her, not making her feel anything but righteously pissed. "And while we're at it, Wesley, you might want to send Xander a bill for half the books because he was right fucking there with me and you can write him a thank you note for the collar, too, because that was totally his idea!"

One single drop of wax falls right onto her clit and she's so wet that all she feels is the tiniest pressure but it's been so long and she's such an overwrought mess of feeling and sensation that it's all she needs to come with a violent shudder and a frantic shriek.

"Oh God, just fuck me!" she shouts at him. "Just fucking fuck me, you bastard."

She's screaming all over again (and she hopes to God that he's got sound proofing because the neighbors are gonna think she's being murdered) when his hand fumbles around her neck and he wrenches off the collar.

"Wes, no. Put it back! I'll be good, I promise I will. Promise!"

And for just one second she panics, not just because the comforting length of leather is gone but because she's been playing her own game and it doesn't seem like she knows the rules.

"You'll be good?" he muses and she's gritting her teeth and groaning again as he lashes the collar against her belly. "But, Faith, that's not very sporting of you."

If she had enough oxygen, she'd be sighing in relief. They're still playing. And the leather kisses her skin as he flicks the end of it across her swollen breasts.

"You seem to keep forgetting that when I let you wear my collar it's a privilege that you've earned," he reminds her and she can hear the smile he's wearing. "You have to deserve it and I'm afraid right now, you don't."

She can't speak anymore because she's sobbing piteously, sure that she's going to fucking explode from the constant torment, the relentless touch of his hand on her hip, keeping her still and the stinging kiss of the collar until all she is is feeling and more feeling until her head's swimming with it.

"Oh no, no, no," he says in a sing-song voice. "No tears, Faith. Not when I've got such a lovely treat planned for you."

She tries to ask what fucking evil scheme he's cooked up but she's choking out the words as the collar lashes against the curve of her hip and he's hitting her harder now, like he knows that she can't take soft any more.

But he must have understood because he gives this tiny, gleeful laugh. "You know all those times that I don't let you come? How angry you get? How you beg? This time, my darling Faith, I want you to come as many times as you can. And I'm going to help you, because despite your wicked, willful behaviour and your filthy little mouth, I'm really feeling remarkably conciliatory. But I'm afraid you'll have to come at least five times before I'll stop, is that clear?"

"I can't… I don't know… "

"How about we already count the disobedient way you've already come just from a single drop of candle wax even though I'm very disappointed in your lack of control?" he asks her likes he's the most understanding, fucking considerate man in the goddamn world and she manages to nod and cry and moan all at the same time.

She waits for the press of his fingers inside her aching cunt, a violent suck on her clit with his hungry mouth but all she gets is the lash of the collar closer, closer, closer to where she's spread wet and wide open.

"Of course, there is the small matter of the three strokes I promised you this morning," he says. "Hmmm, I wonder if you'll come from them. Let's see, shall we?"

She's so tense that she wouldn't be surprised to hear her bones snap and she's so dreading and yearning the sting of each blow right there so when she feels something hard and solid tracing around her hole, all her attention shifts and she's being carried away by a back-breaking orgasm as he pushes the candle into her even as he brings the leather down on her poor, defenceless clit,

Again she's so wet, so protected by the sticky coating of her juices that it doesn't really hurt, just gives her something to squirm against.

"That's two, Faith," he says in an approving voice. "Oh, my mistake, three."

She's not even sure if she is coming again or that she just hasn't stopped as he hits her for a third time before she hears the leather drop to the floor and he's using his free hand to rub hard against her clit as he fucks her fast and furiously with the candle.

He stops then because she guesses that he doesn't want her to have a heart attack. She's trying to lay still and calm the frenetic beating of a heart that feels like it might be bursting out of her ribcage any time soon.

"You're doing so well, not to mention beautifully," he says and he's shifting on the bed so she can feel him, and he's beautifully naked and cool against her feverish skin. "I think you should have another drink before we deal with matters pending. Would you like me to untie you?"

"Blindfold," she mutters hoarsely because she can only process one thing at a time and she wants to see him. And it's soaked with her tears and far more of an irritation than the silk scarves chafing at her wrists and ankles.

The light makes her wince and screw up her eyes but when she slowly unpeels her lids he's gazing down at her tenderly.

"Hi," she says with a dopey smile and he bends down and kisses her softly.

"Hello, my darling girl." He brushes back the sweat-dampened strands of her hair before he lets her take little sips of water and then places the glass back on the nightstand. "Do you want to stop, Faith?"

She's recovered enough to give him an angry glare. "You promised me two more orgasms, Wes," she bursts out hotly. "And you still haven't fucked me!"

"I never said that I was going to," he points out calmly and smiles thinly as she makes a frustrated little huffing sound. "Two orgasms," he continues almost dreamily. "So many delicious options. I think I'd like to bring you off with my mouth first because, as you know, I love the taste of you but then what? Maybe I should surprise you."

"Want your cock," she supplies helpfully as he slithers down her trembling body, pausing to kiss and nip and suck as the fancy takes him.

His face is right between her legs before he answers so his breath tickles against her soaked lips and forces her to make a futile attempt to twist away.

"I did offer it to you before, but you were remarkably unforthcoming," he answers before bending his head.

He makes her wait for the fourth orgasm. Fuck! Does he make her wait? Kissing her thighs, blowing tiny puffs of air against her swollen clit, barely running the tip of his tongue along the sticky glaze that's coating her and when she's getting ready to use her last reserves of strength to fucking rip away from the scarves and shove his mouth against her, he delicately pries her open with his fingers and starts tongue-fucking her in earnest, the edge of his thumbnail gently scratching against her clit until she comes violently with the whole special effects package. Starbursts of light exploding behind her eyelids, a rushing sound in her ears and her whole cunt has become liquid as he doesn't stop but keeps lapping at the juices spilling out of her.

"You're going to kill me," she whimpers when he rests his head on her belly and gently strokes her still-throbbing pussy with his hand.

He lifts his head and gives her a concerned look. "Seriously, Faith, do you want me to stop? I can collect on our debt tomorrow."

It's kind of weird what goes through your mind when you've had four orgasms in an hour and you're doing a good impersonation of a wrung out, fucked-out dishrag. "Kill me with kindness," she quotes at him with a shaky grin. "Reckon I've got one more orgasm in me, Wes."

He smiles before he presses a hot, wet kiss against the underside of her breast. "Such an insatiable, little thing," he murmurs fondly. "I was going to fuck your arse, you know, but I think we'll save that for tomorrow."

And she really is totally insatiable because it's been, like, a lifetime since she had his cock in her ass and she missed that. "Can if you like, Wes. Want you to."

"No, Faith," he says firmly, reaching down to untie her ankles even though she never asked him to. "There's something else I want to do."

Her legs and arms are all crampy once he's released her from her restraints and he takes long moments to stroke and knead at her limbs before scooping her up and carrying her into the bathroom.

Her legs aren't doing a very good job of holding her up; especially when he's kissing her so hard that she's pretty much in a constant swoon. And when he starts sucking on her nipples, she has to grab onto the guide bar and try not to slide to the floor of the shower stall.

So he picks her up as the hot water rains down on them and fucks… no, makes love to her like that, with her back pressed against the tiles and her legs wrapped around his hips as he slides into her again and again, the head of his cock nudging against that maddening little bump inside her until she's clutching around him and squeezing with everything she's still capable of because she wants him to come too. With her. For her. Inside her.

And he does; staring at her so fiercely that she can see it all: love, desire, need and blue, blue, blue until she decides it's her absolutely favorite colour in the whole, wide world.

She's not really fit for anything after that. Just curling up on his lap with one of the cashmere throws tucked tight around her so she can hear the steady thrum of his heart as he finger dries her hair.

"I love you so much, Wes," she says finally when they've both been wrapped in a warm, comfortable silence for too long.

His arm tightens around her. "And I love you, Faith," he says, kissing her earlobe and surprising a giggle out of her. "And, well, thank you."

She snuggles closer against him, giving in to the urge to shut her eyes and stop fighting the waves of sleep that have been threatening to pull her under. "You're welcome," she mumbles.

Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty Six

She wakes from a happy dream of Darla and Wes' mum sharing tea and a tin of Cadbury Fingers and laughing over some shared amusement in a sunny and bright room she doesn't recognize. Luckily her sleep-hazed mind isn't inclined to read too much into that and she's more concerned with the fact that she's deadly thirsty, needs to pee, and that the bed is definitely empty.

Sneaking into the bathroom, she's almost startled by the sight of her dim reflection in the mirror. Yeah, there's the birdsnesty hair, that's to be expected after sleeping with it wet and all, but it's more the way she looks. She hadn't realized that there'd been dark circles permanently smudged in the hollows under her eyes; that her default expression had become a tiny frown. But now, and she hates to think something so trite, but she looks so freaking happy. There's a little smile still playing across her lips and she's looking much less careworn. Hell, there's even a flush of pink spread across the apples of her cheeks, like one of those happy-go-lucky J. Crew models or something, who look like they spend all their time taking long, bracing walks in nippy weather or sitting by roaring fires drinking cocoa and playing endless games of Scrabble with their perfectly handsome boyfriends.

She's definitely not fallen out of the pages of that patrician New England fantasy world. Is that glow from being with Wes? From the five orgasms? From being tied to his bed and showing him the new Faith? The Faith who doesn't follow every order but then obediently succumbs to every resulting punishment? After the evening's activities, she feels like she may as well have “pushy bottom” tattooed across her forehead now. Then again, she's pretty sure he's hip to that now – given that when she'd ripped the control of the game out of his hands, he'd met her on that divergent path, and then led her even further into that dark scary forest of his desires – and she'd willingly, gratefully followed.

And yeah, she's sure there's still words to be had in the future over the way she'd nearly burned his office to the ground. But it's a nice feeling to know that most of that crap had been worked out not just with her refusal to apologize, but also with every drop of hot wax that had hit her skin, every moment she'd spent alone in the dark and tied to the bed, every shudder and cry of pleasure that followed each of those precious five times he'd let her come.

Finishing up her business in the bathroom, she's glad to discover the tumbler of water's still sitting on the bedside table, and swallows it all down in one long, greedy gulp.

Grateful that the door doesn't squeak on its hinges to give her away, she tiptoes out into the hallway, hoping he hadn't heard her banging around in the bathroom.

She finds him standing in the living room, looking out one of the giant windows, and it's really almost too picture-perfect for words, and when she says softly, “Hey, Wes...” that smile on his face as he turns and looks over his shoulder makes her want to run into his arms all over again, hold him tight, and seriously, like, never let go.

She figures that might be a little melodramatic though, and instead joins him by the window, snuggling close as his arm curls protectively over her shoulder.

“Why'd you let me sleep? We didn't even get to the rest of the presents,” she says huffily as they part from a long, languid kiss that's spicy sweet from the whisky he's been drinking. “And you busted out Giles' present without me.”

“We can do the rest tomorrow, my demanding girl. They're not going to disappear overnight.” he says with an indulgent smile.

“Like, I don't think so. We're so doing 'em now,” she says. “Wait, isn't it tomorrow already?”

“Not quite. There's still fifteen minutes of Christmas left.”

“Well, dammit, you're getting the rest of your presents now, even if you make me wait to open the rest of mine in the morning.”

“I think you've given me plenty today, Faith...”

“Oh, don't start with that! I picked out all this stuff 'specially for you.” She pulls away from his embrace and digs the airport gift shop bag out from under the sofa cushion it's been hiding under all day. “Okay, so like, I picked it out in five minutes, but still...” She bats her eyelashes at him, turns on her sugary-sweet charm. “They're all from the heart.”

And really, she'd totally sell her soul to see him laugh like that more often. “Very well, then. I can't possibly say no to such a charming appeal. And maybe I'll let you open up the last of your gifts as well...”

And he's still laughing when she hands him a garish t-shirt two sizes too big, “My girlfriend went to Florida for spring break, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” emblazoned across the chest, a “Someone in Tallahassee loves me!” keychain, and a collapsible umbrella patterned with pink flamingos.

“But I don't even know anyone in Tallahassee,” he sputters.

“Exactly!” she says with a smile. “That's why it's so funny! And the shirt, well it was on the sale rack and I couldn't resist. And the umbrella, that's so...”

“So I won't forget the first day we met,” he finishes the sentence for her, pulling her close for another long, sweet kiss. “As if I could ever forget that, my darling Faith...”

“Oh! There's one more thing.” she says, wiggling out of his grasp and rooting around in the bottom of the bag and pulling out a tiny stuffed Eeyore, looking even more miserable than usual – if such a thing is possible -- dressed in an impossible t-shirt that screamed “ORLANDO!” in hideous pink script. “In case you're ever insane enough to think about moving back to Florida, this will remind you not to.”

“I doubt I'll ever entertain those thoughts. And I'm sure AA Milne is turning in his grave right about now,” he laughs, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “I think I need another drink. You?”

“If it's time for expensive booze, yes please!”

He wanders into the kitchen and retrieves a snifter to match the one that's already sitting on the coffee table. “Are you hungry?”

She shakes her head, surprised that she isn't. “Still full from that impressive spread, Wes. But, I like, totally wouldn't say no to something sweet or a little snack.”

“It just so happens that two of your remaining gifts might fit the bill perfectly then.” he says, digging around in the cabinets for the glass. “Open the box wrapped in purple. And then the one in gold.”

The purple box turns out to be a box of fancy chocolates from Vosges – she'd read about them in an issue of “Lucky” and couldn't believe some of the weird flavors the company used – but they had sounded interesting. Shooting for something safe for the first bite, though, she snatches one of the absinthe truffles, moaning dramatically at the tasty combination of dark chocolate and fennel and pastis liqueur. “Oh man, this is so good, Wes. Thank you!”

“I had you open that one first to butter you up for the next box.”

The gold package is at the bottom of the pile and weighs a ton. “Hey, nice of you to get me a gold bar. Was a bit much wrapping it though, don't ya think?”

He shoots her a steely glare as he returns to the sofa and pours her a finger of the dark amber liquor. “Just open it, Faith,” he says with a sigh full of mock-suffering.

Making a great show of ripping off the paper, she's puzzled at the result. “Is there any reason you're giving me a box of weird knives? Is this leading to some mad kinky punchline?” She looks at him questioningly before the light bulb goes off and she recognizes the name of the shop on the sticker that's attached the bow she'd unceremoniously ripped through. “Oh. Oh, no, you didn't!”

“I'm afraid I did,” he says with a wolfish grin. “Would you like to try a little bit now? I'm afraid it's not exactly best paired with whisky, but we can make an exception in this case...”

“Whatever, all right. Just as long as it's not too stinky...” She whacks him on the thigh as he brushes past her on his way back to the kitchen, leaning in and planting a kiss on her forehead.

“I assure you, it's not. It's very mild.”

He returns, this time bearing a tray with a slab of hard, cream-colored cheese and a cluster of red grapes. “It's Idiazábal. A smoked Spanish cheese made from sheep's milk.” She wrinkles her nose, but he cuts of a chunk with one of her new knives and pops it into her mouth after stroking her cheek with his little finger and giving her a very stern look indeed. But he's right, it's a little stinky, but in a good way – tangy and smoky at the same time. And yeah, she hates to admit it, but it's totally good.

“I knew you would like it...” he says, intently watching her reactions. “And I'm sure the rest of the Cheese of the Month club selections will be just as good.”

“Wait, let me get this straight, Wes. I'm getting a fancy, stinky cheese every month?”

“Well, it's actually more like three a month...”

“Three! And how exactly am I gonna like, eat three stinky cheeses a month by myself...” she trails off when a little dark look crosses his face, his forehead scrunching tight.

Brilliant, Faith, just brilliant. Way to ruin the moment, a cranky voice rattles in her head. Well, they were gonna have to talk about this eventually. She just wasn't expecting it to be so soon.

“Well, I admit...” he stammers, unable to look up at her. “I admit...”

“You admit what, Wes?” She's grateful for the alcohol while she waits for him to sort out his thoughts, that's for sure. Grabbing the snifter off the table, she swallows it in one gulp, waiting to flinch when it burns the back of her tongue -- but instead it goes down smooth.

