Secretary: Part Four

Chapter One Hundred and Six

Wes notices she’s not wearing her watch, but she’s way ahead of him with a story about how it’s hurting her because of the marks on her wrist, chafing them just a bit, no, it’ll be fine in a day, Wes, and he drops the subject with a distant look in his eyes that makes her start to cry inside.

But she can’t let him see that, or he’d take it wrong, and fuck knows it’s complicated enough already. So she takes her mind off her guilt and his mind off his and blows him right where he’s sitting in the library, going to her knees as he reads his book, his fingers slowly tightening around it as her tongue licks and swirls at his cock.

And when she’s done, and he’s put the book down because it was that or crumple the pages, when he’s come in her mouth with a anguished soft sound that she’s pulled out of him with a slow scrape of teeth and a fierce, passionate intensity, she feels, for the first time, like a whore.

If he notices that even when her wrists are healed she doesn’t wear the watch again, he doesn’t say anything.

She calls Xander to tell him about it in the end. Has to. Has to get it out, has to rant and curse and sob, and when she’s done, there’s this silence and she knows there’s nothing he can do. He can’t help her...  and she feels a helpless panic settle around her.

“Xander?” she begs. “What can I do? Fuck, this is killing me.”

“Darla?” he says finally, doubtfully. “Maybe she could say something-?”

She laughs, sharp and sour. “God, Xander, like he’d listen to her! Besides... “ She thinks back to that phone call from her mom...  Darla was more likely to encourage him and if he ever told her, showed her those photographs... fuck. It occurs to her that she’d almost rather Wes saw them than Darla. There’s something so deeply sick about her parents seeing her have sex, something that twists at her so all she wants to do is throw up, but she’s not really eating these days, so that’s getting to be painful.

No matter what happens, it’s all been spoiled now. Every memory tainted by being fumbled over by the thick, yellow-stained fingers of a man she doesn’t want to claim as kin.

She starts to dream about killing him, waking with a snarl, fists curled, from blood-stained dreams so real she’s not sure she hasn’t, not sure she hasn’t met him and shoved a gun deep into his beer gut and pulled the trigger, watched him collapse, strings cut, and bleed out the last seconds of a worthless life at her feet.

Then he calls again and asks for money and she empties out her savings account, the one her grandmother started with a dollar when she was six, the one she’s kept secret from her parents all her life, the one she’s always known she’d need one day to escape. It’s not much, not really, but when it’s gone and he’s tucked the bills into his back pocket with a smirk that tells her he doesn’t believe her when she says that’s it, that’s all, she’s not giving him any more, there’s this constricted feeling, walls closing in, tethered and tied to this place, these people, when all she wants is to grab Wes and run.

But she’s starting to see that there’s nowhere to run and she remembers seeing a cat, plastic bag looped around a hind leg by a malicious hand or blind chance, running, running, and taking his problem with him, until he collapsed, exhausted, beaten and terrified – and scratched her to the bone when she tried to free him.

And she meets Wesley’s eyes, which are starting to look remote, and tells him she’s fine, fuck, yes, leave her alone. Just – don’t leave her alone.

Chapter One Hundred and Seven

After that, things are quiet for a couple of days, and she starts to tell herself that everything is going to be okay. Maybe Liam’s found a new mark, some new get-rich-quick scheme —like, he and Hank have come up with some great new scam when they were shit-faced one night— and he’s forgotten all about her. ‘Cause when it comes right down to it, she only exists for her father when she’s useful.

She wants to believe that. So why are her hands shaking as she tries to light her cigarette? Because it’s not so simple to just rationalize it away. God, how much does she fucking want to fly under her father’s radar again, because the kind of attention he pays to her always was and always will be toxic and wrong?

She’s outside, standing under the great canopy of stars and even though it’s spring the air is still refreshingly crisp and cool. She wants everything to be perfect again, wants it more than anything she’s ever wanted before. And dammit, it’s a beautiful clear evening and there’s this full new moon and it should be perfect.

She hates being so fucking powerless over her own life.

She hears the telltale creak of the French doors and she takes a deep breath and stubs the half-finished cigarette out on the slate.

“Faith? Are you all right? You disappeared so quickly after dinner.” He walks up behind her and touches her shoulder tentatively.

She turns slowly toward him, and when she speaks she tries to sound light-hearted. “Oh. Yeah. I’m fine. Just …tired is all.” He looks back at her with concern. That almost makes it worse. She shivers a little and he wraps his arms around her.

“You’re chilled. We should go inside.” She doesn’t answer, just nods and lets him lead her back to the warmth of the house.

Before she knows it she’s being tucked in on the couch with a stack of Austens she hasn’t yet read and a cashmere throw and Wes is building a fire in the long-neglected fireplace. He sets himself to that mundane task in the same way he does everything else: with care and precision and an endearing if slightly maddening attention to detail. Nearly twenty minutes go by before he finally lights the damn thing.

But oh, that look of intense concentration on his face—she’s seen it before, when he’s poring over a particularly thorny legal brief or thinking of new and ingenious ways to torment her — is rather amusing. And Christ, she needs something to feel good about. By the end of the whole arduous fire-building process she’s nearly laughing at him from behind this worn, well-thumbed-through paperback of Mansfield Park, which came from the depths of the library complete with little scribbles in the margins (from Wes’ student days? She can’t imagine him doing any such thing now).

He looks a bit puzzled. “What is it?”

“Wes, for Christ’s sake, I think you’re a lost cause.”

He stands up slowly, comes over to the couch and sits down. He leans over her and gives her one arched eyebrow. “A lost cause? In what way?” She rests the book on her chest and just looks at him for a moment. “You’re so serious about everything, Wes. It’s kind of…” She pauses, searching for the right word, “Charming.”

“Well, I’m glad you find it so.” He’s smiling almost indulgently at her. But right at that moment it’s all she needs and she lifts her head so she can kiss him. It’s sweet and slow and almost enough to make her forget—

When he pulls her down on top of the cashmere blanket so they can, like, make out in front of the fire, all she can think about is what a fucking bad romance-novel cliché this scene is but then he’s peeling off her clothing and she doesn’t care if it’s a fucking cliché or not.

He pulls her down onto his lap and she gets to revel in the twin sensations of his denim-clad hard-on between her thighs and the delicious warmth from the fire. It’s not usually like this with them —just a straightforward fuck— but that’s unexpected and lovely too. She’s grinding against him and he grips her ass so she can get more leverage. She’s making a mess of his perfectly laundered jeans, but he doesn’t seem to care.

Chapter One Hundred and Eight

Everything feels so good, so very good. And there's no pretense here, no games -- this time she's grateful for that. Just his lips, his tongue working on her nipples, drawing wordless moans from her. Just his warm hands caressing her ass, not slapping it 'till she sees stars. Just her hands, fumbling with his belt buckle, the button fly of his jeans. Just his hard cock, bucking out of the constricting fabric, nudging her clit. Just her, gently pushing him to the floor, yanking the jeans down past his knees, and slowly lowering herself onto his cock, inch by inch, deliberate and languid. Just watching his face, eyes locked on hers -- unblinking, his hands stroking her belly as she lolls her hips from side to side, a slow burn of a fuck.

This is how it is when you're in love with someone. When they're in love with you. But when you're in love you shouldn't be hearing voices in your head that are whispering: you're a fraud, this is a lie, you are a lie. No. No. She pushes them back, but they just double in volume.

She can't look at Wes now, afraid he'll be able to see what's hiding in the furthest corners of her brain when the flickering light from the fire hits the sharp edges of her secrets.

So all she can do is just squeeze her eyes shut tight and will the voices to shut the fuck up.

Disoriented for a moment, she falters a bit, losing her balance and slamming down on the heels of her palms. He doesn't miss a beat, curls an arm around her back and pulls her down into a kiss. In half a second he's rolled her on her back and he's fucking her as slowly and methodically as he'd built and stoked the fire blazing next to them. She locks her legs around his waist, pulling him in deeper with every stroke.

It doesn't take long for the pleasure to wash over the doubt and the fear. The feral noises that tumble out of her throat come from a deeper place than the nagging hollow voices in her head and drowns them out, finally shuts them up.

And then they're both coming, thrusting as one, murmuring each other's names on lips that hover centimeters apart.

It's not until after their breathing evens out and he doesn't pull out, just stays inside her, with his fingers worrying over her damp cheeks, that she realizes that she's been crying the entire time.

Chapter One Hundred and Nine

After the whole crying thing, when he won't fucking stop asking her what the matter is, it hits Faith that maybe she should be more worried about Wes, than her father.

'Cause he's not stupid and he knows that things with her are not frosty. Jesus, how many times has he woken up and realized that she's not in bed, because she's snuck into the guest room to smoke cigarette after cigarette, wide-eyed and worried about what fresh hell the next day is going to bring? But when she creeps back into bed after brushing her teeth, he just makes this contented noise like everything's right in his world and wraps her in his arms and goes back to sleep, while she stays awake and wonders how hard it would be to steal something really expensive, like jewelry or, even better, a sports car, so she can take Wes out for a spin and keep driving and driving so the horizon gets nearer and nearer and they never have to come back to this miserable town.

But he doesn't say anything when she pushes the dinner he spent two hours making around her plate. Doesn't even feed her any more. Or wash her, or brush her hair, or dress her, because he's locked away with his law books all day. And as soon as they get home, he gives her an absent-minded kiss on the forehead, mutters something about ordering pizza if she's hungry and then disappears into the study.

She knows that she should be relieved that all his focus, all that intensity of his is on other things, rather than her. Like, he's weaning himself off her and maybe she should do the same.

But then another day goes by with no phone call from her father. And another. And another and she's starting to remember to breathe out again.

When they get home from work that night, he pats her on the ass as she's taking off her jacket and she turns hopefully. He's been too busy for anything other than some very nice, but very vanilla, sex the last week or so.

He's already stepping towards the study but she grabs his hand and tugs him back so she wind her arms round his waist.

"Wes," she whines, arching up for a kiss, which he willingly gives, backing her up against the wall and dipping his tongue into her mouth.

His hand cups her breast and she leans forward into his touch.

"You know, I think you've lost weight," he remarks, his eyebrow quirking upwards. "Hmmm, let me see." And both his hands are shaping her breasts, thumbs rubbing over her nipples, which are hard and aching within seconds.

"I don't get to eat junk food any more," she points out, with a mock-pout. "It's all your fault if I'm not packing the pounds on."

"Well, that and the fact that you barely seem to manage three square meals a day."

And that's a conversation she really doesn't want to have and it's easy to distract him when she's stroking his erection with the back of her hand. "Maybe you could help me work up an appetite," she suggest with the little half smile that always makes his eyes get heavy lidded. "Or, you could, like, spank me for every pea I leave on my plate."

"Faith," he says reproachfully, backing away from her exploring hand. "I have work to do, otherwise I'd be more than amenable to ravishing you within an inch of your life."

She notes that all he wants to do is ravish her now. Not spank her or fuck her up the ass or spend time away from his books, thinking up new games to play in the dim light of the bedroom. And it's not anything to do with the freakin' merger which is all that he can usually talk about. It's not that at all. In fact, he's been Mr. Restraint ever since the whole belt incident. And that's another conversation that they're fated not to have.

"Well fine," she says dully. "You go and read another twenty fucking depositions and I'll go and twiddle my thumbs and eat all my vegetables." She folds her arms and gets ready to stare him down or even follow him into the study and assume the position, but he's just sighing and running a hand through his hair.

"I really don't have time for this, Faith. I'll see you later, when I hope to find you in a more agreeable mood."


It takes her a good two hours to find her more agreeable mood. Then she's knocking on the door and waiting, like a good little secretary, for his terse, "Come in."

He doesn't look up from the sheaf of papers until she puts the tray down on the one bare patch of desk she can find.

He looks at the cheese sandwich and the cup of tea with astonishment. "What on earth is this?"

"Well, it's, like, dinner and a peace offering," she says cautiously. "Look, I even remembered to put pepper on it."

The smile he gives her is worth all the resentment she's had to work through in the last two hours. "That's very thoughtful of you. I hadn't realized it was so late," he purrs. "Did you…"

And he's leaning back in the chair and patting his thighs so she can clamber on to his knee and press her fingers over his lips before he can get the rest of the sentence out. "Yeah, yeah. I ate. Had a sandwich too, even though I don't like that stinky cheese."

It's the sweetest time they've had in a long while. She curls his fingers into his hair and rests her head against his chest, as he eats the sandwich and sips at the tea, touching his bobbing adam's apple with her finger until he slaps her hand away.

"Please, Faith. I've asked you more times than I care to remember not to do that," he says sternly.

"It's just weird that you have one and I don't," she explains, peering at it intently.

He finishes the sandwich with an annoyed gulp, which makes her giggle because if he was wanting to take her attention away from his throat, he just failed miserably, and picks up his tea cup.

"So how are you getting on with Mansfield Park?" he asks her, stroking a hand through her hair.

She wriggles on his lap, leaning back against his raised thigh to get comfortable. "Man, Wes, why are you making me read that book?"

"I suppose it's not quite so immediate as Pride And Prejudice."

"It's not that," she protests, eyes flashing with annoyance. "I just hate Fanny Price. She's such an uptight little bitch."

He buries his head in her neck and shakes with laughter, his arms wrapping tight around her as she wiggles in indignation. "Hey! Hey!" She thumps him on the shoulder. "What the fuck's so funny?"

"You are," he murmurs, raising his head and wiping his eyes. "Really, Faith, I don't think you have any idea quite how much I love you."

Her mouth hangs open so wide, it's a wonder that her jaw hasn't hit the floor. Wasn't expecting that, not with things so scratchy between them. And wasn't ever expecting him to say that when he wasn't buried balls deep in her cunt.

He's staring at her intently and she has to drop her eyes, can't look at him. "I love you, too," she mutters eventually and she does. With everything she is, which is why it hurts to spit out the words after all the shit she's had to pull.

"Good," he says decisively and then gently tips her off his lap, holding his hands in front of him when her face drops. "I know this is all positively boring for you but I do have rather a lot of work to get through."

"I know," she says softly. "I'm just being a brat, it's what I do."

"And will you pout and give me the silent treatment if I tell you that I have to go to New York next week?"

"Wes!" She's not going to cry. Not if she can help it.

"I like it as little as you," he says placatingly. "But after this is over, how would you like to come with me?"

She leans against the desk and studies her fingernails. "Like, for a vacation?" she says, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice.

"Maybe. For you it would be. An extended, indefinite vacation."

"Huh?"

But he's already switching on the desk lamp, as dusk is scurrying in and chasing shadows across the room. "We'll talk about this later," he promises and his head is bent and he seems so remote again.

She picks up the tray and edges towards the door but then she turns round. "Why have you stopped?"

He's thumbing through a folder, not really looking at her or paying her any attention. "Hmm? Why have I stopped what?"

Stopped taking the pain away by giving it back to her in controlled doses so she can get past it. Stopped making her wait. Stopped breaking her down with his tongue and his fingers and his voice and his cock so he can put her together again, piece by piece, into a new Faith, who's infinitely better than this current version. Stopped because she won't say the word and he doesn't trust himself without it. Stopped. Stopped. Stopped.

"Nothing," she mutters, toeing open the door with her foot. "It's not important."



He's still working when she heads up to bed. She has a shower and then, towel wrapped around her, she goes into the guest room, tugs up the window and blows smoke rings out into the cool, dark night.

She's sneaked a sleeping pill from the tiny stash he has hidden behind the box of sticking plasters in his bathroom cabinet and she'll just add it to the running tally of all the wrongs she's done him. It's getting cold now and the sleeping pill is kicking in. She doesn't even finish the fourth cigarette, just stubs it out on the window sill and decides to rest on the unmade bed for just a second. She's so fucking tired of everything…

At first she thinks she's dreaming and she climbs out of sleep in a panic. She can't move and for one second she imagines that her father has her buried in a box and won't let her out until she's promised him a whole bunch of stuff that she has no right to promise him.

But as she slowly comes back to consciousness, she realizes she can't move because her hands and ankles are bound to the bedposts of Wes' bed. And he's standing over her; arms folded, lips in this thin, tight line, eyes blazing with righteous fury.

"How did I get in here?" she mumbles, her tongue thick and heavy.

"After smoking in the house, despite the fact I'd expressly forbidden it, and then becoming incapacitated after taking a sleeping pill that was not prescribed for you, you passed out on the spare bed," he tells her, like he's reciting a murder charge to packed jury. "I really think we need to have a talk, Faith."

She blinks her eyes slowly and she can feel this tense anticipation unfurling in the pit of her stomach, that for once isn't about waiting for the phone to ring. Because it's mixed with excitement and arousal, so she's wet in an instant, not having to be coaxed towards it like she's had to for the last two weeks.

"Um, sorry?" she offers hesitantly, trying to hide the tiny smile of triumph.

He moves away from the side of the bed and begins to unbutton his shirt. "Well, I suppose that's a start," he says dryly. "But it's really not going to be enough. Not nearly enough."

Chapter One Hundred and Ten

He strips off his shirt and then sits down beside her. “Before we begin,” he says, “I think I should tell you that, being neither blind nor stupid, I’ve noticed something’s troubling you. I’d like to know what it is.” He smiles slightly, but it just makes the butterflies in her stomach flap faster. “Please note the phrasing. I’m sure I could hiss several melodramatic threats, but I’d rather not. I’ve this foolish hope that when you have a problem, I’ll be the first to know, you see.”

It’s so unexpected and sweet that the tears which sting her eyes are happy ones, and then she remembers and blinks them back, concentrating fiercely through the haze of the sleeping pill, knowing she’s a slip of the tongue away from confessing.

He doesn’t wait for an answer, just strokes a finger down her leg and says softly, “What’s wrong, Faith?” And as she opens her mouth to lie, his hand clamps around her leg and he says, without looking at her. “And, Faith? If the next words out of your mouth are ‘I’m fine, Wes’, or a variant of that, I won’t be happy.”

Said in that voice; light, pleasant, gentle, it is a threat, and she swallows and says nothing. The pressure of his grip eases off and he sighs. “I see. Well, perhaps we need to make this a little easier for you, Faith.”

He reaches out and picks up a scarf like the ones that he’s used to bind her and pulls it gently through his fingers as he speaks. “I’ve never gagged you, Faith. You make such delightful little noises; you’re very... talented with your mouth, and there’s that little word you need to be able to say, isn’t there? So I’m not going to gag you. Not quite.” He drapes the scarf over her face so that it rests, gossamer-light against her lips. “While that’s in position, Faith, there’s only one word you’re permitted to say, and that’s your safe word. Do you understand?”

She nods carefully, feeling the fine silk dampen and cling to her lips as she breathes on it, through it.

“Excellent.” He smiles. “We progress. Now I’m going to ask you some questions, Faith and, because I’d hate for there to be any misunderstandings between us, you have only two options when it comes to answering me. You can tell me the truth, or you can remain silent. Lying is not permitted.”

Too easy. Too fucking easy. Her face must have given her away because his lips twitch and if he doesn’t stop with the fucking smiles, she’s going to scream, because his eyes are hard and angry and hurt and he shouldn’t be quiet and smiling; he should be yelling, hitting her, getting drunk.

“But silence won’t give me what I want,” he continues, “so, naturally, it comes with a penalty.” He bends down and then places something across her thighs and she tilts her head just enough to see what it is.

It’s a wicked-looking, slender switch in some dark wood.

“Wes...”

It comes out as a strangled, choking gasp and his lips thin down. “I believe I told you not to speak? Thank you.” He ignores her frantic shake of the head and says, running his fingertips along the wood, “This will hurt you. I know it will. I know how it will sound as it cuts through air and skin, I know how long it’ll take before the pain takes over from the shock and you truly start to feel it. I know what your arse will look like a minute, an hour, a day, a week later.

“I know because it’s the cane my father used on me. It’s the only one of his possessions, apart from his books, that I kept.

“If you think answering me with silence is worth a stroke from this, then do so, Faith.” He picks up the cane and stares at it, before placing it across his knees. “I’m not sure I would have, but I don’t recall ever being given a choice by him.”

She’s caught between a fading arousal and a gathering rush of fear. A whimper forces its way through her lips and he shakes his head. “You’ve already earned one stroke through speaking, Faith,” he whispers. “I’d be careful, were I you.”

Before she can do more than widen her eyes in an appeal that’s lost on him because he’s not looking at her, he says abruptly, “Do you wish to leave this house, my employ?”

She waits for his hand to drag the scarf away, but the words burst out of her as soon as it’s in his hand. “No! No, Wes...”

There’s a slight relaxation of his shoulders and she can’t believe he could even have thought that she wanted to leave. She smiles at him anxiously but he’s already moving on.

“Something is troubling you. That’s not a question. Is it to do with what I did to you? When I hurt you?”

And she hesitates, because yeah, she might have stopped him if she hadn’t been guilty... towards the end, she might have... and before she can frame a careful answer, assuring him that most of the time it’s fine, but, you know, sometimes, - he’s taken hesitation for silence and whispered, ‘One’ almost regretfully, and when she starts to stammer out something, anything, her mouth’s kissed with silk again and he doesn’t remove it until he’s finished asking her the third question, which, like the five that follow it, are pretty much all Wes trying to find out what the fuck’s bugging her, but in a way that never lets her answer without skirting the truth.

