Secretary: Part Six

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty Nine

"So, am I still allowed to give you blowjobs? And, like, what about you going down on me?"

"Really, Faith, this is getting very tiresome and if you're trying to goad me into reneging on this decision then I can tell you now, quite categorically, that it won't work."

She slants him a look from under her lashes but he keeps his eyes fixed on the road ahead, his jaw tight, and if he's this uptight one hour after fucking her so hard over the kitchen table that she's gonna be wearing the imprint of his fingers on her hips for the next week, then she gives it two days before he's upending her and giving her a damn good spanking for doing something really heinous like drinking milk straight from the carton.

Instead she contents herself with wriggling back on the leather seat and letting a tiny whimper escape her as the friction chafes against the tenderized skin of her ass.

"It'd probably hurt even more if I wasn't wearing panties," she remarks and his fingers are white knuckled as he viciously handles the gear shift. He'd taken her back upstairs after the fucking had left her so weak kneed and lethargic that she could barely stand and brushed her hair and dressed her for what he said would be the last time until they were in New York. But he'd still packed her bag for her and even when she'd dropped the vibrator in the trash can in the bathroom, he'd retrieved it carefully, glaring at her all the while. "You gonna start actually wearing boxer shorts, Wes? I hear that's what normal guys do."

"Faith…" It takes him the whole afternoon to sound out her name but she just sticks her tongue out at him.

"I'm just sayin', Wes. Want to be sure that I understand the rules is all. And you know, I'm starting to like this new normal thing 'cause I can get up to all sorts of things that you disapprove of and there ain't jack shit you can do about it."

He swerves to overtake and swears fluently and frequently at the symphony of beeping horns that follow in their wake. "I'm sure that normal couples don't go out of their way to antagonize each other, Faith," he snarls. "But then we do have the option of sleeping in separate rooms, don't we?"

And yeah, they do, and nothing takes the wind out of her sails more than the thought of an empty, Wes-less bed with nothing to cling on to during those dark night when sleep just won't come.

So she shuts the hell up even though she knows, like she knows that the sun comes up and the sun comes down and that The Strokes suck, that he's gonna crack within the next forty-eight hours.

But then they're crossing the state line and it's like someone's tripped a switch and the weekend's over and the magic's worn thin and they're going back to a shitty little town and all the shitty little lies she's been trying so hard to forget.

She's sitting so rigid and stiff-backed in her seat that it's not until he touches her gently on the shoulder and murmurs, "You seem awfully tense," that she realizes that her muscles are aching with the strain of holding them still.

"It's not too late," she whispers, half to herself. "We could turn the car round, keep on driving 'til we hit the beach again."

And the look he gives her is so keen, so perceptive, that she's sure he knows, but it's just a trick of the light because they go under a tunnel and when she can see his face again, he just looks perturbed, like he's never going to be able to figure her out and it pisses him off.

She leans forward to turn on the radio, more for something to fill the silence but his hand curls gently round her wrist.

"Actually, I did want to talk to you about something," he says carefully and she's sure she's just gone a fetching shade of green.

"Yeah?"

"There's a little project I need your help on," he continues and she can't suss out anything from the even tone of his voice. "I fear I'm at a complete loss, I scarcely know where to start."

She shifts on the seat again, wincing slightly and wondering why the warmth of the sun beating in through the windshield is doing nothing to warm her up. "Sounds all cryptic," she says and he smiles.

"Faith, have I mentioned how utterly adorable your increased word power is?"

And she's pouting because all this book reading is making her, like word girl or something and he laughs at the pissed-off expression that she's wearing so she guesses that maybe his little project doesn't involve anything to do with making her take a polygraph test.

"What project?"

He makes a little moué of disgust. "I need to buy a computer," he confesses, his voice lowered like he's being forced to admit that he wants her to slap him around with a wet fish. "And an email address. Does one buy them?"

"Wes? Jesus! How can you not know this stuff?" she snorts. "You need to sign up with an ISP and they give you an email addy."

"An ISP?" he echoes.

"An internet service provider, like AOL. Or you could, like, get webmail. "

"And the difference would be?"

She has a pretty good idea that all this talk about computers and his completely dumb questions about the difference between laptops and palm pilots are just an excuse to take her mind off what ever the fuck is bothering her, but it works.

By the time they're pulling into the parking lot of their local supermarket so they can get a few things before heading home, the only thing she can think about is whether his email address should be wesley.wyndampryce or wesleywyndam.pryce.

"You should ask Xander," she says, as she yanks a cart free from its moorings. "He's such a total geek about this stuff."

"Hey! I resent that," says a familiar voice from behind her and she whirls around, almost crashing into Wes to see Xander standing there with a perplexed expression on his face.

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy


Faith’s heart is thumping in her chest before her brain catches up to her other senses and she realizes that it’s just Xander. Not, like, any of the cast of thousands in this shit-hole town that she doesn’t want to see.

“Xander! Hey. Didn’t expect to see you—“

He looks at her quizzically. “At the supermarket? Well, yeah, I usually have my people do that for me, but I figured I’d try and get out of the house without the entourage for once.”

She laughs, for the first time since she and Wes got in the car, and throws her arms around him. “C’mere, you.” That’s when Wes steps back from the two of them, tentatively. And the whole time Faith’s got her arms around Xander she’s got one eye on Wes, honestly curious and a little surprised that he’s still so obviously discomfited. She doesn’t want him to feel like he’s on the outside of this, and yet —she appreciates it. This is something of hers and he’s giving it space. She flashes him a warm, appreciative little smile and he sees it, returns it, then turns to wheel the cart towards the store.

“I —I’ve gotta go, Xan. Will you stop by the office this week? Lunch or something?”

“You don’t have to ask me twice.” He pauses. “And —you really think I’m a geek? I don't know whether to be resentful or touched.”

She rolls her eyes. “One word, Xander: Dungeonmaster. And I ain’t talking some whack homoerotic S&M fantasy either.”

“Jesus! Keep it down! I have a reputation to uphold. And you should talk, missy.” He swats her ass playfully and before she can stop it she lets out a yelp.

He looks totally mortified. “Shit, I didn’t mean to—“

She tries not to wince. Not entirely successfully. "Don't worry about it. I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?"

She’s about to turn on her heel to catch up with Wes when Xander grabs her arm and leans in close. “He’s still treating you OK, right? Because the second he crosses some kind of line, I want you to promise me—“

“Xander. How many times do I have to tell you—“ It’s only when the words are out of her mouth that she hears how —sharp— she sounds. She doesn’t want to have to justify this, again. But she knows that Xander means well. She softens her tone. “I love him, y’know? And he loves me. Doesn’t mean we don’t hurt one another from time to time, but he always makes me feel special. And he’s kind. I’m happy, and I want you to be happy for me—“

He gives her a little squeeze. “I am, sweetie, I am. I just… worry, you know? I hardly ever see you anymore and I wonder how you’re doing all the time. I’m always here if you need me. You know that, right?”

“I do. Thank you." She gives him a kiss on the cheek. "Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some shopping to do. Wes has promised something mysterious for dinner tonight and I’ve got to keep an eye on him or else we might end up with escargots and asparagus!”

Xander scrunches up his face in distaste. “Jesus, Faith, why didn’t you tell me what kind of freak you were living with?”

“Ha, ha. Very funny. Tomorrow, Xander!” She waves and jogs back toward the entrance to the market, where Wes has been waiting for her. Xander picks up his groceries and is just about to leave when he looks back one last time, just in time to see how Wes’ face just lights up when he sees her.


Chapter One Hundred and Seventy One

They’re half way around the store when Wesley steers the cart past the end of the aisle with the candy, chips and goodies in it.

“Hey! I’ve been living on granola bars,” she protests. “And I’m gonna need something sweet if I don’t have you.”

She gives him a flirtatious look but he’s unimpressed. “You do have me,” he says, “and aren’t you forgetting an inordinate amount of vodka and ice cream?”

“Doesn’t count,” she replies, tugging the cart around and throwing in all the things he hates her buying, hesitating over the Twinkies because of the memories but deciding they might just do the trick and getting two boxes.

At the checkout she fumbles in her purse and drags out a ten dollar bill and offers it to him. He gives her a thoughtful look and slips it into his pocket, then packs her junk food into a separate bag, like it’s got cooties or something.

They’re pulling out of the car park when he says, “Hold out your hand, palm up, Faith,”

And, score, she thinks, hiding a grin as she extends her hand, waiting for a smack in lieu of a spanking. Instead, she gets the bill back and the most insincere smile possible. “What the hell’s this for?” she demands.

His gaze drifts up to the mirror and the smile becomes genuine. “I seem to have inadvertently left your purchases behind. I’m so sorry.”

“Stop the car,” she says through gritted teeth, knowing she should’ve helped unpack the cart. “We can go back and –”

“Too late, I’m afraid.”

She twists and gasps in outrage as she sees three kids, already half way to sugar heaven, rummaging through the bag. Her bag. “Wes, you’re just – oh, you’re so going to pay for that!”

“No, Faith,” he says firmly. “You’re going to cease pushing me, respect my decision and behave yourself.”

“Or?” she says challengingly.

His eyes flick to her flushed, angry face and they’re amused now. “Tell me, Faith, have you ever known me not to come up with an ‘or’? Do you really think that the limitations I’ve imposed on myself preclude all forms of ...”

“Revenge?”

“A little melodramatic, that, but very well.”

“All I see,” she says, “is that you’re a control freak, Wes, and it doesn’t matter if you lay off the kinky stuff; you still haven’t changed, so why bother denying it?”

They drive back without speaking, but once they get home, walking through rooms that echo with the stored silence of three days, it’s better. He unpacks the car and she helps him put away the groceries, then Wesley goes to walk around the garden in case something dared to grow too many fucking leaves while he was away, and she retreats to her room with her cell phone in her hand like a ticking bomb.

As soon as she turns it back on, it’s Christmas lights time, flashing, beeping and screaming at her. She checks the messages and they’re all from Darla, Xander and Liam. No surprises there, and in a sudden flash of panic, she deletes them without finding out what they said. Ignorance isn’t bliss but it lets her pretend that her problems aren’t breathing down her neck but are distant, remote, somewhere in fucking Timbuktu.

She’s half way down the stairs when her phone rings.

Darla. Could be worse.

“Sweetie! Where’ve you been?”

She sighs and settles down on the step, keeping an eye and ear out for Wesley. “Hi, Mom. Just got back from the beach.” A faint pride stirs. “Wes took me out of state. This cottage right on the ocean and – ”

“Well, isn’t that nice,” Darla snaps. OK. Sober doesn’t always mean she’s a pal. “While you’ve been sunning yourself, I’ve been dealing with that worthless son of a bitch you call your father.”

“No, I call him that too,” Faith jokes, but it’s half-hearted at best. “What’s he done?”

“Found a barrel of beer by the sounds of it and dived right in. He’s not been sober all weekend.” Darla’s voice sharpens with outrage. “And he turned up on my doorstep at three in the morning wanting to make it up to me.”

Wanting to get laid, Faith thinks sourly. “What did you do?”

Darla snorts. “Called the cops, what else. Bastard threw a brick through the window just for old time’s sake but that was all.”

“I’m sorry,” Faith says.

“How is it your...oh, shit.”

Darla’s silent as it hits her who funded Liam’s bender and then Faith endures a lecture Wes’d be proud of, before she can’t stand it any longer, and stabs a finger to cut off the outraged, steadily rising voice mid-howl.

Shaking, she leans her aching head against the wall and wills the tears to stay inside.

Bedtime comes after a wary truce that lets them eat dinner in peace, and chat without mentioning anything important. She even gets to curl up on his lap later, drifting off into a hazy drowse while he drops kisses on her head at intervals, music playing in the background. As normal nights go, it’s not bad, but she misses the sense of certainty she used to have, misses it more than she can put into words. It’s not that she can’t look after herself, and it sure as hell isn’t that she likes being told what to do -Wes is the only one who’s ever gotten away with that. No, she just wants to feel that she’s all he sees, all he’s thinking about, and when he’s not doing –stuff – she’s not so sure.