“I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't drink this as if you're at a dive bar, Faith.”

“Don't change the subject...”

He sighs and he's nervous, he's hardly ever nervous. “We haven't discussed exactly what's going to happen after these two weeks are up...”

“And we don't need to,” she says, sliding close to him again, picking up his hand and kissing it softly. “Not right now.”

Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty Seven

He seems as happy as she is to push the discussion of how this idyll will end to another day, turning his hand within her grasp as she kisses it and cupping her face. "Very well." He gives her a smile that's just the slightest bit anticipatory and asks casually, "Wasn't there one more gift for me, Faith? The third photograph? I confess to being quite eager to see that..."

"Hmm?" she says, and no, she's not getting revenge for the sprout – much – but she can't help giving him some of his own back. "Oh, yes. Sorry, Wes, but I changed my mind. That's going to be for your birthday now."

"Oh." He sounds a little nonplussed, but he's far too well-brought-up to argue. "Of course, although I'd hoped to get it framed before you left so that you could see how it looks with the others..."

And they're back in dangerous territory again so she settles for a blank, polite smile and watches him go narrow-eyed and perilously close to huffy, even though he can look at the original on her ass any time he wants to.

He glances at his watch and she sighs, but not too sadly because she's got longer than Cinderella had, even if midnight's behind her. "Is it over?"

He nods. "Just the day itself," he says softly, giving her a kiss that starts out as a quick brush of his lips against hers and ends with her being scooped up into his lap so he can kiss her properly; slow, gentle kisses that stay that way because they're both tired.

"Tomorrow..." he says when they finally break apart and struggle to their feet, "I might relent and let you go shopping."

She follows him into the bedroom. "Window-shopping, maybe," she says. "I've got everything I need, and more. Though I want to take Darla something back from one of the fancy shops. Something all gift-wrapped."

"I'm sure she'd like that," he agrees. "And it's going to be a little busy to shop in comfort I imagine so that works well. We can save shopping for your dress until later in the week."

"Dress?"

"I'd thought about taking you to the opera," he says, "but I don't really care for it myself. The ballet, though; I'm sure you'd enjoy that, and Rupert arranged for us to go on Wednesday night, in the seats Travers & Giles rent at the NYC Ballet each season at Lincoln Center. They're performing 'Giselle'."

"Ballet?" she says a little doubtfully. "Not sure that's really me, but I guess it'd be fun." She takes a deep breath. "This Rupert – Wes, does he know about us? I mean..."

He gives her a curious look. "You get the oddest look on your face when you talk about him," he comments. "He's really very nice, you know."

"He set you up with that Anne," she says, aware of the fact that she sounds sulky and about nine.

"Before he knew you existed," he reminds her. "And when I knew that we – that there was a chance we'd be together again, I spoke to him about it and he was most apologetic."

"Yeah, but –"

"Get in bed," he says firmly. "You're shivering."

He walks into the bathroom and closes the door and she glares at it. He's being evasive, but she's too tired, despite her nap, to push it. Not going to get into bed though. She wanders around the room, smirking proudly at the photographs of her on the wall and thinking how pleased Drusilla would be if she could see them, and getting little shocks of recognition when she sees something of Wesley's that she remembers from his old house.

She ends up on her knees in front of a bookcase close to the bed, scanning the titles of books that, unlike most of Wesley's, look new, and in some cases are in paperback.

He comes out of the bathroom and she twists around to stare at him. "Wes..."

"I thought I told you to go to bed," he says.

"Yeah, in a minute," she says. "Wesley – these books on the top shelf –"

He flushes and turns down the covers of the bed, not meeting her eyes. "Yes?"

She turns back to the books and runs her finger along them slowly, reading out each title as her finger bumps the spine. "'Lolita'. Yeah, that came first. 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' – God yes! And you spoke to me. Actually said 'hello' and then 'Good night, Faith' and I can't tell you what that did to me, Wes..." There's silence behind her but she thinks she hears his breath quicken and in some ways this is like when they were talking on the phone, when she'd have to snatch at every tiny clue as to his reaction to what she was saying. She could just look now, of course, but she doesn't, just carries on listing the books she read to his waiting silence every Sunday.

"'Tender is the Night' – and by then you'd sent me that first parcel and I spent my whole time in this, like, waiting space. Waiting for you to –"

"Give in? Capitulate? Surrender?"

He kneels down beside her, resting his folded hands in his lap. "They're all there, Faith. Every book. You'd read to me on a Sunday, and I'd stop off at a bookshop on my way into work on Monday and pick up a copy." He gives a frustrated sigh. "I do so look forward to getting my books out of storage," he mutters. "Half of these I already own..."

"You never told me," she says wonderingly, because she's seeing him doing that, and then, all brisk and business-like, with his briefcase in one hand and a small carrier bag in the other, walk into his office to start his day.

"I used to make a point of keeping Monday night free so that I could read whatever book it was," he says, moving to lean against the bed behind them. She smiles at him, reaching out to take his hand, and he carries on. "When I'd reach the part you'd read to me... it was as if I could hear your voice again, and I'd close my eyes for a moment and pretend you were sitting beside me, that when you'd finished, I'd be able to take the book from you, set it down, and kiss my darling Faith for reading it so well."

"Wish I had been," she whispers. "God, Wes, I missed you so much and I was so happy when we started to talk..."

"I wasn't going to," he confesses. "I came so close to weakening so many times, but I don't think I would have." They're doing it again, she realizes; falling into one of those conversations they can't seem to avoid, and maybe they shouldn't, when a tiny bit more of the blank time they'd spent apart is colored in each time.

'Then your first e-mail arrived and –" He stares at her with a helpless, vulnerable look on his face. "I opened it without letting myself even consider the matter, because I was terrified that if I did I'd reason myself into deleting it unread." She shudders, because if he had, maybe she wouldn't be here now, and his grip on her hand tightens. "'Conflicted' is probably as good a description of my emotions as any. I remember my heart pounding, I couldn't calm myself –"

"I know," she tells him. "Felt that way when I sent it. I know."

"You sounded so – it was just you there on the page, vibrant with anger and hurt, but with a curious dignity too," he says, choosing his words with a deliberation she suspects is designed to hide the fact that his voice is trembling a little. "Once I'd read it, I went back, read it more carefully – God, I practically memorized it!"

"No way!" she says, as if she hasn't got a head full of memories just like it.

He grins at her. "I really did." The smile fades a little and he frees his hand and scratches at the side of his nose, looking a little embarrassed. "You said, let me see... 'I hate that you're there and I'm still here and there's nothing I can do about that.' That wasn't entirely true though was it, Faith?"

There's something dryly amused in his voice after he's finished quoting her words back at her, but there's a familiar gleam in his eyes too. He's recovered his composure and she's in trouble... She stands up and discards her robe before jumping into bed and pulling the covers up high to her chin. "Don't know, Wes. You coming to bed now?"

"Indeed I am," he says, following her example and getting undressed, although, being Wes, he drapes his robe over a chair. He reaches out and tugs the covers down in one swift jerk, ruthlessly exposing her.

She yelps, curling into a ball. "Wes! Really am shivering now!"

"I asked you a question," he reminds her. "And I'm sorry to say that the answer wasn't as complete or as truthful as I'd have liked it to be."

She gives him a pleading look. "Fuck, Wes, I really don't –"

"You flouted my explicit instructions by contacting me –"

"Well, yeah, but –"

"Began what I can only call a determined, organized campaign to wear my resistance down –"

"Hey, you called me, Wesley!" she says as he kneels beside her looking pretty fucking determined himself.

"Made yourself irresistible," he says softly, taking away her next protest before it's voiced. "Reminded me of how very difficult it is to deny you anything..." She gapes at him because that's really not the way she sees it, and he has the grace to smile, just a little. "I don't think we can count leaving you sexually unsatisfied for a matter of minutes, or even hours, as much of a denial," he says airily.

"It totally is," she says with feeling. His hand comes down on her ass in a gentle tap. "What was that for?" she asks warily, jumping as if it'd been one of the stinging slaps he usually delivers.

"That's your punishment for that particular piece of disobedience," he says, straight-faced. "And let it be a lesson to you," he adds sternly, switching off the bedside light and turning his back on her as he pulls the covers up over himself.

She hisses with indignation and reaches down for the sheets on her side of the bed. "All you had to say was that you were glad I sent it!" she says in an infuriated whisper. "I thought you were mad at me!"

"Would you like me to be?" he asks mildly. "I could possibly work up enough righteous anger to spank you but I'm far too tired to fuck you again, so ..."

And she's looking forward to him spanking her properly, until all she can do is wait for the next time his hand strikes her, because that's all she's capable of, but she knows him well enough to be sure he means it when he says he wouldn't follow it with anything but a kiss goodnight, so she settles for a sniff that makes him chuckle, and she's asleep before he stops.

Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty Eight

She must be really exhausted because she doesn’t even hear him get out of bed in the morning; when she wakes his side of the bed is cold and the covers have been carefully rearranged. Bleary-eyed, she peers at the clock. 10 AM. He’d probably bolted awake at 7 or something equally ungodly, and already gotten tons of dry legal tome reading done.

She can smell coffee wafting in from the hallway and it’s enticing enough to draw her out of bed. She reaches for her discarded robe only to find it missing. Ever-fastidious Wes must have hung it up. Hmm, bathroom, or closet? This being a New York apartment there’s only one. So she pads across the room, shivering slightly at the crisp air, and starts rooting around in there. It’s not with her things (like, all three of them), so she starts going through his side.

Nothing but suits, suits, suits. Black, charcoal gray, dove gray –a whole panoply of expensive labels and rich fabrics. But the robe is nowhere to be seen. She shivers again. Wouldn’t kill him to turn the heat up, would it? she thinks. Frustrated, she’s just about ready to put on one of his suit jackets when she sees it, a familiar, worn piece of fabric, hanging on a padded Barneys NY hanger like it’s something precious. She’s amazed that she’d almost forgotten about it, but she’s hardly surprised to find it in a place of prominence.

She takes it reverently off the hanger, wrapping it slowly around herself. The warmth she feels is mostly from the onrush of memories it brings, but the final one is too painful, and she pushes it away, because there’s no place for it right now. And anyway, it’s not something she’s going to linger on, not when they’re starting over. Not when he’s waiting for her in the other room with fresh coffee and the NY Times crossword and that maddeningly intent look he gets when he’s trying to remember the Greek word for a trade wind or his tut of frustration when the editors get a Latinate wrong.

As she meanders quietly down the hallway towards the kitchen, she wonders how long he’s been toying with the idea of waking her up, but stopping himself at the last minute because he doesn’t want to deprive her of anything.

She smiles softly at that.

She’s so quiet that he doesn’t even hear her come into the kitchen, so assiduously is he poring over the Arts section.

“Morning,” she says, softly, her voice cracking a little.

He smiles and barely looks up from the paper, his cheerful “good morning” purely reflexive. When he finally looks at her, properly, his expression is a bit stunned. “Oh,” he says quietly.

The next few seconds feel like hours. She wonders if he can hear the accelerated beating of her heart, or the nervous little gulp she takes. Surrounded by a stark silence, she can’t help but feel like she’s made a grievous error, that in putting his shirt on she’s dredged up all the bad things that they’re not quite ready to talk about. Can she take it back and get a new entrance, like instant replay or something, only this time she’ll walk in bare-ass naked? ‘cause, yeah, that’d be a better choice, even if she’d be freezing.

Finally his face breaks into a broad smile. “I was wondering when you’d find that.” He looks her over approvingly. There’s a flicker of amusement there. “You know, I hardly think we need to go shopping for the ballet. You look absolutely stunning.”

“You’re kidding, right?” She feels like she’s blushing all over. Hell, she is blushing all over.

“No.” He looks surprised that she would even think such a thing. “Come here.”

When she’s near enough he slips his arms around her and pulls her close. Slowly, reverently, he starts to undo all the buttons that remain. That task finished, he doesn’t part the fabric, expose her naked body to the cool air, he just slides his arms under the fabric, wrapping them loosely around her waist.

“How come you let me sleep so late?” she asks, genuinely curious.

“And risk your not inconsiderable wrath if I woke you?” he asks, looking really fucking bemused.

“Did you hide the robe so I’d find this?” Now her curiosity is moving into killed-the-cat territory.

“I’ll never tell,” he replies, his hands slipping down further, coming to rest against the curve of her ass.

“Never?” She’s surprised when it comes out sounding like a dare.

He doesn’t speak, just leans forward to kiss her. How he can kiss so gently and intensely she’ll never know; all she knows is they leave her breathless every time. When he pulls away and she finally tastes oxygen again, he whispers, “I think it's time I took this shirt off, don't you?”

She opens her mouth to agree fervently and her stomach gives a protesting gurgle that leaves the mood shattered and her giggling.

"I should have remembered that you wake up ravenous," he says with a resigned smile and one last, swift kiss. "Go and put something a little warmer on and I'll be right back."

"Back from where?" she asks, folding her arms around herself because it's not worth buttoning the shirt up again. "Hey; maybe we can go out for breakfast? That place you went to and sent me the menu?" Because she's here in the middle of the city and she wants to go out and see it when it's awake, not wrapped-up in Christmas quiet.

"That would have been lovely," he agrees, "and tomorrow we will, but for now..." He tilts his head. "Did the inclement weather escape your notice?"

"Is it snowing?" she asks eagerly.

He shakes his head. "Nothing so seasonal."

She leaves the kitchen and goes over to the picture window, her steps slowing as she takes in the black skies, lashing rain and high winds. "It's raining," she wails. "Wes, it's fucking raining and I wanted to go out!"

"You say that as if you expect me to be able to make it stop," he says dryly, joining her. It's close enough to the truth to make her smile and when the sulky pout's off her lips he kisses them. "It's supposed to clear up by nightfall," he tells her. "And we did agree that it's an awful day to shop on."

"So where are you going?" she asks as he goes to a closet and takes out a heavy overcoat she bets he never used once in Florida.

"I have to deliver a Christmas tip to the doorman," he says, and she flashes back to her first e-mail to him where she speculated that he'd be totally tight with the man in days. "And then, because I love you, I shall venture out to the closest place that sells coffee and pastries."

She murmurs an unconvincing, "You don't need to do that, Wes," that has him rolling his eyes and then she floors him completely by adding. "But if you do, take your new brolly!"

"My what?"

She frowns. "Your umbrella," she clarifies. "Thought you Brits called them –"

"Yes, yes, we do," he interrupts. "It's just –"

"Yeah?" she drawls out, finding it really hard to keep her face straight but managing it somehow.

He gives her a hunted look, picks up the umbrella with the pink flamingoes strutting their skinny-legged stuff all over it, and says, "It's very – pink, isn't it?"

"Totally!"

"Yes, well..." he mutters, tucking it under his arm. "I won't be long."

She spends ten seconds snickering after the door closes, wondering if he'll come back with it still tightly-furled and dry, and then heads to the bedroom to return the shirt to its hanger, adjusting it carefully until it's hanging perfectly straight, just the way she found it. Once she's snug in a soft red sweater and black pants she grabs her cigarettes and lighter, thoughtfully returned to her purse by Wes. She wants coffee, yes, but she's about half a pack down and it's killing her.

The balcony door won't open at first and she wonders if it's Wesley's way of stopping her from smoking, and he's locked it and plans to make her, like, beg for the key. Nah. Too easy to make her crack; he likes it to be a challenge. She's proven right when an extra-hard shove from her shoulder gets it to un-stick and it's almost wrenched from her hand by the freaking wind.

It's fucking freezing out there and if it isn't snowing, it's a miracle. The rain that smacks her face in a spiteful slap is stiff with sleet, or hail, or something else she can't label because where she comes from, rain is warm, and wet, and that's about it.

She shuts the door really fast and glares out at the tempest. Fine. No way she can smoke in that, and even having the door open for, like, twenty seconds, has left a damp patch on the carpet.