She’s sobbing with frustration by the time he gets to the tenth question, confused and stammering, and she lies just to say something; not to save her ass, but to take away that dreadful, closed-up look of disappointment he’s getting with every answer she doesn’t give, but shit, that doesn’t go down well.

“And that’s earned you two strokes,” he hisses. “Try again, Faith; has Lilah been in contact with you, or distressed you in any way?”

And if he’d just left off the last bit, she could’ve nailed it with a ‘no’ but she can’t. And if she says ‘yes’, she’s fucked, so she’s silent and he rolls his eyes and stands up.

“Are you refusing to tell me what I need to know for a reason, Faith?” It’s his gentle voice again and it’s the hardest choice she’s had to make but she stares up at the ceiling, with the hot, salt tears leaking out of her eyes and doesn’t move.

He doesn’t ask her again. Her wrists are untied, her ankles freed, and he points silently to a chair he’s placed in the center of the room. She walks to it, avoiding his eyes, taking stiff, small steps because she’s close to collapsing, and grips the back of it, bending over and spreading her legs a little.

Then she sees that he’s placed it in front of a mirror and she twists around to look at him, horrified. “Wes... please.”

“You can earn a blindfold, or permission to look away, by telling me what it is that I stopped,” he says.

“What?”

It’s a moment before she remembers what she’d said to him earlier and she thinks, yeah, she can answer this, so she does. “You stopped doing stuff to me. Stopped ...” and fuck, she’s blushing. “Stopped spanking me. Stopped teasing me. Stopped...”

“Hurting you,” he murmurs. “Did you not want me to stop, Faith?”

“No. Fuck, Wes, you know I didn’t. I liked it.”

She’s almost indignant that he’s being so fucking stupid. What, the way she used to come, screaming his name, wasn’t enough of a clue? And he hadn’t been hurting her the way he meant.

“Did you?” He sounds almost interested in a detached, chilly way. “I don’t think you’ll like this so much.”

The cane slashes against her skin and she screams, watching her pale reflection scream back at her. Wes is right. She doesn’t like this at all. It hurts so much that she can’t breathe and she’s got, what a dozen more?

She thinks she can bear it though, because the next stroke’s lighter, but then her eyes move away from the peeled-back lips and wide, anguished eyes of mirror-Faith and see Wesley.

And he’s crying. Set face, tight lips, wet eyes, and she’s screaming out a word she never thought she’d say and turning to him in an agony of self-loathing that doesn’t leave her, even when he’s rocking her in his arms and smoothing her hair back from her face over and over again.

“It’s nothing, Wes, nothing. No, shh...” She’s pounding at his chest, his arm, fists clenched, not trying to hurt him, just trying to reach him. “Let me tell you, let me just say it my way. Please? Please, Wes? It’s killing me the way you’ve pulled back, pulled away, that’s all. I want it to be like it was. I’ll say it, I’ll say that fucking word, I promise I will, just stop treating me like you’re scared you’re gonna break me. I need it, Wes. Fuck, you know that. You made me need it, no, no, not like that... you showed me I needed it and you can’t stop, you just fucking can’t.”

“You deserve better,” he says and it’s like he’s talking to himself, not her. “Deserve something different.”

“I don’t fucking want anyone but you,” she howls. “Why can’t you see that?”

She squirms off his knee and starts to unzip him.

“Faith, no,” he says, pushing her hands away. “That’s not –”

“Fine,” she says petulantly, standing up and walking over to the bed, throwing in a wiggle of her ass and knowing she’s got his attention. “You know what, Wes, when you’re done being an asshole, you can get over here and fuck mine.”

“Faith!”

He’s managing to sound outraged and turned-on at the same time, but he’s standing up now and taking a step towards her.

“Thought you liked the truth, Wes,” she says. “Thought you wanted to know how I felt.” She feels like a momma bird luring a hunter away from her nest, but there’s more to this than distracting Wes. Her ass is burning from the two strokes he gave her and it’s starting to feel good now. If he doesn’t fuck her, she’ll explode into a million pieces – and if he does, she probably will too.

“And how do you feel, Faith?”

He’s drawling it out slowly, circling her and she smiles. “Touch me and find out.”

That gets her a real smile and a finger dragged across a tight, hard nipple. “Aroused?” he says, with a lift of his eyebrow. The finger darts between her legs and dips into wetness. “Ready?” He rubs against her clit and she moans, hands clutching at his shoulders.

“Fuck, yes, Wes.”

He studies her thoughtfully. “You won’t get to come for an hour at least,” he tells her. “And I’m still very annoyed with you.”

She nods. “I know. But you’re still going to fuck me, right?”

“Impossibly demanding,” he whispers against her mouth as he kisses her, but he doesn’t sound all that annoyed to her, and she doesn’t fool herself she’s won, but she’s bought herself some time and she’s got Wes back, for a night at least.

It’s almost enough to let her sleep without nightmares.

Chapter One Hundred and Eleven

There's an ache in her lower back when the sunlight streaming through the windows pries her eyes open, not to mention the individual dull throbs of the weals on her ass. She's just fucking grateful that it's Saturday and she won't need to sit up straight all day at the reception desk, typing endless memos and requests for documents.

A few moments have passed before she realizes that Wes is sitting at her feet, watching her sleep. Or, well, more accurately, he's now watching her rub the sleep out of the corners of her eyes and stretch, testing her still-taut muscles carefully.

“How long have you been sitting there?” she asks groggily, squinting in the too-bright light. He looks like he hasn't slept at all -- though he had been lightly snoring by the time she'd drifted off -- still tingling and wound tight from their frantic fucking, even after he'd bathed her, applied the arnica cream to her tenderized ass.

“Not too long.” He snakes his hand under the blanket, strokes the inside of her thigh absentmindedly. “How...” He pauses, deciding against whatever he was planning to say, clearing his throat. “Did you sleep well?”

She realizes she doesn't have to lie to answer this one. She smiles blearily. “I did actually, thanks. Guess you kind of wore me out...”

Shit. That wasn't the right thing to say at all. His face clouds over and she's stumbling over an apology. “That's not what I meant... Oh. Fuck. I'm sorry. That isn't...”

He waves his hand dismissively, and she can see him trying, trying to smile again. “I've made you breakfast. I decided you might like to have it in bed this morning. As you said last night -- a peace offering?” And it is like a replay of the night before, 'cept it's his turn to play this hand and he's got the advantage because the sun's out and she's starving. Plus, she can't remember how long it's been since she's had breakfast in bed; maybe when she had the chicken pox, aged six. That sounded about right, and Darla had begrudged her every bowl of Marshmallow Mateys, every glass of watery Tang.

And there's something so achingly bittersweet when he tries to make things up to her with his cooking, as if making sure she's got enough physical nourishment will fix her tattered psyche as well. If only his prowess in the kitchen could pack that much mojo for the both of them, her problems would be solved.

“That would be great, Wes. Thanks,” she says without a trace of guile. She knows she doesn't deserve it, but maybe that's the distraction she needs to keep her mind from replaying the endless loop of sense memories her brain: the switch flicking through the air, his cock in her ass and her knuckles white as she clung to the bed sheets, his husky whisper ordering her to come again and again after more than an hour of waiting, until she was delirious and screaming and pushing him away, overwhelmed.

He slips away without a word, and returns in five minutes bearing a large tray full of fruit and a prosciutto and gruyere omelet and perfectly brown buttered triangles of toast in a little rack. Not to mention the coffee and the freshly-squeezed OJ.

Sliding up into a sitting position carefully, she winces a little at the friction, but finds it's not as bad as she'd expected.

“I've also brought the crossword,” he says, settling the tray over her outstretched legs, draping a crisp white napkin over her hastily-donned tank top. “There's a few thorny clues that seem to be heavily imbued with recent pop culture references.” She can't help but snicker at that; he really was hopelessly stumped by clues she could guess without a second thought. “And this...” He brandishes Mansfield Park with a little grin. “I'll read some to you, in case the crossword is an utter failure -- because it appears to be heading that way.”

She finds that there's a pleased grin plastered on her face, and it's not until after the first sip of coffee that she stops to take stock of the depth of their masquerade, especially the new veneer of his denial. She chews thoughtfully on the eggs, wondering if this is what they're supposed to do the morning after a night like that, instead of sinking into bottles of cheap booze and plate-throwing and name-calling? Laughing over stupid crossword puzzle clues and making plans to visit the farmer's market?

“This really is hopeless,” he says, finally tossing the puzzle aside, two clues remaining stubbornly unsolvable despite her best suggestions. “Shall I read to you instead?”

“Yes, please. Chapter thirty two's where I stopped last...”

“I can see that.” His fingers slide over the tipped edge of the page she's folded over to mark her place. “Faith, am I remiss in recalling that I asked you to use a bookmark, and not turn down the pages when you read my books?” His forehead's creased in mock consternation and she has to laugh because his snotty notes in the margins are a little more destructive than her folded pages.

His voice caresses Jane Austen's words and he's doing all the voices, his Fanny particularly peevish and flustered. For a precious thirty minutes, she can almost pretend that they're a normal couple, that there's nothing more pressing on her mind than reminding him again how much she really doesn't like that stinky old cheese, even in his omelets.

Chapter One Hundred and Twelve

It's a perfect weekend. The kind of weekend they show in montage in the movies when the sun makes everything look dappled and you know the hero and heroine are crazy in love with each other.

It's the first really hot day of the year and she dresses accordingly even though Wes is more than forthcoming with his view that $400 Marc Jacobs tops shouldn't be accessorized with battered jeans and flip-flops but she just pokes her tongue out at him.

"I'm kicking it freestyle, Wes," she smirks and he scoops up his car keys from the kitchen table and stares at her in bemusement.

"Well, in that case, I stand corrected," he says finally, shaking his head like he just can't understand the vagaries of fashion.

They drive to the nearby farmer's market and wander from stall to stall, holding hands and discussing each pound of cherries or peaches like the fate of the world depends on their decision.

He buys stinky cheese and ignores her face-pulling. She buys home-made fudge and ignores his dire warnings about ruining her appetite as she eats it straight out of the bag and licks her sticky fingers.

Then they take their spoils to the lake, two towns across, and eat bread so hot it burns their fingers, fresh, sun-ripened fruit and wine from a bottle that Wes put in the water to cool.

Afterwards they lay in the long grass, his head resting on her belly, her fingers winding through his hair and talk about nothing.

"Your hair's really soft, Wes," she sighs dreamily.

"And so's your tummy," he murmurs, turning his head so he can blow a raspberry against the chiffon which makes her giggle.

It's so secluded up there that she can pretend that they're the only two people left in existence, no one lurking with a telephoto lens because they don't let rat bastard low lives into Paradise, and when he tells her to take her clothes off, she carefully slips the top off and wriggles out of her jeans and lays back down, her legs spread so he can see her all naked and glistening in the glorious sunshine.

"You look enchanting," he breathes, plucking daisies from the ground and stroking them over her breasts, down the almost concave slope of her stomach and across the slick groove of her pussy. "Like a goddess. I'd very much like to see you come."

And her hand is already there, stroking languorously across her clit and when he tells her to, she pushes two fingers into her cunt, her hips rising lazily in this slow rhythm 'cause it feels, for once, like they have all the time in the world.

Afterwards, he licks the juices that are clinging to her fingers and laughs softly when she pushes him back down in the grass and takes his cock in her mouth. Licking around the weeping head softly so she can taste the salt tang of him, then sucking him down, caressing his balls and then taking him as deep as she can, until he comes in her mouth with a startled cry that chases the birds away.

When they get home, he has work to do but she sits on the floor, at his feet, back resting against the desk and reads Mansfield Park, all quiet as a mouse until she feels his hand stroking her hair.

She looks up and he's smiling down at her like he'd forgotten she was there and her presence is a lovely surprise.

"I have this dreadful urge," he says, like he's about to make some terrible confession, which is going to lead to restraints and his hand on her ass and her coming so hard that she passes out.

She arches an eyebrow, which she's gotten really good at in the last couple of months. Go figure. "Oh, yeah?" she drawls.

"Yes," he nods. "I have this sudden need for a Douglas Sirk double feature and then lots of cheap Chinese food positively laden with monosodium glutamate."

That's Saturday night taken care of. And she's doing such a good job of making do with what she's got, while she still has it, and anyway her cell phone is switched off, that she falls asleep in the car on the way home, lulled by the quiet purr of the engine and his hand resting heavy on her knee, and barely even stirs when he carries her inside.

On Sunday he lets her lie in, then spanks her 55 times for every minute that he had to wait for her to wake up. Leaves her gasping and desperate to come, while he finishes reading through his depositions and then fucks her up against the refrigerator, the steel door cold against her back while his cock spurts hotly inside her.

All of it is just perfect. And she's learning to live in the moment, in the second, because that's the only way to keep sane. Especially when his suitcase is open on the bed and he's packing to go to New York in the morning.

He's in the bathroom, getting his stuff and she's staring at the neatly folded shirts and rolled up pairs of socks and trying really hard to resist the urge to take them out and hide them so he can't leave her.

"Faith, you look like a little girl who's just been told that Father Christmas doesn't exist," he says teasingly from the door and she scoots around on the bed so she can glare at him.

"I'm fine," she says automatically and his face tightens. "Well, I'm pissed that you have to go away, but it's only for two days this time, and I'm not going to freak out about house stuff."

Because she has a nasty feeling that the minute she turns her cell back on, there's going to be a whole heap of much uglier stuff to freak out about.

"I don't enjoy having to leave you, but all of this is necessary," he tells her gently, walking back into the room and placing his wash bag in the case. Then taking it out and making a little pile out of his socks so it can rest on that.

"Yeah, yeah," she sing songs. "I know. Gotta play the hotshot lawyer and you know, you're not even to think about buying me any more presents."

"Oh, not even a little one?"

She scoops up a pair of socks and throws them at him, which makes him tut and go back to rearranging the little sock mountain.

"I mean it, Wes," she repeats, a little bit more forcefully than she intended so he's looking at her warily. "If you want to get me a present, then you have to promise that you won't spend more than ten dollars."

"Faith!" He's getting this really pissy look now, like she's force fed him vinegar but she can't handle any more expensive bags with ribbon handles. Not after seeing them spread out on the chairs in the back of those photographs.

"Promise!"

He stuffs the wash bag into the suitcase with great force and then nods sharply. "Very well. But you're being utterly ridiculous about this."

She leans over so she can still the jerky motion of his hands. "Look, Wes, you don't have to keep buying me stuff. When you get home, I'll be so psyched to see you, that I don't need any presents."

And just like that, she's somehow managed to find the magic combination that chases his bad mood and frown away. "I can’t wait to show you New York," he says and he sounds slightly cautious. "I rather think you'll fall in love with it."

"I always wanted to go," she says, piling up pillows behind her so she can sink down on them and watch him get completely anal about putting his suits into this weird bag thing. "When I was little, I always wondered why they called it the Big Apple, like maybe there was one in the middle of it or something."

He smirks, like he can't help himself. "Well, when I take you we can go on a quest to see if we can find it."

"So you're serious about this vacation thing?" He's fussing over his suit like it's a sickly child and for a moment she thinks he hasn't heard her.

Then he looks up and she's pinned to the bed by the intensity of his stare. "It wouldn't really be a vacation," he says quietly and her heart sinks 'cause she thought she could trust him not to make promises that he can't keep. "It would be more of a relocation."

And just like that, it’s going to be over. And if she can hold off her father for a few more weeks, Wes'll be out of her life for ever, maybe she'll get to visit him a couple of times before he finds his feet, and she'll just be another girl bruised by all those things that weren't meant to be.

"Oh," she says in this tiny voice, so small because there's this big lump in her throat that she's having to maneuver around to get sound out. "Oh."

"Of course if I take the job, then really they'd expect me to have an assistant with some legal training…"

He won't look at her, just keeps folding ties and handkerchiefs like they're going out of fucking fashion and anyway her eyes are too blurred with tears to really worry that he doesn't need to take like a gazillion handkerchiefs for two days.

"…that you could go to college… there are some wonderful courses…"

"College," she repeats dully. Like, he's talking about education and she's sure that her heart's just broken. Couldn't even have wined and dined and fucked her before telling her.

"Parsons has some rather wonderful fashion courses that I thought might suit you, though I would  like to keep you in a style to which you've become accustomed. I have this rather wonderful vision of you, staying in bed all day in a satin negligee, eating cherries dipped in chocolate…"

It is a rather wonderful vision but her brain just can't process it. "Wes, are you saying what I think you're saying?"

He smiles wolfishly and has the nerve to actually fucking wink at her! "Maybe my mistress fantasy is something we can expand on when I come home."

She scoops up a discarded single sock and throws at him, with a howl of frustration, which makes him straighten up and stare at her like she's just spewed ectoplasm out of her belly button. "Do you fucking want me to live with you, like in fucking New York?"

If Wes could ever bring himself to say, "Well, duh!", he'd be doing it right about now. But he never would, so he's just rolling his eyes and pursing his lips about all the swearing. "Well, I did, until I remembered just how uncouth you can be."

She lets that one go. Way too busy, scrambling to her feet and jumping up and down on the bed. "You mean it?" she shouts over his moan of protest as her bouncing feet get perilously close to his neatly packed case.

"You know I do have rather a packed schedule but I'm sure I can pencil in a little light punishment if you don't stop that," he hisses, like a cat whose fur's been rubbed up the wrong way, and she stops it by the simple process of jumping right into his arms.

"You mean it? I can come with you?"

He staggers backwards, almost thrown off his feet by the sudden weight of her. "Well, yes, Faith, I do mean it. I realize that you have ties here, your mother, even though you're currently estranged…"

"When can we leave?" she begs, pausing from pressing feverish kisses to his every inch of his face that he hasn't managed to squirm away from the path of her greedy lips.

"Not for a month or so. I need to get the house listed and the auditors…"

"So a month? Like, four weeks?"

"Won't you miss anything?" he asks curiously, sitting down on the edge of the bed, so they don't both topple over from the wriggling weight of her.

She wraps her arms and legs tight round him because soon she won't ever have to let him go and she wants to get used to how it feels. How he feels. "Not a fucking thing," she says fiercely. "Only you and you'll be with me, won't you?"

He's got that fucking beautiful smile on his face, which lights him up like Hollywood's greatest cinematographer is following him around. "Not even Xander?"

"Fuck Xander!" she snarls, trying to get to the prize of his pretty mouth, which he's twisting away from her. "He can come visit us."

"I haven't even found us somewhere to live," he protests but then pow! She's got him and she's mashing her mouth against his, coiling around him sinuously and one second later she knows he's not thinking about house guests or much of anything but tightening his grip on her hips so he can shift her against his hardening cock.

Chapter One Hundred and Thirteen

He drops her off at the office and drives away, after a kiss that leaves her clinging to him and he’s not struggling to peel her off, but he’s got a plane to catch and for Wes that’s like a holy fucking quest or something. She bets he’s first in line to check in, first on the plane...

When he’s gone, driving way too fast as if he’s making up for that thirty seconds he spent making sure she’d spend the next hour aching for a touch she’s not going to get for days, she turns and shuffles sadly to her desk. It’s not until lunchtime that she remembers she can’t stand to spend the night alone and she really needs to hook up with Xander.

She flips on the phone and, as if someone was waiting just for that, it starts to ring. Might be Xander, might be Wes, even...

“Hi.”

“Where’ve you been, you little bitch?”

Might be a drunken, angry bastard of a father.

“Look, you shouldn’t call me here,” she hisses. “I’m at work for fuck’s sake.”

“Whoring isn’t work,” he says, sounding smug and self-righteous.

“I’m not a whore,” she says, stabbing a pencil against the pristine whiteness of a writing pad and watching the lead bend and the pencil begin to splinter, watching the paper tear and wishing it was his skin she was piercing.

“Giving it away for free? Just makes you a stupid whore, Faith, that’s all.” He laughs at his joke, a beery, endless chuckle that’s as friendly as a kick in the ribs. “But no daughter of mine’s that dumb. Bet you’re dipping your hands into his pockets as well as his pants. Shame not to share with your old da, now isn’t it?”

“You got it all,” she says dully, knowing he won’t listen.

“I got nothing,” he says. “Just some scraps while you’re living high. Fed you, clothed you all these years, Faith...”

She doesn’t even bother answering that piece of delusional crap. One month. She keeps him quiet for one month and then she’s gone with Wes and he won’t follow them. He’s so small-town it isn’t funny. He’s got his favorite bars, all in a ten mile radius, and beyond that he’d be lost.

“He’s gone, hasn’t he?”

She’s picked up another pencil now and she’s drawing on the paper, blackening it with a dense, dirty scribble, an endless looping scrawl. He knows Wes has gone. He knows she’s alone. Fuck. Fuck. She’s not gonna be able to sleep, she’s not going to be able to fucking breathe in that house alone, knowing her dad’s prowling around out there.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks. “Why are you trying to spoil this for me? Why are you such an evil, fucking bastard?”

Her voice is rising now and she hurls the pencil away, getting up and pacing around the office, jamming the heel of her hand against her eyes to force back the tears.