She slides naked into the cool smoothness of Wesley’s sheets with a blissful sigh, snuggling down and waiting for him to finish brushing his teeth, wondering if habit will take over once he’s in bed, and already anticipating what he’s going to do to her.

When he comes out wearing shorts and looking like a man who plans to have a sensibly early night she snickers. “Wes, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

His eyes narrow. “Faith, might I remind you that we can always sleep apart if you don’t approve of my choice of attire?”

“Yeah,” she snaps, getting out of bed in a flurry of arms and legs and barging past him, disappointment fuelling her temper. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

“Faith...”

She waits for him to grovel – well, apologize, she’s not asking for miracles – and all she gets is a level look. “I want to make an early start. We leave the house at 7.45.”

“Whatever.”

“And I took the liberty of calling Xander. He’ll be our guest for dinner tomorrow night.” He smiles as her jaw drops. “You must tell me what he likes to eat.”

“Boys,” she snaps, and slams the door with a satisfying bang.

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy Two

It’s not like she expects him to give it half an hour and then appear in the doorway to coax her back to his bed. But, fuck, it would be nice. All she can think about are those freakin’ boxer shorts. She didn’t think it was humanly possible to feel practically homicidal over one pair of boxer shorts. And like, what the fuck? She’s not allowed to even see his dick any more? He doesn’t know normal from anything.

It feels like she spends the entire night grinding her teeth and having these arguments with Wes in her head, where she gets to tie him up in knots (like that’s ever gonna happen) with her reasoned debating skills that show that she’s completely right and he’s wrong with added bits of wrongness. That if he wants to give up the kink, then he’s gonna have to give up the control freakery because if there ain’t incentives, then no way, no fucking how is she going to toe the Wes party line.

And when she’s done with him, there’s a whole fucking parade of Liam-shaped problems to march into her brain so she’s staring wide-eyed at the shadows on the wall, watching them lengthen and then lighten as a new day begins.

She guesses she must have fallen asleep at some point because the next thing she knows for sure is the decisive rap on her door.

“Faith? If you’d like breakfast before we leave, then you need to get up now.”

She rolls her eyes. No law says she has to be in the office at 7.45. Snagging the sheet, because it feels weird to be naked in front of him when they haven’t spent the night curled up together (and she’ll worry about the freaky troll logic of that later), she staggers to the door and opens it.

He’s standing there all crisp shirted and bright eyed, the poster boy for the virtues of a good eight hour’s sleep. And she’s like the poster girl for having rocks in your head. She glares at him for ten seconds, though it’s kinda hard ‘cause her eyes are all puffy.

“I trust you slept well, Faith,” he doesn’t so much say as ooze, and this time she does manage a full-on glare, wishes she had a fucking laser beam of death to go with it.

“I’m getting the bus this morning,” she hisses. His expression blanks instantaneously, like all of a sudden he’s wearing a Wes face, rather than being Wes. “I don’t start until 8.30,” she points out in a slightly less aggressive tone.

“I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that taking the bus will take just as long, if not longer, than if you leave with me,” he says and she’s sure she isn’t just imagining the self-satisfied note creeping into his voice. And for once, just for fucking once, she wishes that he didn’t always get to be right.

There’s this whole Mexican stand-off thing, his arms folded, mouth pressed into a tight, thin line and she wishes she could be that calm but instead she’s wriggling under his gaze, elbows clamped to her sides to stop the sheet heading south.

“Fine!” she snaps eventually. “I’m gonna come with you, but I’m going to go to the diner and have breakfast and not be at my desk until 8.30 and…”

“Fine,” he echoes, sounding bored. “I’ll just put the coffee maker on for one then.”

“Fine!” And she’s not quite mad or stupid enough to slam the door in his face for a second time, but it shuts with a click that isn’t so much decisive as fucking furious.




She’s forgotten how long it takes to get ready. Though that’s mostly because she almost falls asleep in the shower, standing slumped against the wall and letting the hot water wash over her as she gives herself a cursory once over with the bar of soap.

Deciding what to wear takes forever too. He wasn’t too clear about that. And as she stands dithering in front of the rail of clothes, she suddenly realizes that she needs to get the fuck over herself. Like, she has every reason to be mad at him. Last count, she had about 357 reasons to be mad at him. But she couldn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t take it into work with her because she was still his secretary. What went on at home, no matter how much she violently disagreed with it, stayed at home. 'Bout time he realized that too, so if he thinks she’s still going to gussy herself up like his perfect wet dream of what a secretary should be, then he can fucking think again.

As she ignores the corset and struggles into her bra because it’s been way too long since she wore one that she actually had to put on herself, the clothes seem to taunt her.

“Wear me!”

“No, wear me!”

Even when he’s in New York, he’s always been really particular about what he wants her to put on, even if he’s not there to see the way the tight black dresses hug the curve of her ass, the way those asskicker shoes give her no option but to walk with her tits thrust out. And she turns to a phantom Wes ‘cause the real one’s in the kitchen glugging down java and not making her a cup.

But phantom Wes is as pissy as his flesh and blood counterpart. “I believe I was perfectly clear about the need for normality,” he intones pompously. “Normal couples do not tell each other how to dress.”

And even though she remembers plenty of mornings when Darla would tell Liam that he shouldn’t go out with piss and beer stains down his trousers, she gives a sigh and reaches for a polka dot summer dress, which has got enough buttons to cover her up but is short enough to make a point. And as she slips her feet into flat-as-a-pancake Mary-Janes, all of a sudden she’s thankful for his stupid ass new rules. Nothing like trying to find a way round them to take her mind off all the other shit.

She’s grinning as she skips down the stairs and into the kitchen. He gives a start at her manically cheery, “Good morning, Wes!”

“Good morning, Faith,” he says slowly and suspiciously, as she plants a swift kiss on his cheek before plonking herself down opposite him and trying not to stare longingly at his mug of coffee.

When he gives her a slightly shaky smile, she returns it with a mega-wattage one of her own and rests her chin on his hands. “So, we should really talk about menus, what with Xander coming round for dinner and all. I was thinking maybe a cold starter and then some of your delicious roast chicken.”

He’s looking at her like he’s waiting for the punchline and not for her to start banging on about whether Xander rates the really good china or just the second best set.

He wants normal? She’s gonna make him choke on fucking normal…

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy Three

It’s not until she slips through the door and sneaks hurriedly to her desk at 8.37 – the diner had been busy because one of the waitresses hadn’t shown up – that the weirdness of it all hits her.

Back at work. With Wes in his office and her at her desk and no possibility of being called in for a little fun and frolic, nothing to look forward to but work... which, granted, is what he’s paying her for, but still, doesn’t seem right.

She sinks into her chair and sees the piece of paper set squarely in the center of her desk. In Wesley’s dark scrawl are the words, ‘Please come to my office immediately’.

She’s trying hard to repress the shit-eating grin of triumph as she saunters along the corridor but it’s a real challenge.

When she taps on the door, his voice sounds bored as he tells her to come in. There’s no excitement or tension in it and it’s enough to make the smile slip and slide right off her face.

“You, uh, wanted to see me?” Wesley stares at her for just long enough and hard enough to get her tagging the ‘sir’ quickly onto the end of that sentence.

“I wanted to see you at 8.30, Faith.” He jerks his hand so that the cuff of his shirt slides up, exposing his watch, and a few inches of his arm, tanned and strong. She remembers reading once in history class that to a Victorian man, the sight of an ankle was shocking, forbidden, and though Mrs. Peters hadn’t gone into details, arousing as hell. She’d giggled along with the rest of the class but she totally got it now. Knowing what lay underneath the wool and cotton made it worse.

She realizes that she’s staring, transfixed, at his watch and he’s smiling nastily because he thinks she’s feeling guilty. “Yes, you are rather late, aren’t you? Eight minutes to be precise.” Oh, yeah, let’s be precise, Wes.

“Sorry about that,” she begins. “See, Mel didn’t show and there was a line out the door, and –”

“I don’t remember asking for excuses, Faith,” he interrupts. “Nor do I care. I told you, as your employer, to be here at 8.30 and you chose to ignore that request.”

“Hey!” It’s dawning on her that he thinks she did it deliberately; pushing him into punishing her. Which isn’t entirely unjustified considering the way she’s been acting, but as she’d made up her mind to be good at work, she’s feeling righteously pissed off. “Wes –”

“I’d prefer a more formal mode of address at work, Faith.”

He doesn’t even say it coldly; just a drawled reprimand that stings worse than his hand ever did. She flushes hotly and mumbles something that bears a slight resemblance to ‘Yes, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce’, wondering if he moonlights as a school principal.

“Better. Now go back to your desk, and as you’ve now wasted –” He cranes his neck to peek at his watch. “Eleven minutes, that’s how much I’ll be docking from your lunch break.”

His gaze lingers on her face, skimming, with a cool indifference, over her angry eyes and flushed cheeks, before he glances away, his attention returning to the papers in front of him. She stands there for a moment, waiting, and gets a murmured, “That’s all,” to speed her on her way.

She can’t remember walking back down the corridor because there’s nothing in her head but seething anger.

It takes a long cigarette break to get her heart rate back to normal, but the worst of it is that Wes like that still turns her on. She’s still not sure that it wasn’t a game, still trying to make what he’s doing fit into a pattern, still trying to guess what the payoff will be.

And, whether he wants to believe it or not, this isn’t fucking normal. Normal isn’t locking yourself in the washroom, fingers sliding down inside panties, past smoothly shaved skin, scrabbling at flesh slippery with an arousal spun out of a look, a word and a few square inches of wrist. Normal isn’t finding out that you can’t fucking come in any way that’s remotely satisfying because your body’s not used to anything that simple any more.

Normal isn’t wanting to crawl into your boss’s office, all hands and knees and begging eyes, and plead to get spanked, fucked, bent over the desk and teased and tormented and tantalized into coming hard enough that the world goes away for a long, long time.

She sits down at her desk and starts to work, blanking out the resentment and the desire, and turns herself into the perfect secretary, fingers dancing smartly over the typewriter keys, crisp white paper marked with lines and curves that say exactly what he wants them to say. Then she delivers them to his desk and she’s so deep in the role that when he asks her, as he signs each letter, what Xander prefers to drink, it’s jarring.

“Anything,” she says. “He’s not fussy.”

Wesley frowns, as if he can’t get his head around that concept at all, and then shrugs. “Very well.” He stands up and stretches. “Well, we should get to lunch, I suppose. What are you in the mood for?”

She gives him a cool stare. “Got some errands to run. Think I’ll just grab a burger today.”

“Oh.” Does he sound even a little bit hurt? “I thought – very well. Back here by one, please.”

“Yes, sir,” she says, looking at a point just over his shoulder.

She thinks she hears him sigh as she closes the door carefully and it’s music to her fucking ears.

The errands exist; she’s out of lipstick and Darla’s birthday is coming up and she wants to get her something nice, for the first time in forever. She spends half the time window shopping, her heart giving a little skippity-hop every time someone talk and dark walks by, and ten minutes scarfing down a burger that doesn’t taste all that good now it’s not, technically, forbidden.

She’s at her desk at 12.58 and she sits there quietly, hands folded in her lap, waiting. When one of the clocks Wes has all over the place strikes the hour, she goes back to work, not turning when Wesley’s door creaks open, not even smiling when it closes again after he’s heard the sound of her typing.

It’s a long, horrible day.

At 5.00 he appears by her desk and gives her a quizzical smile that she returns half-heartedly.

“Ready to go home?”

She tidies her desk in silence and then nods. “Yes, sir.”