She contemplates going downstairs and seeing if Wes' tip has left the doorman amenable to showing her somewhere a girl can grab a quick smoke, but Wes wouldn't like that...

But she's spent too many years being craftily creative about breaking rules to give up now. There's an extractor fan in the bathroom, a toilet to dispose of the evidence, and Wes is going to be a while yet...

The first drag is heavenly, but by the time she's halfway through the cigarette she's jumpy as hell. The muted roar of the fan means she can't hear the front door open and the thought of Wesley catching her isn't a good one. Like the way he stacks the dishwasher, or organizes the fridge, the ban on smoking inside isn't something he's willing to compromise on. With one final, long inhalation, she flushes the remains away and spritzes the air with some of the body spray Darla got her, so, to her anxiously sniffing nose at least, the room smells of roses.

She opens the door, peers out into the empty apartment and dashes to replace the lighter and cigarette pack in her purse. By the time he gets back, she's watching MTV and he's too busy shaking himself dry and being really English about the 'slight drizzle' to notice that she's a bit hyper.

He sets the dripping umbrella down where it can dry and smiles at her. "I received two compliments on the flamingoes," he tells her, sounding proud about it. "But I think I'm still sufficiently damp, despite having it to shelter under, that I need to change." He nods at the coffee and bag he's deposited on the hall table. "Off you go, then."

"Thanks, Wes," she says, and it's for more than getting her the coffee. She turns off the TV, gives him a kiss, shudders in sympathy because his face is freezing cold and damp and takes her breakfast into the kitchen.

She's three gulps into her caramel latte when it occurs to her that he's going to have to go into the bathroom to towel off his hair. When he joins her in the kitchen, leaning against the door and staring at her, she gives him a quick, nervous smile and shoves a huge chunk of pain au chocolat into her mouth so she's got an excuse for not answering at once if he asks her anything awkward.

He doesn't move and he doesn't speak. She reaches for her latte and uses it to help her choke down the sweet, flaky pastry which doesn't taste so good anymore.

"Hey, Wes," she says beginning to babble. "So that doorman; did I nail it in that e-mail of mine? Has he got a –"

"Faith," he interrupts, tapping his leg slowly with his fingers, "it's been some months since we lived together, hasn't it?"

"I guess," she mumbles.

"Do you perhaps recall that one rule of mine was that you were not to smoke indoors? Ever?"

"Well, I –"

"A simple 'yes' or 'no' should suffice."

And no one's ever made her feel this shame-faced and on-the-fucking-spot, but she reacts the way she always does when she's in trouble and channels her inner-brat.

"Wes, get the fucking stick out of your ass! Yeah, I smoked inside, but have you seen it out there?" OK. Not the best argument she could've come up with... "I tried and it was cold and wet and I just had one and the fan was on..."

He nods coldly. "I see."

She jumps up and goes to him, hanging onto his arm. "God, I'm sorry!" she says. His hair's still damp, darker than usual and his eyes match it. "I won't have another today, I promise," she says earnestly.

"I think that's a given, don't you?" he says without a flicker of amusement. His eyes narrow. "I'd come up with some rather good ideas to entertain you as I felt sorry that your plans had been spoiled." She swallows, because she's sure they would've been the kind of plans that she'd choose over shopping any day. Wes indulgent is hard to beat...

"But I'm annoyed with you now, Faith," he tells her, without anything to make her doubt that he means it. "And so I think we'll have to change our plans yet again."

Her mouth's dry but she manages to say faintly, "How?"

He smiles at her, all winter-ice eyes and inflexible mouth. "Why, we'll just entertain me, instead," he drawls. "I can't promise you'll have a wonderful time, Faith, not now, but you won't mind if I follow your example and be more than a little selfish, will you?"

She stares at him in mute misery and his lips tighten. "Answer me please, Faith," he says with a smooth politeness that chills her.

"No, Wesley," she says, because he's left her with nothing else to say but that.

Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty Nine

His eyes soften the barest amount possible but then he nods at the table. "I'd like you to finish your breakfast first."

"I'm not hungry," she says, which is the truth, because her stomach's a tight knot of apprehension mixed in with curiosity, because she's wondering if this is some sort of game after all...

She's starting to relax, just a little, when he leans in close and says in a dangerously quiet voice. "Faith, I told you to do something. You're not doing it. Why is that?"

"Wes, you're fucking freaking me out!" she says, taking a step back and waving her hands in this futile flapping that she stops because she must look fucking ridiculous. He blinks at her in silence and waits for her to carry on. "You're just way over-reacting, and I don't know if you're playing, and I'm not – I don't like it."

She gives him a beseeching look and she's trying so hard to get through to him that she's rigid with tension, feeling the bitter ache of it in her muscles.

"Faith," he says softly, and now it's him pleading with her, "this is what I was afraid of. I'm not playing. I never was. This is what I am."

"I know that," she says. She gropes for his hand and it's cold and unmoving in her grasp but he allows her to hold it. "Wesley, you know I said I got that, wanted it all..."

"'All'" he repeats. "Well, yes, I imagine you do. So do I. We're both rather similar in that respect, aren't we? But 'all' isn't just the fantasies, the pleasure, the sex... although if you think that I get no small pleasure out of watching you obey me outside the bedroom, when you're fully-clothed and not aroused, then you'd be wrong. I do." He smiles and there's so much implicit in that curve of his mouth that she's glad she's still holding his hand because it's anchoring her as a sharp, sweet pang of lust leaves her trembling.

So many books, so many earnest discussions, so much careful research... and it's all distilled and held within that smile for her.

"Did you ever read the letter I left for you when you weren't angry with me?" he asks, his eyes intent. "Because I told you – I made it as clear as I could, what I was."

"I read it a lot," she answers, "but I can't read it without getting angry and starting to fucking cry, so, no, guess not."

"But you remember it?" he presses.

"Fuck, yes," she says. "Every word..."

He glances around, shakes his head, and leads her over to the couch. "If we're going to discuss this, we might as well be doing it in comfort," he says. He turns to face her but he folds his hands in his lap and she doesn't reach out to take one again. "Every word. Then you'll recall the part where I told you my eccentricities weren't merely charming."

"Yes, but –"

"Well?"

"They kind of are," she admits, peeking up at him to see if he's going to get pissed at her.

"I have an excellent memory, Faith," he says. "Your comments on my quite logical approach to certain matters, such as how a cupboard should be organized, were brutally frank, profane to the point where I was tempted to reach for a bar of soap, and I didn't seem to strike you as at all charming, if I'm to be honest."

She can't keep saying, 'Yes, but', tempting though it is. She settles for a frustrated sigh and he echoes it.

"Faith," he says and he's really making an effort, she can tell, "I don't want to lose you again. I don't."

"Wes!" And when he says that, even though he's telling her he doesn't want her to go, she's swept into an unreasoning panic that has her flinging herself at him, hands beating at his chest. "No! Don't fucking say that! Don't. Because you're gonna do something stupid again and I'll fucking die if you go again, I can't –"

She's never been held by him on his lap and not felt loved, not felt safe, and that's where she ends up, cradled against his chest as she gives up the attempt not to cry, and fails totally in the attempt to do it without ending up with a revoltingly-runny nose and a damp neck where the tears have trickled and dripped down.

"Are you quite done?" he asks finally.

"Hanky?" she says, sniffing desperately.

"I don't have one," he says.

"What?"

"Not to hand," he says, staring at her in horrified fascination. "Good Lord, Faith. You look... Would you like to go and wash your face, perhaps?"

She makes it to the bathroom and decides, after one fleeting glance in the mirror that if he thinks she looks bad now, well, he's right. By the time she emerges, she's done what she can with cold water, a brush and the fastest make-up, like, ever, and she's feeling a little abashed.

The raised eyebrow from Wes as she sits back down doesn't help.

"That was probably very cathartic but a little unnecessary," he tells her. "I'll let it pass as I doubt I've given you much reason to trust me with all that's happened."

"I do trust you," she assures him, "but when you start being all noble and thinking about me, I panic."

He snorts and starts to laugh and he's looking as if he's not far from tears himself, so she leans over and pinches his arm. "Stop it!"

"Oh God, I'm trying..." He gets himself under control and takes a deep breath. "Right. And I warn you, I'm absolutely determined to finish this discussion, Faith. Now, where were we?"

"You were saying you don't want to lose me," she reminds him a little tartly.

"Ah, yes." He stares at her until she starts to fidget and then says, "I could try and change... if you came, if you stayed..."

The intensity's back and she's not panicking in the same way, but she's still so close to fucking despair because they're blundering around trying to connect and they're missing each other and she doesn't know how to fix it...

"You said you couldn't. In that letter. Said you were too old."

"I hadn't spent seven months without you then," he says quietly and that has to be the sweetest, most fucked-up compliment she's ever had.

"I don't want you to change," she says with an absolute certainty. "Not ever." She frowns. "Do you want me to? Like, I know I swear too much, and you don't like me smoking and... oh..."

"Let's just say you have some charming eccentricities of your own, and leave it at that, shall we?" he says dryly. "I think I'll continue to nag you but I wouldn't dream of controlling you to that extent."

"But that's how all this started!" she blurts out. "Over me smoking!"

He gapes at her. "Sometimes you can be appallingly dense, Faith," he says crisply. "You've smoked seven cigarettes since you arrived, not including the one this morning; have I expressed any displeasure over that in word or deed?"

She doesn't have to think about it. He'd followed her out onto the balcony fussing because she hadn't put a coat on and wrapping her up in the throw from the couch, he'd provided her with an ashtray and placed it on a table by the chair he'd placed in a sheltered spot...

"No, Wes."

"Then – if it's not taxing you unduly – what was different about the eighth?"

She sighs. "Wes – do I have to say it? I'm sorry –"

"Until you tell me what you did wrong, how can I be sure you are?" he asks and there's no edge to it; he really fucking means it.

"I smoked inside and you don't like that-" she begins.

"Utterly forbid it," he corrects her. "And the man I'm renting this place from is equally firm on that matter, so you not only disobeyed me, you caused me to flout one of the agreements I signed when I took the apartment."

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

"You haven't finished," he says with a gentle, but unswerving determination.

She swallows. "I tried to hide it."

"Yes." He's silent for a moment and then says. "I'd appreciate it if you answered me honestly –"

"Wes, I won't lie to you again! And I didn't, not really. If you'd asked, I'd have told you –"

"If I were normal, I suppose this is the point where I'd assure you that it didn't matter, that you were entitled to your small deceptions, your privacy," he murmurs and she's left breathless because he's doing it again, he's making her aware, so very fucking aware, of what he is and there's nothing in her that's turning away.

"But you're not, Faith," he says with a terrifying gentleness. "You have to respect me far too much to ever lie and you have to trust me enough not to want to. I'll allow you your thoughts, I'll allow you your dreams, your hidden secrets... but I won't have you lying to me. Do you know why?"

She shakes her head, staring at him, utterly unable to look away.

"Because it would mean you were afraid of me." He meets her eyes with a direct look. "You've lied all your life, Faith. If I can offer you anything, it's a place where you don't have to."

She bites down on her lip. Not going to fucking cry again. Not.

"So, I'll ask you; did you think – did you disobey me deliberately? It occurred to me that I might have misread the situation – and yes, I've noticed that you're pushing at me, testing your limits, expanding them..." He takes her hand, stroking it with his thumb. "Was that it? A game? Did you expect me to smile and spank you and that would be all?"

And it's an out, it's a way of shoving the guilt that's still with her onto him, but how can she?

"No, Wes. I wouldn't – that's not something I'd try and mess with. I just –" She shrugs and gives him a rueful smile. "I wanted a smoke and it was raining outside. And I knew you'd get mad, and, yeah, I totally hoped you wouldn't know." She sighs. "You're still gonna go ahead with the whole, 'make Faith miserable day' aren't you?"

"I might amend it slightly," he says. "In light of what I think was a useful discussion and a sincere repentance."

Sticking her tongue out at him for being so very fucking stuffy is something she doesn't even think twice about doing.

"And now," he says, ignoring her so she feels like a complete idiot, "let's get on, shall we?"

"What do you want to do, Wes?" she asks, hoping it involves some seriously romantic make-up sex because this counts as an argument, it really does.

He stands up. "You have a breakfast to finish."

"It'll be cold now," she says. "And really, I'm not all that hungry."

He glares at her. "Faith. You're welcome to reheat it but I went out into a bloody flood to get it and I'd like you to finish it."

"Make me?" She clears her throat. "Please?"

And there's this moment of stillness and she has to look up, has to see if it's OK, if he gets it... There's a faint question in his eyes and she can tell he wants just a little more from her.

"I want – we can talk, but we've got other ways of dealing with stuff, yeah? And I'm not gonna tell you've I've been naughty and deserve a spanking because that's like, totally lame, but –"

"But you have, and you do," he says lightly, watching her. "And you want it, don't you?"

"It's different when you say it," she whispers.

He nods. "Very well. For the rest of the day, I want absolute, unquestioning obedience from you. I don't want you to say anything about an order I give you other than to acknowledge it where appropriate or ask for clarification if absolutely needed."

"Like at the cottage," she says. And she's almost forgotten what it's like to have him take over this completely, leaving her with nothing to do but comply, be perfect for him.

He nods again, says, "Stay here," and walks away. She watches him go, as this weird mix of thrills and chills race over her, because she doesn't know what he'll do, what he'll be holding when he comes back.

Turns out it's a black silk scarf.

"Wes? Thought you –"

"I don't think you need to use your mouth to speak right now, Faith."

She doesn't struggle as he ties her wrists behind her.

"And, Faith? I'd be very much surprised if you don't use your safe word today." He draws his finger across her mouth, too fast for her to purse her lips and kiss it in the hope that it'll slow down and be replaced with his mouth. "In fact, I'm looking forward to finding out what I have to do to you to make you use it." He taps her lips once and lets his hand drop before nodding towards the kitchen "Although I've got some ideas... Go in and kneel by the chair you were sitting on, please."

It's that 'please' that gets her every time...


Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty

Maybe not just the please. But both the simplicity and the complexity of his orders that don’t leave room for anything like doubt or uncertainty. So she’s not thinking, not panicking, not doing much of anything but standing up and walking to the kitchen so she can kneel, just like he told her, on the cold tiles with her head lowered by the time he steps into the room.

He doesn’t say anything, just picks up the Styrofoam cup with her coffee in it and gives her a thoughtful look.

"It’s lukewarm but should be drinkable,” he says softly and he hasn’t asked her a question so she says nothing even though she wants to squinch up her face and protest loudly that lukewarm coffee is an invention of the devil.

He pulls out the chair she’s kneeling next to and sits down so his knee is brushing her shoulder and he barely has to lean down to cup her chin and hold the coffee to her mouth.

“Drink it, please, Faith.”

She gulps it down even though lukewarm was being way generous and a couple of minutes more and a couple of degrees colder and it would qualify as iced. But she’s good; doesn’t so much as flicker an eyelash and when she’s managed to force down the last mouthful without wincing she looks up at him and she realises that she’s waiting for that smile of approval she always gets when she’s obeyed an order and he’s pleased with her.

This time though she gets jackshit, just that blank face he can wear as insouciantly as the most beautifully cut suit. As he picks up her half-eaten pain au chocolat, which is looking as limp and as unwieldy as one of Darla’s experiments with home baking, she’d kill for just a smile from him. Never mind a spanking and then some fierce but tender make-up sex.

So she stays where she is even though her knees are starting to ache and when he tears off hunks of pastry and pops them perfunctorily into her mouth, she chews them down and waits for the conciliatory smile that she’s going to get when all that’s left are the flaky crumbs that are clinging to her mouth. Doesn’t seem likely he’s going to kiss them off her either, not when he’s getting to his feet and moving away from her like she’s not even there.

“Bathroom, Faith,” he says from the doorway and she gives up on ever having him smile at her again. Instead she’s staggering awkwardly up and thanking God for those yoga lessons because bound hands and kitchen floors and being on your knees; really not the best combination ever.