“That’s gonna cost you, Faith.” His voice has that edge to it she remembers. The one it had the Christmas Eve Darla spent in emergency getting stitches because he’d split open her skull for telling him he couldn’t go to Midnight Mass because he was so drunk he’d pissed down his pants, and he couldn’t stand up. She half wished Darla had let him go, let him throw up down Father Gilroy’s front. Maybe God would’ve struck him down right then the way she used to pray he would before she found out whichever side God was on it sure as fuck wasn’t hers.

“I told you; I got nothing.”

“Don’t want it from you, Faith.” His voice is sly, full of his own cleverness. “Want it from him. He’s gonna pay for what he’s done to my baby.” She wants to spit out the bitterness that floods her at that but he’s not done. “Been talking. Been taking... advice.” Lilah. Fucking bitch. “Damages. I’m owed it, Faith, you know I am. You saw what he did to me.”

You were hurting me, she wants to scream. You knocked me down, you hit me...

“My friend,” he pauses to appreciate his own discretion, “she says –” Lilah. Oh, torture’s too kind for that one, “you can make the payments for him.”

“What? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Do you kiss his cock with that mouth?” he sneers and she shudders with repulsion, knowing she’ll hear that in her head the next time she does. “Get me some blank checks, Faith. And something with his signature on. Got a friend who can do the rest and I swear it’s the last time I’ll be bothering you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Now, the way I see it, Faith my darlin’ you’ve got no fucking choice, have you now?” The fake cheer vanishes. “Bring them to Paddy’s bar tonight. Eight sharp. And don’t be coming on to my friends; don’t want the world knowing I raised a slut, do I now?”

The click in her ear is soft and the silence of the office wraps around her, smothering the scream she wants to make, so that all that escapes are these little piteous whimpers and she’s broken. She’s broken and she’s alone and she’s going to stay that way, because she can’t get away with this and hope to keep Wes from finding out.

But her dad’s right. She’s got no fucking choice.

One Hundred and Fourteen

Paddy's is a dank joint past the intersection of Third and Main, bordered by a pawn shop and a run down mom-and-pop convenience store; its entrance empties into a dank alley that reeks of rotting garbage and urine. A sputtering neon sign advertising Killian's Red buzzes in the lone grubby front window, and from the street you could hear the boisterous drunken laughter of large, cruel men inside. They seemed to comprise the entire clientele of the bar; no women were ever around except the hardened barmaids who were so beaten down they were just empty, silent shells that had learned not to smart-mouth the patrons or risk a drink thrown in their faces, or worse.

Faith picks her way across some questionable puddles in the rutted asphalt of the alley, her purse smashed under her arm in a way she knows makes her look even more vulnerable. Ten feet from Paddy's battered entryway, she makes one misstep and splashes muddy water up one leg of her formerly pristine jeans, shuddering at the thought of having to wash them as soon as she returned to the house; scrubbing the grime out, scrubbing away the evidence of her betrayal.

Tucked inside the aromatic leather of her large black purse was a manila envelope. Inside that, two pages of three checks each that she'd cut out from the middle of the ledger and the most benign document she could spirit out of the files, Wes' bold signature scratched across a faint line in the brown ink from his broad-nibbed fountain pen, the one he only used for committing his hand to legal documents.

She's regained her footing and is stepping out of the brackish puddle when a heavy hand claps on her shoulder, sending her crashing back into the muck. She mutters a curse under her breath, knowing it was his hand that had sent her there.

“There, now, daughter o' mine – is that any way to greet your Da?” Liam's curled around her before she can squirm from his grasp, planting a wet, whiskey-doused kiss on her cheek. He's practically jovial -- no doubt due to the dollar signs dancing in front of his eyes.

“Look, let's just get this over with, okay?” She finally wrenches away from him, hopping clear of that damned puddle, and that gives her just enough strength to stare him down. “Don't want this to take longer than necessary.”

“Oh, now, Faithy, would it kill ya to come inside, say hello to some of my friends?”

Yes, she thinks, it probably would. Still, judging by the 80 proof reek of his breath, it would be best not to argue. “Sure, Dad,” she sighs, the last of her strength slipping away into the dark alley. She'd cried all afternoon, screaming and throwing staplers, tape dispensers into the dumpster, burning every stray scrap of paper in the office, and now she was just cold and brittle and exhausted.

“That's the spirit, my girl. Maybe if you're good, I'll even spring for a beer for ya. I'm sure the girls will turn a blind eye to the fact that you ain't twenty-one yet.” He winks at her, leering, and grabs her elbow, steering her through the creaking front door and into the bar.

It's dim and smoky inside; the ancient jukebox is playing a shitty country song. Heads turn to acknowledge their entrance, and there's more than a few stunned faces at the sight of her, but they quickly turn back to their beers after seeing it's Liam that's got her by the arm.

He keeps pushing her right to the back of the bar, where a sullen young man with rumpled hair and a sketchy beard is waiting, slumped in the farthest booth.

“Look alive, there, Peter,” Liam barks at him. “This here's my daughter, Faith.” She smiles nervously at Peter. He's not much older than she is, and has that wild-eyed look to him that's even more disturbing than Liam's, if such a thing is possible. She tries to take a tentative step backward, but her father is a step ahead and hustles her into the empty half of the booth, waiving for the barmaid.

“Well, you're the one in a hurry, Faith. Show him what you've brought, girl. See if it'll serve his needs.” He holds up three fingers to the waitress. “And light a fire under that useless ass of yours, Nora. We're dying of thirst over here!”

Hands shaking, Faith pulls the manila envelope out of her handbag and slides it across the table to Peter. He methodically opens it, runs his fingers over the paper, traces over Wes' signature muttering to himself. “Yeah, yeah. Need brown ink. Probably European. Pelikan. Have a pen that will do just fine, though. Hm. Hmm. Hmm. Educated abroad, but has lived stateside. Ten years. Fifteen? No, ten.” She has to fight the urge not to rip the papers out of his hands and run – she doesn't care where, just anywhere to escape being sandwiched between a grimy wall and the puffy bulk of her father. Which is exactly where he wanted her, of course. Precisely so she wouldn't try anything like that. There's tears pricking her eyes, and she imagines taking a long hot bath as soon as she gets home, to get the smoky smell out of her already-reeking hair, to scour clean every inch of skin father's hands and lips have touched.

Liam elbows her sharply out of her reverie, mutters in her ear “The kid's a goddamn genius for this stuff, some kind of...” he pauses. “What do you call yourself, Peter?”

The boy's still muttering under his breath, examining the watermarks on the checks. “Orthography expert. Graphology. Penmanship. Palmer method. That kind of thing.”

“Yeah, whatever, you say kid. Anyway, Faith, Peter here has a right good hand for mimicking signatures, to a T. Useful skill, that.” The waitress plunks down three beers on the table, and Peter skittishly sweeps everything back into the envelope. “Hey, there, Nora, watch yourself. We've got important business going on here.”

Nora mutters something noncommittal and stalks away. “There went your tip, my dear,” Liam bellows cheerily after her.

“Okay, Dad. Are we done here? I need to go.” Her cheeks are burning and she's lightheaded, but she keeps her voice as toneless and flat as she can, swallows the quaver that's rising up in her throat.

He claps his arm around her shoulder again, pulling her close, and she weakly fights the wave of nausea that washes over her. “Now, Faithy, that we've got business out of the way, have a beer with your Da -- that's a good girl." With his free arm, he slides one of the three beers in front of her. "You got any cigarettes in that fancy purse of yours?”

Chapter One Hundred and Fifteen

“I want the photographs,” she says. “You said this was it, this was all. Give them to me.”

“Nah, nah. Not until I know this is going to do the trick.” He taps the side of his nose and looks cunning. “Don’t want you thinking you can run to him and spoil this, now do I?”

A cold hardness is creeping around her, walling her off from the panic. You hit bottom and there’s a tiny bounce back up before you settle into the filth. This was hers.

“You’ve had over a thousand dollars already,” she says, making her voice level and cool, imagining how Wes – how he would speak. “You had, what, eight of those photographs?”

“Gave you one,” he points out with a leer.

She flashes on that photograph and the way Wes was kissing her and the noise in the room swells and slaps at her for a moment as if she’s stripped of every defense.

“Yeah, you did. Only I want more than one. I want –” She thinks fast. “Another six. Leaves you one. It’s all you need. You can choose which one you keep.” She knows he won’t agree to that many, but it’s a start.

“Well, don’t you sound all business-like.”

Yeah. She does.

“Might let you have a couple,” he says, fumbling at his pocket.

Too easy. Too fucking easy. She drops her eyes so he won’t see the defeat in them but she’s realizing he’s got copies. And Lilah might have a set of her own. Fucking bitch probably has them framed.

She waits until he’s tossed over three, picking the ones where it’s not so easy to see their faces and says casually as she shoves them into her bag. “Never figured you for a fool, Dad. Letting that Morgan bitch jerk you around like this.”

“What?” There’s an ugly snarl twisting his face and she smiles.

“You do know she’s his ex, right? Yeah, course you do. But you’ve got it all wrong about why he kicked her out. She was one of those career women; you know; the ones you say ruin it for everyone. Wouldn’t give up work, kept insisting she could handle the difficult cases better than him... got mad when he tried to teach her a lesson...” She watches his eyes darken.

“You wouldn’t be trying to play your dad, now would you,” he says softly, one large fist thumping the table in a slow beat. “Because I’ve known you all your life and I can see right through your little tricks. Picked ‘em up off your mother, didn’t you?”

She shrugs. “Just thought you should know both sides of it. Won’t pretend I don’t hate the bitch, but hey, like you said; we’re family. She’s not helping you for nothing, now is she? Just surprised you’re helping her get revenge on a man who put a ring on her finger, gave her a nice house and if he expected something in return, well, a man’s entitled to his fun, isn’t he?”

Every phrase is one he’s used to justify beating Darla and by the time she gets to the end of her attempt to sow some seeds of distrust her fingers have curled around the bottle of beer he gave her and she’s clutching it hard.

“Something in that,” he nods, “but the man laid his hands on me, Faith. Got my pride, you know.”

No, you fucking don’t, she thinks, suffocating in the reek of his breath as he leans in close. You’ve got a beer gut, dead dreams, a family who hates you and a life expectancy of zero if I owned a gun and thought I could get away with it.

“I have to go,” she says, staring him down, letting the rage she gets from him leak out a little. He clenches his fist and she slants her eyes over to Peter, lost in contemplation of Wes’ signature again and tilts the bottle so that a few drops of beer spill out and run over to the envelope with the blank checks. It’s a stand off and she wins it, keeping the triumph off her face as her dad backs out to let her pass. She sets the bottle down and walks past him.

“Dad? You better be careful how much you take,” she warns. This is total bullshit, but she makes it sound convincing. “That account’s set up with a limit of a thousand dollars a check. Strictly petty cash. He’s got the other checkbooks locked up; that was all I could get.”

He does the math. “Six thousand? Not enough.”

Greedy fucking – “It’s going to be enough,” she hisses, stabbing a finger into his chest. “Do you fucking hear me? Because you’ve fucking shot the goose with this clever idea. Wes is going find out, kick me out and then what? Think you’ll have any leverage then?”

“Kick out my little Faith?” He looks almost outraged at the idea. “He’ll not do that. You’ll twist him around your little finger. That woman says he’s mad for you.”

“She’s lying,” she says tiredly. “Fuck, she’s only doing this to hurt him and she knows what he’ll do to me. Knows it’ll end it... ”The tears start to spill out and she’s losing it. “She wants to fucking spoil it for him,” she grits out. “And she’s using you to do it because she wants to get at me too.”

She reaches out blindly and grabs her father’s bottle of beer – empty of course – and smashes it against the side of the table, bringing up the jagged remnants and thrusting it at Liam until he backs away. “And you’re helping her fuck up the one good thing I’ve ever had. I could kill you for this.”

She could too. She really could and he sees it and backs off, first time ever. One step but it’s enough to cool her anger.

“I’m going. I stay near you a minute longer and I’ll throw up.”

He lets her leave and there’s a puzzled look in his face, as if he really doesn’t fucking get why she’s so mad at him.

Chapter One Hundred and Sixteen

Somehow —she doesn’t even quite know how— she stumbles out of there, out into the nearly-empty street, without breaking down completely. She flags down a cab and gives the guy her last ten dollars to get her out of town. Get her home.

Home. Huh. Except it’s not really, is it? Not now that she’s so fucking eaten up by guilt and every betrayal she’s done him. Everything good that Wes has ever done for her is tainted by that. He’s only ever tried to do right by her and this is how she repays him.

The house is dark when she walks in, and she can’t bear it. It’s fucking cavernous, really, and she feels that stab of fear again. It’s not welcoming when Wes isn’t there. It’s big and cold and creaky.

Even though she can walk into pretty much any room in the house and remember something profoundly intimate Wes had said or done to her there—a touch, a whisper, a terse command, or his long fingers brushing slowly over her nipples, her clit— but without his mitigating presence it’s as though the whole house is throwing the memories back at her with cruel glee, mocking her. And the voice running through her head sounds a whole hell of a lot like her Dad’s: You stupid little girl, you thought it was going to be forever? Thought you were better than just a couple of fucks? That your white knight was going to take you away from this fucking shithole middle-of-nowhere town, like in some fairy-tale? This isn’t even a pulp dime-store novel so you can just fucking forget about it.

She doesn’t want to think. Because then she might start to believe it, all of it. That she’s just worthless —always has been and always will be. She can’t even cry. It’s all dried up. She’s numb, save for this wrenching, tight ache in her gut. She just wants to curl herself into a fetal ball and wish it all away.

She does the next best thing. She goes on a search and annihilate mission for Wes’ stash of Macallan. She knows he would totally fucking disapprove, and she can’t even get a mild thrill out of imagining the eventual punishment because it’s not going to matter in the long run. It’s totally inconsequential.

She’s trying so hard not to scream and just fucking break something, because, God, does she want to. She just wants to fucking let it out. And if she were in her mother’s house, in her tiny, girlish room with the leak and the stupid posters everywhere, she would. But she’s in his house, and so she puts on some of his classical music (she’s developed this taste for Satie, despite herself) and sits alone in the dark, sipping the Macallan and trying desperately to remain calm. She smokes cigarette after cigarette, letting them burn down to ash between her fingertips, and sips the slightly noxious liquor as slowly and deliberately as she can. She doesn’t yet have a taste for it yet, but that really doesn’t matter —not when it’s starting to work its way into her bloodstream and giving the world this gauzy little haze.

By the time she’s smoked the last cigarette and has worked her way through a good quarter of the bottle she can’t keep her eyes open any longer. The Satie is still playing, the slow, plangent notes of the piano finally soothing her in to sleep.

That’s where the lull ends. Her dreams are fitful, broken and disjointed. It’s only when she finds herself taking that smashed bottle and twisting it forcefully into her father’s soft gut, and he’s got this look of utter surprise and shock on his face —a strange sort-of pride?— that she jolts awake, shaken to the core and chilled with this awful, clammy sweat. She starts to reach for the bottle again, but she stops herself.

Eventually she pops two of Wes’ forbidden sleeping pills and curls up in his bed, clutching his pillow to her chest and sprawling out across the entire bed.

When she falls asleep for the second time, she doesn’t dream. She just floats in a sea of darkness.

One Hundred and Seventeen

She wakes up to find the sun shining brightly through the open drapes, which just makes her snap her eyes tightly shut again. Feels like something crawled into her mouth during the night and died and her head and her heart are pounding in tandem.

And as she stands in the shower, letting the water wash her away, she wonders for the millionth time shy she didn't just tell Wes what was going on as soon as her shithead of a father called the first time. Let him sort it out like he's sorted every single one of her other messes. Too late now and she bangs her head against the shower stall, like if she did it hard enough maybe she wouldn't have to think at all. Then the thought pops into her head and she can't just un-pop it. There's another option that she hasn't thought about. Hasn't wanted to think about.

She can go.

She can stop stalling, waiting around for the inevitable and just get the fuck out of town. All she needs is enough for a bus ticket and, well, New York isn't up for grabs anymore but she could go to Chicago or Boston or Dallas; a big city that she can get lost in. And she has marketable skills. Not like she's going to go hungry if she can 120 words per minute her way to a steady job.

And if she had any kind of guts, she'd be doing it now, not trudging down the road to catch the bus into town.

The phone's ringing as she opens the door and she hurries over to her desk to answer it, trying to ignore the sweat breaking out on her forehead, which is her usual reaction to a ringing phone these days.

"Faith?"

And he says her name like he's savoring the feel of it in his mouth and she knows instantly that she's not going anywhere. Just gonna stick around and ride it through, every moment that she still has with him now, stolen and precious. And she's smiling despite everything.

"Hey, Wes." She perches on the edge of the desk and shrugs out of her jacket.

"And how are you this morning, my sweet girl?"

Oh God, if he only knew. "I'm fine," she whispers into the mouthpiece. "I miss you."

She can hear the rustle of papers and he pauses. "I have good news and what I think will be bad news as far as you're concerned," he says and she can hear the wariness in his voice and she has to clutch the edge of the desk because she's had enough bad news to last her five fucking lifetimes.

"What is it?" She's shrill, verging into Darla-in-a-drunken-snit territory. "What's the bad news?"

"I'm afraid that I've been unavoidably detained. I won't be home until Thursday now."

It should be the worst news in the world if she was in love with him and he was in love with her and another two days without him was all that was fucking things up. As it is, she's letting out a shaky breath and almost laughing. "OK," she says unsteadily. "Guess I can invite my biker friends round for a party after all."

He gives a gasp of what has to be mock outrage. "I expected a little more protest."

"Well, I guess I could have a hissy fit and hang up. But you haven't told me what the good news is, so I'll wait ‘til after that."

She's impressed at how normal she's managing to sound. Maybe she could go to LA and sign up for acting classes.

"Very well. I've been officially offered a partnership at a very prestigious law firm so…"

"Wes! That's fucking amazing! Wow!" Feels so good not to have to lie to him about how proud she is. "You pretty much rock."

"I do rather, don't I?" He's laughing now and she wishes she could reach into the phone, grab his tie and pull him out the other end. "But I have something important to ask you. I've been in touch with a realtor and I need to know where you want to live."

"We're really going? You really want me to come with you?" She's falling over the words and letting herself get sucked into that big bubble of hope that she thought she'd burst.

"We've been through all this," he says a mite tetchily. "It seems that the more frequently I have to go away, the more I wish you were here with me. I suppose it's a necessary side effect of being in love with you."

Just like that, she's crying. Because he doesn't say it very often, weighs it up before he does, so it hits her like a fucking truck every time. "I love you too," she chokes out, trying to bite back a sob. "Wes, I want…. I just… like, couldn't I come there now? You're there and I'm not and I hate this fucking town. I could call the realtor and the movers…"

He talks her down because that's what he does. Using his calmest, most reasonable voice and pointing out all the reasons why it's the stupidest, most hare brained scheme in the world. "Two months," he promises at the end of it. "Two months and then you'll be a genuine New Yorker."

And two months isn't very long and if her Dad can go ten days between cashing those checks, then she could be home and dry. "I guess…" she sniffs. "Two months isn't that long."

"So I still need to know where you'd like to live? I was thinking of somewhere overlooking the park but I thought you might prefer an area a little more bohemian. Greenwich Village, Soho?"

Those are places she's only read about in magazines or seen in movies and none of it seems real. "I don't care, just as long as there's a big bed," she murmurs and he chuckles.

"One big bed, check."

"And a fire escape and we can sit out on it in summer and you can read to me," she says fiercely, because it doesn't hurt to have dreams. Sometimes they come true.

"I think that sounds wonderful. I have to go now but I need you to do one thing for me."

"OK. Let me get my pad." Not that there are any pads left 'cause she's burnt them all but she can use the back of an envelope or something.

"No, Faith! You don't need a pad." He's laughing again. "When you get home tonight, I want you in bed, naked by nine o'clock, waiting for me to call you. And I want you to have something that you can fuck yourself with as I talk to you. Is that clear?"

"Jesus, Wes…"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I mean, yes, sir."


The rest of the day passes in a blur. Time she should spend plotting and scheming and trying to sort out all the chaos. Instead, she sits at her desk, fingers clacking over the keys, and all the time she's watching the second hand of the clock and willing it to speed up.

Chapter One Hundred and Eighteen

She gets ready for Wes to fuck her over the phone with as much care as she would if it was a real date. She soaks in the bath, eyes closed, feeling her body drift and bump gently against  the cool sides; shaves herself to mirror smoothness when her questing fingers test the swell of her mound and catch on the emergent hairs, stiff and sharp. She wonders if Wes will ever change his mind about her staying smooth and hopes he won’t. It’s a pain sometimes, but she’s got used to it now.

She sits in front of the mirror, remembering him whipping her, fucking her on this seat, making her come while she watched her face in the mirror – and grins and blows herself a kiss as she brushes her hair to ordered waves and then rumples them up again; paints lips that won’t touch his body for real for way too long, and spritzes perfume in a cloud to walk through, just for the hell of it, because he doesn’t usually like her using much. Nothing like a small rebellion to get her wet these days, just picturing what he’ll do to punish it, and even though he’ll never know about the perfume, the effect’s the same.

It’s ten minutes to nine when she realizes she’s got nothing but her fingers to fuck herself with.