“’Yes, Wesley’,” he corrects her quietly. “You’re off the clock now.” He sighs. “Faith, it never used to be difficult for you to combine both roles.”

“Never used to be that I’d go a whole day without you kissing me,” she says, her voice a soft whisper.

He steps close and tilts up her chin with a finger; the first time he’s touched her in hours. “Would you like me to kiss you now, Faith?” he says, looking as if he’s sure of her answer.

She jerks her head aside, eyes burning and dry. “Like to go and get ready, Wes. We’re entertaining, remember?” She walks towards the door and stops, giving him a glittering smile. “Wait ‘til you see me fold napkins into cute shapes. It’s, like, a specialty of mine.”

“Yes” he says, sweeping past her, in an epic snit. “I’ve noticed you’re remarkably good with your hands.”

She can’t help finding him adorable when he’s frustrated and she softens enough to grab his arm and, when he turns, kiss him quickly, a fleeting brush of her lips on his that leaves them both staring at each other.

“Xander’s coming at 7.30,” he says thoughtfully.

“Yeah?”

“I think we have time to –”

And she’s not letting him do that; not letting him schedule a quick fuck in between setting the table and basting the chicken.

“We really don’t,” she says shortly.

It doesn't take long to get home. Not the way Wes is driving.

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy Four

And the whole time she's white-knuckling his impeccable interior because he's driving like a maniac, all she can do is close her eyes and think about what's going to happen when they get home. 'Cause, yeah, a girl can dream, can't she? And she's got some delicious little scenarios unraveling in her fevered brain. She imagines that Wes has got some too. Maybe all this repressed sexual energy is fuelling some of his most devious little tableaux yet. She'd like to think so, anyway. She can't help but smirk as she looks over at him, all tight-lipped and staring with single-minded intensity at the road stretching out before them.

Yeah, she'd bet money that one enthusiastic blowjob would end this ridiculous little embargo once and for all. His heart isn't really in it, is it? But she knows the answer before she even asks the question —she knows better than anyone that Wes doesn't do anything by halves.

She sighs dramatically, crossing her arms over her chest and hunkering down in her seat, wondering with a rueful sort-of curiosity what the hell Wes might have done with Mr. Bunny. He pretends not to notice her little fit of pique, still staring infuriatingly straight ahead.


She practically jumps out of the car as soon as his foot thumps heavily and finally on the brake as they pull into the garage, but his hand is around her wrist as soon as she reaches for the door handle.

His hot, agitated fingers on the tender skin are enough to make her vision swim a bit and ratchet up her pulse in an instant. She knows he can feel the blood thudding away 'cause he smiles a little and she knows she's so busted, the cool-as-a-crocodile act shattered. There's nothing she can do about that, so she just plasters on the innocent smile again, swallowing down the thoughtless words that were just about to pop out of her mouth. His fingers unfurl and her hand falls limply to her lap. Maybe they were on the same page after all.

"Just wanted to let you know, dearest," he says without a hint of irony or sarcasm or bile or anything. The words flow smoothly out, as if it was perfectly normal for him to apply saccharine endearments to her. "We'll be in the formal dining room this evening."

She'd seen the room, but had pretty much avoided it. It had an air of untouchability to it, the kind of room where everyone, willfully or not, played their roles to perfection, getting through polite meals with gritted teeth and stilted platitudes. Which really, then, made it the perfect for location for tonight's dinner with Xander.

"Of course. I didn't think otherwise."

"Everything you need should be in there; the china, silver, and linens are all in the sideboard. And it would be really lovely, Faith, if you could have all the candles lit before our guest arrives."

Of course. She'd nearly forgotten. Instead of having a regular old chintzy candelabra like the rest of the universe, with those flame-shaped light bulbs, Wesley had this contraption that looked like a baby mobile mated with a stainless steel birdcage. The whole thing was just an excuse to have about a hundred tiny tea light candles hanging precariously over your guests' heads. In reality, the room was mostly lit by tastefully recessed track lights, but that damn candelabra was the centerpiece of the room - and perfectly Wesley.

"Yes, I've always wanted to see it all lit up. It's such a fascinating piece." She can't believe the things she's saying, where is this coming from? It's like he's somehow handed her a script, the role of the perpetually sunny, Junior League trophy wife circled in red sharpie.

And then because they’re normal and they don’t live in 1955, she swings open the door herself and steps out at a tenth of the speed she'd actually had in mind a few minutes before, just in time to see the look of hurt flash across his face as he stops in his tracks, just because he didn’t get to help her out of the car.

When they do get inside, Wes chucks his keys forcefully onto the side table and marches towards the stairs. "I'm taking a shower. The chicken is trussed and ready to go in the oven. The salad needs assembling, as does the cheese plate. I'll grill the vegetables before we eat."

"If there's asparagus, I'm not freakin' touching it, Wes."

"No asparagus."

When she sighs a sigh of relief, he smiles thinly and adds, "I thought we could move onto Brussels sprouts."

She bites back the blistering retort that’s boiling and almost takes half her tongue with it. Instead she contents herself with a bland smile that she learnt from him.

"Good, I'm glad that's all settled then." He's practically beaming at her. "I expect you'll want to dress for dinner?"

She nods, smiling again to keep her eyes from staring at him in wide disbelief. No clipped "you'll dress for dinner" but a simple question instead. Just when she thinks she's got the new rules figured out, she's left struggling to process another strange fold in the power dynamic.

"Don't take too long then. You do have rather a lot of preparation to do before you have time to start primping. Off you go." He pats her on the hand and with that he's gone, leaving her spluttering in his wake.

Now she's thinking that she and Mr. Bunny are going to have a very loud, very enthusiastic reunion.

But one second later she's disappointed in her own immaturity and berates herself for falling into that role again. She's the hostess for the evening and damn it, she's going to be fucking perfect. Wes was going to be surprised and delighted —hopefully enough so that he'd deign to fuck her before the night was out.

As promised, everything is arranged in the fridge with Wes' usual efficiency. The chicken is already cleaned and trussed, legs tied back with white twine. But she really doesn't want to dwell on Wes' superlative rope-tying skills so she starts pulling out all the other ingredients. He's made some kind of garlic and herb butter —strong enough that one whiff would certainly drive all the vampires away if it was that sort of town— and there's a cookbook open on the butcher-block table that has little diagrams for basting the bird properly. She preheats the oven and starts to slather the bird in the herb mash.

Then she remembers how the cheeses have to be brought to room temperature -- because she’s so turning into Martha fucking Stewart -- and takes them out of the fridge. Once again she marvels at Wes' ability to find cheeses that trump one another in sheer stinkiness. One of them is runny in the middle and has this blue-gray ash all around it and it smells like damp earth. Eww. Xander likes that shit, though —plus he'll be seriously flattered that Wes splurged.

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy Five

By the time she's polished the glasses and the silverware with a cloth so they're positively a shoo-in for a Rinse Aid commercial, it's almost seven and she's starting to vibrate with the injustice of it all.

Seems that in Wes' seriously screwed up version of normal, there's no such fucking thing as feminism and she's expected to work all day and then come home and start slaving over a hot stove and lay the freakin' table and how the hell is she meant to get his foofy tealights into that Addams Family heirloom of a candelabra anyway?

She's no nearer to getting a clue by the time she's retrieved the bag of tealights from the sideboard and with a deep sigh she pulls out a chair, jumps on it and climbs on to the table. And if she stands on tiptoe and really stretches, she can just about reach the candle holders.

Five minutes later, she hasn't managed to get a single tealight flaming and in position. The smell of singed hair hangs heavy in the room and she wonders whether normal girls ever kill their boyfriends for being useless, selfish bastards. What the fuck is he doing up there anyway?

"WESLEY!" she hollers so hard that it makes her throat ache. "Get your ass down here right the fucking hell now!"

The silence echoes back at her and it's suddenly déjà vu of Darla standing at the foot of the stairs and yelling at Liam to get his stinking carcass out of bed and actually not get his goddamn ass fired. And, hey, that's pretty damn normal where she comes from.

"Wesley!" she screeches again, and she thinks she's just strained something as she leans up and tries in vain to get just one of the fuckers lit.

"What on earth are you doing? And is it necessary to scream like a fishwife while you're doing it?"

She whirls round, almost losing her footing on the highly polished table-top and manages to resist the urge to throw the bag of tealights at his sleek head. It's touch and go.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" She can't get her volume knob turned down from eleven. "I've put the dinner on and I've taken that gross cheese out and I've polished stuff and where the fuck have you been?"

He has the decency to look ever so slightly embarrassed but it must be a trick of the light because in the next instance he's flaring his nostrils and flashing his eyes at her.

"I absolutely refuse to be spoken to like that, Faith," he says in his snottiest voice, like she's just taken a dump on the table and won't help clear it up. "And will you kindly get down before you break your neck?"

She can feel the fierce prickle of tears start and swallows them down. "You left me to do everything." Her voice is wobbling alarmingly, much like she is as she steps to the edge of the table and vaults off it. "And Xander's gonna be here in a minute and I haven't set the table or even had a shower." Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that she still has to do but seems like she's been able to completely perfect her role as the nagging wife.

Wes strides over to the corner where there's this weird levery thing that she never got round to asking about and then as if by magic, and a few sharp turns of his wrist, the dumbass candelabra begins a slightly creaky descent.

"Like, you couldn't have told me?"

"I assumed that if you didn't know how it worked, you'd have asked," he sniffs and it's only because he's wearing his black shirt and jeans and she's secretly grateful that he didn't come down wearing a fucking tuxedo which would freak Xander out about a gazillion times more than he's gonna be anyway, that she manages to summon up the insincere smile that she's been wearing for most of the day.

"Let's just get this done, Wes, so I might actually have time to, like put on some lipstick before my best guy gets here."

"I don't like repeating myself, Faith, and I've already told you that your tone of voice…"

And it's not like she's really throwing them 'cause she makes sure the seal top is closed tight but she chucks the bag of tealights at him.

"Whatever, you can give me a lecture after Xander's had the worst evening of his life," she snarls. "You do the lights, I'll do the table."

The icy silence is punctuated by the thud of china as she slams the plates down with enough force to make her point, but not enough to break them. The silver makes a much more satisfying sound as she practically throws spoons on to the snowy white tablecloth.

She's calmed down slightly when it comes to the glasses and by the time Wes has winched the light fitting back into place, she's folding napkins and taking deep breaths.

"Just leave that, Faith," he barks and she immediately stills her hands, because when he uses that voice she's programmed to obey. "Come here," he adds, and she can feel the effort it takes for him to soften his vowel sounds.

"What now?" she asks sulkily, but she's walking towards him and lets him take her by the shoulder and turn her around.

It's kinda hard to see at first because her eyes are swimming with tears that she's absolutely not going to shed, then she blinks a couple of times and the table comes into focus. It looks like something out of one of those really fancy home magazines in the dentist's waiting room, the place settings gleaming in the soft glow of the candles and she did that.

She digs her nails into her palms, half to hide the feeling of his hands gently kneading the stiff muscles in her neck but also as a reminder to herself to get back on track. He wants her to be this perfect hostess. He wants normal. Man, she's gonna normal his ass off.

"I need to change," she says, in this perfectly neutral voice. "If Xander gets here before I come down, I'm sure you'll be able to entertain each other."

And she's way too soft on him because she wriggles round so she can give him a quick hug, letting out a breath that she didn't even know she'd been holding when his arms wrap round her. She tugs his head down so she can give him a quick kiss on his cheek and inhale the faint whiff of lime and bergamot that always manages to make her feel slightly undone. "Give him a drink, and ask him about computers, and he'll yap your ear off," she whispers.

"I'd like you to wear the…" He stops himself and finishes the sentence with a rueful smile. "It would appear that old habits die hard."