In the bathroom he tugs at the scarf so her hands free and she can scrub away the tiny specks of ash that are clinging to the sides of the wash basin that she was using as the world’s biggest ashtray.

“Very good, Faith,” he says peering at the porcelain after she’s done and securing her wrists again. And it’s the last nice thing that happens for hours.

It’s not like he really does make good on all those old allusions to Bluebeard. He doesn’t make her strip off, doesn’t bend her over any hard surfaces, doesn’t spank her. None of the fun stuff.

When he’s not ignoring her so he can read the paper and do the crossword and not even ask her for help on the one solitary clue about some lame VH1 band that they always have; it’s worse. Because he’s veering from neglect, to not leaving her alone for a minute. Making her shift from her kneeling position on the floor in inch increments until she’s leaning forward at a fucking 45 degree angle that finally seems to meet his exacting standards because he stops frowning and goes back to acting like she’s one of the dust motes floating around in the still air of the apartment.

If it was just one or the other than maybe she could handle it. Could handle his indifference even though she hates it. Could just about maybe kinda sorta deal with the relentless demands and orders to stand up, sit down, breathe quieter, eat the sandwich he's made her for lunch from the stinkiest cheese ever, turn her face to the right, to stop shivering (“really it’s not that cold, Faith") despite the way they chafe uncomfortably against her new-found independence.

By the time it reaches mid afternoon and she knows that not by looking at the clock on the sideboard, which would be really hard when she’s been made to stand in the corner with her back to him, but by seeing the shadows start to lengthen on the wall in front of her, she’s cold, tired and fed up. She’s also starting to get the beginnings of a headache from all the thoughts that keep rushing through her head like they’re competing at a monster truck rally. ‘Cause when she’s got her clothes on and there’s not even a hint of a promise in what he’s doing, then it’s really hard to work out if it’s a game or if it’s punishment and what the hell is in it for him.

“Wes, can I ask you a question, please? Um, I need clarification on something.”

Her voice sounds scratchy from not being used all day and her words seem to hover in the air like they haven’t got anywhere else to go.

She hears him put down his book and there’s a moment’s pause. “What seems to be the problem, Faith?”

The urge to roll her eyes is too tempting to avoid and it’s not like he can see her anyway. “I’m just, like, confused about what you’re doing?” No, that’s not right. “I mean, why you’re doing this. Yeah, I sort of lied to you but I said I was sorry. And I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to and it’s just… you’re not stopping and it’s not fun and …”

“But maybe this is fun for me, Faith,” he drawls, cutting off her breathless babble at the pass. “I take immense pleasure in you being so obedient, so biddable for once.”

“If I was all submissive,” and she spits out the word, she really does, “all the fucking time then you’d never have any reason to punish me.”

“Have you ever stopped to consider that controlling you so absolutely and having you obey me without question is very arousing?” he asks her and she can feel him weighing out each syllable almost like he’s thought them a lot but never said them out loud.

“It’s not doing anything for me!” she bursts out before she can stop herself because what’s the point of this whole hideous day and all his stupid hoops that she jumped through, if she’s not even wet and on the verge of begging him to fuck her?

“You have a word you can use,” he reminds her mildly.

“But then you’ll stop…”

He sighs. “Turn around and face me, please, Faith?”

She whirls round so fast that she almost falls over and she knows that her bottom lip is sticking out in the poutiest pout since records began, especially when he folds the paper, places it on his lap and says, “I think we can dispense with the sulky expression, Faith.”

It’s the first of his commands that she really has to struggle with especially as it feels as if her face has been set in concrete but eventually her features manage to right themselves into some vague version of normality.

“I thought the whole purpose of this somewhat enlightening conversation was to get me to stop, Faith. Is there anything else you’d like me to clarify before you face the wall again?”

Yup, there totally is. “What happens if I use my word?”

She finally gets a smile out of him, a small wry quirking of the lips, but she’s starting to feel so niggly that it doesn’t really register any more.

“I’ll take you over my lap or possibly bend you over the arm of the couch, I haven’t really decided yet, then I’m going to give you a bloody, good spanking before I fuck your arse,” he remarks conversationally, like he’s talking about what he wants for dinner. Then he casually removes the folded up copy of the business section of The New York Times so it’s lying next to him on the sofa and she can see the hard outline of his cock through his jeans. “Just for the record, Faith, this is doing plenty for me. Now turn around and face the wall again.”

And just for the record she’s plenty wet now and so ready to fall on her knees and crawl to him and get his cock in her… anywhere. But she turns round and tries to summon up the calm, Zen feeling she was managing before when it was all quiet but the monster trucks are back with a vengeance.

See, if she says her word, maybe she doesn’t mean it. She just wants out of the corner so she can go and haul on another jumper and possibly slug him round the face for ignoring her and confusing her and then he’ll have a fucking good reason for punishing her too. Then she thinks of how rigid his cock was imprisoned in all that denim, which can’t be comfortable so if she said her word, she’d get to alleviate poor Wes’ suffering. Not that she’s sure she wants to do that. Bottom line, she just doesn’t know.

All she knows is that she wants him to spank her. Like hard. Really, really hard. As hard as she can bear it and maybe even a bit more because she’s been here for 48 hours and he still hasn’t done that. And maybe she even wants him to fuck her up the ass more than that because God, how long has it been since he’s done that?

Then before she can stop it, this tiny little groan of frustration makes a bid for freedom but he’s not snapping out an order to, like, stop breathing in oxygen and let out carbon dioxide because she can hear him getting up and walking over to her, standing so close that she can feel the heat from his body on her own cold bones.

“I’m not the easiest person to be with… to live with,” he whispers, bending his head so the words caress her ear, making them intimate, even though he sounds kind of sad. “Do you see the difference, Faith? The finely honed, exquisitely rendered difference between what gives me pleasure and what gives both of us pleasure?”

She can feel icy, cold fingers trailing down her spine. “And which one gets you off the most, Wes?”

“Oh, Faith,” he sighs as his arms steal round her waist and he can rest his chin on the top of her head. “Do you need to ask?”

“Yeah… I mean… you do like it when it’s the both of us… you like it more?” She’s got this fatal note of begging to her voice and she’s leaning back against him now because he’s so close that she can’t not.

He kisses the edge of her ear and his arms tighten around her. “I can’t live without it,” he admits unsteadily. “But I want to know if you enjoyed my salient lesson in how utterly I’d like to own you?”

“I like belonging to you, Wes, I do and you belong to me too, you know you do, but I didn’t like what you did today,” she chokes out and she’s absolutely fucking determined that she’s going to splutter through this without crying. “Hate it when you ignore me, it hurts worse than anything…”

He turns her gently round in the circle of his arms so she can see his eyebrow winging up in an eternal question. And she goes from waiting to not waiting.

"OK, Neruda," she mutters defiantly. "I said it! Neruda, Neruda, Neruda!"

Her voice is rising to the kind of pitch that only bats can hear and he takes a step back before she can perforate his eardrums, which gives her the space to raise her arm and smack him pretty gently, all things considered, around the face.

"Guess you should know, Wes, that maybe I'm not the easiest person to live with," she tells him with large dollops of satisfaction. "And I won't have you ignore me even if it's your biggest ever turn on. And yeah, now you've got another reason to punish me but can you crank up the central heating before you do it?"

Weird thing is that his mouth doesn't flatten out and his eyes don't start darkening like storm clouds and he's not even trotting off to put some fucking heat on, instead he cups her cold face in his warm hands and bends down to press a sweet, clinging kiss on the tight, pissed off line of her mouth.

"My darling, angry girl," he purrs when he realises that he's kissing a Faith-shaped statue. "I'm very proud of you for saying your word."

"Big whoop," she hisses, knocking past him so she can stomp to the bedroom and hurl herself on to the bed, rolling over and over until she's all wrapped up in the quilt and the only thing he can see when he walks in a moment later is the top of her head and the narrowed slits where her eyes used to be.

"You always give too much away, Faith," he chides her as he sits down on the edge of the bed and yeah, he's definitely not looking like he thinks she's the bestest girl in all the world for spitting out her safe word in the face of, like, extreme provocation. "Now that I know how intensely you dislike being ignored, it becomes a very effective means of reprisal if you're set on behaving like such a brat."

"I'm not being a brat," she protests indignantly, sitting up. "I'm pissed with you and I have every right to be 'cause I did everything you asked me to and you asked me to do all sorts of stupid shit and you weren't even pleased and then you acted like I wasn't even there and you hurt my feelings and you kept changing it so I could never get into a space where I was happy and you forced me to say it!"

"And I'm glad you did," he says harshly. "And I'm going to keep forcing you to say it but whatever means I have at my disposal until it springs readily to your lips every time I hurt you in a way that doesn't bring you pleasure. Is there anything you'd like to clarify, Faith?"

"Only that you're a sneaky bastard," she pouts with maybe just the slightest hint of grudging admiration.

"Duly noted," he says smoothly. "And now that we find ourselves in rare agreement, I believe that I promised you a couple of things if you said your word, not to mention the more serious matter of your exceedingly petulant behaviour."

And he's had a whole day of pushing her and not in a good way and she reckons that payback could be all kinds of sweet 'cause there ain't no way in earth she's going back in the corner.

She slowly unfurls herself from the covers so she can crawl over to him and straddle him. Then when she's arranged to her liking on his lap, facing him so she can manoeuvre the still-hard jut of his cock between her legs to get that good old ache a going, arms wound tight round his neck, she's ready.

"You gonna spank me, Wes?" she husks in his ear. "I want a really fucking hard spanking. Want it to hurt, so I know you mean it."

His eyes are glittering like blue diamonds and his lips are curved in a wicked smile. "You deserve a fucking hard spanking," he corrects her. "And then what do you want me to do to you?"

She bites down on the tempting plumpness of his earlobe which works out really well because he shifts so his cock is pressing into her and if she wasn't all that wet before then she's got to be fucking dripping now.

"Want you to fuck my ass, Wes," she says steadily, leaning back so she doesn't have to miss the delicious expression on his face, which is equal parts tenderness and cruelty. "We on the same page?"

In lie of a reply he pushes her off his lap so she's standing with bare toes curling into the carpet. "I think so, Faith. Take off your clothes. Slowly."

And that was just what she wanted to hear and she's got her answer all ready. "Make me," she demands with a challenging smile.

Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty One

"And how do you suggest I do that, Faith?" he asks, leaning forward, chin propped in his hand, elbow on his knee, looking so relaxed it's ridiculous when she knows how hard he is, how long he's been that way. "I'm hardly going to tear your clothes from you, now am I?"

She gives a little shake of her head in answer. So not his style...

"Perhaps I could threaten you," he muses. "Tell you that if you're not absolutely naked within sixty seconds I won't permit you to wear my collar until the New Year..." He watches her carefully and although that's pretty effective as threats go, she just about manages to keep her dismay from showing and her smile from dimming.

"But, really, a threat is a sign of weakness, don't you think? I don't need to resort to them to control you, Faith, to exact obedience from you, as I think I've already demonstrated." He shakes his head slowly. "No. I won't make you strip bare so I can spank you, Faith, so I can fuck you. I won't force you to do anything." He gives her this polite, knowing smile and says softly. "Because I don't really have to, do I? Because you want to, so very much. You want to show me that perfect, beautiful body and watch me shiver, just a little, at the sight of you, because it's been hours since I saw you naked and really, that's something I hate to deny myself."

She's not smiling now. She's listening to him, hearing that husky drawl, the voice that murmured detailed instructions to her as she held the phone pressed to her ear, her other hand roaming her body, touching it exactly as he wanted her to. And she's seeing his jaw tighten as he speaks, as if, yeah, even Wesley's reaching the limits of his self-control.

"But perhaps you're shy, Faith," he says in this voice that's oozing fake understanding and sympathy. "I recall you said you disliked being naked when I wasn't..."

"Don't dislike it," she says, fighting to stay in charge – if she ever was. "Just makes me feel –"

"Shy," he says, nodding earnestly. "Of course you are."

"I'm not!" she says indignantly.

"Oh? Well, that's a relief," he says solemnly although he is so fucking smirking inside, she knows he is. "Because fucking your arse – you do recall that's planned for later? Of course you do – is such a very... intimate activity, wouldn't you say?" He glances down at his right hand, and holds it out, palm down, fingers spread. "After we've dealt with the little matter of that well-deserved chastisement. My hand gets quite hot when I spank you, you know. It's –almost - painful." He smiles slightly. "Somehow I doubt you'll be very sympathetic about that, given the far greater discomfort you experience, but, yes, it stings and I've even known it to get quite swollen."

She's staring at his hand now, and thinking where it's going to be soon; on her ass, fingers inside it; making her whimper, making her scream. God, she so fucking wants to scream... She used to need that pain, raw and real, to make her fucked-up life make sense. Well, it's not so fucked-up now, and with Wes back in it, she's really happier than she's ever been... but she still wants to scream.

Her hand's moving to start unbuttoning her pants because yeah, good going, Wes, the tingle in her nipples has intensified to an ache, and she's soaked through her thong, when he shakes his head.

"Please put your hands by your side and stay quite still," he says and it's the voice she never wants to disobey, the voice that flicks against her like his tongue on her skin, promising everything in return for something as simple to give as surrender. It's the voice that told her he'd like her bent over the desk, like her to bring herself off, like her to use her tongue on his cock, like her to come, not come, stay silent, moan...

"Good girl, Faith," he says without a hint of irony, as her hand drops away. "Where were we - oh, yes, of course. My hand." They both stare at it and he flexes it which brings a whimper to her lips that's verging on desperate.

"Perhaps I should consider using something else," he says. "Your hairbrush is always effective, I've found. Or possibly... a glove would help? I have a rather nice pair of riding gloves somewhere and I'm sure the leather would afford me some protection..."

And like he fucking needs it, but she's flashing on an image of his gloved hand spanking her and how it would feel cool at first, how the sound would be different, but she's not sure how – softer, louder? Would she lose that crisp, clean smack that she swears changes the hotter her ass gets? And she's lost in thinking of how the leather would warm so fast, soaking up the heat from her burning skin the way his hand does and wondering if it'd hurt more, or less...

"Why, Faith, you look quite intrigued by that notion," he says, lifting his eyebrows in pretended surprise. "Am I to take it you'd approve of my efforts to spare myself some pain?"

"I like feeling your hand on me," she says without hesitation because she's too aroused to be in the least bit fucking shy – can barely force the words out because she's struggling to breath evenly. "Like it more than the brush... or a belt, or my collar, even, but yes, I'd like that." She meets his eyes. "I want you to...experiment, want you to try out stuff you've – we've not done. Guess I won't like all of it, and maybe you'll find you don't either, but we won't know until we do."

"Indeed we won't," he agrees amiably. "That's quite an intoxicating prospect, isn't it? What a pity we can't proceed though, given your inability to follow a simple directive." He pulls a regretful face. "I could spank you over your clothes, and I suppose I don't need to remove them all to get at your arse, but, no, on some matters one really shouldn't compromise. I wanted you naked and nothing else will do." He gives her a level look. "I'm not going to tell you remove your clothes slowly again, Faith," he tells her.

"But I want to! I will," she assures him.

His slow head shake and pointed look at her hands which have moved to grab the hem of her jumper freeze her in place.

"I said I wasn't going to tell you again," he says. "I meant it. I dislike repeating myself. And the order to stay quite still hasn't been rescinded."

"But I want –"

"To be spanked? To be fucked?"

She nods with the barest hint of a pout and gets a positively fucking evil smile from him that chills her because she's waited so long already and it looks as if she's going to be waiting some more...

"Quite a dilemma, isn't it? I'm curious as to how you're going to solve it, Faith, but your ingenuity is always so... inspired."

She closes her eyes and thinks of – nothing useful. She can't concentrate when she's practically coming just from the look in his eyes and all the pretty fucking images he's put in her head.

"I could say I was sorry?" she asks tentatively, opening her eyes and looking at him hopefully.

"You don't need to," he says. "You didn't actually refuse to obey me, after all."

"No, I totally didn't," she says eagerly. "I just wanted to, umm –"

"Test me," he says coolly. "I know." He tilts his head. "Did I pass? I usually do..."