She thinks of the hairbrush, but though he’s used it on her, it’s not really made for that and she kinda wants to come up with something different. She bites down on her lip, standing in the center of his bedroom, starting to panic. Shit, she even contemplates a trip to the kitchen to raid the fridge but she’s so not wanting to re-open that can of worms...

Finally, teeth gritted, face flaming, she runs to her room and digs through a drawer to uncover nine inches of vibrator in midnight purple. Elegant, Xander had assured her, lips twitching in a grin as she unwrapped it and then shrieked as he flicked it on right in the middle of the coffee shop. He’d said it was to help her out, as she’d bent his ear one too many times about a non-existent sex life, but she’d been fairly certain he just wanted to see her squirm.

Three nights later, when she’d finally got up the nerve to try it, she’d obliged, but she’d felt weird using it and the thought of Darla hearing it through the paper-thin walls had been enough to make her stick to the tried-and-true of her own hand, so it was practically a virgin.

Scampering back to the bed, she makes it just as her phone starts to ring.

“Good evening, Faith,” Wes says, drawling out the words.

“Hey, Wes,” she says, voice soft and yeah, a little shaky. God, just hearing him talk and her toes were curling and she was wiggling her ass against the cool sheets.

“You’re in bed, I trust?”

“Yeah. Naked and wishing you were here.”

“Really?” He sounds amused. “I don’t know why. Due to the exorbitant cost of long distance calls, you’ll get to come a lot sooner than normal.”

She makes a little scoffing noise at the idea Wes’d let a few dollars stand in the way of making her wait and gets a soft laugh in return.

“So what about you?” she asks. “I want to know what you’re dressed like. Or not.”

“Why does it matter?” he counters.

Suspicion stirs. “Hey, you just know when I get off I’m going to be thinking of you, right? Makes sense I’ve got an accurate picture in my head.” She smirks at that last bit.

“How would you prefer I were dressed?” he says.

“Mm... let’s see...” She snuggles down and thinks about it. There’s a brief flash of him naked except for black leather pants, zip down, cock out but that’s not really his style. Though if she thought there was a cat in hell’s chance of getting him to wear them she’d start saving up right now. “What would be totally hot, is me naked and you all dressed up,” she decides. “Suit, tie, the works. And you’d really be suffering when your cock got hard but you wouldn’t get to unzip, or even loosen off your tie. And you’d look frosty cool, you know, but underneath you’d just be aching...”

“That verged on poetic,” he says dryly, “not to mention uncannily accurate.”

“Huh? You’re not bare ass, too?” Because she might’ve gotten worked up over her little fantasy, but deep down she’d been assuming he was naked and she doesn’t think she’ll ever complain about that.

“I rather think I could get away – just – with loosening my tie, or even, were I feeling very daring, taking off my jacket, but anything more and I’d be asked to leave.”

“Wes, where the fuck are you?” she demands.

“In the hotel lobby,” he says. “I’ve just finished a rather unimaginative but adequate dinner with someone from the law firm and I’ve refused to go to what I’m certain will be a very tedious club on the grounds of work. Which gets me brownie points so it’s a win/win situation all around.”

“Wes, you can’t do – this – in a lobby,” she hisses, blushing at the idea. “Why don’t you go upstairs?”

“Why do I need to?” he asks, sounding maddeningly reasonable. “I’m not the one who’s going to get noisy.”

She tries again. “Isn’t this, like illegal?”

“Hmm. Not yet, but possibly later. I know a very good lawyer though. A dozen or so, in fact.”

“Wesley, are you drunk?”

He chuckles. “No. I assure you I was most careful not to match my host’s consumption of cocktails, wine and brandy, without giving the impression that I wasn’t man enough to hold my liquor of course. He’s rather old school, you see.”

She sighs. “Wes, you sound ...”

“I’m missing you,” he says softly. “And I’m sitting here with all evidence of how much hidden behind a table, a deep and remarkably comfortable chair, and a conveniently placed fern.”

She can’t help giggling at that image and he lets her finish before saying, “Have I allayed your fears?”

“Well... I wanted you to come, too, Wes.”

“I think I’ve explained why that’s not possible.”

“No,” she says a little tartly, “you’ve explained why you’ve deliberately made it impossible.”

“It’s really that important to you that this be a shared experience?” he says.

“Yes!”

“Then make it imperative that I go to my room,” he says.

“What? How can I do that?” She’s lost and confused. Just like normal.

“Oh, Faith, you underestimate yourself. Suppose, instead of me supplying instructions, you take whatever you’ve equipped yourself with and give me a running commentary as you use it?”

A tingle runs through her as she pictures him hardening with every word she whispers, biting his lip, squirming in his chair – well, no. He’s got enough control that he wouldn’t squirm... but she knows she’d get a kick out of making him walk really fast to the elevator...

“You close to the stairs, Wes?”

“They’re directly to my left. And my room’s one floor up.”

She flicks the tiny switch and runs her finger over an interesting assortment of knobs and ridges.

“Get ready to make tracks for it, Wes,” she says.

Chapter One Hundred and Nineteen

"You sound very sure of yourself, Faith," he says and she can hear him smiling.

"It's not going to be any fun if you don't play too, so I'm gonna make you." And she's more than a little surprised to hear the growl in her voice as she lies back on the mound of pillows and wriggles round until she gets comfortable. "So, right, OK, I'm gonna start now."

"I can hardly wait."

"Well, I'm really wet, Wes," and she doesn't need to fake the dreamy sigh, doesn't need to feel embarrassed by her want 'cause she's pretty damn sure it's A OK with him. "Been thinking about you all day, about your voice telling me to touch myself over the phone. And how much I love it when you tell me exactly what you want me to do."

He sighs too, like he just can't help himself. "But we've already agreed that circumstance dictates that you'll be using your voice instead."

"Yeah, I know that," she says calmly because that is one challenge that she isn't going to back down from. "Just wanted to tell you that I've been thinking about you. Your hands, your tongue, your fucking pretty cock."

"Faith… Illuminating though this is and fairly worthy of getting your pretty arse spanked when I get home…"

"Hey, Wes, don't be so impatient," she smirks. "Wanna know what I'm doing?"

"Yes, very much."

"I'm licking the tips of my fingers," she stops talking so she can do just that. "And now I'm touching my breasts, rubbing my thumbs over them and wishing it was you."

With the phone tucked against her ear, she sucks her fingers into her mouth loudly. "Do you hear that, Wes?"

"Yes." And would it kill him to show a bit more emotion than if she was asking him if he wanted lemon in his tea?

"That was my fingers again but I really wanted them to be your cock."

"And what would you do if it they were?" Still all calm and collected.

"I wouldn't do any of that teasy weasy shit, Wes. Not tonight. Just take you in my mouth, feel you already oozing on my tongue. And you taste so good that I want to make you come really hard so I can taste that too."

She can't believe how much she's getting into this. She's idly stroking her nipples but the vibrator's been left neglected on the bed and she's arching her back, like he's looming over her and feeding her his cock inch by inch.

"Just want to get as much of your pretty cock as possible. I love it when you fuck my mouth…"

"You're going off message, Faith," he reminds her smoothly. "I do believe the plan was that you were going to facilitate your, er, crisis…"

"Huh? Man, Wes, sometimes I don't understand a freaking word you say…"

He mutters something that's too quiet for her to hear. "What?"

"I said that you were going to fuck yourself."

She can hear him perfectly well even though the last two words are whispered fiercely but even though he's not here to see it, she shakes her head. "Nah, still can't hear you, Wes. Maybe… Well, if you went up to your room, we wouldn't be having this problem."

"Indeed," he sniffs, but there's a rustle and she knows he's standing up. "Don't imagine for one second that your flagrant lack of regard for the rules I set up…"

"You gonna spank me when you get home, Wes? 'Cause just thinking about that has got me even wetter." It's so easy when he's not there. Doesn't mean she likes it. But by now she'd have been reduced to nothing else but frenzied panting and moaning and she never gets to tell him how he makes her feel.

She can hear his breathing become more laboured. "You moving your pretty ass up those stairs, Wesley?"

"When I get home, my sweet, you're not going to be able to sit down for a…"

"Guess, I'd better entertain myself while I'm waiting for you to get to your room," she bursts out, knowing that he'll just add the interruption to her rapidly growing list of crimes. She runs her hand down her body, not bothering to linger and rubs two fingers against her clit. "I've got my hand between my legs, Wes. Just touching my clit really lightly so I don't come too soon and it's so hard, it almost hurts to touch it and I'm so wet now, God, I wish you were here…"

"Stop that right now," he barks over the slamming of a door. "I believe I asked you to find something to fuck yourself with, did you at least manage to do that?"

"Um, yeah…" Her fingers are sliding over her clit, barely grazing it.

"Take your hand away now, Faith and pick it up. What is it?"

She rolls on to her side and eyes the big, purple Rabbit, to give it its full title, with distaste. "Wish it was your cock."

"Faith…" Oh man, he's doing the voice now. All clipped and precise, like her name is a bullet from a gun he's just fired.

"I want you naked first, Wes," she husks because she's lost in the picture now. "Want you jacking yourself off while I'm fucking myself."

There's this long silence and she strains her ears for the sound of something and hopes it won't be a click, then silence. There's two thuds and some muffled cursing and then because it's imprinted on her brain, she recognizes the sound of his belt unbuckling and then the rasp of his zipper. Disco!

"What are you going to use to fuck yourself, Faith?" he asks impatiently, without missing a beat.

She picks up the vibe and tests the weight of it. "I have this thing, this vibrator." She lowers her voice on the last word and would bet money on his eyebrows having shot up.

"Really? What a pity that you've kept it hidden away. I'd rather have welcomed the opportunity to use it on you."

"It's purple," she blurts out, which is so not what she wanted to say. "And it has all these ripply things." And God, why the fuck is she still talking? "OK, it's pretty big, not like you have anything to worry about…"

"That's very sweet of you…"

"But I'm so wet and I need to get fucked so I'm just going to slide it in." And she is and she does and it feels so good to have something to fill up the ache that she can't help the little moan that escapes her and the one that follows it when he makes a pleased noise.

She pulls it out slowly, then pushes it back in again and it makes this squelching sound which should be gross, but is kinda sexy, and she wants to hold the phone to her snatch so he can hear it too.

"I'm fucking myself with it now, Wes, gonna switch it on, just low to start off with…"

"And what does it do when you switch it on?" he asks curiously, as she flicks the switch and grits her teeth as it starts moving inside her and it never felt like this before.

"Well, the cock part sort of twists and it has these ear things that go against my clit and they kinda… sorta… hmmm… vibrate…"

And over the buzzing and her gasps, she hears him start to laugh.

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty

“What?” She just loses it with him, yanking the vibrator out, all those purple, quivering inches slicked up and shining, and pouting even though he can’t see her to be melted. “Fuck, Wes, way to kill a mood!”

“I’m sorry.” He’s sounding penitent, but he’s still smiling, she can tell. “It’s just... ears? I’m trying to picture it and -” There’s this gulp that tells her Wes is doing his best to hold back a snicker and then he loses it completely and he’s howling with laughter.

She stares at the phone, mouth open, and shakes her head. “Wes, you know you said you weren’t drunk? Want to reconsider that?”

Hard to be mad with him, though. She just wishes he’d ever been this relaxed when she was there to see him, ‘cos she’s guessing Wes with the giggles? Cutest thing ever.

“I assure you I’m sober. Relatively so. Give me a moment.”

He doesn’t wait for her to answer and she hears him walk away and pour a drink of something that had better be water. The phone’s picked up again and he’s back to business. “I think this procrastination has gone on quite long enough, don’t you? And as I’m now in an empty room and half-naked –”

“Which half?” She knows, but she wants to make him say it.

“I’m still wearing my shirt and tie,” he says, “and, as you were in such a hurry, my socks, but other than that...”

Now that should be enough to make it her turn to start laughing, but it doesn’t. Sighing or whimpering maybe. There’s this image in her head so clear she’d think it was an out of body experience if she wasn’t wide awake; Wes in one of those crisp, white shirts, with the sleeves rolled up, the tie loosened, top button undone so his throat’s there to be kissed and stroked, every other button done up so his cock’s hidden under it, just waiting for her to uncover it, button by button...

“Fuck, I wish I had a camera,” she blurts out unthinkingly and then she realizes what she’s said and she shoves a fist hard against her mouth, feeling the skin tear as her teeth cut in.

“Well, I don’t think I’m particularly photogenic,” he says wryly, “but a photograph of you would be –”

The tears well up and she can’t keep them from soaking into her voice as she says, “Wes, no. Please...”

“Faith?” There’s a world of concern in his voice and she’s crying for real now, phone dropping from her hand, face down against the bed and shaking, seeing a blur of grainy black and white in front of her eyes, hearing her father’s leering, threatening voice. “Faith!”

Wesley sounds pissed now and it works better than worried. She reaches out and grabs the phone and wails an apology he ignores completely.

“Would you please enlighten me as to what I said to make you cry?”

“Nothing,” she hiccups. “I just – I miss you.”

His voice softens a fraction. “That’s an unfortunate side effect of falling in love,” he says and her heart stutters.

“Wes? You miss me too?”

It’s blatant and he sighs patiently, but she’s distracting him from that fucking stupid crying jag and – which she totally doesn’t deserve – she’s getting rewarded for fucking up, because he’s murmuring stuff to her he’d never say face to face.

“- miss waking up with you wrapped around me and I miss seeing you, or knowing you’re just outside my room should I want you for anything –”

And, yeah, the tingles are back. Because she sits there typing just waiting for him to call her into his room and even though they don’t get up to as much as they used to at work, there’s still the chance that this time he’ll want more than a letter taking down and she can’t walk down that corridor without getting wet. Ever.

“Wes... that’s so fucking sweet...” She wriggles back against the headboard. “Are you still hard?”

“Moderately so,” he says cautiously. “You crying when I’m not there to know exactly what caused it, isn’t something that appeals to me.”

“But you’d like, totally get off on it, if it was because you’d spanked me or something?” she asks, half-indignant.

“Oh, very much so,” he assures her.

“You...”

“And am I to take it that you wouldn’t?” he says.

She wriggles her ass, haunted by the ghosts of a dozen spankings, and grins. “Gets me hot, too,” she confesses, “but that’s something you can’t do over the phone, I guess.”

There’s a chuckle in his voice. “I wouldn’t count on it, but I think I’d prefer to be the one inflicting any richly deserved punishment – and, Faith? You really have earned the spanking you’ll be getting, you know.”

She gives him a whimper that turns genuine half way through and waits.

“I think you should be punished a little though, don’t you? For making me wait all this time?”

That’s so unfair coming from him that she gasps, but she does it quietly. “Maybe a little, Wes...”

“It’s always so pleasant when we’re in agreement,” he drawls. “If only for the novelty value. Very well. I’d like you to replace that device inside you and let’s hope you haven’t thrown it half way across the room? No? Good. Switch it on as high as it goes - I really must see it when I return, you’ve got me quite intrigued, I assure you – and place the phone beside your head so that both hands are free. One, you’ll need to hold it in place, the other I think should be pinching your nipple, quite hard, please.”

“And where does the punishment come in?” she says, her voice breathy and catching in her throat as she obeys him.

“When you think you’re about to come, you’re to tell me.”

“Yeah? I can do that...”

Knowing he’s listening to the low hum of Mr. fucking Bunny and her gasps and moans, is enough to get her half way there, even without the sounds from the phone that tell her his hand’s wrapped around his cock and he’s jerking himself off nice and slowly.

“And then you’ll stop.”

“Huh?”

“And wait.”

“Wes! Fuck, I’m nearly there already ...” she whines, hips lifting off the bed slightly, heels digging into the mattress.

“Then I suggest you stop right now,” he says pleasantly. “And make me come, the way you promised.”

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty One

"That is so not fair. You like, get me to the edge of coming and then expect me to talk, to put a complete sentence together?"

"Well, you seem to be able to do that now..."

She doesn't bother to not groan in frustration. "Wes, please. Just let me come now, and I promise. I promise, I'll totally get you off after that."

Her pleas are met with little more than his enigmatic chuckle. "What? Why are you laughing at me now?"

"Because, Faith -- what makes you think you'd be in a more fit mental condition after I let you come?"

She has no immediate answer to that, considering his logic is pretty sound on that point.

"Dammit, Wes! Why do you have to be right all the freakin’ time?"

"Because I am." She can picture that shit-eating grin on his face just as clearly as if he were right there with her. "You'd better get started, Faith, or your rhetorical skills will have to be incredibly keen to make up for all this time you've wasted. Your stalling really has risen to the level I can only describe as unconscionable."

"I can't do this now!"

"And why not?"

"Because you've killed the mood again, that's why not!"

"I did not 'kill the mood' this time, Faith. I think that dubious honor belongs to you."

"You're the one who made me stop..."

"Generally, that seems to enhance the mood, not kill it..."

"How do you know? It enhances the mood for you maybe, but not for me!"

"Stop and think about that for a moment, Faith. You don't really mean that."

There he was, being all frustratingly right. Again. "OK, OK. I don't mean it. It sucks to wait, but it's always worth it," she sighs.

"That's right. You should know by now not to argue with me." His voice drops to that spine-tingling note. "You'll wait now, and you'll like it."

Her mouth's completely dry, and the protest she tries to stutter out just won't come. Instead, it's just a breathy "Yeah..." and she's lost in the half-drunk burr of his command. She hangs there for a moment before she remembers it's her turn. "You'd better take off the rest of your clothes, then, Wes, 'cause the thought of you half dressed..."

"Is killing the mood?" If he'd said that any other way, she'd probably have hung up on him. But he whispers it, like his lips are pressed against her ear and the sound isn't traveling through a bunch of very mood-killing fiber optic cables to reach her.

"Um, yeah..." She's puzzled as to how to continue. Is she allowed to tell him what to do? She can't not, though, or this is gonna be one really boring session of phone sex. "Take off your tie. Slowly." He's very quiet, she can just hear his shallow breathing until there's a slight whooshing sound as he pulls the tie out in one fluid motion from under his collar. She'd never thought that could sound sexy over the phone. Not missing a beat, she continues. "Now your shirt."

She almost wished she hadn't said that, as the sound of his perfectly pressed and lightly starched shirt rustling over his skin as he slides it off is making her insistent clit actually twitch in anticipation.

Then there's these words, forming in the back of her mind, and she's already said them before she can really actually confirm that they're coming out of her mouth. "So, how many times have you thought of me and jacked off since you've been on this trip?"

She's immediately pleased by his sharp gasp at that question, like she's found a way to cut right through that facade of his in ways she can't possibly when they're in the same room together. When he doesn't answer, she lowers her voice too, prods him with her words. "Wesley? How many times?"

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Two

“C’mon, Wes, I’m waiting,” and she’s knows she’s really pushing it now but she doesn’t care. “You once told me you never approximated. So, out with it.” She hopes that her satisfied smirk isn’t somehow audible.

In the intervening silence she’s got this nice little image of him in her mind: somewhat discomfited and turned on and wondering how long he’s going to let her wrest the game away from him. Weighing out how much he’s going to admit to or allow.

Yeah, she’d like a photo of that. She lolls back on the bed, fingers idly circling her clit, just waiting for his answer.

“Five times.”

“I want to know where and when.”

“Faith—” He sounds exasperated and undecided. It’s not something she’s treated to often and she’s going to savor the moment.

“Wes. You’re never gonna get a show-and-tell with Mr. Bunny-ears if you don’t talk, right the fuck now.” Curiously emboldened now, she lowers her voice, whispering huskily into the phone: “I want to know which hand you used, Wes. I want to know what first set you off. And I want to know what was running through your mind when you finally came.”

He starts telling her, a little haltingly at first, but then he starts to warm to it. “Monday… That was a long day. Meeting after meeting, all very dull and depressingly lengthy. After that there was an overlong dinner in Union Square East with a small group of the partners. If you’d have been there with me it would have been bearable —you’d have charmed all of them.”

Her heart leaps a little at that but she recovers quickly enough to admonish him: “Wes. Topic?”

If he’s annoyed, he doesn’t show it, just takes a sip of whatever it is he’s drinking and picks up where he’d left off. “It must have been late when I got back to the hotel. I don’t even remember how late, I just remember stumbling blindly up to the room. I’d had a bit to drink. And somehow in my mild delirium I imagined that you’d be waiting for me, naked in the bed —my little Olympia, wet and ready as always. But when I flicked on the light, all I had to greet me were two sub-par and quite possibly stale mints on my pillow.

“That was disheartening. But the mental image was …inspiring, to say the least, and, still clothed, I sat down in the chair, unzipped. Fantasy. You slid off the bed and straddled my lap, making this delicious and terrible mess of my new trousers. Didn’t want anything complicated, just you on top, fucking me with this delicious intent look on your face because it’s been a day, practically, that you’ve had to wait. Couldn’t just bring yourself off, now could you? No, of course not. Express instructions after all. So you’re just so ready. Breath coming in small ragged gasps and those are just as important as the weight of you upon me, your muscles clamped around the base of my cock, your hands roaming all over my body—”

She’s getting off on the sound of his voice as much as what he’s actually saying. She’s forgotten about the vibe for a moment, just using her fingers —not enough to make her come, just enough to keep her wet and attentive.