She raises her eyebrows so high that she's gonna need a surgeon to remove them from her hairline. "Look, Wes, I'm not a big expert on normal but I'm pretty sure that other couples give each other fashion advice, y'know?"

He takes a while to process that little titbit of information and then comes to a decision. "You always looks very pretty in the plum dress I bought you in New York," he says carefully and she's grinning as she opens the door.

"You want me to wear panties with that, darling?" she drawls and doesn't wait to hear what he says after his sharp intake of breath.



The doorbell goes as she's just finishing the world's quickest shower. She creeps into the hall and hangs over the banisters but she can't see shit, just hear Wes stammer out an introduction and Xander talking too fast and too loud about what sounds like cheesecake but knowing Xander it could be anything.

The plum dress is nowhere to be seen and then she remembers that it's hanging in the closet in Wes' room. Or it used to be Wes' room; now it looks like a hurricane has ripped through a menswear department. She has to do a double take at the sight of practically every single piece of clothing that he possessed strung over the bed, the chairs and, sweet Jesus what ever is the world coming to?, the floor.

"What did his last slave die of?" she mutters to herself as she picks up three shirts and a couple of ties on her way to the closet and then stops in her tracks.

Actually it's fucking adorable and so the reason why it took him an hour to come downstairs. Wes with wardrobe anxiety cause Xander's coming to dinner and he doesn't want to be the guy wearing the stuffed shirt who needs a good queer eyeing. Didn't think it was possible, because he's been working her last nerve all day, but she's suddenly hit with an attack of the warm fuzzies so she has to sink down on the edge of the bed and inhale a whiff of Wes' pillow 'cause sometimes he makes her feel like such a fucking girl.

She's expecting to find them staring uncomfortably at each other across the wide expanse of the dining room table but instead she follows the sound of their voices to the kitchen where Wes is peering at the grill and Xander's perched on the worktop next to him, twirling a glass of Sancerre and totally ratting on her.

"So then Faithy's all like, 'That's a nice dress, Buff. Where did you get it? Hookers R Us' and…"

"No, don't tell me, let me guess," Wes chuckles. "Buffy was then drenched with a sudden shower of fruit punch. I'm not surprised. I had the unfortunate experience of meeting her and she's an exceedingly unpleasant girl."

"I leave you alone for, like, five minutes and he's already telling you about the prom?" she hisses from the doorway and they both look up, like she's caught them with their hands down each other's pants. Which actually - really not somewhere that she wants to go.

"Well, Wes is practically family," Xander says with a sly grin and Wes is shaking his head and smiling faintly as he flips over a mushroom.

"I did have all these very detailed questions about computers but you're a far more interesting conversational gambit, Faith," he purrs and he looks almost as relaxed as he did at the cottage so she decides to let it go. Just this once. Especially as Xander's jumping down to give her a hug and then Wes is standing next to her, his arm round her waist and laughing as Xander begins his stupid story about the time they called the police on his next door neighbor because they thought he was running an illegal bear baiting match from his basement.

Wes' fingers are warm through the silk of her dress, brushing against the same spot over and over again like he finds it comforting and she can't help it. She lifts her head up to press a soft kiss against his smile, ignoring Xander's fascinated gaze.

"Wes? Maybe it'd be cool to eat in here," she murmurs and he gives her a grateful nod before turning his attention back to the grill.

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy Six

“Those are for you,” Xander says suddenly, nodding at a bunch of flowers on the counter by the door.

She can’t hold back a pleased little squeak of pleasure. “Xander, you shouldn’t have!” Then, because he totally deserves it, she adds, straight-faced and without a glimmer of a smile, “The cemetery’s so far out of your way...”

Wesley drops a roasted to perfection pepper slice onto the floor, where it lands with a flat splat. “Faith! Apologize at – oh.”

And it’s his slightly woebegone look as he glances from her face to Xander’s grin that has her hurrying to him, contrite and ashamed. “Just kidding, Wes. Old joke.”

“Yes, see there was this time –” Xander begins and then his voice trails off. “You know,” he says ruefully. “I keep wandering down memory lane and you’re going to hate me. Sorry.”

Wesley reaches for some kitchen roll and uses it to mop up the mess. “It’s quite all right, Xander,” he says, straightening and giving Xander an entirely natural smile. “Faith is what we have in common after all, and I’m enjoying hearing about her little escapades.” Xander looks at him a little uncertainly and Wesley’s smile grows teeth. “I even have a few stories of my own I can contribute. There was this one time when she -”

Xander goes slightly pale and he takes a long swallow of his wine. “Y’know, if you’re thinking of getting a computer, you really need to consider –”

The sodden towel gets thrown in the trash and over the rush of water as Wesley rinses his hands with the meticulous care of a man about to perform surgery, Faith listens, heart pounding, as Xander babbles frantically about tech stuff Wes doesn’t get, and Wesley bides his time politely.

Shit. He wouldn’t. No, he wouldn’t.

Would he?

She’s gripped in a nightmare vision of Wes, chuckling away as he tells Xander all the various ways he used the Rabbit to make her scream, and it’s not helping to remind herself that Wes is a very private person who wouldn’t dream of humiliating her in public. Except there’s the memories of several restaurants to say differently and - oh God, he so totally would.

Fuck.

She gives Wesley an anxious smile as Xander falls silent and can’t help a relieved moan as he says, “Darling, you don’t have a drink. Shall I get you some wine while you find a vase for your flowers?”

And they’re back in the strange world of normal.

When she gets back with a vase that’s plain glass and hopefully not worth hundreds and never meant to have water anywhere near it, and starts to wedge carnations and ferns into it, Wes and Xander are bonding again and seem – though maybe she’s got some water from the shower in her ear – to be talking about baseball. As this is absofuckinglutely impossible given that the only time Wesley ever mentioned it, he called it ‘American rounders’ with a disdainfully curled lip, it’s got to be some sort of hallucination. She stares at the tangled mess of greenery in front of her, and pokes it doubtfully.

“Charming, Faith,” Wesley calls over, his voice approving and sugar-sweet. “But do come and join us.”

She goes over and accepts a glass of wine, letting the fresh light wine trickle and spill down her throat, washing away the tension.

“To new friends and old,” Wesley says, tipping his glass and tapping it against Xander’s so that a bell-like chime rings out.

“I’ll drink to that,” Xander says, his gaze moving to Faith. “And these days, Faith feels like both.”

“You think she’s changed,” Wesley says slowly.

“I know she has,” Xander says, his voice flat.  He takes a sip of his wine. “But I haven’t. And I’m still right here for her.”

There’s a small silence and she’s trying to find the words to make it all fine when Wesley nods and Xander relaxes and it’s all so fucking male she wants to scream. So she fills up her wine glass instead and, when Xander coughs meaningfully, does the same for him and Wes and then Wesley’s ushering them through to the living room to nibble on a fancy version of chips ‘n dip while he sets the kitchen table.

The sun’s setting and a clear glow of warm light is making the room look even more spectacular than ever. Xander sighs and walks over to the windows that form most of one wall. “This place really is something, Faith.”

“And you think I don’t fit in?” It’s not said with any bitterness; she really wants to know.

He turns and looks at her. “No; you do, Faith. You really do. I mean; look at you... that dress... the way you’re so relaxed... When I said you’d changed I didn’t mean it was all bad, you know.”

“None of it’s bad,” she says insistently. “Wish you could see that, Xander.”

“Faith, you’re standing there with a bruised ass,” he hisses. “He hurts you for fun and I’m not gonna be getting past that any time soon.”

“Newsflash, Xander; it’s my ass,” she snaps. “And it doesn’t get that way without me wanting it to.”

“Faith –” he begins, but it’s too fucking much. She’s feeling itchy and achy and empty, and as on edge as a lemming with a minute left to live, and as her ass isn’t likely to be getting any attention any time soon, it’s not something she wants to discuss.

“Tell me, Xander, you still have a thing for men with piercings in painful places?” she demands. “Like Greg, the one who fucking clanked when he walked?”

He flushes and shoots a glance in the direction of the kitchen. “Keep your voice down! And that’s not kinky, it’s just –”

“It’s just your thing, yeah. Have I made my point yet, because trust me, Xander, you bring this up one more freaking time and I’m going to –”

“I think it’s all ready,” Wesley says from the doorway, his eyes wary as he looks at them both. “And, Xander,” he says, his voice dropping into the mild drawl that makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, “I appreciate that as Faith’s oldest friend you enjoy the privilege of speaking your mind to her, but I don’t think you and I are quite on that footing, do you?”

“No, I guess –”

“Then perhaps you could refrain from your ill-informed, and frankly rather unwelcome, attempts to dictate my behavior?”

“I’m not going to apologize for caring about her,” Xander says softly, not backing down, though his hands are shaking slightly. She knows he hates confrontations and she feels a pang of pity.

“I don’t believe that was asked for either,” Wesley says. “It’s an emotion I share, after all.”

She realizes she’s gripping the stem of her wine glass so hard it’s about to snap and eases off. “Hello? Standing right here?” They turn and she flashes them a tight-lipped smile. “Xander, butt out. Wesley, chill. And I’m starving, so let’s go eat. OK?”

There’s a long moment when her imagination goes into warp drive and she sees Xander stalking out in a huff, or trying to hit Wesley, and it’s almost an anti-climax when they both murmur versions of ‘sorry’ and head for the kitchen.

She feels a warm wave of pride that she’s so totally in charge, rescuing the party like that, and then her stomach growls loudly enough to drown out the entire string section of the background music and she hears them both snicker.

Emptying her glass instead of snarling at them is getting to be a habit.

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy Seven


Seated all around the cozy table in the kitchen there's a bit of knee and elbow bumping and someone jostles a table leg before they're settled in, with Wes on one side of her and Xander on the other. She's not so sure it's such a great idea that the two are facing each other across the table, but there's nothing to be done about that now.

Instead, she concentrates on the food and can't help but be pleased at the spread that they, yeah they, all perfect couple-y and everything, presented to their guest. The chicken, all shiatsu-massaged with the herbs and butter is crisp and golden and smells heavenly. Blessedly, the pissing contest from the living room's completely forgotten as they rather unceremoniously – considering the impeccable table manners of two-thirds of the table -- dig in.

She's a little grateful for the momentary silence as they make their way through the salad, and Xander's chasing a rogue cherry tomato 'round his plate when Wes shoots her a little despairing look. The look that says: I'm running out of conversational topics. Help! Or, at least she thinks that's what it says. She nods slightly, mentally kicking herself for not realizing sooner the whole perfect hostess thing also meant keeping up the dinner table chatter as well. What would Martha say?

When she turns her attention back to Xander, he's finally speared the tomato and is deliberately munching on it, with a look on his face that matches Wes'. She smiles, and he licks a wayward dribble of vinaigrette off his lower lip. “We've seemed to talk a lot about how I've been, Xan, but like, how are things with you?”

His fork lands with a forceful clatter on his empty salad plate, and out of the corner of her eye, she can see Wes evaluating Xander with one of his super-serious looks. The one she knows means he's interested what's about to be said, but she knows it can be a little discomfiting at first. One of the reasons he's so good at cracking witnesses on the stand. But this is just a casual dinner between friends, not a deposition meeting, and in a feat of super-hostess multitasking, she gives Xander an encouraging smile while sneakily slipping her hand under the table to pat Wes on the knee, a move she's hoping telegraphs, back off with the steely stare, darling. Resting her hand there for a moment, she knows it's worked because she can feel a little tension roll away as he shifts in his seat, leaning back to give poor Xander some breathing room.

“Yes, Xander. Are you still working at Chez Lisette? I'm sorry didn't have the chance to meet you the last time Faith and I were there...”

She tenses up at that. The last and only time they were there. She wanted to correct him, but didn't want to open up an avenue for Xander to let it slip that the whole kitchen staff had seen what Wes' hand was up to under the table during that unforgettable meeting with that atrocious tweedy guy.