"A fucking plus, now can I –" She takes a slow, deep breath. No. That won't work. "May I please take off my clothes –" His eyes narrow and she adds, "Slowly? Please, Wes? I want to, I really do."

She swears her quivering lip is totally unforced.

"Yes, Faith," he says finally. "Of course you may." He gives her a kind smile. "You only had to beg."

Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty Two

And she gets that flash of anger, just for a second, that he’s so much better at the game than she is. But then, it’s not about win or lose so long as both of them end up sprawled across the bed, wrung-out and orgasmed-out, breathless and exhausted. Which they will. It’s an inevitability.

And no, he’s not better. They both —well, they both know how to play to their advantage. And so long as she’s clothed, she’s got the upper hand. So long as she can feel the tension in him, the strain caused by the long hours of holding himself in check like that when all he really wants to do is tear her clothes off and fuck her into the floor.  

Another inevitability? Yeah; good things come to girls who wait.

She slips back onto the bed, straddling him. And he lets her, because it’s time to. Now they’re both vibrating with a new, unresolved kind of tension; there’s this hitch in her throat because he’s so fucking close, looking right into her eyes and there are so many emotions there she could write a fucking book. God, she can’t ever resist that forceful blue stare. But then she remembers her resolve, that she’s finally got him right where she wants him. She smiles to herself ‘cause she knows, knows that he’s poised right on the edge. And even though she’s been there herself numerous times over the course of the day, she can’t help but think, with great satisfaction, that the tide’s finally turned in her favor.

“Promises, promises, Wes,” she whispers in his ear, and does he smile? Maybe he does. He turns his head so she can trace her tongue along the taut line of his jaw, can feel him swallow, see the slow drift of his eyelids as they shut and he sighs.

She knows it’s only for a moment; he never lets anything slip for long, and anyway, doesn’t she have a little agenda of her own to get to? She’s momentarily annoyed at how easily she’s distracted.  That’s yet another gulf that separates her from Wes, who’s so fucking single-minded it’s almost inhuman.

She shifts against him, and hmm, she’s got his cock right where she wants it too. Except there’s entirely too much clothing in the way. She lifts herself up off him, and his eyes are open again, watching her with an avidness that’d get her really fucking wet if it weren’t already too late.

The sweater goes slowly, so expertly she’d swear she was Gypsy Rose Lee onstage at a swank supper club instead of a bedroom. Off it goes, one sleeve at a time; she plucks at the edges of the hem with graceful fingers and shimmies it up over her head like she’s got this great reveal planned. And, well, she kinda does.

Her fingers are poised on the button of her jeans when he grips her suddenly by the wrist, stopping her; his free hand cups her breast, feeling the weight of it before leaning forward to take her nipple in his mouth. She almost jumps at the surge of warmth, shock of the sudden heat; in her periphery she can just see the edge of a smile curled against the pale pink blush of her skin.

“You got a good reason for interrupting me, Wes?” She sounds so fucking stern.

Bastard’s still smiling. “I can’t seem to resist you when you offer so prettily.”

She shimmies against him, and oh yeah, friction’s a wonderful thing. “Can I keep going, or do I have to beg for that too?” She tries to sound as perfectly in control as she knows he would, but it’s not so easy. Not with his hard cock nudging against her.

He doesn’t answer, just lets go of her wrist and lets her nipple slip free. He leans back against the bed, his body a single taut line, his eyes flickering greedily over her form, and she picks up where she left off.  The pop of a button, the slow drag of a zip and she milks that for all it’s worth. The room is so still that the sound is practically deafening. He eyes the newly-exposed triangle of flesh and smiles.

“You’re soaked through, aren’t you, Faith?” he drawls. “So fucking wet because you can’t wait for my hand on your arse, for my fingers to slip into that beautiful pussy of yours. Isn’t that right?”

And God, if he doesn’t know how to derail everything with that voice of his. She’s stunned to silence, any hope of a retort dissipating as quickly as his fingers insinuate themselves under the fabric and brush up against her skin. And while she’s not going to blurt out, “Just fuck me, I need you to fuck me,” she realizes that she’s had quite enough slow burn for one day. And that maybe he has, too.

Which necessitates a slight change of script. And hey, if she gets some extra spankings for that, it’s still win-win, right?  

It takes everything she’s got to evade his fingers, pulling abruptly away from him. As he watches her, he doesn’t look angry, just a little curious at her boldness, perhaps. And it’s not curiosity that plays across his features when she arranges herself across his lap, grabbing his hand and placing it resolutely on her ass.

“I think your impatience seems to be the over-riding theme for these last few months,” he says prissily and it’s not as if he’s telling her anything new. All that she can concentrate on it how fucking good it feels just to have the warm weight of his palm molding the curve of her buttock, the rigid, throbbing length of cock digging into her belly, his fingertips stroking over her skin like he’s fascinated by the way it covers her before he crooks his fingers around the elastic of her thong and gives it a gentle tug.

She’s already for him to rip it right off her. God, the way she’s feeling, like every inch of her is about to woosh into flames, she’s surprised it doesn’t just combust while she’s still wearing it. Instead she helps him out because she’s caring like that, wriggling on his lap and lifting herself up slightly so he can just free her from the damp cotton and lace.

“C’mon, Wes,” she snaps imperiously, punctuating it with another little shimmy that’s got his cock practically standing up to say hello. “Take it off or leave it on, just want you to spank me like you…”

“I’m sorry, Faith,” he interjects smoothly. Way too smoothly. “I was momentarily distracted by the unwelcome notion that you were having an attack of Saint Vitus’ dance.”

Huh and what the fuck? “I was just…”

He doesn’t smack her. Wouldn’t do that when he knows how much she wants him to. He just pinches her sharply so she squeals. “You were moving, even though I hadn’t given you permission, Faith,” he snaps and she stops kicking her legs and lies motionless on his lap because this is so fucking typical of him to delay something they both so badly want just a little bit longer. “That’s an extra five blows you’ve already earned.”

“Please, Wes…”

“And then there’s the small matter of your underwear,” he says and she glances up, because yet another five blows sounds like the cherry on top of the icing on top of the cake, in time to see his lip curl as he hooks his finger round the thong elastic and gives it another tug.

“Wes, can’t we schedule in this conversation between the spanking and the ass-fucking?” she asks reasonably though she thinks that maybe she left reasonable oooh, around the same time that she plonked herself down on her lap.

“No, we really can’t,” he replies equally pleasantly. “Not when it means I’ll have to adjust my running tally of spanks pending yet again. You really do seem intent on making my life complicated, Faith.”

“You just make it up as you go along,” she sighs because nothing is going to delay the inevitable of Wes’ not-at-all endearing habit of holding off on all the lovely things he’d promised. Just because he fucking can, the bastard.

“I can assure you I don’t,” he says all huffily, even though they both know that’s a lie. “And I believe I was quite explicit in what I considered to be suitable underwear for you, Faith, especially when you know the consequences of such flagrant disregard for my wishes.”

She’s so going to get her spanking any second now. “Why do you think I packed six of them, Wes?” she asks sweetly and waits for his hand to lift up and connect with her ass. Instead she lands on the carpet with a soft thud when he pushes her off his lap. “What the fuck did you do that for?”

She gives him the most filthy glare in her entire repertoire when he smirks in the most annoying way ever. “Another five,” he says almost dreamily and his voice does a complete 180 degrees with one swift exhalation of breath on his part so it sounds like it’s suddenly been coated in ice. “Hands and knees, Faith, now.”

She doesn’t get a please but she’s already lifting herself up into the desired position and looking at him expectantly because maybe he’s decided to move up the ass fucking portion of the schedule.

He gestures towards her open suitcase because she still hasn’t got round to unpacking the stuff that doesn’t need hanging up. “I want you to fetch every single one of these disgraceful garments,” he intones darkly. “And you’re not to use your hands, Faith.”

She crawls over to the case and it’s only the certain knowledge that he can’t take his eyes off the tantalizing sway of her ass (which she puts a lot of effort into), which stops her from lying on the floor and having a full on, fist banging hissy fit until he hauls her up and spanks the living, fucking daylights out of her.

And it shouldn’t be so hot to crawl back to him with five pairs of thongs clutched in her mouth but it is. Because he’s deliberately stroking the hard-on which looks fit to burst out of his jeans and all the time his dark-blue gaze is fixed on her. And when he takes the panties out of her mouth, tosses them in the wastepaper basket next to the bed and strokes her hair like she’s a goddamn Golden Retriever, she shouldn’t be resting her head against her knee and waiting for the next order. But it’s him and it’s her and this is what they do and she does.

“I really do have to confiscate them,” he tells her softly as if it was the last thing in the world he wants. “But I’ll take you out and buy you new ones, Faith. I’ll take you with me, let you try them on, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Parading round the changing room in front of me, knowing the sight of you was making me hard and there was nothing I could do about it until I got you home?”

She presses up against his stroking hand. “I would, Wes. Really, really would.”

He smiles down at her and in the dimming light he looks like a satyr. “I know you would, you deplorable, little tease. Anything else you’d like?”

This time she peels off her damp thong herself before she throws herself on his lap. “Not like, Wes,” she whispers hoarsely and she’s so close to the edge now that she’s convinced that she’s going to come like a fucking waterfall, when he finally puts them both out of her misery. “I need you to spank me, please. Want it so badly, Wes. Don’t make me wait any more. Please.”

“You beg so beautifully,” he says fondly and there’s one last delicious pause that she doesn’t mind at all because his hand delves between her legs and skates over her sticky smooth flesh to graze the tips of his fingers over her clit and he makes this appreciative noise and she’s just trying to decide where it could be classified as a moan when his other hand crashes down on her left cheek.

He used to hold back when he was spanking her before. She knows that now because this time he’s giving her everything he’s got while her arms are curled and clinging to his outer thigh because he’s got one hand splayed across her pussy, not holding her steady at all but giving her something to grind against and his other hand… sweet fucking Jesus.

The slaps start off slow and he stops after each one so she has time to get used to the slow burn, the tingle and sting, and just when it’s starting to fade out and the heat begins to thaw, she gets another blow that makes her give a harsh, startled cry.

Another blow that makes her part her legs so his fingers slip inside her just a fraction.

Another blow that makes her beg him to hit her harder.

Another blow that makes her shift against his cock and force a growl out of him.

Anotherblowanotherblowanotherblowanotherblowanotherblow …

And they’re fast and furious now so she can’t separate out the small flurry of air when his hand lifts because it feels like it never does. And she doesn’t know why it seems to be everywhere at once; her left cheek, her right cheek, the tops of her thighs all burning hot and he tells her how beautiful she looks because he’s been talking to her all the time but she can only hear snatches of it over her own shaky gasps for air.

“... needy little girl… your arse looks so gorgeous, Faith, I can’t wait to fuck it… you want more, don’t you?…” And then he’s quiet because he’s letting out every breath that she’s taking in.

The whole world has shrunk down to the edge of the bed where he’s sitting with her squirming and screaming on his lap and nothing but this velvety darkness surrounding them because there’s nothing and no one but them. Maybe it’s even less than that just his hand on her ass, his voice in her ear, nothing else but a series of disparate sensations that make her complete.

His hand slows down by the smallest, sweetest of degrees until the room telescopes back to normal size and, man, her ass feels like you could fry a fricking egg on it. And then the last spanks aren’t even that, just his hand stroking her buttocks as softly as a baby’s breath and it all starts to feel good. Just an itch that’s a perfect pair with the soaked flesh of her cunt as his fingers thrust a little deeper inside her.

“Thank me for spanking you, Faith.”

She does better than that, hauling herself upright with shaky arms that have to clutch onto his shirt front so she can kiss him long and hard. “Thank you, Wes,” she says against his lips. “Thank you for spanking me.”

And when she winces as her ass scrapes against his jeans, he gives her a beaming smile of approval just like the one she never got this morning and she has to kiss him and thank him for that too.

“Faith,” he says warningly, gripping her upper arms and holding her away from him so she can’t carry on with her quest to kiss every inch of his face. “I’m trying desperately hard not to give in to my urge to forget all the things I was going to do to you first and instead bend you over the chest of drawers and fuck your arse, so will you stop squirming about quite so delightfully?”

She smooshes right up against him so the cotton of his shirt rubs against the aching tips of her breasts and she can feel how burning hot he is underneath the creased material. “Can if you like,” she offers throatily, before she reaches up to kiss him again.


Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty Three,

He turns his head away. "If you kiss me, I will lose every last vestige of control," he says. "So don't. Please?"

"Wes, I'm gonna die if you don't fuck me, like right now," she begs him, trying to hold still. "And I want you to lose it, I really do."

There's a glint in his eyes that she can't interpret. "I think we define it differently, Faith." He pushes her up so that's she's standing on wobbly legs and goes over to rummage in the drawer of the night table. "If you want that to happen because you think it'll get you one of those fast, furious fucks you seem to crave, then I have to tell you I can deliver those any time."

"Can doesn't mean you do," she mutters.

"Well, that's a different matter altogether, isn't it?" he says pleasantly, straightening with a tube of arnica cream and – thank fuck – a small bottle of lube. "To me, a loss of control means, not that I'll get carried away on a tide of passion –" He rolls his eyes at the very idea. "No, it means through my own deplorable weakness I'll be deprived of something utterly precious." He smiles at her. "A few more moments making love to you." And just as she's all set to melt from the warmth in his eyes he adds, "And I derive so much pleasure from the way you squirm and beg and whimper and –"

"I get it, Wes!" she snaps.

He sits back down again and as she gapes at him, because shouldn't he be, like, getting undressed or something?

One finger crooks imperiously. "Back over my knee, Faith," he says.

She eyes him warily. "Are you going to spank me again?"

An eyebrow lifts. "Dear me, Faith. Am I going to have to? Because you forgot that when I give an order I expect you to obey it at once, without putting me to the trouble or repeating it?"

"No..." she says. "I'm doing it, see?"

Her body protests the resumption of the position he'd held her in for so long, and the skin on her ass, still hot to the touch, as she knows for a fact, because she'd gingerly fingered it when he was getting the supplies, stretches and pulls, making her gasp as she copes with a new wave of pain. It sends her arousal a notch higher and she realizes she's scrabbling at his jeans, trying to grip something in her fists, needing something to –

"Here."

His voice is gentle as he leans back and grabs a pillow, pushing it under her so she's got something to hold and, yeah, something to bite down on, because the next thing that happens is an icy handful of cream that hits her super-heated skin and practically dissolves.

The yelp she gives, even muffled by the pillow, is loud enough for him to chuckle at. "It's not really cold," he says.

"Fucking is" she hisses. "And I don't want it!"

"Why not?" he asks mildly, dropping another splodge on and working it methodically into her ass.

"I earned that sting," she says. "Don't want to lose it."

She can hear the smile in his voice. "I don't think you need to worry about that. You're so very, very red that I think you'll be feeling the after-effects for a long time to come."

"So why are you putting it on?" she asks curiously, trying to twist her head to look at him which makes him bite down on his lip as her stomach rubs against his erection.

"Ah... because I want to?" he says, not entirely pleasantly.

"Thought you liked the bruises," she says, and yeah, she's needling him a bit.

"I do," he says. His hand comes down in a sticky-sounding smack that smarts like hell, even though compared to the spanking, it was a love-tap. "I do... and you're going to bruise beautifully, Faith. But right now, you're this mass of scarlet and until that fades a little, I won't be able to see them." He sighs and the hand smoothing the cream across her ass slows, the movements more deliberate, even sensuous. "Blue and purple shadows under the skin, and I can see the shape of my hand, my fingers in them." His hand stills against her and his other hand brushes along the words etched onto her skin. "Less permanent than this, but no less lovely."

"Glad you like it," she murmurs, resting her head on her arms, folded on top of the pillow. The arousal is there still but she's almost glad of this small lull, the chance to let the pain and the fever of wanting more die back, just a little, to gather force again.