His breathing sounds a bit shallow now too and she closes her eyes for a moment so she can picture him, jerking himself off with one hand, face set nearly in a frown as he nears…

When she speaks, her voice surprises her, it’s so assured and calm and a little dark.

“I want to fuck you like that right now, Wes, in that chair by the window. Want you to fucking scream my name when you come, want you to whisper it in my ear. Just come for me—”

“Faith…”

Then silence. Did he drop the phone? No, she can hear him breathing.

She waits for a minute before she says anything else.

“So that made six, right? My turn now, Wes. So. What are you gonna do for me?” It’s rather difficult to imagine the ridiculous vibe as his cock but she’ll make do. She switches it on and awaits instruction.

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Three

In the minutes that follow, as his voice steadies and begins to instruct her, she gets a glimpse of the payoff of all that time he’s spent teasing her. Because he knows her body now, as well as anyone who isn’t her ever will and he’s, fuck, he’s trained it to obey and yeah, that’s scary, but rollercoaster scary, not dead body jumping up to throttle you terrifying.

Even drunk – and he is and she’s so going to rub it in when she sees him next – even lying back all relaxed and buzzed, cock half-hard still, come lying in a thick trail over his stomach – no, he’d have cleaned that up by now – he’s still able to make every word hit home.

“ – deep inside you. Does it go as far as I do, Faith? Does it make you arch up off the bed, with your eyes wild and your lips parted on a moan?”

“No, no, Wes... God, you know it doesn’t...”

“But you’re still going to come when I tell you, aren’t you, Faith?”

It’s drawled out and he’s smiling, she can tell, but she’ll save her glares for later, because her cunt’s greedy around the thick slipperiness she’s thrust up inside it and she can feel her body warming under everything she’s doing to it; her fingers pinching and squeezing at a nipple until it’s swollen and even the lightest touch is enough to make her clit throb in time with it, but she doesn’t ease off, so it’s hovering on hurting, mouth dry because she’s panting now, gasping for air.

“Yes...”

Clit exposed now, tender and hard, and she wants the lash of his tongue against it, the insistent, relentless rub of his fingers, not this repetitive, monotonous flicking, but it’s all she’s got and she lets her knees fall apart and that sets off a chain reaction as the muscles in her thighs tug and spread her cunt that little bit wider, open her up a little bit more.

“Tell me now, Wes,” she begs, knowing she needs him to make this work, because she can come without him but not when he’s right there like this, not when he’s told her she can’t until he allows it.

“If you can ask me with words, you’re not ready,” he whispers. “I want you incapable of speech, unless it’s my name you’re whimpering, Faith, want you so desperate, so ready...”

And if she wasn’t before, she is now, because his voice is reaching out to her, and behind her closed eyes she’s seeing everything he’s done to her, feeling his hands on her body, and the lingering taste of his come on her lips, writhing as if his cock’s inside her, filling her.

“When I return, I’m going to keep you in my office all day, Faith,” he says. “Kneeling between my legs, pretty mouth busy, bent over my desk and waiting for my hand –” New images, fresh and bright and they’re making her twist and moan as the heat rises and she’s not going to be able to hold this back much longer... “Remember how I worked with you standing beside me, my fingers deep inside and you forbidden to move? Would you like me to do that again, Faith? For an hour, until you’re trembling and soaking my hand, biting your lip to keep from saying –”

She’s not sure it’s his name she cries out, in an inarticulate scream, but he tells her to come, so he must have understood her.

One Hundred and Twenty Four

For the first time in what seems like for ever, she sleeps well. In fact, she sleeps like the dead. Vibrator in one sticky hand, phone in the other and that welcome soreness between her legs when she wakes up, confuses her so for a second she thinks that Wes is here and she slept in his arms and he's going to come through the door any minute now with a mug of coffee and the tender smile she always gets when she's rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

But he doesn't because he's on the other side of the freakin' country and the only thing that's getting her out of bed and into the shower is being able to walk into the kitchen fifteen minutes later, flick the calendar ahead two pages and write "New York!!!" with the red sharpie she carries around in her bag.

He phones her when she gets to the office and apart from a "Good morning, sweetness," in his burnished drawl, it's back to business.

"And it's imperative that you have all these papers ready for the overnight courier," he barks at her and she pauses from scribbling it all down on the back of a used envelope. Man, she really needs to order some more steno pads.

"You could say please, you know, it wouldn't kill you," she grumbles, because just being back at the office is enough to have the feeling of dread slowly squeezing at her internal organs again.

He clears his throat. "Faith, please, I really haven't got the time. I'll call you tonight but I'm about to go into an interminably dreary meeting and I need to know that you'll follow my orders…"

"I always do, don't I?" she yelps indignantly.

"To the letter and don't interrupt."

"Sir, yes, sir!" She scribbles through the heart she's just drawn 'cause he so doesn't deserve it this morning.

"You're really being incredibly recalcitrant this morning," he says wearily. "I have to go, I'm being glared at by one of the senior partners. I'll call you tonight."

"But, Wes…" She's talking to silence and she slams the phone down. Then picks it up and bangs it home again, just for luck.

And now he's gone and she hasn't actually got that much to do, it's all crowding in on her again, until her stomach is clenching in knots and she goes into the basement and digs around in the cabinet for a couple of files worth of dead papers so she can take them in to the back yard to make a bonfire with.

No way is she going to be able to eat lunch but it's a beautiful day and the sun lifts her spirits a couple of inches, as she walks in the direction of downtown.

She pauses to look in the window of the used book-store and before she knows what she's doing, she turning the handle and walking inside. It's hard to know what to get him 'cause she's not big with the books (Mansfield Park has been abandoned half the way though) but she gets chatting to the owner and walks out with a biography of Baudelaire and The Portable Dorothy Parker which the woman promises her she'll like more than Jane Austen.

There's something really satisfying about the thick brown paper bag and the weight of the books in it that she swings her arm and pretends that she does this all the time; goes to bookshops and gets cool books for her and her… boyfriend… her lover… her Wes to read.

And that's what it's going to be like when they're living in New York. He'll come home from the office all tired and rumpled and she'll be waiting for him with a gin and tonic, even though he doesn't drink gin and tonic but fuck it, this is her fantasy…

"Faith? Faithy?"

She looks up and into Darla's limpid blue eyes, which are wide and startled. "Oh, um, hey Mom."

It probably is Darla, though she's looking kinda spiffy. Actually just being up and dressed before mid-day is a fucking revelation but she's got make-up on and she's brushed her hair, plus the skirt and blouse she's wearing are buttoned up and not stained.

She's not the only one who's doing inventory. Darla's eyes are running over her and thank the baby Jesus that there's no visible bruises and she can't see the marks on her thighs from where Wes' hands held her legs open as he fucked her into the headboard the night before he left.

"You've lost weight, baby," Darla says. "You on one of them no carb diets or does he just not feed you?"

Faith's painfully aware of how loose her skirt is. This morning she had to hunt around for a safety pin but she can feel her face settling into a scowl that she hasn't worn for weeks. "No, I haven't. And what's with you? You going to a fancy dress party as a nice girl?"

And the weird thing is that Darla's practically glowing as she straightens up. "I've got a job," she says, leaning in like it's this big confession. "I'm working on the reception at that car dealership on Mayfield and Clark. Even thinking about…"

She takes a step back from the sheer force of Darla's sense of self worth. "Cool. I guess they don't mind you nipping out back to take a few slugs of vodka when the afternoon rush for Cadillacs gets a bit too much for you."

Then Darla's face kinda crumples in on itself and she's feeling like the biggest bitch since Buffy Summers won the Miss Bitch Beauty Pageant. "I've been sober for 10 days," Darla says in this tiny voice and she has to bite back a snort of disbelief.

"You are fucking kidding me? You doing that whole 12 steps bullshit?" she splutters, then stops herself and lets the reassuring weight of the book bag bang against her leg. "Mom, I'm sorry, OK? Just stuff… Whatever, hey. That's really good."

But it's not because where the fuck does Darla get off carving a life out for herself when she's never been good at anything but getting drunk and passing out because her devoted daughter's always been there to drag her sorry ass to bed?

"I'm trying, Faithy. If you came home, things would be different. I'd be different." And she's clutching her arm, thin fingers curled around the sleeve of Faith's favorite polka dot blouse.

"I can't," she hisses, shaking her arm free. "We're leaving. He's taking me to New York and I'm never coming back here ever again."

Then she's walking fast, almost running but Darla's scurrying along beside her. "When? When are you going?"

"In a couple of months," she bites out, grinding to a halt at the sight of the 'Don't Walk' sign.

"Is this because of your dad and that bitch lawyer?"

And that actually merits turning around and looking Darla in the eye. "What the fuck? Who the fuck told you?" But she already knows the answer.

"I bumped into Xander at the store and he mentioned something and shit, Faith! You don't return my calls, I don't know what the fuck's going on with you and that prissy fuck and I have to hear about it from fricking Xander and that Morgan woman when she phones up for her nightly chat." Darla trails off and steps back from the righteous fury, Faith's pretty sure is painted all over her face. She'd swear that her eyes just turned into laser beams.

"He had no fucking right to say anything," she screeches, ignoring the looks from the dumb fucks waiting to cross the road. "I'm going to fucking kill him. And she's calling you every night? What has she said about Wes? What has she said about me?"

Darla's not looking quite so together, her hands out in front of her like she's trying to ward off evil spirits. "Faithy, you need to calm the fuck down," she yells. "Every night I tell her not to call any more. But she's in good with your dad and, baby, I don't know what shitty little scam he's trying to pull, but you need to get the fuck out of this town and not look back."

The books make this dull thud on the ground as she drops the bag but it's not important because even though Darla's half a head shorter than her, she wraps her up so tightly in her arms and she's stroking her back as she cries on her shoulder.

"Baby girl," she coos. "C'mon, Faithy, don't cry."

They end up in this coffee shop, drinking iced tea and sharing Faith's cigarettes while she spills out all the sad, sorry details. Except she can't tell her what's on the photos. Can't do anything more than choke out the word 'photos', while Darla tilts her head and does a fucking good impression of someone who actually cares about her.

"You have to go to the police, Faith."

"You need to tell him what's going on."

"You should call the bank and get the checks canceled before he cashes them."

Darla's full of helpful tips and suggestions but she shakes her head to every one and says, "I can't." Because there's no way in hell she can tell Darla what's on the photographs and even thinking about the affidavit makes her want to puke the iced tea all over the table. "Two months, Mom, and then we're outta here and it's over."

Darla shakes her head and stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray. "I've got to get back," she says almost to herself. "You want to come over tonight, sweetie? I know you don't like being left on your own."

"Wes is going to call and I have to be there," she says, pinning her shoulders back and trying to muster up a smile. "Really, it'll all be OK."

"I can pretty much guess what's got you so rattled up bout those photos," Darla tells her softly, standing up. "She's been shooting her mouth about your boyfriend and what…"

"Please, don't…" Faith begs, hiding her hands under the table because they're shaking so hard. "Just don't. He'd be fucked up if they got out and I can't do that to him. Two months. I just need to buy us another two months."

Then Darla's kissing her cheek for the first time in five years. Hasn't happened since she got chucked in 9th grade by Jesse, Xander's bestest bud, and came home in tears and got one lousy kiss on the cheek and the talk about how all men were lousy rat bastards. Which she'd pretty much figured out already.

"Faith, baby, you call me," Darla's saying. "We'll figure something out."

Then she's gone, feet tripping over themselves as she looks at her watch and realizes she's going to be late back to her bigass important job at the car dealership.

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Five

The house is achingly empty when she gets back to it and she stands in the middle of the kitchen, biting down hard on her lip to stop from crying. She lets herself dream that she’s an orphan and that the horizon’s cloudless, tries to think one day it will be – but she can still feel her mom’s kiss on her face and nothing’s going to make her dad disappear.

She tries to think how she could’ve handled this better and finds her fingers stroking the place on her wrist where her watch should be. Talking to her mom’s put all these doubts in her head and she really doesn’t think the worry needs company. It’s busy enough getting fucked over by the guilt.

She goes wandering around the house, letting her hands drift across chairs and touch some of the weird ornaments, staring at the pictures he’s hung here and there...but these rooms aren’t really him, and she ends up in what she thinks of as the inner library, surrounded by all those books Wes pretends are an investment. Yeah. Like he’d ever sell them...

There’s no way she’d have snooped through his stuff; she might be so far down the social ladder she’s in the basement, but she’s been taught better than that. Kinda funny to think of learning anything from Darla apart from how vodka was a basic food group, but yeah, watching her dad cower, for the first and last time, as Darla threw one hell of a righteous rage after catching him reading her diary; that drove the message home.

Some stuff’s private and unless you’re pond scum, you don’t poke and pry into it.

But books; they’re for everyone, and Wes showed her this room and never said she couldn’t go in it alone, so she retreats to it, safe and surrounded by reminders of him, and browses through the books, taking care to replace them exactly, smiling over the gaudy covers and old fashioned kids playing cricket or sailing boats or discovering lost cities in the jungle or whatever.

The letter that falls out of an Arthur Ransome book isn’t in an envelope; it isn’t even folded. It’s just a sheet of paper, lined paper torn from an exercise book, navy ink fresh, written in the same careful script as the bookplate she saw last time she was in this room. And as she picks it up, she sees it’s not really a letter, but one sentence written over and over on both sides of the paper.

I must not be a disappointment to my parents and an ungrateful son.

At the end, in a black scribble, are the initials ‘RWP’.

Carefully, gently, she slips the paper back inside the book; slides the book onto the shelf. Then, once her hands are empty she clenches them into fists and stands there shaking with a sick anger. Oh, she knows about him; good old Roger, Wes Senior. Wes has shared enough to make her realize that when it comes to shitty fathers there’s not a lot to choose between hers and his, but this just brings it home what he must’ve endured as a kid and right now it’s more than she can stand.

She’s got less than two hours before Wes is due to ring and she’s got to get out of the house, away from the emptiness and the memories. So she tucks her cell phone in her purse and she’s half way down the drive when she sees there’s someone waiting in the shadows at the end.

Bad time to come calling, Liam, she thinks grimly, letting the resentment boil and bubble inside her. But a really good time for me to think you’re a rapist and smash a rock against your head, or -

She’s almost sorry when it’s Xander who steps out and gives her a sheepish smile. “Hey, Faith.”

“Xander, you –” She lets one hand go to a heart she’s just realized is hammering against her ribs and glares at him. “You freaked me out! What the fuck are you doing?”

He walks over to her and shrugs helplessly. “Not a good time to say I’m here to stop you freaking then?”

It lines up in her head; cherry, cherry, fucking cherry. “Darla and you been having another little chat, have you?”

He doesn’t back down like she expects. “Yeah. Pretty amazing the way she’s pulled herself together since you left, huh?”

Now that stings. She gets to thinking that maybe if she’d stayed, giving into Darla’s whines for alcohol because it was easier – and quieter – than enduring the screaming, maybe Darla wouldn’t have the job, wouldn’t have the hope. Sucks to know your absence is the push someone needs to improve.

“I give it a week,” she says spitefully and manages to last through three seconds of Xander’s hurt, reproachful puppy eyes before she caves in. “Oh shit, you know I don’t meant that! Forget it. It’s good that she’s working and off the vodka; sure it is. Still doesn’t explain why you’re hanging around.”

He gives her a sunny side up grin. “Come for a sleepover, Faith.” He pats his pocket. “Didn’t bring my jammies, but I’ve got a toothbrush right here.”

That sends her hair flying as she shakes her head vehemently. “No way, Xander. Wes’d freak; you just can’t.”

“He’s not here though, is he?”

“No, but he’d know.”

Xander snorts. “You can hide the blackmail from him but not me sticking around for the night and keeping the monster in the closet?”

“No...” She’s torn. A few hours with Xander, kicking back and chatting, would really help. Hell, having him sleeping next door and she’d maybe be able to go to bed sober and still get in her eight hours... but Wes wouldn’t like it, she’s sure of that.

“Darla said you were expecting him to call,” Xander says. “How’s this; I come in and you make me a coffee; and if you tell me that’s not allowed I’m going to get seriously worried about you. I mean it. Then, when he calls to check up on you –”

“That’s not why he calls,” she interrupts. “He calls to –” Make me come so hard my eyelids won’t unpeel for five minutes after. “- because he misses me. To say ‘hi’. Stop making him sound like a freak.”

“When he calls,” Xander says, “you tell him I’m there, and ask if it’s cool if I stay. He says ‘no’, I’ll leave. OK?”

It’s not, but Xander’s lip’s jutting out and he’s getting that reluctant hero look that made him face down Mr. Jenson to get Faith’s Barbie back after an ill fated attempt to put Barbie in orbit ended up with her crash landing in his begonias.

“Fine!” She pouts and throws up her hands theatrically. “But you don’t touch anything, you don’t wander around and you ask me once, just once where he keeps the dungeon and so help me I’ll –”

“Dungeon? He has a – shutting up now.” Xander gives her a cheerful grin and practically fucking skips up to the house.

It’s kind of fun showing it to him in the end. He’s wide-eyed and appreciative, doesn’t try to show off, or juggle the china, or make rude comments; not even when he comes face to face with one of those ugly bits of modern art that look like someone threw up on the canvas after eating a deluxe pizza with extra peppers. She’d been way frank about it herself and Wes had lectured her on art appreciation for thirty solid minutes before pointing out with a wicked grin that it was in a dark corner for a reason and admitting it was a gift from a client.

She doesn’t let him go anywhere Wes would think of as private but he’s cool about it and she’s starting to get all these weird hostess-y feelings as she fixes him a coffee, as if it’s really her home she’s showing off, as if she belongs here.

Then the phone rings and she sees him start to smile expectantly, and when she says, “Hi, Wes,” it’s in this croak that has him demanding to know if she’s sick. “No, I’m fine, Wes.” He’s going to say something that really shouldn’t have an audience, she just knows he is, so she cuts in and says, really fast. “I’ve got a visitor, Wes. That’s – that’s OK, right?”

Xander rolls his eyes but she ignores him, hanging onto the phone as if it’s keeping her from falling over, which as it’s not attached to anything, it really isn’t.

“Well, that all depends,” Wesley says, in that crackle of ice voice. “Might I ask whom you’re... entertaining?”

“Xander,” she says quickly. “He was worried about me; you remember how I was last time you were away, and he just turned up to keep me company, you know?”

“Did he now?” There’s a pause and then Wes says softly, “Put him on, Faith. I’d rather like to say hello.”

And it’s so not what she would’ve wanted, but fuck, watching Xander go pale, back off and start waving his hands frantically as he mouths, ‘No!’ is worth the sinking feeling she gets as she pushes the phone into Xander’s hands with a smirk.

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Six

It's better than the time that Xander had to rescue her from an accusation of shoplifting by explaining to the security guard that the tampons she'd stashed in her bag were actually for their poor, sick mother who only had three months to live.

She hauls herself up on to the worktop and sticks out her tongue at a red-faced Xander who glares at her.

"Um, hello? Mr. er… oh, right, Wesley. And you can call me Xander, except you pretty much already have."

Oh yeah! She's biting her fist to stop the giggles exploding out of her mouth as Xander nods vigorously. "Yes, sir. Yeah, I understand."

Xander's still pinking up and it's kinda hard to work out what the conversation's about from all the nodding and the "yes, sir"-ring. Then Xander's making horrified faces and nodding so hard that she's amazed that his head is still attached to his neck. "No, um, that would be nice. I don't think I've ever… Most times it's just a packet of hamburger helper and a shove in the direction of the kitchen."

Now it's her turn to make 'what the fuck?' faces and hold out her hand imperiously for the phone, but Xander's stammering his way through a whole, "Well, goodbye, Wesley, sir." Or he is until he gives Faith a malicious grin. "And you take good care of our little Faithy, Wes, or we're going to be having a public flogging on Main Street."

"You give me the fucking phone right the fuck now, Xand!" she hisses, sliding to her feet and he's throwing it at her. "Wes?"

"Faith, I can hear that you're using your most charming manners for your guest," he chuckles and she can almost feel his warm breath ghosting against her ear.

"What have you been saying to him?" she demands, turning her back on a smirking Xander and opening the back door so she can get some fucking privacy.

Wes makes a tutting noise and it's hard to tell if he's really pissed at her without the visuals or just doing it for effect. "I merely was enquiring as to whether he'd like to come to dinner when I return from New York," he says blithely and she's almost dropping the phone in shock.

"Like, why?"

"Because you plan to invite him to stay with us in the charming brownstone I've just rented in the West Village so it seems only proper to make some attempt to…"

"Huh? You just what?"

"Really, Faith, full sentences would be far more helpful. Xander is an important part of your life…"

"Yeah, yeah," she mutters impatiently. "Just rewind, Wes. You got us a place to live? In the West Village. Where's the West Village? Is it near the East Village? Or, like, Greenwich Village? If you're already renting it now, can we move in right away?" She can't hold on to the words, they're spilling out of her mouth and she can't seem to make them stop. All she can see is the shiny, green apple, glistening with dew and tempting her to just take one bite.

And he's laughing now, these soft little ripples of mirth that make her sway on her feet until he says, "Two months, Faith. We'll have the keys in eight weeks, though once we're in Manhattan, I'll have to send you to a charm school so they can teach you not to interrupt."