And when she rises back out of her thoughts to focus on the conversation, they're discussing the new sous chef – a mutual friend, it turns out, and there's laughter all around. Small fucking world indeed and even though there's a pleasant grin plastered to her face, she's annoyed at the reminder that she was still stuck in this shithole town where gossip was an extreme sport.

But she can't be bothered to dwell on that for long, because her lover and her best pal have moved on to bitching about the restaurant's wine list and the utterly wretched (Wes' words) and really lame (Xander's) sommelier who only got the job because he was fucking ... “Randall!” They both nearly collapse in wine-fueled laughter. Randall, the pushover manager of Chez Lisette, they breathlessly tell her, is infamous for installing his latest boy toy in the most inappropriate job in the whole restaurant – and that's more often than not the sommelier post.

“The selections are simply atrocious, Faith, you have no idea.” The third and then fourth glass of wine have brought out the bubbly and personable side that hides under Wes' no-nonsense exterior, and she knows that he must be like this with his devoted pro bono clients, watching baseball games and kicking back a few brewskis in a dive bar. “No offense, Xander, but that's why I only ever stop in for business breakfasts...”

“Hey, none taken, friend. None at all. Why do you think I get up at the ass-crack of dawn to do the breakfast shift?” She has to laugh at that along with them at that logic. Xander's party schedule made making the 5:30am call rough, and most of the time he was still coasting on the previous night's high when he got to work. “I got tired of having to explain to every idiot nouveau riche dot-com billionaire that no, we didn't have the Shiraz that got a good review in the last issue of Wine Spectator and then have 'em turn up their noses at my suggestions! At least the breakfast crowd is a bit more respectable.” He winks at her and she just rolls her eyes and kicks his foot – or what she hopes is his foot -- under the table, as a warning, and realizes she's hit the mark when he stomps hers right back.

Eventually, she's able to sit back and watch the two of them, fascinated that they really are kinda bonding now, even if it is over something a little queer like restaurant gossip and methodically works her way through the chicken and the mushrooms and the roasted peppers, letting them natter on about this chef and that waiter and everything starts with “Oh, did you hear about ...” or “Faith, I don't think I've told you this story. This is great. There was this one time...” and ends with Xander cackling wickedly and Wes shaking his head in disbelief and even she's giggling along too at the absurd tales of collapsed soufflés at the Valentine's Day dinner and the time an impeccably dressed woman, dining alone, ended up stripping off some item of clothing every time a new course was brought to her table until she was stark naked after dessert and had to be escorted out wrapped in a spare tablecloth.

And she's so very pleased with herself when she seamlessly slides out of her chair when at last, after both she and Xander have finished eating, Wes crosses his knife and fork on his plate and she whisks the dishes and serving plates away with a minimal clatter.

When she's coming back to the table, she pauses to lean against Wes, hand ruffling his hair, grinning like a fool at Xander, pleased as punch that the tide's turned and everyone's having such a good time. And she's even more pleased when Wes grazes his hand along the edge of her knee, where the plum dress' hemline slides against her flesh.

“I think it's best we have the cheeses and port now -- don't you, Faith?”

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy Eight

Her first instinct is to blurt out “What the hell is port?” but luckily her inner Martha takes over and she doesn’t miss a beat, she just smiles and heads to the dining room.

Of course, she has no idea which glasses are appropriate for port. And she finds herself facing an entire wall of stemware: squat, wide snifters, heavy crystal, tall flutes —you name it, he’s got a set that would make the CEO of Crate & Barrel proud. Just when she’s debating the options Wes sidles up behind her and slips his arm around her waist. Whispers in her ear, “Thought you might like some help.” Normally (there’s that word again —she’s getting really fucking sick of it by now) this would be a perfect opportunity for them to get up to some no-good as a bit of a palette cleanser, but hey, Xander’s waiting in the other room and they’ve got these new rules to abide by so she wriggles out of his grip. He looks so adorably disappointed that she almost reneges, but then she remembers her objective and she’s all business.

“Wes, someday you’re going to have to explain to me the crucial difference between this” —she holds up a slightly bell-shaped wine glass in one hand and a slightly less bell-shaped glass in the other. “—and this.”

He starts to draw himself up into full-on lecture mode. “Well, it all depends on the wine. The curvature of the glass enhances the—“

She puts her finger to his lips and giggles. “I said someday, Wes. Rain-check, OK.? Now, what the hell do we serve the port in?”

He gathers up the appropriate glasses and she’s got the plate o’ stinky cheese, all perfectly arranged with these little rounds of ciabatta and slices of green apple. She’s quite proud of it, really. She may not be ready for her own show on Style but she’s doing all right.

Wes is just about to breeze past her when she stops him and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m getting to see quite a bit of Wine Snob Wes this evening. He’s rather endearing, you know?” Before he can protest her use of the word “endearing,” she breezes out of the room.

Xander looks a little stunned at the tawny port and the fancy glasses and the array of imported cheeses spread out before him. Faith can read his “all this for l’il old me?” look. But he starts to relax again once Wes pours the port. Ever the gracious host, Wes slathers some triple crème camembert on a cracker which he then passes to Xander, who takes it appreciatively. Faith’s only taken a few experimental sips of the port but already she’s feeling sort-of warm all over and strangely content.

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy Nine

She nibbles on a tiny piece of apple but it tastes weird with the heavy, sweet burn of the port and there is absolutely no fucking way she's putting any of the runny, smelly, flaky selection of cheeses in her mouth.

"Just try a little of the Roquefort," Wes cajoles, having the nerve to wink at Xander who sniggers as she pulls a face.

"Faith's more of a Kraft slices kind of girl," he giggles and Wes shudders in mock disgust.

And she'd probably be more pissed off about them treating her like some kind of white trash because she doesn't have a sophisticated palate or, like, whatever but she's so relieved that they're bonding over the stinky cheese and she's so buzzed from the wine and port, that she lets it go. Jesus, she's getting so mature, she's practically ready for her first cotillion.

Wes cuts a tiny chunk of a pale yellow cheese with a red rind and offers it to her. "Just one bite, Faith, is all I'm asking," he purrs. "It's Edam, it's very bland, I'm sure you'll like it."

It's got nothing to do with the smug smirk on Xander's face because he expects her to wimp out but more to do with Wes holding the piece of cheese up so he can feed her that has her opening her mouth and chewing reluctantly.

Actually it tastes a little like the processed cheese slices that Darla used to shove between two slices of bread and call lunch. She swallows it down without making any gagging noises.

She smiles demurely and takes a sip of her port instead of sticking her tongue out at Xander who's more interested in cramming crumbly shards of Brie into his mouth than watching Wes reach out and cup her cheek.

"There, that didn't suck, did it?" he murmurs with a sly grin and she's leaning forward so she can press a tiny kiss against his smile.

"Maybe I should have another taste just to make sure that I've found a cheese that doesn't make me want to yak?" she suggests and she could have come up with something that sounded more seductive but he's fallen for it.

It's not the cheese she wants to taste but she'll take whatever she can get 'cause it means that Wes is intent on cutting her these perfect cubes of Edam and popping them into her mouth so her tongue can snake out and catch the tip of his fingers, his thumb brushing the curve of her bottom lip as he takes his hand away.

She's so focused on him being focused on her, on the way his eyes darken every time he gets a glimpse of the pink swipe of her tongue that she completely forgets about Xander until he clears his throat and Wes gives a little start as if he's also forgotten that they have a houseguest who's hell-bent on completely decimating his cheeseboard.

"You lost the use of your hands then, Faithy?" Xander asks with this tart tone to his voice, which makes her face flush instantly.

This time it's Wes who gently pats her knee and she forces herself to smile sweetly at Xander. "We're just being romantic, Xand," she simpers. "Maybe that's something you could try if you ever manage to get laid again."

"Hey! I get laid all the time. All the fucking time," Xander protests and then he realizes that he's being a total asshole and flashes her his goofiest grin. "And you can file that in the folder marked TMI."

And she's had too much to drink 'cause she's turning to Wes who's been watching the back and forth with a slightly dismayed expression, and murmurs conspiratorially, "Xand's going through a dry spell."

"Dry as in the Sahara Desert," Xander adds helpfully. "Don't suppose you know any hot lawyer guys looking for fun and friendship, walks in the park and Kung Fu movie marathons?"

The knee pats have taken on a slightly frantic pace and she can see Wes' brain trying to come up with a suitable response. He takes a long, slow sip of his port and then gives Xander a sudden wicked twist of his lips. "Not off the top of my head, no, but I'll be sure to put the word out at my next Rotary Club dinner. Would you like some coffee?"

But Xander's rubbing his belly and shaking his head. "Man, I'm stuffed. I put anything else inside me and things could get ugly."

"I'd like some coffee," she says plaintively and Wes shakes his head firmly at her.

"You know you're not allowed coffee at this time of night, Faith," he admonishes her. "Not if there's any chance of you actually sleeping."

She shrugs in defeat, because he has a point and he gets wicked grumpy if she's fidgeting all night with the after effects of too much caffeine, and starts to stand up so she can clear the table.

"Jeez, if I ever tried that with her, I'd be on the business end of a hissy fit," Xander pipes up. "Are you, like, a Jedi master?"

"I'm not entirely sure what that is," Wes replies a tad sniffily. "But Faith knows I only have her best interests in mind."

"Riiiiiight," Xander's voice is the dictionary definition of sceptical and Wes is stiffening like an angry cat and all of a sudden it seems like a really good idea to get the table cleared and Xander the hell out of there. "Faith's best interests, that's a really strange way to put it."

"So you got an early start tomorrow, Xand?" she asks brightly, digging him in the shoulder as she leans over to pick up his plate.

He drains his glass of port like it's Mountain Dew and gives Wes exactly the same look he used to give Buffy Summers when she'd been ragging on Faith for her thrift store clothes, or the bruises on her face, or any of the other multitude of things that Buffy Summers used to find to rag on her. "Y'know, this has been nice, the food and stuff, and Faith keeps telling me that she's happy, but don't you think this is all a little odd?"

Wes looks icy-calm but there's this little tic banging away in his cheek as he steeples his fingers together and looks at Xander over them. "No, not really, perhaps you'd care to elucidate."

It's like she's been frozen in time, standing behind Xander with the plate of leftover chicken held tight in her hand and wishing that somehow she could open her mouth and beg them to stop.

"Well, there's the age difference, which not so much," Xander says warming to his subject. "You're a spring chicken compared to, oh, Michael Douglas. But you tell Faith what to do all the time, and you never listen to her when she says no, and I can't help but think if there's other times that she says no and you don't listen. Like, say, when you're beating the crap out of her."

"I don't fucking believe you, Xand! How could…"

"That's a very damning choice of words." Wes cuts right across the beginning of what's going to be a really furious rant with his iciest drawl. "But I fail to see how the things that Faith and I choose to do in the privacy of our own home is any business of yours."

"OK, both of you need to calm the fuck down…"

"It's my business because she's my friend and I can't even give her a playful swat on the ass because you've left some serious bruises, pal," Xander spits, scraping his chair back so she has no option but to scurry out of the way. "And if it was in the privacy of your own little mansion here then it'd still be completely wrong, but it's not and Faith is the one who's been having to deal with… Fuck, Faith! What the fuck did you do that for?"

She stands there still holding the empty plate and watching as the chicken and gravy seems to slide down Xander's best shirt in slow motion. "I'm sorry," she gasps and she knows she's not fooling anyone. "My hand slipped. I've had too much to drink. We've all had too much to drink."

Xander's clutching at his shirt, pulling it away from his chest and looking at her in disbelief, but he's a treacherous little shit and she's fucked if she's going to apologize again.

Seems like Wes agrees with her. "I really think it's time for you to go home, Xander. Would you like me to call you a cab; you have had rather a lot of alcohol?"