"Some day, soon, I'm going to spank you like that every day for a week," he says. "Until you cry out if I drag a fingertip across your backside as you walk by me, sob with the first stroke of my hand..."

The lull is over. She's drenched in heat, literal and lustful, feeling her body flush and shiver all at once.

"Oh, you like that, don't you?" he whispers and he sounds dazzled.

His hand starts to move again and now he's spreading her ass apart with his fingers, sliding them down, between, to coat cool, untouched skin with something that's not as dense and rich as the cream. The lube trickles down, a small shivery shock against her hot folds that makes her mewl and shift, trying to get something, anything, to touch her clit, which is throbbing steadily.

"Stay still," he says in a remote voice, as if he's distancing himself from what his fingers are doing because it's the only way he can deal. "You're not to move or I'll stop."

And it's an empty threat, because not even Wes can walk away from her now, but she obeys him anyway, taking satisfaction in the small victory even though she's breathing in these shallow, fast gasps and getting light-headed from wanting him inside her, wanting to come.

He's using the lube lavishly, but he's dipping his fingers inside her cunt too, finding the wetness there and dragging it up, so that when he pushes a finger inside her, slowly, carefully, it's slick with her juices.

She cries out because she remembers this, how it feels, and it's been so long... It's not enough though, not when she's feeling like this, and she disobeys him, her hips lifting so she can get him in her deeper.

His hand stops. "You're to stay still," he reminds her, and fuck he sounds as if he's gonna grind the enamel off his teeth because he's not calm, not collected, not with a groan punctuating his command. "Faith –"

"Please," she moans, "Just do it, Wes. Need you in me. Need you to fuck my ass so much–"

There's a harsh, ragged whimper from him and he pushes her off his lap so he can stand.

"I can't wait any longer," he whispers in her ear as he half carries, half drags her over to the chest of drawers, the bare wooden surface level with her hips, so that as he pushes her down she feels the rounded edge dig into her hips which brings back more memories.

She's shaking, barely able to stay in the position she's fallen into so easily, so naturally, and she has to reach out and hook her fingers onto the far edge of the chest, between it and the wall, to steady herself.

He's stripping down and doing it fast. She can interpret each soft rustle of fabric being dragged over his skin by hasty, shaking hands and she knows the exact moment when he's naked and she spreads her legs just a little wider, arches her ass in the air just a little higher...

There's a moment when she feels as if she's been waiting an eternity, knowing he's staring at her, knowing he's hard, so ready she doesn't know how he can bear to touch his cock as he slicks himself up. She's on the verge of coming herself from the cumulative effect of so many small things and some are memories, old and new; the fading feel of his finger in her ass, the smart and sting where his hand belabored her skin, and some are right now, insistent, like the way when she pushes forward she can feel the unyielding edge of the chest that's going to leave more bruises when he slams into her. And yet it's thinking of what's to come that's the most dangerous of all, that's threatening to rob of her of her control, because she's empty and hurting with it and soon, soon –

His hand comes down hard on her, curling around her hip and holding her in place as his finger jabs inside her ass, fast enough to make her give a guttural sound that's nowhere near a word but if it was it'd be one that meant 'yes' and 'more'.

He's not touching her clit, her cunt, her breasts, not doing anything but push his finger deeper, in fast, jerky, still-not-enough-jabs that have her squirming and writhing around it. Desperation gives her the gift of speech again and she gasps his name, "Wes – fuck, Wes – fuck me –"

And when his finger returns, no, two fingers, stretching her in a warning, in a promise, of what's imminent, she's ready to scream with frustration, but she saves it for the moment they're taken away and his cock pushes into her, steady and smooth, pausing, retreating, repeating, both his hands holding her still now, his fingers biting into her skin hard enough to distract her from the tiny flashes of something she can't call pain, not when it feels like this, not when she craves it so that when he's finally satisfied she's open, she's ready, and he starts to fuck her, she almost comes on the first stroke, deep and strong and violent.

His hands loosen their grip and shift so that his palms lie across her scarlet skin, fingertips brushing the words that repeat what that angry flush of punished skin says: that she loves him, that she's his.

"Faith..." he says, "My Faith..." and it's all he says but it's enough to make her come, even as he drives his cock into her, over and over, in a relentless rhythm that falters only as he starts to climax, when he cries out and stiffens against her, muscles locking as he shudders, pushing deeper still, the distant sensation of his come spurting inside her lost in the continuing echoes of her own release.

He leans forward, his hands sliding up her arms, his mouth warm on her back as he kisses her heated skin as if he can't stop, open-mouthed kisses, dragged across her skin as he pants, breathless and spent.

He slides out of her and she can't stop the moan as she feels the loss of that connection.

"It's all right, Faith," he murmurs. "I'll take care of you..."

She lets him help her up and turns so that she can wrap herself around him, feeling the sticky heat of his cock press against her, not caring about anything but being held as tightly as he can.

His hand smoothes her hair as he kisses her flushed face. "Sshh," he says again, though she hasn't said a word. "My darling girl."

And she realizes that she's saying his name and telling him she loves him, and she doesn't stop until he says it back, telling her as he scoops her up in his arms, telling her as he lifts her into a bath warm enough to make her wince as the scented water strokes her bruised skin, telling her as she goes to sleep, telling her when she wakes to a new day, filled with pale, crisp sunshine and a blue-hazed sky.


Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty Four

Of course, there's a big part of her that would rather roll over and stick her head under the cool pillow and sleep another hour or two, or five when he whispers those endearments in her ear, soft breath on her ear raising a twinge in parts she's pretty sure should still be satisfied from his ministrations of the night before. Perched on the edge of the bed, he brushes her sleep-tangled hair off her face and plants a sweet kiss on her lips. Already showered and dressed, the delicate scent of bergamot and sandalwood on his skin is enough, along with the sunshine and the freshly-brewed coffee waiting on the bedside table, to at least allow her to shimmy delicately into a sitting position instead of mumbling an incoherent protest at the early hour and rolling back into sleep.

Though her ass has stopped throbbing, it's still not the most comfortable position to be in, and if it wasn't for his arms curling possessively 'round her neck, the mischievous twinkle in his eye, she'd totally already be out of bed and in the shower already -- anything to keep from resting on her really tender laurels for any longer than necessary.

“Oh Wes, it's too early for you to be looking at me like that...” she says through a yawn, sliding out of his embrace and reaching for the coffee, taking a tentative sip before downing half the cup in two greedy gulps.

“Like what, my darling girl?” The corners of his mouth twitch with a faint amusement that always seems to come hand-in-hand with his chipper early-morning mood.

“Like you've got some kind of your plan up your sleeve, Wesley.” She drags his name out in a snarky drawl. “So, what's on the agenda?”

“Whatever you'd like,” he says, running his fingers lightly up and down her forearm possessively. “Within reason, of course.” Bold as brass, he winks at her as the memories from the previous evening's activities slam vividly about in her brain.

“Shopping,” she whispers reverently, biting back the urge to demand that he take her to the nearest swanky lingerie shop, stat. “And sightseeing! And, I wanna take the subway and cabs and I wanna see like, the Statue of Liberty to the Cloisters, and everything in between.”

He laughs, pulling her close for a proper kiss that activates little twinges of need, which she pointedly ignores because she's going out shopping today if it kills her. In fact, she wants to collect an armful of stiff cardboard bags so badly that she's happy to forego several hours of bone-melting orgasms that the glint in Wes' eye promises. “We still have a week, Faith. You can't really want to do everything all in one day...”

“Well, if I only get one activity for today, that activity better be shopping, and our shopping list better have 'Buy Faith new six new pairs of really fancy underpants' in capital letters at the very top."

“I could make you go the rest of your stay without any,” he muses, lost in thought and gazing over her shoulder at some unfocused place where she's sure she spends every minute on her knees, collared up and completely naked. Which, when she thinks about it, wouldn't be the most horrible fate.

Still, a girl's gotta keep her dignity, and a little mystery to boot. “You wouldn't!” Her playful punch lands squarely on his upper arm and sends his dreamy gaze snapping back to meet hers.

“Wouldn't I?”

“Okay, okay. I wouldn't put it past you to make me do it, but really, Wes, it's too cold for that, don't you think? And I don't even want to think about the possibility of my bare ass accidentally resting on a subway seat or the backseat of a cab.”

He laughs at that, shaking the bed so hard she nearly spills her coffee. “Very well then, we'll replace your inappropriate undergarments first – but then we'll be following a very strict timetable...”

She just rolls her eyes at him before climbing out of bed and heading for the bathroom. “Whatever, Wes. This is a vacation, y'know?” And in half a second, she's turning on the taps to drown out his snappy retort because he's way too coherent for 8 in the morning

When she emerges from the shower, a pair of black satin underpants have been carefully laid out for her on the bed, along with her red dress and the pair of black woolly tights that she's really fucking glad she bought. She doesn't ask any awkward questions about why he's had a pair of her panties stashed away, just gratefully steps into them, sliding the cool fabric over her bruised ass as he watches her dress, leaning against the bed with a faintly amused smile.

Half an hour and one minor disagreement about her clompy, engineer boots later, she's shoveling the biggest breakfast she's ever eaten into her mouth as fast as her hands can move. Her tummy's not happy about missing dinner the night before but it was worth it, not least for the faint smarting of her ass and the pretty fucking besotted expression on Wes' face even as she starts on the second side of bacon that she made him order.

And of course, he wasn't kidding about the timetable. Once he's finished pigging out in a really polite, English way that involves oatmeal, he's pointing out the nearest subway stations on an MTA map, showing her the various lines that will take them to Soho, Greenwich Village, Times Square. She's studied the map millions of times, alone in her room, stereo blasting – back when she was sure she'd never be sitting with him here, over the remnants of French toast, planning their day, and the next, and the one after that, just for good measure. The lines were so clear then, but now she's sure she'll never remember them all, especially when he's telling her about closed stops and re-routed lines and express trains.

He carefully folds the map back in to crisp sixteenths about the same time she realizes that her forehead is scrunched up into a confused frown. “It will be fine, Faith, I assure you. My navigation of the New York subway system is second to none," he says breezily as he helps her into her coat. "Though I insist that you hold my hand at all time."

"I'm not gonna get lost, Wes and I'm not five either!" she pouts and he presses a soft kiss to her lips.

"Of course you're not," he agrees gravely. "But I do like holding your hand so maybe you'd be kind enough to allow me that indulgence."

And when he puts it like that, then it's not like she's going to put up a fight, especially when their hands are tightly clasped and his fingers bypass her mittens so he can stroke her wrists all the way to Prince Street, even when they have to change trains.

He tells her that they're in Soho but that doesn't really mean anything to her. It all looks like every shot of New York she's ever seen from the movies or TV and she knows she's wide-eyed and open-mouthed because every step turns up something new. Like the Apple store where Wes tells her he bought her iPod and the shop that sells only paper and Dean & Deluca where they stop for coffee that even meets Wes' exacting standards and she can't help but squeal at how they sell slabs of chocolate by weight and almost slides to the floor in ecstasy when the assistant lets her try before she buys.

After that, the morning is a blur of shops –though she always asks very sweetly before crossing each threshold if each shop meets his approval, which they always do. Even the bizarre Japanese toy store Kid Robot, which makes her feel a strange pang of Xander sickness because he'd totally want to buy everything in it.

More than that, she's bewildered by the sheer amount of people jostling past her so she's clinging onto Wes because he's the only familiar thing in this strange, mega-speed world. Finally, she gives a start of recognition when she sees her coat in the window of Miu Miu and she doesn't even have to give Wes a plaintive look because he's already opening the door so she can step inside.

"Maybe we'll find a suitable dress for the ballet in here," he says and lets go of her hand so she can practically run over to the display of six inch high wedge sandals. Everything is so lovely apart from the shop assistant who's dogging her heels like she knows she's got a rap sheet for shoplifting and she's about to put the adorable ruffly, red dress she's sighing over back onto the rail and tell Wes to get her the fuck out of here, when she's being told that she looks like she's a size 4 and she's being hustled into a changing room while Wes nods away like he's down with it all.

"It's not really fancy enough for the ballet," she tells him wistfully, when him and the shop assistant have coaxed her out of the changing room so she can give them a twirl.

"But you do look so enchanting in it," he says firmly, already reaching for his wallet and when her mouth opens to voice a protests, he gives her a pleading look. "Faith, please, I'd very much like to buy it for you."

"But, Wes, it costs…"

"You can buy me lunch," he points out hastily. "And it won't be cheap either, I'm still disgustingly hungry after you forced me to forgo dinner last night."

And telling him exactly how he's got that wrong takes quite a while and before she knows it, she's tripping down the street with her first stiff cardboard bag looped over her wrist.

She decides then and there that she's going to make good on what she really wanted to get him for Christmas. That even if she has to drug his oatmeal, she's heading out on her own one day so she can spend her bonus from Monty on stinky cheese and cacophonous classical music CDs and a gazillion other little trinkets designed to righteously spoil his birthday boy ass.

She's just about to ask him where he wants to go for lunch when he's practically dragging her across the street. "Oh, we have to go in here," he insists forcefully as another black-clad assistant with impossibly shiny hair and sharp cheekbones opens the door for them.

Wes is like a five year old kid doing a trolley dash in Toys 'R US. She's never heard of Celine before but they do a nice line in severe black dresses and skirts that Wes is all but drooling over as his gaze flicks over her and then drapes another beautifully cut, black something or other over his arm.

During those months apart when all she had of him were the things he'd bought her that she couldn't bear to wear, she'd wondered whether they were payment for services rendered. Whether they were guilt gifts and that every shoe, every scrap of silk had been an apology for every time he'd hit her, every time he'd fucked her ass or her mouth or tied her up. But now watching the delight in his eyes as she parades in front of him wearing the clothes he's picked out and he keeps telling her that she's gorgeous and coming closer to begging her than he ever has when she blanches every time she sees a price tag, she realizes that it was nothing more sinister than dressing her up so she looks beautiful and taking pleasure in that simple fact.

Still feels weird to have him spend enough money to pay her rent for, like, five years on two dresses. A black, scooped neck slither of satin which clings to her breasts and waist and then falls to her knees in an elegant swoosh, which he wants her to wear when they go out for dinner with Rupert fucking Giles. And her ballet dress, which is so swoon-making, that she has to keep peeking in the bag and carefully unwrapping the tissue paper to make sure she hasn't dreamt it. It's a strapless, oyster silk covered in a thin layer of black lace that pushes her breasts up to the heavens and rustles when she walks. She looks like a girl from a 1950's film and Wes can't take his eyes off her tits the whole time she has it on, which is her new criteria for choosing clothes.

They have lunch at Tea And Sympathy - this tiny, hokey little restaurant in the West Village which is so damn English that there's tea pots everywhere and she has to stop everything to witness the sight of Wes eating more food than she's ever seen him take down in one sitting. He starts with Welsh rarebit which is weird British talk for cheese on toast, makes her burst out laughing when he orders bangers and mash and then totally goes back on everything he ever said about not having a sweet tooth by ordering treacle pudding for dessert and asking them to put more of this hot yellow gunk all over it which he calls custard and she calls gross. He washes the lot down with a pot of tea and then puts his hand delicately over his mouth so he can, like, belch.

She pushes away her bowl of chocolate pudding, which even she can't manage and shoots him an accusing look.

"Manners, Wesley," she hisses primly and he gives her a carefree grin which makes her heart flutter and she thinks that she just fell a bit deeper in love with him, despite the whole burping thing.

"They have a shop next door," he says with just the barest trace of a smug smile. "I need to stock up on a few things. They might even have some Orange Kit Kats in."

They don't but he's way too busy buying disgusting things like Marmite and getting over-excited about pyramid-shaped teabags to notice when she buys a tin of Ambrosia creamed rice, which he'd told her his nanny used to make for him and can be the first item in his secret birthday box, though she's not eating any even if he spanks her so hard that she can never sit down again.

"You're starting to freak me out, Wes," she tells him as they start walking through the West Village while he munches on salt and vinegar flavour potato chips though he calls them crisps, like that makes the mindfuck easier to process. "You have pudding and you eat between meals and you bogart the chips. Guess I'm not the only one who's learnt some bad habits."