Two months seems like the longest time in the world. A fuck of a lot can happen in two months; stuff that should be filed in a big folder marked 'don't go there.' So she doesn't. "I'm still missing you, Wes," she says softly. "What time are you getting back tomorrow?"

"Oh, you'll be safely tucked up in bed by the time I get in," he murmurs. "Curled up under the quilt and dreaming of shoes and Twinkies and all the other things I'm sure you dream about."

Which goes to show how little he knows but she likes the thought of him caring that her sleeping hours are as easy as her waking hours are hard. "Talking of sleeping," she says carefully. "Is it OK if Xander stays over tonight to keep me company?"

"Do you hate being on your own in the house that much?"

"Well, no but it's better when you're here." Which means that it's a lie but also that it's not. "Everything's better when you're here."

He makes this soft sound like he's touched or something. "These business trips are interminable," he says heavily, like the confession has been forced out of him under duress. "I'm really most anxious to come home to my little Olympia."

"Why do you keep calling me that?" she asks curiously and she knows he's smiling.

"I'll tell you when I next see you," he promises. "And Xander can stay, I suppose. He seems very servile, I quite like him."

"I'll tell him that, shall I?" she giggles and he's tutting down the phone.

"You'll do no such thing. I think you're in quite enough trouble after your escapades last night." His voice lowers and that dark velvet feeling in the pit of her stomach kicks in. "I've thought of a marvelous way for both of us to enjoy your little device that seemed to bring you so much pleasure."

"Yeah?" she manages to squeeze out of her throat.

"Oh yes," he purrs. "But that, like so much else, will just have to wait a day or so."

And there's so much she wants to tell him; that she misses him even more now and that she loves him and she's bought him a present. The important stuff. And then she wishes she could whiz back in a time machine to, like, two weeks ago and tell him the really, really important stuff but he's already saying goodbye.


Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Seven


She holds the phone to her ear for a few more seconds after he hangs up, just to make sure. She hates the dead silence that follows. But his voice lingers in her mind, and her pulse races more than a little bit when she thinks about what he might have planned for her when he gets back.

She doesn’t let herself think about the apartment, or the city. She can’t. It has to stay in the realm of the unreal, or else—

“Faith? Are you out here?”

The light floods the porch and she can hear the creak of the French doors. She half expects Wes to be coming through them, but Xander’s standing there, silhouetted against the bright light.

“Oh, hey Xand. Yeah, I’m here. I was just coming in.”

She pads quietly across the slate toward the house. When she goes to walk past him he just stops her, quietly. Wraps his arms around her and holds her tightly.

“You’re really OK here, Faith? You’d tell me, wouldn’t you? ‘Cause I just don’t know anymore.”

She nods weakly, just lets him envelop her. She doesn’t want to start crying. Jesus, she’s done enough of that to last several lifetimes. But God, she just wants to let it out, let something out…

“And I’m sorry I was so fucking uptight about …you and Wes. I just, y’know, it’s a… Well, it’s a—”

She can’t help it, but she starts to laugh. “Cliché? That the word you were looking for, Xander?”

“You gonna hold that against me in a court of law?” Now Xander’s laughing too.

“You’d better believe it.” She chucks him on the shoulder. “C’mon, I think it’s high time we got really fucking drunk.”

“That a good idea? Don’t you have to work tomorrow?”

“Oh yeah. So maybe not quite that drunk, but still… I know where he keeps the good stuff.”

“Again with the not-so-good ideas.”

She peers into his eyes. “Xander, is that really you, or have you been taken over by aliens? ‘Cause, excess is your fucking middle name.”

He rolls his eyes. “Well, yeah, usually. Just for tonight it’s been replaced with ‘I’m really fucking concerned because you’ve practically disappeared and your father is pulling some seriously illegal bullshit.’” He pauses. “Yeah, that about covers it.”

“Shit, Xander, I know.” Faith sighs heavily and slumps back on the sofa. Xander sits down next to her.

“You should go to the police, Faith.”

“I can’t, Xander. He’s my—”

“I think he forfeited that right when he decided to take pictures of you…”

She can feel the tears welling up again. “Don’t, just don’t. Please. I need to handle this in my own way. Wes can’t know, not ever. I’ve got to figure this out by myself.”

Xander squeezes her shoulder. His voice is quiet but dead serious. “But you don’t, sweetie, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

She fixes him with a cold stare. “You’re not listening to me, Xander. I’m handling it. Did you want a fucking drink or not? ‘Cause I’m having one.”

Her hand is shaking as she pours the scotch.

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Eight

Two glasses of Scotch a piece, which makes them both wrinkle their noises and stick their tongues out as it goes down, and Xander has just about got over his shock.

"I mean, what kind of guy doesn't have a TV?" he asks her for the gazillionth time, his face furrowed with the enormity of such a terrible state of affairs. "Is that, like, a British thing?"

"It's mostly a Wes thing," she giggles. "He likes to listen to classical music and read and hey, I read this Jane Austen book…"

Xander gives her this look like she's just farted. "That's it? That's his sinister attraction? He likes no music or books made after 1875 and it gets you hot?"

The whiskey's given her the warm fuzzies and she leans against Xander's shoulder, inhaling the toasty, familiar smell of him. "Yeah and he dresses me up in a fucking crinoline while he's at it."

The bug-eyes he gives her makes her realize that he doesn't know whether she's joking or not so she has to punch him on the shoulder. "As fucking if, Xand! He's cool, OK? We do the crossword together and he cooks me these fucking amazing meals and on Sundays we go to the Farmer's Market and he… I just… I like the person that I am with him."

And it's like the person she is with him, and the person she is with Xander, don't quite meet in the middle, and just one sideways glance at Xander is enough to know that it makes him feel just as sad about it as she does.

"You gonna keep in touch when you move to New York?" he asks softly.

"Damn straight I am! And you're coming to visit. First thing I said to Wes, when he told me."

Xander slumps down on the couch, legs sprawled untidily in front of him. "Not gonna be the same as having you fifteen minutes away though."

"I know."

"And that kinda sucks."

"Yeah, it pretty much does," she sighs, threading her fingers through his. But he's gently untangling himself so he can reach into his shirt pocket.

"Just as well I got the cure, right here," he says, holding up a little plastic bag, which she has to squint at.

"Skunk?"

Xander wags his finger at her. "Au contraire, my dear Faithy. Hydroponic skunk. Do you want to do the honors, or shall I?"


One hour, another glass of Scotch and three joints later, they're feeling no pain. Too baked to do anything other than lie on the rug, holding hands and listen to Eric Satie. And eventually they fall asleep, like they've done on countless other nights after bar hopping their way across town and coming home empty-handed and broken-hearted because no one would look at them twice.

The insistent ringing of her cell phone wakes her up and she gives a groan of pain at the crick in her neck as she raises her head from its not-so-comfy position of Xander's shoulder.

"What the fuck?" he whimpers.

"We fell asleep and where the hell is my phone?" She finds it wedged down the side of the couch and wills herself to sound like the winner of a Miss Congeniality pageant as she hits the green button.

"Hi," she trills, trying to ignore the sandpaper feel of her mouth.

"Well, you sound pretty fucking chipper, sweetheart. Guess someone got her brains fucked out last night." He sounds drunk of his own smugness. Well, that and the beer he's probably been knocking back all night. The only reason he's up at 7 am is because he's managed to find some skeevy dive that stays open all night.

"What do you want?" she hisses. "How about one of my fucking kidneys this time?"

Liam barks with laughter. "I'll let you know when it comes to that, Faithy. Just wanted to let my darling daughter know that the checks are ready."

Xander's sitting up and looking at her worriedly. Which is absolutely no fucking help whatsoever. Doesn't stop him from listening in like she's the Quiz Of The Day on WAZN.

"You can only cash one a week," she says fiercely, tucking the phone under her ear and scooping up the dirty glasses. "One thousand dollars for each one and I want the photos back."

"Seems to be that you're not in a position to start busting my balls," he says equably.

She takes a deep breath, ignores Xander's stupid faces and continues: "I could have those checks canceled. You cash one a week and then you call me to arrange where we're gonna meet so I can get those photos back."

"You get the photos once I've had the whole six thou," Liam insists. "And I'd watch your tone, you're not too big to put you over my knee but then again, that'd probably get you off, wouldn't it, baby?"

"But…" she starts and then realizes that she doesn't know where she's headed. "Look, I want two of them back after you've cashed half the checks. That's fucking fair."

But it isn't. None of it is. And reasoning with her dad is like trying to talk about algebra with a three-year-old.

Liam breathes heavily down the phone and she squinches up her face at the sound. "OK," he says finally. "I'll think about it and let you know."

"Dad…" And she hates that she has to call him that, like he's been there to take her on fucking fishing trips and pin up her gold starred report cards (not like she ever got many of them) on the refrigerator and rub her back when she used to get night terrors. "I am fucking begging you, please, please, please don’t do this to us. To me. You're fucking everything up…"

But she's already talking to the dial tone.

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Nine

Xander doesn’t say a word. Not one. And that’s fucking worse than him nagging somehow. He just waits until he’s sure she’s not going to do anything but scrunch herself into a tight little ball and glare at the silent phone and then he shrugs and goes off to pee – and, as she finds out later – go to town with every fancy soap, gel and spray he can, so that when they meet up in the kitchen twenty minutes later, he smells like Wes and it nearly kills her.

He chatters over the coffee and toast she makes, crunching away at whole wheat goodness without complaining because it’s not Wonder bread, moaning happily when he gets a hit of the coffee she’s gotten used to... perfect house guest. He even offers to help with the dishes until she points silently at the dishwasher and rolls her eyes, holding back the giggles.

It’s not until they’re both in the taxi he insisted on calling, taking him home and her to work that he finally cracks.

“Faith – it’s got to be the first time in living memory I’ve ever agreed with Darla, but you know, she’s right. Tell him. He’ll chew Liam up and spit him out. Jerk won’t have chance to do anything before his ass is in jail and no one’ll be listening to word one.”

“Going to put her in jail too? Lilah? The one who’s hassling my mom every night?” Faith shakes her head. “Dad doesn’t like her much but if it was the only way to do it, he’s work with her – and she’d love the chance to drag it all out in the open. I’ve got to just keep him quiet, one way or another for two months and we’re gone.”

“So’s six thou of Wes’ money,” Xander points out acidly. “Or is he rich enough that’s pocket change?”

She shakes her head. “He won’t care about how much if he finds out,” she whispers because the cab drivers starting to get interested. “That’s not going to matter at all.”

“Then why – oh, forget it.” He tosses some bills at her as the cab slows down and gives her a kiss. “Faith, you’re a stubborn bitch, you know that?”

She grins. “But you still love me, right?”

“With all my might,” he says solemnly, the way he always has since they were six and he went through three months of not saying anything unless it rhymed.

She’s smiling when she walks into the office but it’s wiped off her face when she sees the message light flashing on the phone. Shit. The detour to drop Xander off means she’s all of seven minutes late and she’s missed Wesley’s phone call. Stabbing her finger against the ‘play’ button and grabbing a pencil and – fuck, she’s going to have to go out at lunch and buy some paper to write on – a scrap of paper, just in case he’s got anything he wants her to do, she waits to hear him get creatively pissed off.

“Faith? I can only trust that you’re planning on working late to make up for your unaccountable tardiness. Or do I have Xander to thank for it?” For one traitorous, treacherous moment she wants to say ‘yes’ when he quizzes her later, but she can’t do that to Xander and Wes’ll take one look at her and know she’s lying anyway. “I’m leaving for the airport shortly and I don’t anticipate any delays. Please make sure you’ve completed the tasks I set you yesterday and follow the instructions I’ll be leaving on the telephone in the study.” There’s a pause and then the cool, bored voice sharpens. “I hope they won’t be beyond your capabilities in the same way that being at your desk at 8.30 sharp is.”

He hangs up then and she’s left with nothing to do but play the message over and over just to hear him drawl out her name in that honey-sweet voice.

She’s so giddy with the thought that he’ll be with her in four or five hours that she practically fucking floats home – after carefully sitting at her desk for seven extra minutes, doing nothing, because there’s nothing to do, just doing what he said and getting a real kick out of it. The house still smells faintly of coffee –oh, she’d forgotten to switch the coffee maker off, that’s why – and Wes’ soap. She takes in an enthusiastic sniff and heads for the study.

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty

The study is filled with the half-light of dusk and she's sort of expecting him to be waiting there for her as a surprise and she's a little crushed that he's not. She's just greeted by the solemn blinking of the answering machine for his private phone line -- the one she doesn't even know the number to -- so she's pretty sure she won't be greeted with any frightening messages from Liam or Lilah.

After clicking on the desk lamp, she hits the play button on the machine, drumming her fingers against the plastic, waiting for the little tape to rewind. It finally starts to play and just like the earlier message, the smooth plumminess of his voice makes her a little weak in the knees.

“Good evening, Faith. I hope it's evening when you hear this, at least. I'm sure you're just hovering over the desk, so please, have a seat.”

Smiling, she settles into his desk chair and resists the temptation to put her feet up.

“My flight arrives, as you may recall, at seven-thirty, so I should arrive an hour after that, if everything goes smoothly at the airport.”

“God, you'd so better not be late...” she mutters at his disembodied voice. The residual THC chasing through her bloodstream and the anticipation of his arrival have made her twitchingly horny all day. She's pretty sure that might send her on a murderous rampage leaving baggage handlers and ticket desk clerks in her wake when she storms the airport, demanding to know why his flight hasn't arrived yet.

“We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow, and no doubt we'll both be quite tired...”

She lets out a little whimper of disgust at that.

“But rest assured that we'll discuss your transgressions tomorrow in an early meeting at the office...”

“Mmm. Yes, sir!” she giggles.

“In the meantime, since we can't go out for a little celebratory dinner tonight and I'll no doubt have choked down some abysmal sandwich for lunch during my layover in St. Louis, you're to ring up Thyme's and order us a light dinner. Two medium-rare fillets mignon with asparagus salad and pilaf. And ginger cake with lemon sauce for dessert. Roger will deliver within an hour of your call; he's always quite prompt, so be prepared. With any luck, the food and my cab will arrive at the same time.”

She's scribbling this all down now, intent not to forget any detail. She'll call right at seven-thirty then, don't want him to wait on dinner.

“After you call, go down to the wine cellar and open the bottle of '95 Mouton Rothschild.” He pauses, and she knows he's running through the mental list of the cellar for the perfect match with rare steak and asparagus. “No, make that the 2000 Pavie Decesse St. Emilion. Leave it to breathe and set the table in the kitchen with the dishes in the third cabinet to the left of the sink, the cutlery from the drawer nearest the oven, and the linens that are in the hall closet." He pauses, and her notes are a muddle that she hopes will be legible later, when she's faced with the expanse of the kitchen. "After you've done that draw yourself a bath. Relax a little, but don't take too long.”

That command would sound ridiculous from someone else, but she knows exactly how long he means – the amount of time it takes for the water to get slightly tepid.

“When you're done, comb out your hair and put on your black silk robe -- and nothing else.” He sighs heavily, and she can't help but smile at his obvious frustration that endearingly matches hers. “I believe that covers everything, and this message has gone on long enough as it is. I'll be so very glad to see you, Faith and I hope to find you poring over Mansfield Park on the sofa with dinner waiting when I arrive.”

The message clicks off and rewinds and she resists listening to it again so as not to waste any time.

***

She should have known better than to expect the airlines to get him home to her according to plan.

Following each of his directives to the letter has left her keyed up and wet and even more impatient. She set the table with the same deliberateness she would save for a perfectly typed letter: sharply folding the linens, lighting the candles, placing the china and silverware just so.

Well, she's followed nearly all the directives. She's curled up on the sofa with her new Dorothy Parker book in hand and the Baudelaire biography wrapped in tissue and raffia on the coffee table, watching the minute hand on the clock tick past 8:45. She calls the airport twice and is told the flight's delayed, but is in range – whatever the hell that means. 9:00. She finally caves and starts drinking the wine. 9:10. At least dinner arrived in insulated boxes, so it won't be totally ruined. Maybe.

By 10:30, she's already cried and drunk half the wine and is staring blankly at the clock when she drifts off to sleep.

**

His lips are brushing the inside of her thigh. She's dozed off splayed on the sofa, of course. But she must be dreaming, right? “Hello...” she mumbles, not even half-awake.

His warm hands are brushing her still-damp hair away from her face when she blearily opens her eyes to find him kneeling next to the sofa, his eyes impossibly tender in a way she's never seen before now.

“What happened to Jane Austen?” he smiles, pulling the book from her grip and putting it aside.

“Boring... too prissy...”

“I see...” He's amused. “I admit, there were times I wanted to throw her aside in disgust...”

“No, you didn't, you love that shit. Everyone's all proper...”

“Oh, believe me, I did. There were times I would have preferred flying missions alongside Biggles in his Sopwith Camel.” He's softly sardonic, and she can't quite believe that he's really there. Maybe she's dreaming? His hand has moved under front of her robe, stroking her breasts, teasing a nipple. “Still, I must admit, Mrs. Parker will be a better fit for you, Faith.”

“That's what the clerk at the bookstore said,” she sighs, finally sitting up and squinting at him.

“I see, my recommendations weren't good enough for you...”

“No, I just... I wanted a book of my own, y'know?”

“I do.” He takes a few sips of her abandoned half-full glass of wine. “I'm sorry I was delayed. I nearly killed everyone on that tiresome flight, but then I realized I didn't know how to fly a plane...”

“It's all right, I was just miserable and driven to drink...”

He leans in and kisses her, swirling his tongue over hers. “I see that...” he says as he breaks away.

“Still, you're here now.”

“I am.”

“What time is it? Can we still eat?” She's not really hungry anymore, but maybe he is.

“I was thinking maybe it was best we got to bed...”

She yawns hugely, thinking of curling up in his arms and going back to sleep and forgetting that their pretty romantic evening hadn't worked out. Waking up to his coffee and his breakfast and being bent over his desk an hour after that, maybe. She feels a little bit like a kid trying to get to bed early on Christmas Eve so the presents will be there sooner.

“Maybe sleep would be best,” she sighs and doesn't complain one bit when he scoops her up and carries her upstairs.


Chapter One Hundred and Thirty One

She's in this warm, fuzzy space between sleep and waking as he shoulders open the door to his room and she clings tighter to him.

"The house smells strange," he comments, as he places her gently on the bed and she turns on to her side and snuggles up against the pillows.

"Left the coffee maker on," she mumbles and doesn't even have enough strength to open her eyes, though she vaguely registers undressing sounds.

"So it would be nothing to do with the fact that you've been smoking in the house and something rather more exotic that your usual Marlboros if I'm not mistaken."

"The spliff was Xander's," she grunts rather uncharitably and pulls the covers tighter round her. She's almost asleep and he shouldn't ask her stuff when her brain seems to have taken a vacation.

Now the sneaky bastard's sat on the edge of the bed and is stroking her hair, smoothing down the wild tumble of curls in a way that's far more effective than electrodes or water torture.

"Anything else I should know about? No, don't open your eyes, Faith, just tell me the awful truth and then you can go to sleep."

And she's fighting this huge wave of tiredness that's threatening to pull her under but even so she's not far gone enough to tell him the awfulest of the awful truths. "I drank about half a bottle of your good Scotch and I filched four of your sleeping tablets," she yawns. "You pissed at me?"

"Oh yes, terribly," he murmurs, like he couldn't give a fuck about any of it, especially if the way he's smoothing the back of his hand against her flushed cheek is anything to go by. "But it can wait until the morning."

"Steno pads." She's almost there, lulled by the soothing motions of his hands on her face and hair. "Burnt them all."

"All of them? That seems rather excessive." His lips brush her forehead and she's sinking away from him, rolling onto her tummy and clinging onto the nearest pillow.

"Sorry, Wes. Bad week," she vaguely hears herself say and then she's drifting on this cloud and she thinks she hears the patter of raindrops but it's probably just the shower and when she wakes up halfway through the night, he's sprawled out on the other side of the bed, covers kicked off but his hand is holding hers tightly and she smooshes against him, hitches her leg across his and goes back to sleep.


When she wakes up properly, her eyes snapping open and after ten hours of the best sleep she's had in weeks, all her phasers set to stun, the first thing she remembers is that he's finally fucking home. All's right in her world. It takes another five seconds to dimly recall her little confession session from the night before and she's tugging off the quilt and jumping out of bed.

Even though she breaks all world showering records, it’s another fifteen minutes before she's tiptoeing down the stairs and heading for the kitchen where the smell of freshly brewed coffee tells her that at least she might get to repent for her sins after a couple of hits of caffeine.

He's got his back to her, gazing out of the window but he turns at the sound her heels on the parquet flooring.

"Ah, Faith," he says smoothly, smiling like he means it. "I trust you slept well. Coffee?"

"Like the dead and yeah, thanks." She's already getting a mug out of the cupboard but she turns to look at him because she can't not. Her eyes scan every inch of his pretty face, the angular lines of his cheekbones, that pouting quiver of a mouth, his twinkling blue eyes and the next thing she knows is she's taking a step and another and he's holding out his arms so she can hurl herself at him.