"I'm fine. I'm going to walk," Xander mumbles in this tiny voice and she's not going to argue with him that it's miles back to his apartment on the other side of town. She just wants him to get the fuck out and never come back.

As they walk Xander to the front door, she tries to catch Wes' hand in hers, give him a comforting squeeze and get one in return, but he deliberately evades her grasp and gives her a wintery smile that makes her wonder if he's just put his heart in the deep freeze.

Xander stumbles out the door, grunting something that might be thanks. Might be fuck off and die. It's hard to tell. And she's not really that concerned because Wes slams the door. Really slams it, so it seems as if the whole house shakes with the force of it and turns around to glare at her so furiously that she shrinks back and almost knocks over the coat stand.

"And yet you still think my need to establish a more conventional relationship between us is merely another game," he snarls, lips curled back and tiny dots of red dancing along his cheekbones, like they're already in the middle of the argument.

And it's his turn to shrink back when she holds her hands out to him imploringly. "No, Wes... I don't know... I just want things to be..."

"I'm going to bed," he says flatly, brushing past her as if she's just a phantom presence. "Maybe it would be best if you slept in your room tonight."

Chapter One Hundred and Eighty

She watches him go, stunned and feeling bewildered by the speed at which it all went wrong. Though, thinking about it, it’s been an endless juggling of eggs ever since Xander arrived and he couldn’t entirely be blamed for the fact that they were both on edge anyway, from Wesley’s fucked-up and totally dumb idea.

It’s ironic, that had they been the way they usually were, they’d have probably come across as more of a couple and maybe, just maybe, not set Xander off. Or maybe he’d come with his little speech already prepared and he’d have spewed it out no matter what.

She can forgive him everything but making Wes look at her like that – anguished shame hiding under anger – and for trying to tell Wes about Liam.

Slowly, kicking off her heels and pushing back her hair, she goes back to the kitchen and begins to clean up. She’s too drunk for it to be a chore; an hour passes without her really noticing as she wipes dishes, floor, table, counter...and five minutes are spent in a methodical, vindictive shredding of Xander’s flowers, as petal and leaf are reduced to pulp.

She gets herself a glass of water and sips it, one swallow, two – then she hears Xander’s voice in her head, hears him taint and tarnish what she’d thought was precious, hers, and she’s clammy and hot and throwing up in the sink, retching and dizzy, clinging blindly to the tap she’s managed to turn on, as her world spins and leaves her adrift.

It helps her in the end. After she’s cleaned herself up and managed to swallow some more water, her head’s cleared and the daze of unhappiness has changed to a slow, hot anger.

Plans, words, arguments swirl in her head as she goes to the dining room and clears the unused table, destroying the pretty picture she’d made.

The candles she blows out, one by one, without troubling to wish.

When she reaches the top of the stairs, she sees that Wesley’s door is closed, an uncompromising rejection that thins her lips. She goes to her own room, showers quickly, and brushes her teeth, scouring them clean until all she tastes is mint.

Then she takes out a nightdress, rose-pink and opaque, skimming her ankles; something Wesley chose because he said he loved the color and the silky cool slither of it in his hands, but that she’s never worn. The narrow straps and deep slits at the side save it from being completely demure, but it’s classy, not come hither. Which is probably why it’s stayed folded until now.

After rushing her hair until it crackles and putting on enough makeup to rescue her face from pale obscurity against the warm, rich color of the nightie, she leaves her room.

She’s ready for everything but the sudden thought that he might have locked his door. It’s enough to make her hand hover, inches away from the handle, as she pictures him lying in bed, smiling coldly as he watches her try to barge in, go where she’s not wanted.

Oh, he’s just so fucking impossible!

Ready to spit and curse and hammer it down, like an R rated little piggy, she’s a little disconcerted when it turns easily and swings open. It’s only just past eleven, so she’s not too surprised to see that Wes is reading, not sleeping, the room dark apart from a bedside light, glowing softly.

He doesn’t even look at her. “I think I made it quite plain that I preferred to sleep alone, Faith. Good night.”

She closes the door and that brings his head jerking up. “Yeah, you did. Real plain. What I don’t get is why I’m being punished for you and Xander fucking-up.”

He sighs impatiently. “Punished? Isn’t that a little dramatic, Faith?”

“No. It’s how I feel,” she says, and it’s the truth. Being away from him, with every inch of her body missing his, is a worse punishment than any he’s ever thought up.

“I’m sorry,” he says, meaning the exact opposite, “but I’m really not in the mood for any more of this tonight. If you’d just return to your room –”

“Like last night...” she says, nodding. “Two nights of sleeping alone, of not fucking... you can’t do it, can you?”

“What?”

He’s looking at her with a glittering tension in his eyes and she fights to stay outwardly calm; even manages a chuckle.

“Oh, come on, Wes! Normal doesn’t mean celibate, but since you started this you’ve barely touched me. Want to know what I think?”

“Not in the slightest,” he says, throwing back the covers – and yes, he’s still wearing those fucking shorts like they’re some sort of security blanket.

She swallows dryly as he gets out of bed and comes towards her. “Well, I’m going to tell you anyway,” she screams, losing it because he’s scaring her when he’s got that look in his eyes and she hates that. “I think you can’t fucking do it like this. And you think so too, or you wouldn’t be trying to send me away when I belong in here with you.”

She’s not just got Xander’s voice in her head now; Lilah’s in there too, oozing sympathy as she tells her that Wesley’s impotent if he’s not playing his games. It’s stopped seeming like a joke and starting to seem like a prediction.

He’s close enough to reach out and touch her, but he doesn’t move and she sobs once, the noise frantic and panicked, and flings herself at him, arms going around him, clinging to him.

“Don’t do this to me, Wes,” she says. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

He reaches up and tugs her hands away from him, releasing her at once. “Very well, Faith,” he says and there’s a resignation in his voice that chills her. “Come to bed.”

He turns without waiting for a response, and walks back over to the bed, getting in and propping himself up on his elbow to watch her follow him, the soft fabric rustling as she takes slow, careful steps.

She shivers as she climbs into bed and he gives her an appraising look, before pulling the covers up over them and switching off the light.

There’s an awful moment of waiting and she’s about to say something – fuck knows what – when his hand finds her breast and strokes her nipple through the thin covering. She relaxes into the familiar touch, turning eagerly for the kiss she’s expecting.

His hand moves and pushes her to her back. “Stay still,” he mutters.

It’s a command he’s given her so many times before and it’s always signalled a time of being deliriously aroused and eager and he’s always sounded so perfectly, completely sure of himself. Now it’s chilling her to hear him say it like that and the shivers increase but he doesn’t hold her and warm her, just fumbles in the darkness for the hem of her nightdress, pulling it up, bunched in his hand, until he’s bared her to the hips. He moves away and the bed rocks as he shoves down his shorts and she wants to say something about that being about time, but it’s impossible to talk, to push words out into the heavy stillness.

His hand, cool and trembling slightly, brushes against her leg and she shifts so that her legs are split wider, feeling nothing but panic. She wants to scramble out of the bed and run, wants to take Wes with her, away from this weirdness, but she lies there, her breath harsh and loud in the quiet, as his fingers fumble gracelessly over skin he’s made his own with a thousand perfect, loving touches.

She’s dry and tight and his fingers push inside her, seeking a response she can’t give him as her rigid body refuses to obey. She cries out softly as he hurts her with a thrust too deep, and he freezes, a dark shadow over her.

“Wes...” Somehow, she finds the strength to push him away. “Stop it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Fuck that,” she says. “Wesley, if you don’t kiss me, like, now, I’m going to –” She tries to think of something so awful it’s the ideal threat, and settles for, “color in the pictures in your Biggles book.”

“Faith, this isn’t – what?”

“You heard me,” she says. It’s good to be able to talk again and to move, and she wriggles around until she’s wrapped around him, arms and legs tangled in his. She gives him one firm, swift kiss, and ignores the fact that his face is wet. “Wes, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but it isn’t working for me. You want to try making love without the extras, we’ll do that, but give me one good reason why you have to forget how to kiss me and why I’m supposed to be playing musical fucking statues.”

“I – I don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” she says, “so why don’t we just not?”

“I’m not sure I can –”

She doesn’t let him finish that, just runs her fingernail down his back and bites down on his shoulder. The quiver that gets her is enough to make her smile into the darkness.

“Oh, I am, Wesley. And I’m counting on you to wipe out all the bad memories I’ve got of being fucked by virgins in the dark. Scott, Dan and Larry are hard acts to follow –”

“Who -?”

“ – but I know you can make me forget them.”

She arches up against him and sighs as his mouth comes down on hers in a long, slow kiss.

Chapter One Hundred and Eighty One

“That's a good start,” she breathes in his ear after the kiss melts away and she's grazed her lips across his fiercely pounding jugular. It may have been just a kiss, but just like that, it brought back an old familiar ache deep inside, made her clit twitch expectantly.

She has a fleeting thought, while he's tugging the nightgown over her head and it snags in her hair and he sputters out an incoherent and nervous apology, that maybe this what their first fuck would have been like, maybe, if their first fuck hadn't ... well, if it had followed a proper third date, maybe a fourth even.

There's something still cautious and overly careful about the way he touches her after he tossed the slinky gown aside, but now there's something kinda endearing about it, like he's lost the map to those possessive boundaries he's drawn out on her flesh time and again. It doesn't take him long to find his way again, even if his hands are shaking as his thumb ghosts over her hard, aching nipples. She could be mistaken, since it's so dark, but she thinks he might have just smiled when a comforting and familiar whimper escaped her throat. Not dark, or begging, or frustrated -- just a pure, unregulated response to his hands on her skin.

Her hands are awkward too as she rakes her fingers over his stomach, fumbling a little before taking his cock firmly in hand and coaxing it to attention with a few methodical strokes, pleased when it dribbles over her thumb. His hands have finally made their way down to her pussy, and nuzzles her neck with a little of his old ferocity when he finds that she's wet and hot and ready now.

“All that from a kiss...” Is that bemusement she hears in his voice?

“Yeah, Wes. Imagine that.” She wishes the lights were on, wishes she could catch his eye or smile encouragingly; make him see in her face and not just her sex that this was working. That it was gonna be okay tonight, and maybe even the rest of the nights that passed until his two-week bullshit moratorium was over. Maybe.

He doesn't answer, just runs a line of kisses down her neck, pausing to gently suck on her nipples -- she has to resist a impulse to beg for him to bite them or suck harder -- before making a predictable beeline to her now-throbbing cunt.

She almost laughs with relief when he tosses that last shred of awkwardness aside and goes straight for that little hidden patch of hot flesh instead of teasing her; lightly spreads her open with his fingers instead of ramming two, three inside.

But she's so maddeningly sensitive after two days of inattention that she's groaning and thrashing inside a few minutes and then actually wishing for once that he was drawing this out, 'cause even though she's coming hard, it's too fast and is gone in an instant and her whimpers of pleasure give way to ones of annoyed frustration. He doesn't take notice of that, though, and is scrabbling up and shaking a little and can't get his cock inside her fast enough. Yeah, okay, she's definitely wishing that he'd taken longer.

It doesn't help either that when he's finally inside after a couple of badly-aimed misfires, they're locked in the oldest position in the book, which doesn't manage to hit that nagging ache inside at all. He just keeps ramming right past it over and over and over again and she's arching under him and wriggling around but nothing helps, and dammit, if he would only pin her wrists down or shove her legs up around her ears or something, maybe she could come again with him. But it's too late for that in the end as he finishes with a weak whimper and slumps heavily against her, cheeks still wet with tears.

Chapter One Hundred and Eighty Two

And she can feel him holding himself away from her, like he’s afraid to touch her, and she almost sobs. She doesn’t even know how to soothe him, how to make things right again. There’s an insistent ache in her chest that she knows won’t go away until she gets him to talk.