"I'm sorry, Faith, would you like one?" he asks her sweetly and then holds the bag out of her reach by the time she's tugged off her mittens. "Sorry, darling, I'm afraid you just weren't quick enough and I appear to have eaten them all."

"You are so getting a birthday spanking," she snarls at him and then ruins her whole bitch goddess vibe by clapping her hands together in joy and squeaking. "Marc Jacobs! Wes! There's three Marc Jacobs shops… and one's just for accessories…"

She gets a contact high from the smell of all that expensive Italian leather as she elbows her way through the designer-clad throng so she can sigh longingly at the bags and the shoes and, oh, the boots… There's this little voice telling her to put up a fight, even if it's just so token that it doesn't even register, but the salesgirl who recognizes Wes immediately is already hurrying off to get her the pink strappy sandals and the polka dot pumps with the bow in her size. She's sitting there dumbstruck with her head on Wes' shoulder as he points at bags and shakes her head, mute with want, until she can't help the tiny groan of greed at a multi-pocket bag with the heavy silver fastenings that the girl calls "washed rose" as she wraps it in tissue paper and beams the beam of a girl who's just racked up a fortune in sales commission.

He's already trying to push her in the direction of the next part of the Marc Jacobs empire but she curls her fingers round his arm and tugs him to a halt.

"Wes, no," she says in a choked voice and right there on the middle of Bleecker Street, she bursts into tears. "It's… you've already… so much money," she splutters and he's pulling her down a deserted side street so he can pull off his gloves and stroke the tears away.

"But I love to spend it on you," he says simply. "I love you. And I want to make up for every birthday and Christmas present that you never had."

And that just makes her cry harder, and fling her arms around him. "You're it," she mumbles against his neck, before peppering his lovely, Wes-scented skin with frantic kisses. "You're every birthday and Christmas present I never got. And I don't need any more clothes – already got enough and I just want to go home now, Wes so I can not wear anything…"

"I don't expect payment, Faith," he says, face tightening and darkening and her kisses get faster until she smoothes away his frown.

"Didn't mean it like that, Wes," she assures him desperately. "I just want to show you how much I love you and that's the best way I know how."

"You just have to say thank you, as charmingly as you already have the last fifty times, and let me have one last kiss."

The one thing she's learnt about New York is that people don't give a rat's ass what you do so she has no hesitation is giving him a long, slow smooch, her tongue dipping into his mouth in a preview of exactly what he's going to get when they're home and he can just damn well like it.

"Thank you Wes, for all my lovely presents," she says demurely. "Can we go home now?"

"No," he says imperturbably, taking her hand again and smiling at the furious expression on her face. "I do owe you six pairs of knickers, and there's no need to smirk, Faith, it's a perfectly acceptable word."

And just like that he chases away all the weird feelings of guilt and debt and unworthiness that have been clamoring around her head. "Six pairs of knickers and that's it!"

"We'll see," he drawls. "If it makes you feel any better though, you can pay me back by modeling anything else I want to buy you the second we get home. Or we can see what their changing room policy is. I rather like the idea of watching the bruises on your arse disappear and come back into view as I make you try on all manner of fripperies."

She rather likes the idea too. Can see it already. Her standing in front of a mirror and sliding into something that suddenly covers her up and the Wes in the reflection will lick his lips and she'll know he's getting hard. Know that he wants to fuck her and, for once, he'll have to wait because he can't. Or maybe he will. Maybe he'll turn her around and push her up against the mirror and tug off the panties that he hasn't even paid for and fuck her right there.

"I guess that might be negotiable, Wes," it's her turn to drawl as they step into a rose-scented salon that's done up in pink and black and she has to re-assess every thing she's ever thought about underwear.

She never thought that bras and panties were anything more than things you wore to get someone hot so you could take them off again but the delicate wisps of lace and silk that she fingers are more than that. They're like an exercise in seduction. Each one starts off a fevered fantasy in her head. Sprawled out in stockings and suspenders on the bonnet of Wes' car. Bent over his desk in nothing but that pink corset. On her knees with his cock in her mouth as she pinches her nipples spilling over the cups of that barely-there bra.

And when she lifts her head from her quiet contemplation and catches Wes' eye and his predatory smile is a perfect match for her own, she feels this calm sense of purpose fill her.

"Did you have a spending limit in mind, Wes?" she asks him and he can't know what she's thinking but he just shakes his head and arches an eyebrow enquiringly. "Good."

"Whatever are you planning in your pretty little head, Faith?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out," she coos and holds up six pairs of panties with ribbon ties and a sheer back panel for his inspection. "I want these to replace all my thongs. And, look, Wes, won't even have to take them off for you to be able to see all those bruises on my ass."

He doesn't even care that they've both just got a totally speculative look from this blonde girl who has to be a model, he just stares at them with a really unsettling gleam in his eyes. "Perfect," he breathes, holding out his hands like he has to touch them now or he's going to throw a tantrum.

She points to an over-stuffed gilt chair. "Go and sit there and I'm going to try some stuff on that I'm not going to let you choose. And then we're going home and I'm going to show you every last thing, Wes, gonna put them on and take them off and you're not allowed to do anything but watch."

"Faith, no thongs, I really must insist…" he starts so she has to wag her finger at him and shake her head sorrowfully

"Do you need something clarified, Wes?" she purrs, hands on her hips and a smirk on her face.

"Will I be allowed to fuck you once this charming-sounding fashion show is over?" he bites out with a lemon-sucking smile.

She doesn't answer at first, just pats his cheek with a condescending hand. "Wes, you're really getting the hang of the small print. I'm so proud of you. Now go, sit!"

And the malevolent glare he gives her as he obediently trots over to the chair promises fun times. She tries on five sets of underwear with names like Fifi and Stella and stares in amazement at the Faith in the mirror; all legs and curves, so much skin waiting to be kissed, fondled. She's never looked this beautiful, never felt this beautiful, despite his constant assurances. And she wants to share this with him, wants him to open the door and fall to his knees in front of her. But instead she just tells the assistant that she'll take everything and the pissed-looking guy sitting on the chair outside will pay for it.

Wes is looking about as long suffering as it's possible to look when she finally sidles up to him and taps him on the ass with the last little treat she's picked out so he whirls round in a flurry of black wool and glares at her.

"Stop pouting, Wes," she tells him pleasantly. "I'm done."

"Faith," he snaps, eyes flashing oh so fucking furiously. "You really have reached new levels of …"

He stops from embarking on a litany of her worst character traits when he sees the thin black leather whip she's holding by its crystal encrusted handle.

"Do you like it? She flexes its length between her hands so he can admire how flexible it is before she offers it to him. "Thought you might like to buy yourself an early birthday present."

His bad mood melts away in an instant. Or, like, in the time it takes for him to lick his lips and send the whip arcing through the air so it makes a swishing sound which makes her break out in goose bumps. The good kind of goose bumps.

"Oh, this really is an excellent choice, Faith." His eyes are hooded as his fingers run over the leather. "I think we should get a cab, don't you? I'm really most anxious to get home and break in my new present."

Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty Five

Even for Wesley, city cabs don't screech to a halt, but he still manages to get one in less time than she'd expected, and she's tired enough to want to lean into his waiting arm rather than rubber-necking. Besides, it's dark now, and the dazzle of the city is kind of nice when it's just a little bit blurry, as she sighs and snuggles and peeks at it through half-closed eyes.

She's clutching her purchases in a death-grip as they get into the elevator, refusing to let him carry anything, until he points out, very reasonably, that with her hands full like that she's completely helpless.

Like she's going to be fighting him off when all he's doing is kissing her, sweet, hungry kisses that seem to slow the upward rush of the elevator so that when she stumbles out of it, her lips are soft and tremulous, kiss-bitten and pouting.

He opens the door with a deliberation she doesn't mistake for indifference anymore. When it's something he wants, wants desperately, Wesley slows right down.

He holds open the door for her, and as she works her way past him, bags bumping against the wooden surround, he reaches out and threads his fingers through her hair, before curling his hand around the back of her neck. She pauses at the first touch and stands still, waiting.

"I want you naked," he says, in the conversational tone that's so at variance with his words, making them doubly arousing. "Right away. I want you to walk through the door, place the bags on the floor, take six steps forward and strip."

He lifts her hair away and kisses the back of her neck, raising every fine hair on her body, sending tingles chasing shivers over her.

"Well?"

"Yes, Wesley," she says obediently, walking in, pausing to release her hold on the heavy, promising weight of the bags and then taking the six steps needed to bring her onto the carpet. She faces the city, that watches as she undresses, with a thousand unblinking eyes, draping her clothes carefully over the back of the couch that's – of course – within reach of her outstretched hand, as it wouldn't have been at five steps.

She can hear him moving around, hanging up his coat, kicking off his shoes, and by the time she's naked he's pouring himself a drink over ice – which means it's not whiskey -and walking over to her.

His fingers, cold from the glass he's been holding, that's now in his left hand, touch her nipples, already stiff and aching, and he leans forward to kiss her again, timing the hard pinch he gives one of them so that her mouth opens on a gasp and allows his tongue to slip inside.

"I don't think I've ever waited so long to fuck you," he murmurs, releasing her lip that he's caught in his teeth, fingertips tight on her flesh. "And I'm going to have to wait a little longer, aren't I?"

And she'd love to tell him that no, he doesn't, and God, could he just bend her over the couch, but she's absolutely certain he'd rather wait just a bit longer really and she presses her lips together to hold back the words until she's sure they'll come out right.

"Yeah, you are, Wes," she says, striving for coolness, "but it'll be worth it."

"I know," he says, releasing her finally and bringing up the ice-heavy glass and pressing it against the tender, punished flesh so that she whimpers. "But even so, I suggest you hurry, Faith." He nods at the bags. "Take them into the bedroom; sort out what you need..."

"Where -?"

He smiles and his gaze drifts to a huge leather chair over by the window. Sitting there, he'll be able to watch her walk across the room to him, dressed in those sumptuous scraps of silk and satin, lace and ribbon – and she'll be able to see his face.

"I'll be really fast," she promises.

She's half way to the door when he halts her with a gentle cough. "But not when you're walking towards me," he says. "Not then."

She gets to the bedroom and sorts through the bags, fingers clumsy with tension because this is just so different. She's never, well, performed for him like this, and her head's full of panicked thoughts about looking awkward, clumsy; worse yet, boring him.

Then she remembers the Faith she saw mirrored and reflected, the beautiful Faith, and the calm she needs rushes back in.

And she stops hurrying. She's not going to make him wait for too long – that's another thing she's learned about Wes; he's not too keen on waiting for other people, not keen at all. She wants him full of anticipation, not irritation, a sharp edge of burgeoning impatience that's all, to give him all the scant justification he ever needs to make her pay for every second he's spent staring at the door she's closed so firmly behind her.

So she drifts to the bathroom and freshens up, spending long moments staring dreamy-eyed at herself as she draws her brush through the hair a day of trying on clothes has left wild, spending even longer staring back over her shoulder at her ass, where the dark shadows left by his hand are stark and unmistakable against her pale skin.

Finally, she walks with a purposeful step back into the bedroom, sorting through the bags, hiding his present in her case, and setting aside the bags from the final shop.

She empties them onto the bed, all divested of tags and ready to wear, which she knows is down to Wesley's forethought, all pretty, so very fucking pretty....

The whip tumbles out last, and that's not pretty. It's elegant, wickedly erotic, and although the crystal-encrusted handle, with the dangling leather and crystal loop are baroquely extravagant, there's very little of the toy about the whip itself. She imagines it could hurt her very well indeed and she wonders if he will, how he'll use it on her. She pushes it away. If he wants it, he'll tell her to bring it to him; otherwise she'll leave that until the end.

He's told her he wants her naked, so it's with a perverse sense of conflicted obedience that she dresses again, but really, she's close to being naked in this... The black, be-ribboned demi-bra cups her breasts, so low-cut that the edge of her nipples show clearly, an insert of pink satin in the cup exposed by teasing, tautly-stretched laced ribbons. She slips into the matching panties and then, because she can walk in them better than bare feet, her office shoes, black suede and high, so high...

And it's easier than she imagined to walk through the dark room, lit only by the city and two lamps, set far enough from his chair so that, after all, she can't really see him, but it doesn't matter, because she hears him sigh softly, an exhalation of breath that's the perfect tribute.

And it's like dancing in the clubs, like walking in a slow, arrogant strut to the bar, watching the hunger and the lust spark and flare in a dozen faces as she dares them all to be the one to risk rejection for the sake of one of her smiles, one of her cruel, careless kisses...

Silence as her background music, an audience of one, and yet she's still walking that walk, still so very fucking sure of herself.

She pauses in front of his chair and bends over, placing her hands on the chair arms and smiling into his face, so carefully controlled that it's mask-like, with only his blue eyes alive.

"Remember I said you couldn't touch me, Wes?" she asks. "Remember you had to wait?"

"I remember that's what you said," he answers with the faintest stress on 'you'. "But, as ever, you failed to clarify the fine-print."

She straightens up and gives him a tiny, pouting frown. "Hope you're not going get all impatient, Wes," she says. "Because I've got more than this to show you."

He lifts up his hands. "I won't touch you with these," he says, "but I think, yes, I rather think, I'd like you to be carrying something when you return." He smiles at her. "Tell me what I want, Faith."

"Your present," she says. She knew it...

"Oh, yes," he says with an approving nod. "And I'll leave it up to you to decide how to bring it."

She spins on her heel and marches off, ass swaying and twitching like an angry cat's tail because she's able to keep it together when she's walking over to Wes, but Wes holding a whip? Drawing it through his hands, so the diamante handle and tassel twinkle in the light, dazzling her eyes; laying it in an uncompromising line across his knees or beating it in a slow, gentle tempo against the palm of his hand? Fuck, she'll be on her knees before she gets halfway to him, begging him to use it on her, begging him to fuck her...

She changes into one of the see-through pairs of, yeah, fine, call 'em that if you like, knickers, red, with black and red bows, saucy and begging to be tugged open, matching them with sheer black pull-on stockings and something that's so over-the-top she'd rolled her eyes in bemused awe when she saw it, because, really, it's not a bra, it's the outline of one, cupless and saved from severity by the black bow in the center that, wide and lavish though it is, still does nothing to cover her bare breasts, thrust upward impudently.

And she could crawl to him, whip between her teeth, and he'd love that, but she's not in the mood for the obvious, not tonight, when the fizz from seeing herself looking fucking spectacular in a dozen fancy mirrors is still making her dizzy.

She holds the whip in front of her, gripping it firmly and then lifts her hands and rests the whip across the back of her shoulders, so it's rubbing her neck where he kissed it, so her breasts couldn't look sassier if she tried, so she's sauntering towards him, with an exaggerated, deliberate placing of her feet, so that her hips sway and she's saying, 'come fuck me', not begging for it, but she's had that, she's done that, and it wasn't enough and so she pauses and waits, standing still, letting him see her and then she turns, slow, slow, slower, until he can see her ass and she holds position for long enough to let him appreciate how the thin, translucent scarlet recalls the way it looked the night before.

Then she goes to her knees, back beautifully straight, lifts the whip over her head and sets it down on the floor beside her, keeping her hand on it.

She's kneeling as she was in the photograph and she turns to look at him over her shoulder and stares at him, finding his face in the dim light, seeing the way he's looking back at her in silent contemplation, hands curled tightly around the arms of the chair, his eyes narrowed.

He stands up in a smooth, unhurried movement and walks over to her, extending his hand. She glances up at him and, still kneeling, places the whip in his grasp.

"Thank you," he says.

The tip of the whip strokes the upper curve of her breasts and then he rests the whip across them, for a long moment so that she can feel its weight.

"Are you still going to make me wait, Faith?"

And she doesn't even have to think about it.

"Always, Wes. You going to make it worth my while?"

The whip lifts up just high enough to make the downward stroke sting and she sees a single red line rise up, thin and straight.