"I fucking missed you," she hisses into his ear before she winds her arms round his neck and tugs him down, because even with her heels he's still got half a head of height on her, so she can kiss him.

It's a pretty hot and steamy kiss for 7.47 am. She doesn’t bother with the niceties but goes straight for the prize of his tongue sliding into her mouth. They both taste of toothpaste and he's doing that thing he does; that thing where she feels that she's safe and nothing and no one will ever be able to get to her. Makes her wrap her arms even tighter around him until he makes a slight noise of protest and pulls his mouth away from her clinging lips.

"Not that I mind such an enthusiastic homecoming," he smiles against her mouth. "But I do rather like my head attached to my neck."

"I missed you so much," she says again, pressing tiny kisses across the smooth surface of his cheeks. "Next time I'm going to stow away in your cabin bag."

He pushes her away from him and holds her at arm's length. "Well, if you lose any more weight that might become a distinct possibility."

Sometimes she hates how well he knows her. "Jeez," she blurts out. "That's exactly what my Mom said 'cept she was ruder about it."

A frown glances across his face. "You saw your mother?"

She shrugs out of his grasp and picks up the coffee mug. "Well, yeah. Bumped into her the other day."

"I see. Well, that would certainly explain your rather alarming lapses in behavior while I've been away. And how is Darla?"

This is not a conversation that she wants to have. Not this morning. Not now. But he's not going to let it slip until she's answered satisfactorily. "She's fine," she says hurriedly. "Got a job, off the booze, she's all new and improved. Maybe we should invite her to dinner too."

"Faith." He must take lessons in saying her name like that so it's all echo-y with reproach and warning.

"I don't want to talk about her," she bites out, taking a cautious sip of her coffee. "Look, Wes, can we just not? You've only been home for a few hours and I just want this to be about us, OK?"

"Very well," he agrees, but his voice is edged with irritation and that frosty look is icing up his eyes. "There are a few other things we need to discuss, aren’t there?"

Which is not what she meant at all and he fucking knows it. "I'm sorry about all that. I'm 18, booze and dope and a couple of pills pretty much go with the territory."

"As does burning steno pads by the dozen, I'm sure."

And what's she meant to say? There aren’t any explanations in the world, apart from the truth, which, so not going there. So she settles for distraction instead. Makes her eyes go big and pouts her lips. "That wasn't all I did while you were in New York," she whines. "I bought you a present too."

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Two

He smiles, looking as indulgent as if he’s the one giving her something, frost melting like magic. “Really? That’s very kind of you. I trust it cost no more than ten dollars, though. If my present giving is to be severely restricted ...”

She pokes him sharply in the ribs. “Hey! Even I know it’s rude to ask how much a present cost, Wes.”

“I stand corrected,” he murmurs, heavy on the sarcasm but with enough of a smile still lurking to reassure her. “Thank you, Faith. May I have it now?”

She leans in and gives him another kiss, just because he’s there to be kissed and that’s something she doesn’t ever want to get used to. “Sure. Unless you’re just dying to get behind your desk again...”

There’s a world of meaning behind that and he acknowledges it by letting his smile widen slightly as his hand slides down her back. “I think perhaps you’d prefer me in a good mood when I do that, Faith. I don’t know exactly how many errors you’ve made that will require correction –”

That gets him a snort. “I’ll bet my ass, you do.”

“Interesting, almost prophetic choice of words,” he says smoothly. “Perhaps you’re correct. I did have an awfully long time on the plane with nothing to do but think of you, after all.” He sighs. “And then I had to revise the total when I came home, in light of your confessions. You really do put me to a good deal of trouble sometimes.”

“Sorry...” she says, totally failing to look penitent. “Guess you’ll have to just stick around; stop me going off the rails.”

“I was rather hoping you could do that by yourself, because by now you’ve learned what pleases me and what makes me... less pleased.”

She has to think about that. Wes wouldn’t like it if she didn’t do anything wrong, because so far he’s always wanted a reason before he turned her ass scarlet and stinging – but yeah, there’s times she’s gotten him really annoyed and that’s not so much fun.

“Well, I try,” she says and it must sound really fucking doubtful and pathetic because he starts to laugh and doesn’t stop until she swings on her heel and stalks off, returning and pushing the book into his hands with a scowl.

“Faith –” he says, hands busy but in a careful, patient way, not ripping and tearing into it the way she would’ve. “You really – oh.” He holds the book up and there’s this faint flush on his face. “I haven’t read this,” he says, as if he’s confessing to something sinful. “Thank you, Faith; that was very thoughtful of you.”

He’s almost flustered, eyes fixed on the book, long fingers touching the cover with a delicate pressure that doesn’t linger; soft, wondering touches.

“It’s just a book, Wes,” she says, feeling awkward herself in the face of his muted delight. “You’ve got thousands...”

“And I bought them all myself,” he says, turning so she gets to see his blue eyes again and the pleased look on his face. “I really don’t recall the last time someone gave me a present.”

She takes a deep breath. Way too much emotion for this early in the morning. “I was late back from lunch. That’s your second one.”

He frowns and she watches him work that one out. Then he gets it and he tilts up her chin with a barely-there push of his fingers. “Thank you,” he says. “I’ll be sure to remember that.” There’s a glimmer of amusement in his eyes as he gives her one of those kisses that last a second but leave her tingling, and turns to stare out of the window. “The lilac’s out,” he says. “It’s a shame it doesn’t last longer, but perhaps it means we appreciate it more.”

Before she’s got chance to feel depressed, because, yes, she can make even gardening chit-chat about her at the moment, he shakes off the softer side and he’s back to business again. “Hurry up, Faith. We’ll be leaving in fifteen minutes.” He purses his lips and studies her. “I think I’d like you to wear something new today.”

“Don’t think I’ve got anything you haven’t seen, Wes,” she says, going through her wardrobe in her head and coming up blank.

“Try the closet in your room,” he says.

“You weren’t supposed to be buying me presents,” she says but without much conviction.

He turns away and rinses out his cup. “I think something I want you to wear at work is more of a business expense, wouldn’t you agree? Not that I intend to claim it as such...” His voice sounds far away as if he’s almost forgotten she’s there. “Off you go. And Faith? It comes to seven individual acts that I feel I can’t allow to pass unrebuked. I can provide you with a list if you wish.”

“I trust you, Wes,” she says without thinking about it, because she’s totally focused on whatever he’s got planned for her.

“I hope you do. Now please hurry.”

There’s a curiously expectant tone to his voice and maybe even a little bit of apprehension. It takes her as long to figure out as it takes to walk to her room and open the closet door. The clothes have been pushed to one side and hanging there, clearly separate from everything else, is one of her usual work dresses with a narrow strip of leather wound around the hanger.

She takes the hanger off the rail and tosses the dress to the bed before unwinding the leather. It’s not a collar, as she’d first thought; too long for that. Not a – a harness or something either and she’s losing the blush and the tremble of arousal and panic because she’s getting curious now. There’s a flat silver buckle, small and smooth and she goes with the obvious in the end; it’s a belt. But that’s somehow too easy and when Wesley taps impatiently on the open door she spins around and holds it out to him looking puzzled.

“Why do you want me to wear this, Wesley? It doesn’t go with the dress, you know.”

It didn’t. Both were black, but the belt was uncompromisingly sexual in a way that the dress, clinging as it did, was not. The belt looked as if it was part of a set that included matching collar, cuffs and whip though she really couldn’t see Wes bothering with anything that fancy. He seemed to get off on improvising or just using his hand and that was fine with her.

“Well, no,” he says, “but as no one will be able to see it, I don’t think they’ll be likely to criticize your ability to accessorize.”

He takes it from her and gives her a flick of the finger that has her slipping out of her robe and standing in front of him naked. “You see,” he says in a conversational voice as he cinches it tightly around her waist, fastening the buckle in the small of her back, “it’s what I’m going to use on you later but by the time I do, you’ll have had hours of wearing it, feeling it cut into you – oh, it’s not tight enough to hurt and if it does start to, you’re to come to me immediately and ask for it to be loosened – but you’ll be unable to forget that you’re wearing it and what its intended purpose is.” He sighs. “It’s 8.15. I had hoped that you’d only have to wear it a few hours, but now... well, I’m sure the time will just fly by until 2.15.”

“You’re not going to do anything to me until then?” she blurts out, too horrified by the idea to care that after seven seconds the belt’s forcing her spine straight and making her breathe with slow, careful sips of air.

He gives her a little frown. “I told you on the phone what I wanted to do to you on my first day back, Faith,” he reminds her. “I hope you’ve not been so forgetful when it comes to work.”

It takes her a full thirty seconds to recall that particular bit of the conversation and when she does she whimpers. “You said you were gonna keep me on my knees,” she says, “or make me stand there while you – oh fuck, Wes!”

She can already feel his fingers stirring inside her, tweaking and pinching at her clit as he teases her for hours, his other hand busy writing.

“We’ll have to see,” he says with a pat on her shoulder as he heads for the door. “It’s such a beautiful day that I might improvise. One wouldn’t want to get predictable after all.”

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Three

It is a really beautiful day. Blue, uninterrupted sky and wispy clouds as far as the eye can see. In spite of everything, something that simple still has the power to put a big grin on Faith’s face.

“Wes?”

He doesn’t take his eyes off the road, just flicks his gaze briefly in her direction. “Mmm?”

“You wanna play hooky today? You’ve worked really hard this week, you totally deserve it.”

“’Hooky’? This isn’t a concept I’m  familiar with, Faith. You’ll have to educate me.”

She rolls her eyes. “I suppose you’re going to tell me you never did that when you were in school. I bet you had fucking perfect attendance.”

“As a matter of fact, I did.”

“Shouldn’t go through life like that, Wes. It’s not right.”

“What do you suggest, Faith?”

“I don’t know. We could, like, go somewhere, take a drive…” This was a better idea before she opened her mouth. Now she feels vaguely ridiculous for having suggested it. But the thought of being in town makes her skin crawl…

“I do actually have some work to do today, Faith.”

And that’s that. She goes back to looking out the window, watching the trees pass.

***

When they get to the office the machine is blinking angrily and the water cooler is out of water and it seems there are a million little things to tend to. She’s just about to start taking down the messages when Wes’ fingers ghost lightly over hers. “I think we can take a few moments after all, don’t you?”

He lowers the ringer on the phone and then turns to her. “Need I even say it?”

She looks up at him, coy little smile on her lips. “I think you do. Sir.”

“Step into my office, Faith—” He pauses and she finds herself anticipating that little twist in his voice, the dark velvety tone he wrings out of a word as deceptively simple as —“now.” He doesn’t make her wait long.

That will come later.

“Sir.”  But he’s already ahead of her, and she doesn’t catch up, just takes her time, swaying her hips languidly as she walks down the hall, momentarily feeling as though she hasn’t a care in the world. It’s weird how insulated she feels in the office. How safe. And she knows full well that the games they play, the very fact of them, and of his regard for her, is what makes it so. What makes this a haven. A strange one, to be sure, but still.

When she reaches the heavy door at the end of the hall it’s shut tight. A little puzzled, she gives a tentative knock and she can hear Wes’ muffled “Come in.”

She steps over the threshold to find Wes standing there with a certain black scarf across his palm.

She’s a little surprised to see it. “You want me to put it on?”

“Not this time.”

Her eyebrows practically shoot skyward in cartoonish surprise at that one. “T-then what?” ‘Cause I sure as hell don’t see anyone else here, she thinks.

He gives her one of his glacial little smiles that never fucking cease to melt her down. “Well, you did say you wanted to play a little…hooky, as you put it. And, despite your many transgressions this past week, I suppose I’m feeling somewhat indulgent.”

“But, what do you want me to—”

“Put it on me.”

She almost laughs. “You’re not— you're serious?”

“Faith.” Ah, that’s the all-too familiar timbre that brooks no argument. That gets her so fucking wet. Or, wetter, at any rate.

“OK. Um, I just, didn’t think… I mean, after I mentioned the tying-you-up idea I kinda gave up…”

“I’m waiting. And if I have to wait any longer, this curious streak of indulgence I’m having could disappear awfully quickly.”

She scrambles behind him, reaching up to place the fabric across his brow and tying it securely behind his head. “There. No peeking.” She knows he wouldn’t —he’d never cheat, he's too principled— but she has to say it anyway. It’s, like, contractual obligation or something. He nods.

Her mouth goes a little dry at the thought of what he might have planned. She doesn’t have the first idea, and that’s the best gift he could possibly give her, really…

“I’m going to undress you, Faith, and you get to tell me when and how and what you’d like me to do. How slow, how quick, where you’d like my hands…”

And now she has a new kind of anxiety, that she won’t be up to this new task. She’s not a talker like he is, not even close, and she always starts talking faster when she’s nervous and that won’t fucking do at all and…

“I await your instruction, Faith. So tell me —where shall I begin?”

One Hundred and Thirty Four

She gulps loudly and it sounds like a cannon firing in the quiet of the room.

"Um… why don't you er… start with unzipping the back of my dress," she says hesitantly. And when his hands turn her round, it suddenly hits her what he's really giving her. And she can take it. He's put himself at her command.

Bout fucking time too.

"Nuh-huh, Wes," she snaps. "You're not allowed to use your hands."

She can't help but smirk as he makes a tutting noise. "And no whining either."

"Am I allowed to speak?" he enquires with a little too much attitude for her liking but she's feeling all kinds of gracious so she decides to let it go. Just this once.

"Course you are, Wes," she coos. "You know I love the sound of your pretty voice."

And he might take her sass out on her ass later. In fact, she's pretty much counting on it, but for now he just contents himself with another sharp intake of breath and she feels his lips warm on the back of her neck.

She stretches up to make it easier for him and revels in the sun hitting her face through the window. The window. The fucking window.

She wrenches away from him. "Hang on!" she yelps, thanking every available God there is that he's got the blindfold on because she knows that she's wearing panic on her face, like it's her favorite lipstick.

"I'm sure I'm never this quixotic with you," he huffs as she races to the window and pulls the heavy drapes tight shut so the room is plunged into darkness and she bangs her knee on the edge of the desk because her eyes haven't got used to the gloom.

"Fuck! Fucking fuck!" she growls, bending down to rub her palm against the blossoming pain in her leg and gasps as the belt cuts into her. "Oh, fuck!" she hisses again as she straightens up.

"Is that something you'd like me to do to you, Faith?" he asks mildly. "Or just the heat of the moment?"

It's just like him to have complete control of the situation, even give it some snark, when she's meant to be all bitch goddess-y and barking out orders.

"Come here," she snaps sulkily. "I'm standing by the desk."

He manages it with apparent ease, doesn’t even have to stretch his arms out in front of him like an extra from a zombie movie.

And when he's standing next to her, calm and relaxed she turns round. "Unzip me," she says far more breathily, than she intended. "And I'm going to let you use your hands 'cause I want you to talk to me while you're doing it."

He brushes her hair back from her collar, smoothing it over her shoulders and then his fingers are unclasping the hook and eye that always gives her so much trouble and slowly easing down the zip.

"Your skin's so soft," he remarks casually, stroking every inch that he uncovers, with the pads of his fingers, so she's shivering into his touch. "I wish I could see it. You have this beautiful honey-glow, which I expect will deepen as summer comes.

"And although I'm blindfolded, when I feel these, how prominent they've become," his fingers walk along the knobs of her spine, causing a rash of goose-bumps to follow in their wake, "I know that you've lost weight."

"Off message, Wes."

His hands reach the thin leather of the belt, which is starting to cut into her flesh so it's less about the anticipation of what it will bring and more about the here and now of him binding her.

"Is this too tight, Faith?" he asks, as his finger traces the leather edge.

She hesitates. And he curls his finger under the thin strap and yanks it slightly so she grits her teeth as it rubs against already chafed flesh. "It's too tight," she admits hastily. "I guess you need to loosen it."

"Very well. And, later, if I see any marks that suggest that you've been remiss in not telling me sooner, I'm going to make those seven misdemeanors that we need to take into account up to an even eight."

"Hey! Hey! I'm in charge," she reminds him, but really she's not because his hands are working the clasp of the belt and easing it slightly and she arches back against his hard body, his hard cock and before he's even finished, she's biting back a moan. "I want you to take my bra off next," she whispers, trying to slip her arms out of the sleeves off the dress, but his teeth nip the back of her neck.

"I believe that I was very explicit in my wish to undress you." His voice tickles her ear, trickling into her brain, even as he nibbles her lobe. "I'm fairly certain that you were to do nothing else but give me the necessary instructions."

"I didn't think you'd be this bossy," she grumbles and his hands fall away and she's doing this all wrong. It's not how they play this and she doesn't know what to do. All she knows is that he has to keep touching her.

He's not saying anything. Not moving and it’s her who's stepping back so she can lean against him again. "I want you to finish taking off my dress," she says and his hands begin this slow glide down her arms, gently pulling the dress away from her. "And you can go faster than that, Wes. I want this fucking dress off now. Want to feel you against my skin."

"So impatient," he mutters like it's causing him great pain, but his touch is greedy as his hands delve into the dress where it's stuck on her hips and yanks it off her.

"Now my bra. And you're meant to be talking to me," she reminds him, almost surprised by the petulant bite to her voice.

He makes her bra disappear like it's magic and she's tugging his unresisting hands to her breasts. "Touch them," she moans.

"How would you like me to touch them?" he asks. "Would you like me to stroke them?" He cups the swollen weight of her breasts in his palms. "Or would you like me to pinch your pretty nipples until you're making those frantic little whimpers that I like so much?"

Her brain's become mush and she couldn't even tell him her name. His fingers are circling around her areolas and then he surprises her by suddenly tugging her nipples between finger and thumb so she squeaks.

"Faith, really." His voice is tinged with regret. "I offered you an exceedingly rare opportunity to get exactly what you want and I feel that you're squandering it. Maybe we should…"

"I'm going to go and sit in your chair," she chokes out and she sounds so fucking dark and desperate that she hardly recognizes herself. "And you're going to stand in front of me and then you're going to get on your knees and you're going to… to suck on my tits for as long as I want and then you're going to take… you're going to rip off my panties and you're going to go down on me until I come."

And there was no rhythm to this before. Just a constant stop/start but now it's like they're breathing in unison. Ragged gasps in and out and the air in the room has got so heavy that she feels like she's wading through syrup as she straightens up, fleetingly brushes the back of her hand against his rigid cock and then sidesteps in front of his sun-warmed leather chair.

She sits down, wiggles back on it and even though he can't see it, she beckons him with a finger. "Well, Wes, what the fuck are you waiting for?"

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Five

He doesn't say anything, just drops to his knees before her and just that one simple move makes her whimper in anticipation.

“Come closer. Here.” She's hooked him with her dark purring words, and he leans in, his breath hot on her belly. His hands slide up her torso, cupping her breasts again, pulling her forward.

She can't stop the escaping hiss of pleasure when he draws his tongue slowly over each nipple in turn, making them painfully erect, each one pleading for more sensation, more stimulation.

“Suck on the left one,” Her voice is raspy, throat dry. “Now.”

He's pliant and obeys, suckling and then swirling his tongue over and over the little hard nub and she's pushing herself to remain focused, fighting not to get too lost in the feeling and shatter her control. And that makes everything all the more intense; her eyes are screwed tightly shut in concentration and all she can see is blinding yellow and white flashes of color under her eyelids.

“Harder. Suck harder. Use your teeth. And pinch the other one. Hard. Between your fingers.” She doesn't care that her commands are ragged and breathless and near-incoherent now, she's just letting the words flow out unchecked. Her hands are clenched tight around the armrests of the chair and she unfurls them slowly, opens her eyes. The sight of him planted between her legs like that, pretty mouth pursed around her breast, the silk scarf brushing against her every time he moves his head, it's nearly too much. Moaning with delight, she runs her fingers through his hair when he obeys her commands perfectly, teeth grazing one nipple and his strong, soft fingers simultaneously twisting the other.

“Yes. That's good... very good, Wesley," she coos, shifting a little in the chair, shoving her crotch against his chest. A button on his shirt is fortuitously placed, resting ever-so-lightly right over her clit with just the tiniest bit of pressure that threatens to blow holes in her concentration all over again. He starts to inch away, but she hooks her legs around him, trapping him there. “No, you need to stay right where you are. Right here.” She slips one of her free hands down past the edge of the seat, just reaching his cock and awkwardly rubbing it openhanded, delighting at the wet patch soaking through the rough wool.

And there's no concept of time now, just an interval of blurred minutes marked by her command for him to switch: to suck and tease and bite her already-sensitive nipple freed from his pinching fingers, to barely run his fingers over the puckered and wet one his mouth just abandoned. Her moans are coming from low in her throat, almost growls, every time his teeth graze her flesh.

She's almost getting the hang of this now, her brain running on two intertwined tracks, the coherent thoughts and the incoherent ones; she can appreciate what he goes through when he's spitting out orders to her, the sheer amount of control he must execute every time he's administering a spanking.

She finally pulls his head away, holds it between her hands. She wants to rip the blindfold off, stare him down, but resists. “I need that tongue of yours on my clit now. And remember what I said, Wesley. Rip 'em off.”

No sooner has she said that than his hands slip down, finding one of the side seams of her panties and with one sharp tug, the delicate silk splits. Fingers spidering over her pussy now, he rips apart the tiny strip of fabric that formerly rested between her legs, wet with her juices.