The only thing she knows for sure is that they’re not meant to be this way.

“Wes.” It comes out in a whisper. He’s rolled off her, turned away on his side, and suddenly her feelings of tenderness give way to anger. She’s not going to let him get away with this bullshit any longer. She wants to force him to look at her, to make him face this. It’s taken her until this very moment to realize that she’s an equal partner after all, and it’s about time she started acting like one. She tries again, willing some sense of authority into her voice: “Wes. Look at me, please. Godammit!” She grabs him by the shoulders and turns him roughly towards her.

“I’m not ashamed of what we do. Not now, not ever. So why the fuck are you? Forget what Xander said. He was drunk, and he’s been itching to bait you ever since he walked in the door. No, longer.” She props herself up against the headboard and sighs. “But this has been going on since the beginning, hasn’t it?” He doesn’t answer. “You can’t fucking cut me out, Wes. I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.” Is he crying? Is he asleep? What the fuck? She flicks on the light and he’s staring at her, eyes red-rimmed and dry, face drawn. “This isn’t fair, Wes. Please talk to me. I just want—”

There’s a tell-tale tightness in his jaw before he spits out a terse, “You don’t know what you want.”

She feels like he’s hit her. He might as well have. She’s been working so hard to keep it together but this sob that’s been building and building —something raw and aching and seemingly unquenchable— suddenly forces itself out of her and she’s can’t hold anything back now. She just wants to fucking hit him —it’s the only thing that would make her feel better.

“You fucking bastard,” she manages to hiss in between great hiccupping sobs, “How dare you? How fucking dare you?”

That she’s met with silence is killing her by degrees. It’s more hurtful than anything else he could have said. And she doesn’t know what to do or say because he’s the one who’s always said and done the right things and she’s floundering and heartbroken and so fucking angry. She’s practically shaking, she’s so angry with him.

“I’m going to my room now, Wes. If and when you decide to stop acting like a fucking two year old and talk to me, please knock first.” She grabs the crumpled, thrown aside chemise and pulls it on over her head. She throws the covers off, swings her legs over the edge of the bed, when he grabs her wrist.

“Let go of me, Wes. I mean it.”

His eyes lock with hers, and she can see it —see how shaken he is, how absolutely rattled. She wants to help him, but she can’t force it and neither can he. And giving in to pity wouldn’t do any good for either one of them now. She shakes free of his grip and stands up, smoothing out the stupid clingy nightdress as she does. The walk to the door feels like the longest five seconds of her life.

When she gets to her room she throws herself on the bed, her unchecked sobs muffled by the pillow. And they don't stop for a long, long time.

Eventually —after she's cried everything out and she aches all over from the effort— she falls into an uneasy, dreamless sleep.

Chapter One Hundred and Eighty Three

When she blearily opens her eyes the next morning, after eight hours of heavy sleep because staying awake would have meant having to think and think until her head explodes, she wonders whether someone's taken out her brain in the middle of the night and replaced it with cotton wool.

She feels headachy and sluggish, like there's a big storm a'brewing. And not just in the figurative sense either. And as she spritzes moisturizer onto her just showered body and ruthlessly attacks her hair, scraping it back into a severe knot, she realizes it's the first morning that he's been in the house and not woken her up.

OK, it's only the second ever morning that she hasn't slept in his bed, in his arms, but even so, it totally sucks.

Her heels clattering on the stairs seem to echo the frantic pitter patter of her heart but when she walks into the kitchen, he barely looks up from the paper.

When he does and she gets his blank, pod!Wes face, she kind of wishes he hasn't bothered. Especially as he immediately seeks refuge in the business section again.

"Morning, Wes, you want another cup of coffee?" she sighs, wondering when she suddenly became the grown up.

"No, thank you," he says after this pause which has her rolling her eyes. "I made you some toast."

"Thanks."

Turns out that monosyllables are the only thing on the menu this morning. They clear up after breakfast in this deafening silence, punctuated only my pointed glances at the clock on the wall.

He listens to Strindberg at ear perforating volume all the way into town and practically scurries into the Faithless sanctuary of his office the minute they get through the front door. "Hold all my calls," he barks at her over his shoulder. "I absolutely cannot be disturbed."

She never got a chance to replace all the steno pads she burnt and it does seem pretty stupid to be taking $10 out of the petty cash tin so she can walk to the supply store and buy some more so she can burn them but she's all out of other ideas.

It's a glorious summer's day. Too early yet for the damp humidity, which is the 98th reason why she hates living here. She can feel the sun beating down on her skin through her thin summer dress and she knows she should have a skip in her step and a song in her heart and all that other shit. Because she's young and some days she feels pretty; she's poised on the brink of a new life and she's loved. Or she thinks she's loved. Three days ago she'd have bet money on it, if she had more than $60 to her name, now it feels like the rug's been slowly dragged out from under her feet.

It takes three cigarettes and an amble round the block before she's summoned up enough courage to go back to the claustrophobic offices of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce Esquire. There's a vaguely familiar car parked in the lot out front and she's trying to remember where she's seen it before when she steps into reception and even if she couldn't smell the cloying perfume, she can hear Lilah's voice, sharp and querulous, from the open door of Wes' office.

"You're pathetic, Wesley!" she's screeching. "It would be laughable, if it wasn't so utterly tragic. You manage to get some little teenybopper in under your Egyptian cotton sheets and it's almost enough to convince you that you've grown a pair."

"My relationship with Faith is not up for discussion." She doesn't even have to be standing in front of him to know that he's clenching his jaw, forcing the words out through gritted teeth. "Get out, Lilah."

"Oh, don't worry, Wes, I'm going," Lilah laughs, this spiteful, spitting noise that has Faith clamping her hands over her ears. "I'm sure you and Faith have lots of… work to be getting on with. Funny really, she's such an intriguing mix of ingénue and tramp but, between you and me, not very bright. Come to think of it, that's probably why she's managed to stick around this long."

"Get. Out. Now."

His voice, the utterly frozen fury he can put into three small words, sends goose bumps popping out all over her arms and as she hears Wes' door slam and Lilah's footsteps striding down the corridor she looks wildly around for an escape route. But there isn't one so she dives for her chair and begins to type, her fingers hitting the keys so hard that she tears her nail on the broken 'f'.

"Ah, Faith, it's been ages since our paths have crossed." Lilah's standing over her and she keeps her eyes fixed on the paper and the gibberish that she's typing. "But your dear father's been giving me updates on how you're doing."

"I've got nothing to say you." She manages to force the words out but it takes some doing.

"You had plenty to say last time I saw you," Lilah reminds her with a cat-like smile. "But I suppose you have quite a lot on your mind. And I have to say, sweetie, Wes' perverse sexual proclivities notwithstanding, I really wouldn't want to be in your scruffy little shoes when he finds out what a bad, little girl you've been."

Her entire body feels as if it's suddenly turned to ice and she stares up at Lilah's smug, beautiful face in horror. "Have you… Does he know?"

Lilah's hands feel soft as they tip up her chin. She thought they'd be hard and dry. "It hasn't come up… yet." And maybe she relents just a little bit because her face suddenly softens. "Do you love him?"

And she doesn't even have to think about, not even after last night. "Yeah, I do. I really do."

"Then you're even more stupid than I thought," Lilah tells her with this sad, secret little smile that she can't even begin to decipher. "Do yourself a favor, sweetie, and get out while you still can."

And instead of disappearing in a puff of sulfurous smoke, Lilah sashays out the door in a cloud of Mitsouko and she's left with barely time to recover, before she hears Wes' door open.

"Faith! In here, now!"

He's shouting at her. Which is new and agreeably frightening enough that she's not getting wet and heavy for the mother of all spankings but gathering up a pad and pen with shaking fingers and willing her feet to start moving.

Now she knows what they mean by the green mile because walking along the corridor towards the electric chair would be preferable to walking towards Wes who's standing at the open doorway, his entire body seeming to thrum with barely restrained rage.

He slams the door behind her, and she's already so over-wound that the impact of wood against wood makes her jump and turn to him with pleading eyes.

"Wes… I needed to go and get…"

He throws out his hand in a dismissive gesture and strides to the window. "I made it perfectly clear that I was not to be disturbed. Is that so very hard to understand, Faith?"

"No, but, well…"

He can't even fucking look at her, just stares out at the parking lot like it's about to impart the secrets of the universe. "Kindly stop stammering and spluttering," he hisses. "One simple instruction, yet it's beyond your limited capabilities."

And yeah, she gets he's having a fuck of a bad day but he can just join the club 'cause she's already the president. "I had to get some more shorthand pads," she says sullenly. "It's not like I was skiving off."

"If you hadn't burnt every single bloody one in the first place, you'd have been at your desk and able to follow my orders!" He's as close to screaming as he can possibly get and when he turns round so she can get a load of his red face and wild eyes, it takes all the fight out of her.

Makes her heart ache just a little bit more because all she wants to do is put her arms round him. "Wes, don't do this," she murmurs, her face all this sorrowful frown. "Please, don't take this out on me."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he drawls, dropping the volume now and it's worse than when he was shouting. "Those pads are coming out of your wages. I want you to sit down at your desk and you're only to move to use the bathroom. You're not to take a lunch break today; you've already wasted more than enough time."

Used to be that this was her cue to sit at her desk in a state of such arousal that she couldn’t concentrate because of the tight ache in her breasts and her cunt, thinking about all the things he'd do to her at the end of the day. All the ways he'd make it hurt, then make it better. But as she slinks out of his office, tail between her legs, all she can think about is that there's no way to make this right. It's just wrong with more wrong piled on top.

She's been sitting there for an hour, wading through a tricky deposition when she hears his door click close and then he's standing there with his briefcase in his hand, that tired mask back on his face.

"I'm going to work from home," he says tonelessly, already heading to the door. "I want you to work through the Mortmain case file. It's imperative that you don't make any mistakes."

He looks gray under the slight tan he acquired at the beach and she can't bite back the words. "Are you OK?"

His shoulders slump a little. "I have a headache," he says unwillingly as if she's forced the confession out of him with a pair of rusty pliers and some well placed electrodes. "Please bring the letters home with you tonight and I'll go through them then."

She gives a sigh of relief as she hears his car drive away and then with a tiny grimace, she gets up and retrieves the full to bursting Mortmain folder from the filing cabinet.




When she gets home, after waiting half an hour for the bus and having to sit next to this woman who didn't seem to have got the memo that deodorant had been invented, the house is silent.

She wanders through the rooms, through the study and the library, the kitchen, even out into his little Japanese garden but he's nowhere to be found. For one awful moment she thinks that he's done the unthinkable; that he's left her. Got on the first plane to New York and not looked back.

But before she can have a complete attack of hysterics she pokes her head round the garage door to see that his car is still there and she's able to take deep breaths and remind her heart to start beating again.

By the time she's finished, the tray looks perfect. Not just the rose that she's plucked from the garden and put in a stupid little vase that's only big enough for one freaking flower. There's ice cubes clinking around in the glass of San Pellegrino and she's even put a sprig of parsley on top of the cheese sandwich. Man, one of these days she's gonna get her own show on the Food Network.

She awkwardly grips the tray in one hand and knocks on his bedroom door. "Wes? Can I come in?"

Silence. She knocks again, louder this time, and hears a faint grunt from inside.

The room is in darkness as she gingerly tiptoes in. "Are you feeling better? I made you something to eat and I got you some aspirin. Shall I open the drapes and the window, 'cause it's kinda stuffy in here and…"

"Faith, please…" His voice is thick with sleep and ‘kindly fuck off’ vibes, which she ignores as she places the tray on his bedside table. When she switches on the lamp, he winces and holds his hand in front of his eyes.

"Wes, you look like shit!" she blurts out and he glares at her but she'd give it a five out of ten at best.

"Thank you," he snaps and then he's pouting like a little kid who's just had his TV privileges taken away. "I'm not hungry," he adds, glancing at the tray and shuddering.