By the time she'd shown him everything, her skin's crossed with half a dozen faint lines and each time she starts to walk towards him she thinks this will be the last time, that she'll beg, that she'll kneel, because she's barely able to walk now, with the heavy fullness between her legs making each step a torture that never ends because each flick of the whip deepens her arousal without satisfying it.

But she makes it back to their bedroom and there's nothing more to wear, so she strips off the thong she bought to make quite sure they ended where she wanted them to, and, naked, with the collar in her hand, goes out to where he's waiting for her.

Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty-Six

The whip's been set aside on a table and as she walks towards him, she feels the tingle of each mark it's left on her and grips her collar a little tighter just thinking of how it sounded as it cut the air. He'd applied it to her skin with such care; one stroke to greet her as she reached his chair, one as she turned to walk away, and yeah, although he'd watched her walk towards him half a dozen times, skimming his gaze appreciatively over her, by the end his eyes were lingering not on satin and silk but those red lines left by his hand wielding the whip.

And she'd stared in the mirror as she changed from one outfit to another and she'd been looking at them too, tracing them with her fingers, her breath coming faster with every brush of her hands against skin he'd woken to life with a stinging kiss of leather.

"Thank you, Faith," he says, sounding polite and formal, as she kneels down by his chair. "That was – yes, worth waiting for. You looked beautiful. Breathtaking, in fact." His hand smoothes her hair back off her flushed face. "Though never more so than the way you do now."

"Glad you liked the show," she says, rubbing her cheek against his knee. She's still holding the collar but his hand reaches down, palm up and she sighs and relinquishes it.

"There's no need to be so reluctant to return my property," he chides her softly. "I fully intend to fasten it around your neck, you know."

"Now?" she asks, looking up at him eagerly because she wants to see his face when she's wearing his collar as well a dozen whip marks. He might even just fuck her, right here, right now, because he's got to be as aroused as she is and she's not sure how much longer she can wait to come. "Please, Wes?"

"After you made me wait like this, do you really think I'll be that ready to indulge your whims?" he asks, looking pretty fucking tempted all the same.

She grins. "Yes," she says simply.

"Come up here," he says, crooking his finger at her, which, if it were anyone else doing it would leave her growling, but when it's Wes it triggers this quiver of lust instead. She settles herself in his lap, giving him a knowing little smile as she feels how hard he is, and winds her arms around his neck, sighing as he kisses her, his hand coming up to cup her breast and tease at her tight, aching nipple.

"I'll allow you to wear it now," he says slowly, thinking it through with the concentration and focus he always brings to the games they play, the bargains they strike, "but there's still the matter of the unconscionable time I had to wait outside that changing room for you." He forestalls her indignant reminder that he liked the results well enough with a stern tap of his finger against her lips, and carries on. "I waited twenty-six minutes, Faith. Do you think you can wait that long to come?" His hand goes between her legs, which nearly makes her answer 'no' right there, and he tests how wet she is with this satisfied look appearing on his face. "You do seem to be rather... excited."

She arches up, trying to keep his finger inside her, gasping as it's withdrawn mercilessly slowly. "So do you," she points out, with a squirm that has him breathing a whole lot faster. "Can you wait that long?"

He tips her off his knee, setting her on her feet and says, "Yes, I most certainly could, but I don't have to, do I?" He leans back, fingers tapping against the arms of the chair and stares up at the ceiling, lips curved in a dreamy smile. "I could tell you to get back on your knees and use your mouth to bring me off, or just your hands. I could even do it myself while you stood there, my collar snug around your throat, watching me and forbidden to move, or touch yourself..."

She blinks and swallows. No way she can do that – any of that – and not come whether she's touched or not. She's so close she's having trouble standing still, feeling warning quivers running through her cunt as her body tries to go ahead with or without permission from Wesley. "Well, yeah, you could," she says cautiously, "but doesn't it seem like a waste? When I'm here, and you could just fuck me instead, and, if I'm gonna be honest, Wes, I'm really not sure I can wait that long."

He shakes his head. "No. Not a waste at all." He gives her a fondly exasperated look. "And of course you can wait a mere half an hour –"

"Twenty-six minutes! And we already started right? So it's like, twenty-three, maybe?"

"It won't start until you're wearing this," he says, holding up her collar so it dangles from his hand like the pretty black and silver bait it is. "But I'm gratified by your new-found appreciation of the importance of exact time-keeping –"

"Wes!"

"Yes, Faith?" and he's arching his eyebrow in pretended surprise and she has to bite back an anguished moan because he's such a fucking bastard, he really is.

"Let me come. Please? I'm so fucking close, I really am."

He draws the collar between his hands and snaps it, making her jump. "Shouldn't the first step towards that goal be begging me to put this on you? As I thought I made it quite clear where your – eventual – climax comes in tonight's events, and it's most certainly not while your neck is bare."

And she's never sure when he's teasing her because he can do it with a totally straight face...

"But I think, to be fair, I should wait too," he says generously. "And I haven't really explored the possibilities of my present, now have I?" He stands up and begins to fasten the collar around her neck, smiling slightly as she gives a convulsive shudder at the touch of the leather, her nipples hardening with a sharp throb echoes in her clit. "How does it feel? The whip, I mean? It's very decorative, but not exactly a toy."

"I don't know yet," she says, glancing down. The first mark, across her breasts, has already faded to pink. "You didn't really hurt me, if that's what you mean."

"Would you like me to?" he asks. "Hurt you?" And there's a trace of doubt there, where she wants to hear nothing but certainty, which has her squeezing her eyes shut in momentary panic. She needs him unswerving, unwavering, utterly determined, giving her nothing to do but what he says.

"Yes! No... I just..." She shakes her head, irritated by her inability to express her thoughts with anything like coherence. "Wes, I don't want you to leave more marks than the four already on my ass. Marks that stay, I mean. That's like, a limit, OK?"

"God, Faith," he says, sounding shaken, "you can't possibly think I'd ever inflict that much damage on you again."

"No," she says. "I don't." She takes one of those deep breaths that are supposed to help and says, "But you want to go right up to that limit, don't you, Wes? Not always, but sometimes? I <i>know</i> you do. I can tell because –"

"Because what?" he asks, and his eyes are intent, almost anxious and God, way to totally fuck-up an hour of foreplay in sixty seconds or less, Faith...

"You spanked me last night and it was... different." She's groping for the words and for his hand, linking their fingers and bringing them up to the collar she's wearing, rubbing his knuckles against it for a moment. "You weren't holding back; you were doing it as hard as you could, as hard as you wanted to..." She bites her lip. "Fuck, you've no idea how that made me feel!"

"I know how I felt," he says slowly. "So very aroused by it. By you, by what you were letting me do - wanting me to do. And it's why, when I'd finished, I came close to fucking you while you still had tears in your eyes."

"Wish you had," she whispered.

He shakes his head. "No. I needed to – regain some small amount of control at least." His mouth twists in a half-smile when he sees how unconvinced she looks. "Really. Allow me to know best when it comes to that."


"But you'll do it again?" she asks. "Because, and I may be way out of line here, but you flinched when I mentioned those marks –"

"Scars," he says bluntly. "They won't fade like these will." His fingertip follows one of the deep-red lines crossing her stomach and she sucks in a sharp breath, grabbing onto his arm.

"Did that hurt?" he asks, sounding detached, although there's a pulse jumping in his neck. "Or do you wish I'd struck you harder?"

"Harder," she says. "Way harder. You can, can't you? Without worrying that you're going to really mark me up?"

He nods slowly. "Yes. But I'm not sure I will."

"Because of the scars?" she demands. "Is that still bothering you? Wes, I've told you my limits, some, anyway and I fucking trust you not to go beyond them so don't even say a word! And I'll stop you if you don't get it right, so there's nothing to make you hold back any more."

"It's not a matter of holding back –" he begins.

"Then pick up the whip and hurt me with it," she says. "Don't think about that night in your study, don't feel guilty that you hurt me, or guilty that a part of you got off on it – or both." She gets a look at the conflict in his eyes. Oh, yeah. Both. "That's not what this is about now."

"You make it sound so simple," he murmurs.

"Because it is." She digs her teeth into her lip and shoves two fingers into her cunt, bringing them up wet, showing them to him. "I've been like this since I saw the look on your face when I gave you that whip. I've been waiting for you, Wes and I've been doing it for hours now. Waiting for you to show me –"

"What?" he whispers, moving closer, reaching out to capture her hand and stroke her damp fingers with his. "What do you want to see, Faith?"

She's shaking her head. "Want to feel, Wes –"

"Feel? Like this?"

His teeth close around her nipple and she cries out because it's almost enough, almost –

"You're not to come," he says harshly, lifting his head and hooking a finger under her collar. "I'll take this off you if you do."

"How much time do I have?" she asks, forcing out the words.

He tilts his wrist and studies his watch. "Seventeen minutes."

She laughs because it's impossibly far away. "Oh God. Can't make it, Wes. Can't..."

"Allow me to distract you," he says smoothly and nods towards the bedroom. "Hands and knees, Faith, until you reach the bed." And he's right, it does. Dropping down and feeling the carpet rub against the palms of her hands, the curve of her knees, her feet, she regains enough control now that she can't see his face, his eyes so full of love and lust and longing, that she thinks she might just make it to the end of the minute. The whip cracks down across her ass, making her yelp and for some reason that distances her from the arousal too, rather than deepening it. "Off you go."

He sounds so fucking chirpy all of a sudden, she thinks as she crawls, head up, cunt slicked, ass and thighs getting flicked by the whip every few seconds because she's going too fast, too slow, not keeping her back straight... but it beats uncertain.

She reaches the bed and stops.

"Up on it, lying on your back," he says.

She turns her head and he's leaning against the door jamb, one hand unfastening the top buttons on his shirt, the whip grasped loosely in the other, tapping against his thigh in a restless, eager rhythm. He gives her a smile that's equal parts cruel and tender.

"And spread your legs wide for me, Faith. I want to see how wet you are."

She's taking in tiny little gasps of air, heart hammering, by the time she's in position, and he comes over and crouches by the bed, making a soothing sound as his fingers go back to the nipple he's been tormenting all night, twisting it slowly.

"Do you think I'm terribly cruel, Faith? Not letting you come when we both know you're capable of climaxing again, so very quickly, after all?"

She manages to give him a smile. "Yeah... but you never do, Wes, so I'm not –oh God –" She shudders as his mouth replaces his fingers, no teeth this time, just a hard suck on the swollen flesh, with his tongue lapping at it slowly. "I don't ever really think you will."

He straightens up. "I don't, because it makes it easier for you," he says in a matter-of-fact voice. "You can bear so much more when you're aroused." He gets that thoughtful look and purses his lips. "Although we haven't tested that, have we? Perhaps I should make you come one day and then spank you..."

And he might be right but she's hot and trembling and she's willing to take the chance. "Do it now, Wes," she begs him. "Make me come and I don't care what you do after that."

"But I want you to care," he tells her, "and no." He stands up, the whip in his hand. "Can you hold position?" he asks. "Or should I restrain you?"

It's a serious question but one she can't answer, moving her head on the pillow in a negation, not of anything he plans, but the impossibility of deciding.

He frowns. "Really, Faith! I think I'd like you to be a little more responsive when I ask you a question."

And as he's only got to touch her to have her body jerking helplessly, every muscle locking, and her cunt's a sticky, glistening mess, she thinks that's enough response for anyone.

He ties her in the end, wrists and ankles. "I must get something a little sturdier than these scarves very soon," he says as he tweaks at the final knot. "Would you like that, Faith? Cuffed and collared, you'd look quite stunning I think."

"How much longer?" she says, ignoring him because she so doesn't need any more pictures like that racing through her head. "Wes –"

"I think if you ask me that again, I'll do away with it all together, and make you wait as long as I see fit," he says, sounding annoyed. "And trust me; it'll be longer than the original time limit."

"You wouldn't!" she spits out, furiously. "Wes, that's just so –"

"Then I suggest you pay attention to what I'm doing and stop anticipating," he says sharply. "In fact –" He stands up and gives her a look that's pretty anticipatory itself. "I'm going to use the whip on you now, Faith. Not very hard, not yet, but with rather more force than before."

And maybe she'll come from that, she thinks hazily, and he couldn't blame her because she really doesn't think she'll be able to stop herself. "Yeah, Wes," she says thickly. "I'd like that."

He bends over and undoes the scarf that's holding her right wrist pinned and she blinks at him, puzzled.

"What are you doing?"

"You'll need one hand free after all," he tells her. "I think a good way to focus your wandering attention on the here and now is to make you a more active participant, don't you?" And as her forehead squinches up in a frown he smiles. "Touch yourself, Faith. Show me exactly where you want to be whipped." He's looking so fucking pleased with himself... "We'll take it in turns," he adds. "Six strokes each, I think. Off you go."

He's done this before; given her the illusion of control, but it's never been more of a mockery than this. And she'd argue, she'd beg for him to take all twelve strokes, make them as hard as he likes, anything to spare her having to choose where they land, but she knows he won't relent.

Knows she really doesn't want him to.

And the pride in her that flashes across his face as she strokes her finger across the top of her breasts, carefully avoiding her nipples for now, makes her glad she didn't even try to change his mind.

"My brave Faith," he murmurs.

And she guesses she is, because as she lies there, watching the whip come down – and she tries to look at his face, because he's so fucking beautiful right now, lips tight, eyes dark with arousal, cheeks flushed, but she can't, she can't – she tries not to move so each slash lands precisely where it's supposed to.

And she manages it, mostly, but the scarves aren't enough to keep her in place as the final stroke - chosen by her, not him, because she'd forced open her eyes after the penultimate one and said, "Again," - lands on her clit, and she comes, free hand flying down to cup the punished, bruised flesh protectively as her body's wracked with a release that's too intense to be pure pleasure.

She's too exhausted to open her eyes for a while, not making the effort even when Wesley unties her, kissing the palm of her hand gently.

Then he says, "Turn over," and they fly open.

"Kinda not able to move here, Wes," she murmurs.

"But able to come," he says.

And he's looking – not entirely pleased, which brings her back to life really fast.

"I couldn't help it!" she protests. "And it was way past when you said I could!"

He starts to undress. "Are you sure?"

And of course she isn't. He's the one with the fucking watch after all. And it's all he's wearing now, which means she's humming with appreciation, as she stares at him, her eyes going to his cock, which is nearly flat against his stomach, darkly flushed and wet-tipped.

Remembering that he wanted her to turn over and yeah, the thought of being fucked is enough to make her all kinds of motivated because she's riding a high from the whipping that's going to take more than one solitary climax to ground her, she rolls to her stomach, letting out a whimper as her skin touches the sheets.

"Do you want me to fuck you now, Faith?" he asks.

"You know I do," she says throatily. "I always do, Wesley."

His hand comes down and takes hold of her wrist, pulling it up to the headboard. "Hold it," he instructs her. "Tightly. And with your other hand too, please."

"Wes?" she says uncertainly, obeying him, but turning her head to look at him. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to give you four strokes on your arse, Faith." And she's not sure she wants any more, not really, just his cock, and she's all set to tell him, maybe even use her safe word, because he likes it when she does that, when he continues, "And I know exactly where they're going to land."

And so does she, and she knows why he wants to do this, and she curls her fingers around the frame and waits in silence, remembering the order, there, oh yes, and the next one lower – third one so close to the second, so the marks almost touch, and the fourth –

It's hard enough to tear a scream from her throat and she hears the clatter as the whip lands on the carpet, the jeweled handle knocking against the night table.

"Faith," he says urgently, his hands warm on her back, "I'm sorry, I just –"

"Fuck me," she says, not turning to look at him, her voice tight and strained. "Wesley, fuck me now."

And she thinks if he hesitates, if he says a word, she'll scream again, but his hands lift her hips and his cock slides into her in a slow, smooth push, into the heat and the slicked softness that her own fingers never fill the way this does, and he's muttering her name over and over as he speeds up, fucking her harder now as her hands release the frame and she braces herself so she can feel every lovely, perfect slam of his body against hers.


Part Fifteen

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