Sliding one hand under her ass cheeks and tilting her up off the chair, he pulls the torn thing away and tosses it aside. She's been silent the whole time, sipping air in tiny gasps, and she's getting lightheaded. Now she realizes he's waiting; waiting there, still holding her up off the chair.

“Tease me first.”

Her words hang there heavily for a few moments until his lips curl into a devilish little smile and his fingers trace idly around the damp heat of her hole. “I thought you'd never ask...”

“I'm not asking, Wesley. I'm telling you. Tease me with your fingers. Then your tongue.”

He lavishes delicate care over every square centimeter of her pink wet lips; slips his tongue inside at intervals, lapping up every bit of moisture spilling out.

Finally he reaches her clit, flicking his tongue over it rhythmically, and it's all she can do to sputter out, “Put your fingers inside me. Now. Fucking hell, Wesley. Do it now!”

He does, just on first, then two, curling them around lightly as she tightens 'round them. “Yes, that's it,” she sighs heavily. “Now slide one in my ass.”

After a few moments she's so close to coming, but doesn't want it, not yet. “Slow down. Slower. Slower...” He's barely twitching his fingers inside her now, barely running his tongue across her clit, until he finally pulls away completely. The blindfold's been knocked askew a bit, and that grin is back as he greedily runs his tongue over his lower lip. She counts slowly to five in her head.

“Now, Wesley. Make me come now.” And after another count of five that neither of them keeps track of, she's screaming his name and pulling him up and away, leaning in to slip the blindfold away from his eyes and kiss his salty, moist lips.

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Six

She'll never take this for granted; tasting her salt-sea tang in his mouth, her throbbing naked flesh pressed up against the starched cotton and scratchy wool of his clothed body.

He's still on his knees in front of her, unusually biddable as she curls her fingers into his hair so she can delve her tongue between his lips.

But he's gently pulling away from her, sitting back on his haunches. "Did you enjoy that, Faith?" he asks with a mischievous grin that makes him look twenty years younger.

"Yeah, fuck, yeah," she sighs, stroking her hand against his cheek. "Could get used to it, you know?"

"Oh, I doubt that," he says, eyes glinting in the dim light, fingers trailing across her thighs. "It's unlikely to happen again."

And she's pretty cool with that. It was fun. Serious, big-time fun but the whole barking out orders and being in control thing? He's so much better at it. Even so…

"What if I've been extra good?" she pouts.

"Oh, Faith, I'm sure when that far-off event actually happens, I'll be able to think of a suitable way to reward you that involves a little less audience participation," he purrs. "And why on earth did you close the curtains?"

She glances over at the heavy, velvet drapes and tries a casual shrug. "Don't know… just seemed more intimate like this."

And he's frowning so she distracts him the best way she knows how, which is to lean forward so her breasts are in his face and reach down to touch the trembling length of his rigid cock.

"I'd really like to suck you off," she tells him and it's not a lie.

He looks doubtful, even as he's leaning into her hand and biting his lip. "Really? I'm afraid that won't be possible."

She rubs her thumb against the wet material, just about where the head of his cock is. "But Wes, we had that whole talk about how it's not good for you to…"

"It won’t be possible because I'm going to fuck you," he growls. "Right… about… now."

And his hands are grasping her hips, pulling her off the chair, so she's squealing and squirming on his lap even as he's pushing her back so she's on the floor, under the desk and he's on top of her, thrusting against her soaking wet pussy.

"Wait… wait…" she mumbles, struggling to get her hands between them so she can unbuckle his belt and pull down the zip of his ruined trousers.

He's hot and hard and wet in her waiting hands, bucking up against the teasing, tickling movements that she uses to torment him. "I don't know, Wes," she murmurs in her ear. "I'm starting to get this whole delayed pleasure thing."

His eyes flash at her, lips pulled back in a grimace, before he grabs her hands and pins them above her head. "Spread your legs," he orders in this harsh bite that has her parting her thighs so wide that she can feel the muscles quiver.

He raises himself away from her ever so slightly and she doesn't even have to be told to tilt her hips because she's doing it and the head of his cock is nudging at her swollen clit, before he traces a careful path along her dripping snatch and then slams into her.

"Wrap your legs round me," he snarls against her open mouth. "And then you're absolutely not to move."

She doesn't have to. She just winds her legs around his waist, arching up to make sure the base of his cock grinds against her clit and then clings on for dear life as he surges into her again and again, with these deep, sweet thrusts that keep the tip of his cock in constant contact with that little spot inside her that makes her see God.

It's like they're hidden away from the rest of the world, in their little cave under his desk. And the rug rubbing furiously against her back is just more sensation, the bruising grip of his fingers around her wrists another dollop of feeling that echoes the burn of his cock deep within her cunt.

His mouth is buried against her neck, sucking at the skin behind her ear and she feels like she's drowning in him. His hips are moving faster now, short jabbing motions and she's squeezing around him.

"So tight," he hisses. "My perfect… pretty… little… Olympia."

She's beyond words, biting out "oh fucks" and "Wes's" in this high pitched chant that becomes an airless scream as he rams into her one last, fast, furious time and her head's banging against the floor and she's arching her back and clenching her cunt, holding him inside her as he comes in hot waves and she thinks that this time he really has fucked her into the floor.

One Hundred and Thirty Seven

Fifteen minutes later she’s dressed again, Wesley’s tie is as straight as a Roman road, and he’s dictating to her in a voice so studiously cool she wants to pinch herself, because it’s impossible that the fingers curled around the pen he’s tapping against the blotter as he decides whether Mr. Salton’s problem is ‘urgent’ or just ‘pressing’ – in the end he goes with ‘imminent’- are the same ones that were deep inside her cunt not twenty minutes earlier.

“And before you start typing my reports, could you bring me a coffee, please?”

He gives her a charming smile but his hand’s already reaching eagerly for a folder and she’s left wondering how he can switch it all off like that when she’s still weak-kneed and glowing like a Christmas light.

She’s been at her desk for half an hour, getting back into the routine, everything all bright and beautiful because God’s in his heaven and Wes is in his office, when the door opens and a delivery boy walks in, face hidden behind a bouquet of roses; white flushed with pink, open flowers, not buds.

“Uh, I was told to give these to the secretary,” he says in a mumble. “That’d be you, I guess?”

She by his side reaching out for them before he’s had time to finish talking. “Yes, that’s me. Thanks.”

He smiles at her in a shy sort of a way and she’s got a feeling he looks familiar - wasn’t his brother in her year at school?- but she doesn’t give him chance to catch up on the good old days of eight months ago, just waits for him to back away slowly, still smiling, and then she’s laying the flowers down on the desk almost reverently and rummaging through stiff layers of furled wrapping paper to find the gift card.

Red would be too predictable it says, and if the writing’s unfamiliar it really doesn’t matter, because she can hear Wes saying it to her in that husky drawl of his. Arrange them, dispose of the wrapping neatly, and finish your letters. I’ll be working through lunch. I expect to see you at 2.15.

She grins at the thought of the florist obediently copying all that down and then runs her finger over the petals, smiling at the scent rises to meet her, sweet and summery. It’s not until she’s arranging them that she realizes there’re seven of them and he must have ordered them after she gave him his coffee and got barely a nod of thanks.

She finds a vase that Wes tells her later is nineteenth century Chinese, and fills it with water, plunging the roses into it one at a time and leaving it at that. She doesn’t fold napkins into fucking swans and she doesn’t arrange flowers. She’s got her standards. She puts the vase where she can see it as she works and doesn’t stop smiling until 2.13 when she stands to go to the office and realizes that a Wes-free lunch where she went to town on a sundae means the belt’s been cutting into her for the last hour without her really noticing. Fuck.

Trying to suck in her stomach to ease the pressure, she taps on the door and gets told to come in. The curtains have been drawn back again and she can’t help darting a quick, scared glance at the windows.

“Faith, is something wrong?” Wesley says, craning his head around and staring at the window, sounding halfway to annoyed.

“No!” she yelps. “Just, well, anyone could walk by, you know?”

It looks out onto the car park and it’s not like they get a lot of people using it but after glaring at her for a moment, he shrugs. “If it really bothers you...”

He stands up, twitches them closed, and walks over to her. “Turn around,” he says.

She starts to, and then remembers her manners. “Wes- the flowers –”

He looks at her incredulously as if he can’t believe she’s interrupting whatever he’s got planned for something as trivial as thanking him for a romantic gesture that made her feel loved. “If I have to repeat every order I give you, Faith, I might decide ten is an even better number than seven.” She spins around and feels his fingers ease the zip of her dress down deftly. There’s a long moment when she can feel his gaze run from the nape of her neck to her waist and she squeezes her eyes shut, waiting. “Or eight,” he says finally, voice chilly. “Faith – perhaps it’s my jet lag making me forgetful, but did I not give precise instructions that were this belt to become uncomfortable you were to inform me immediately?” He taps his fingers against it. “It was supposed to be in the nature of a reminder; not a punishment, although it’s certainly earned you one.”

“You said not to come in here until now. In your note,” she blurts out. It’s a fucking pathetic excuse and she’s not surprised it doesn’t work.

“I think you know that this –” he unbuckles the belt, and she gasps with relief as she gulps in a shuddering breath, feeling his fingers trace the marks it’s left on her skin. “This would merit interrupting me, even had I not already given those orders. And you could have picked up the phone and called me.”

“I didn’t think,” she whispers, shame-faced, and no, she’s not going to confess that she’d stuffed herself like a pig at lunch because he kept going on about her being skinny.

“Then perhaps it’s time you learned,” he hisses and he has her dress zipped up again before she can say she’s sorry. She’s about to turn around to face him but his hand clamps around the back of her neck and that makes her bite her lip to stop from whimpering because his thumb’s caressing the hollow behind her ear and his palm’s warm and strong against her skin and she’s caught, held, helpless.

“Pull up your dress,” he says, not moving his hand.

She reached down and gathers the dress, tugging it up.

“Higher,” he says, in a voice so impossibly assured that she’s grinding her teeth in a sudden rebellion. Maybe he shouldn’t have given her a turn at being in charge, she thinks. Makes it difficult to go back to this. Then she remembers how little control he’d actually relinquished and realizes nothing’s really changed.

It’s almost a relief.

When her bare ass is uncovered and her dress is bunched up around her waist, he steps back.

“Bend over the desk, please, Faith.”

He’s cleared it so that her hands lie flat against polished wood and as she exhales her breath mists it briefly. She’s torn between a need for this that surprises her and a regret that he’s not going to use his hand.

The belt hurts even more this way but she counts off each stroke obediently, wondering if this time he’s matching her ass to the pink of the roses.

Red might’ve been the better choice after all.

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Eight

Her knees are shaking and her feet feel so far away when she finally chokes out “Eight...” after the belt cracks across her red hot ass cheeks for the last time. There's thin, involuntary tears running down her face now and she can't move; just rests her forehead against the desk, which is clammy from the fog of her hot, panting breaths. The belt slips out of his hand to the floor with a muffled thud and she's limp and shaking when he peels her off the desk and helps her balance on wobbling ankles.

“Let go of your dress, Faith,” he whispers, eyes full of dark concern and whisking his thumb over her damp cheek. In the end, he's prying the dress from her clenched fingers, smoothing it tenderly over her hips, fingers whispering across her belly and down between her legs.

“Can I thank you for the roses now?” she says, grasping his forearm for balance when he suddenly pulls out his handkerchief and dabs the rest of her tears away.

His arms curl around her, and she's so very safe there. “You're welcome.” He plants a kiss atop her head and holds her, silently, for a few minutes that are so, so close to telescoping into forever.

But no. Because she's so close to spilling everything then, all of it, the whole sordid tale of every lie she's told and every promise she's breached in the past few weeks. That last lash from the belt had nearly cracked her resolute silence, but she swallows it all down, down into the pit of her stomach. “Tell me about our apartment, in New York...” she whispers, but he just clucks at her tenderly, stroking her hair.

“Later, Faith. Later.” He leads her to the puffy olive green sofa in the back half of his office. “I think that desk chair may be a bit much for you this afternoon. If you lay on your side it may not be ...”

She's already kicking off her shoes and slipping gently on to the velveteen cushions. He gives her a little nod, smoothing his rumpled shirtsleeves back down to his wrists and buttoning the cuffs.

He's about to turn away when she realizes that there is one thing she can say, even if it seems redundant at this point. “That wasn't... I didn't...” It's harder to say than the clanging voices in her head led her to believe. “I don't want to do that again.”

“I know,” he says, with an inscrutable expression on his face and walks over to the curtains, pulling them apart and flooding the room with light.

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Nine

She lies on the sofa with her back to him. Keeping up the pretence that her ass is too sore to be nestled against the plump cushions of the sofa. Instead she feels the sun warm on her through her clothes, listens to the scratch of his pen and the muted sound of his voice on the phone, which seems like it's coming from a long way away.

But she feels like she's skiving off, hiding in the nurse's office 'cause there's a trig test and she hasn't bothered to do the homework. So when she hears the hand on his clock reach the hour with the discordant tick it always makes, she rolls over and swings her legs over the edge of the couch.

"I'm OK now," she croaks, standing up on feet that are still slightly unsteady. "And I have some stuff that needs to be sent off by five."

He barely looks up from his papers. "Well, if you're sure," he says vaguely. "Maybe we'll close up early tonight."

And that'll happen the day Hell fucking freezes over, she thinks as she shuts his door behind him.

In the end, she's glad to lose herself in work. There's something so satisfying about the neat stack of typed A4 that she collates and then staples in precisely the same place; half an inch from the top, left-hand corner.

She's just licking the edge of the envelope and handing it to the courier, when her cell phone starts to ring and her heart begins to pound exactly one second later. She gives the guy a sickly smile, waits until he's out of the door, and then rushes to answer the private number flashing up on her cell display.

"Faithy, sweetheart, my darling girl," Liam's shouting down the phone, from what sounds like the rowdiest bar in the Western Hemisphere. "Worked like a fucking charm."

She steadies herself on the edge of the desk. "I can't talk right now," she hisses.

"Cashed the first one an hour ago," he crows. "Like taking candy from a sleeping baby."

"How much?" she bites out. "How fucking much?"

"Hey don't get your panties in a bunch. A thousand, just like you told me. Walked up to the desk, gave them the check and my driver's license and made them count it out in the prettiest 50 dollar bills."

"Jesus. It's going to have to last you, like, ten days. You can't go too…"

Liam gives a short bark of laughter that threatens to perforate her eardrum. "You know me, Faithy. Moderation in all things, except booze and loose women."

"Whatever," she's straining to see down the corridor to make sure Wes' door is closed. "Promise me, you'll wait another ten days. And I want the photos back next week. Monday or Tuesday. You'll have to call me…"

"Aw, don't be such a fucking nag. It's Friday night, gonna get me good and sauced."

"It's got to last you ten days, don't piss it all away." She's kinda scared by the dull, flat tone of her voice. How fucking tired she sounds.

"Yeah, yeah. Gotta go, baby. And I guess that fuck of a boyfriend of yours will probably want to bend you over his desk to get the weekend started," Liam laughs like he's the funniest thing in the world.

"Oh, fuck you!" she snarls, just working up to some really blistering invective when she looks up and sees Wes standing there, jacket on, briefcase in hand. And she's jabbing at the off-button and wondering what would happen if she threw up right here, right on his pretty Oriental rug.

"I do hope that wasn't the DA's office," he says sternly and she's staring at him, knowing that her mouth and eyes are three perfect circles of surprise.

"Xander. It was Xander," she backtracks furiously, wondering how long he was standing there; how much he heard. "Being an asshole for a change." She might be a lousy, cheating, stealing girlfriend but she's one fuck of a good liar.

Wes just raises his eyebrows at her. "Are you ready to leave?"

She raises her hands to her burning cheeks. "Yeah. Just give me a second."

And he stands there, watching her every move as she performs the little rituals that she does at the end of every working day. Switching on the answer phone, lining up her sharpies so they're in a straight line, putting the cover on the Selectric, and then she turns to him. "OK, I'm good to go."


They drive home in this deafening silence that she can't work out. Like, whether she's not speaking to him or he's not speaking to her. If he's biding his time before he gets to what he thinks is the heart of the matter. How she's going to get through the weekend when everything is so scratchy and weird.

As they pull into the driveway, she's already scrabbling at the door handle, one hand in her bag searching frantically for her packet of cigarettes.

"Faith." Her name sounds measured and calm on his lips.

She can't bring herself to look at him, but stares at her open purse. "Yeah?"

His hand, warm and sure, tips up her chin so she has no option but to gaze into the deep blue of his narrowed eyes. "It occurs to me that you've picked up some rather unpleasant habits since I've been away."

"Wes…"

He taps her lightly on the nose. "This weekend I expect you to obey me without question," he states firmly. "Whatever I ask you to do, no matter where we are. You're to do absolutely nothing but what I tell you."

She frowns because he sounds so fucking serious. Like, he's planned something, strategized and theorized and… when it comes down to it, thinking always gets her into trouble. Gets her into these fucking messes that she can't climb out of.

"OK," she says, even though he never asked for her agreement. "Sure, I can do that. I want to do that."

And she does. She can't trust herself to be in control, so it's going to be better if he does it for her.

"Very well. You're to go into the house," he orders. "You're to take a quick shower, no longer than five minutes. Then you're to wait for me, in your towel. I don't want you to sit down, I don't want you to dry your hair. I just want you to wait for me."

It's simple really. Takes the screaming straight out of her head as easily as if someone, somewhere has flicked the off-switch.

She glides into the house, up the stairs and into the bathroom.

When she emerges exactly five minutes later, scrubbed and pink, she stands in the middle of her room and waits for him. She watched the second hand on her clock hit the twelve fifteen times and then he's knocking on the door.

"Come in, Wes," she says throatily and he walks in with this toothpaste commercial smile on his face because she's doing exactly what he wanted.

He's changed into jeans and a black shirt, which throws her slightly but then he's taking her hand and leading her over to the chest of drawers. He smoothes moisturizer into every inch of her, dresses her, dries her hair.

She does nothing but let him.

"Wait here."

She stands in the middle of the room again, taking deep breaths like she's finally worked out the meaning of life and gives him a serene smile as he walks back in with a black leather holdall in his hand.

He marches over to the wardrobe and run his hands over the clothes hanging up, choosing a dress here, a skirt there, a couple of the tops he brought her from his last trip.

"Go into the bathroom and pack your wash bag and anything you think you might need this weekend," he orders her, eyes unsmiling.

"Are we going away?" She blurts out and his whole face tightens.

"Are you incapable of following the simplest of instructions?" he enquires tersely.

She shakes her head. "No! I just… I'm doing it, OK?"

Her reflection in the mirror is pale and her hair's gone frizzy the way it always does when he insists on towel drying it. But she's on a clock so she doesn't waste any more time on the Faith gazing back at her, just grabs her toothbrush, toothpaste, the little tub of arnica and a few more pots and potions and hurries back to him.

He takes the bag out of her hands and places it carefully in the holdall, where she can just see a flash of pink, which means he's packed the shoes.

"I think we're ready to go," he says, his hand taking her shoulder and guiding her to the door. Then he stops. "I almost forgot. Your vibrator." He drawls the word out, like he wants it to last for an hour. "Go and get it."

Her cheeks are stained with red, which is getting to be a really old look for her. She hurries over to her bed stand, yanks open the drawer and pulls out the Rabbit in all its plastic, purple glory.

"Does it need batteries?" Wes asks silkily and she's so tempted to bash him over the head with it.

"I put fresh ones in that night," she mutters and doesn't he just love that if the annoying smirk on his face is anything to go by? But he merely holds the bag open so she can shove Mr. Bunny into it, which she does with great force.

But once they're in the car, the mood evaporates. And he's telling her about the brownstone in the West Village that he's signed a lease for. How it looks out onto a pretty garden square and in the early morning, the rooms are flooded with light. How it's two blocks from the Subway and this famous Burger bar called Bistro, which she'll love.

That they can choose furniture and paint together and that he's going to teach her to cook and she's asking him a million questions and it's not until they cross the state line that she realizes they've been driving for two hours.

"I haven't been out of state for, like, five years," she exclaims, peering out of the window at the billboards in the coming dusk.

He shoots her an incredulous glance. "You're not serious, surely?"

"Oh yeah. Last time was a dumb school trip to this sadass zoo. Man, it was depressing. All these flea-bitten animals locked up in cages. I fucking hated it," she finishes, with such venom that he's arching an eyebrow and pursing his lips. "I mean, I didn't like it that much."

"So, would you like to know where we're going?"

"Only if you want to tell me," she answers back, without even thinking about it and he gives her a quirky little smile.

"Well, inspired by your wish to play hooky, I suddenly recalled this charming little beach resort I visited on a business trip last year."

She turns to him, her eyes as wide as her smile. "We're going to the beach?"

"We are indeed," and he's smiling back at her. "I've managed to procure us a small cottage. I can't promise that it will be anything approaching luxurious but it should be enough for our needs. Are you hungry, Faith?"

And for the first time in for ever, she's ravenous. Getting the fuck out of Dodge is exactly what she needed. "I'm starving."

Part Five

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