And yeah, he's all headachy and completely fucked-up but he's also working her last nerve. She toes off her shoes and sits down on the bed, shoving him across the sheets in the process.

"Tough," she says flatly. "You're gonna eat this sandwich that I made, and you're gonna take some tablets, and you don't fucking get rid of me until you do."

Then she gives him the evil eye right back, taking in the ashen cast to his face and the way his hand shakes slightly as he finally snatches up the sandwich and nibbles at it with these tiny little bites.

"God, it comes to something when I'm, like, the mature one," she mutters and he almost chokes on the last mouthful of his sandwich.

"I doubt very much that I'll live to see that day," he says, and she can't be sure but maybe there's a tiny smile ghosting across his lips.

"Probably because I'll end up putting arsenic in your tea," she tells him, raising her eyebrows and giving him a prim look, and he's smiling now, and when he leans over to pick up the tablets and the glass of water, he lets his head rest against her tummy for a fraction of a second too long.

"How much did you hear?" he asks her carefully when he's resting back against the pillows.

Now it's her turn not to look at him. "The tail end," she says simply. "That I'm a dumb tramp, but it's not like that's a newsflash."

"Don't, Faith, just don't…" he starts but she swivels round and places her fingers across his lips.

"But if I'm dumb, Wes, then you're fucking dumb because you're gonna let people like her ruin what we have. I don't want normal, I don't ever want a night like last night. I want you."

His lips are moving beneath her hand but she clamps her palm tight across the bottom half of his face and hopes she can say what she wants to say before she suffocates him. "Look, I get some of it, I really do, and if you don't want to play our games, then I'll deal. I'm not gonna come like the fucking Fourth of July fireworks if you fuck me like you're frightened I'm going to break and you're just gonna have to accept it. But will you just stop being such a fucking jerk, Wes?"

She takes her hand away and thinks about giving him two seconds to catch his breath before putting it back, because he's giving her that look that she's got so fucking sick of over the last two days. "It would seem my original theory that there's nothing more to us than this sordid little game is proving to be correct," he says dully. "It's been two days, Faith and all I've had from you is threats and tantrums…"

She's this close to grabbing a pillow and holding it over his face. "Say fucking what?" she snarls and then forces herself to get it under control. Face tight with rage, she picks up the tray and heads to the door. Then she thinks better of it and turns round.

"What's gonna break us up is your bullshit line in normal. Wes, you wouldn't know normal if it fucking jumped up and bit you on the ass. And guess what? Neither would I! Now, I'm going downstairs and after that, I'm going to sleep in my room alone and I'm going to keep on doing that until you either kick me out or you get the fuck over yourself."

And then it's her turn to show him that when it comes to slamming doors, he could take lessons from her.

Chapter One Hundred and Eighty Four

It’s three hours before he emerges from his room to join her in the living room, and if he still looks pale, still looks as if there’s an agony of ouches waiting for him the instant he moves his head too quickly, she’s not going to let it soften her.

Except she is. Of course she is. She’s looking at him, swaying slightly in the doorway as if he’s onboard a ship or something, and she’s remembering how he looked after her when she had cramps, how he held her and made her feel better.

“Wes? You shouldn’t have got up,” she says, tossing a book she was staring at without reading word one onto the table and going to him. She’s too concerned to remember that they’re in the middle of a fight, and she brings her hand up to feel his forehead in an automatic gesture, one even Darla knew how to make, no matter how drunk she was. No fever, but he winces and clears his throat, pulling away a little.

“I’m feeling a little better. I just – I didn’t want this to continue any longer so I –”

Grief and anger flood through her, like icy, dirty water, chilling her. “You want it to end? You want me to go?”

She’s stammering out the words and they’re thick and awkward in her mouth. He looks puzzled, his forehead creasing in a pained, painful frown.

“What? No, of course I don’t! Really, Faith, you have a tendency to jump to conclusions that’s quite worrying.” Ah. That was more like Wes. “I simply meant that a third night of this awkwardness would be –” He pauses and then says quietly. “I dislike it, Faith. More than I can tell you. The raised voices, the silences, the feeling that you...” He runs out of words again and gives her this helpless look.

“I don’t hate you, Wes,” she says. “Don’t think I could. I’m just still mad you decided to do this, and I think you’re fucking it up so badly you should give it up, but, hey, you’re Wes. You’re stubborn. I get that, I really do.”

There’s the faintest hint of a smile in his eyes. “And you’re the epitome of sweet reason yourself?”

She gives him her sassiest grin. “Fuck, no... but takes one to know one, right?”

“Possibly,” he says, moving past her to collapse onto the couch, closing his eyes as he does, but still giving her enough hints that he’s hurting in the way his lips tighten and then part on a sigh.

She hesitates, and then goes over to him. “Can I – is there anything I can get you?” she offers. “More painkillers?”

“No,” he says wearily. “I’m fine.”

“So you won’t mind me putting on loud music and singing along?” she says tartly. “Wes, you look half-dead.”

“I didn’t sleep well,” he says unwillingly, opening his eyes a crack. “You weren’t there. There was that threat about the coloring in my books...”

She smiles at him, walking over to flick off the overhead lights and turning on a lamp in the corner behind him, so that it wouldn’t dazzle his eyes. “Really don’t think that kept you awake, Wes. You know I’d never do that.”

She notices that his hand is beside him, palm up, fingers curled slightly, and she slides to the floor beside him and slips her hand inside it, careful not to jar the couch. His hand clutches hers with a convulsive grip that slackens apologetically a moment later, but he doesn’t pull away. She shifts into a comfortable position and rests her head on the seat cushion, staring up at his face, remote and shadowy. He’s closed his eyes again, but as she watches him, he opens them and gives her a glimpse of blue and a faint smile, before shutting them again and relaxing, with a sigh, into the soft cushions.

She’s not sure if he’s falling asleep, so she holds very still, but after a few minutes his thumb moves in unhurried strokes across her fingers; gentle and barely there touches that leave her whole body tingling, not with arousal but relief.

She stays very still for a while and then turns her head and kisses his hand, stilling the back and forth motion of his thumb. The silence that’s grown between them as they sit in the dimness ceases to be comfortable and becomes charged with expectancy. His thumb lifts and teases the pout of her lips as she prepares to kiss him again and she smiles and nuzzles her mouth against it then rubs her cheek gently against his hand and hers, still linked, still lying beside him.

His thumb sweeps over her lips again, more insistently, demanding – and she’s too used to meeting his demands with compliance not to let it slide past them and into her mouth, where teeth and tongue meet it with teasing touches that turn serious.

His hand slides free of hers and he cups her face, his thumb still caught between her teeth as she laps at it, swirling her tongue over it. He moans first, a tiny sound, caught in his throat, and she’s ideally placed to see that he’s hard now, the rigid length of his cock visible through the thin material of his trousers.

Normally - usually - she’d wait for him to tell her what to do, but they’re both driving now, though it’s still Wesley making the rules, and he’s not well... so she takes charge of the situation and slides her hand over his leg, tracing the shape of his erection with one finger and feeling him jump and quiver almost imperceptibly as she touches him. She’s in no mood to rush and he’s willing to let her set the pace, because he moves just enough to allow her to reach him easily and lets his hands fall to the side.

She keeps up the slow, increasingly demanding rhythm, adding more fingers until her whole hand is on him, curled around a hardness that’s reassuringly real.

With agonizing slowness, tormenting herself as much as him, she eases her hand upwards, flicks open the button on his trousers and goes to work on the zip. Not with her teeth; nothing fancy, nothing that might remind him of other times she’s done this, when her ass has been stinging and scarlet from his hand, his belt, her brush – no, she uses her fingertips, delicately, carefully curled around the stiff metal tab. She’s too lost in the moment to do more than register the shorts that are going to make this just a little bit fucking more difficult, too aware of her own body, awake and ready, with a warm ripe heaviness between her legs as her cunt readies itself to be fucked, in blind ignorance of the fact that she’s not planning to let Wes do anything more strenuous than whimper.

Slipping her hand into his shorts she releases his cock, watching it rise to meet her palm, warm and slick-tipped. She runs her thumb up the side and over the head in an experimental foray that earns her a hissed breath, sucked in sharply, though his eyes, as she sees when she peeks upward, are still closed.

She smiles, a smile she doesn’t think she’d have let him see, a smug, gleeful smile, because this is something she was good at, and he’s made her better, and if it doesn’t take his mind off a Lilah-sized headache she’ll eat a truckload of asparagus, she swears she will.

She doesn’t go for anything fancy, hampered by his clothes as she is, but she can’t resist pushing his shirt aside and kissing his flat stomach, where the dark hair lies smooth and fine, tasting his skin and biting down, just hard enough, on the point of his hipbone, knowing that the fall of her hair is draped across his cock in a maddeningly light caress she plans to replace with one equally so, when she decides it’s time to stop playing.

Which is sooner than she’d planned, because the smell of him, clean but male, is driving her crazy, and when she kisses his stomach again and his cock nudges the side of her face she can’t resist turning her head and taking him into her mouth in a sudden, swift taste of him, salt-slippery and hot.

And that’s all it takes for her to abandon plans, forget he’s feeling fragile, and totally ignore the fact they’re fighting. She moans around him and sucks hard, then goes to town, licking and kissing, sucking and – oh so very gently – letting her teeth sink in, holding him in place as her tongue swirls and dances across his cock.

His hands are clenched in tight fists now, but he’s still not moving, and he can, she wishes she could tell him that he can, that it’s fine, he can touch her, but no way, no fucking way is she stopping now. His cock’s thrusting up into her mouth, little rocking movements of his hips sending it there, and that’s all it takes to have him bumping against the back of her throat, and she relaxes enough that she’s not choking, squeezing her thighs together and squirming, knowing she can’t come like this, but still wet, so very fucking wet....

He comes, with a groan, deep and guttural bursting out of him even as he fills her mouth and his hands finally move to wrap around her head, holding her loosely, his fingers making restless, swift patterns as they rub against her hair. She lifts her head and twists it to kiss his hand, bringing them back to where they started, and looks up at him.

“Come here,” he says, in a voice that’s satisfyingly unsteady. She moves to sit beside him, but he pulls her across his knees and kisses her hard as her hands slide around his neck.

She’s still wearing her office dress but her legs are bare and she shivers as his hand moves up her inner thigh, palm flat, skimming along the sensitive skin until he reaches her soaked panties. They’re the French knickers he got her and there’s enough room for his fingers to slip inside and find her clit, sink inside her, rub and press and pinch and tease, while his mouth kisses her relentlessly, even when she’s coming, even when she’s struggling to cry out and beg him not to stop, never to stop.

She’s left limp and quivering in his arms, gasping and breathless as he smiles with a satisfaction she knows is all down to the fact that he’s managed to make her scream without breaking any rules.

And though she’s still feeling the aftershocks she’s not ready to admit he’s right. Because he isn’t. This worked because they were both so fucking hungry and so fucking sick of fighting. Every time? No way.

But he’s smiling and he’s kissing her again, gentle nibbles along her neck, and it’s too sweet to spoil by pointing that out.

Chapter One Hundred and Eighty Five

She's willing to stay there as long as it takes, as long as he needs – kissing him, stroking his cheek, running her finger along the slightly downy ridge of his ear, tangling her hand in his hair. Saying everything or saying nothing at all. Truth be told, though, she's glad he's opted for the latter option.

Ok, scratch that. She was willing to stay there as long as he needed -- that was until her arm went numb, wedged in awkwardly between the two of them. The sofa's cozy, but really, two's a crowd for longer than a few minutes.

It seems like it's been an hour, though, that they've laid there -- silence swirling around them, just being still. Breathing shallowly, still not speaking; kissing occasionally, with eyes open. In the dark, there's no need to close your eyes when you kiss someone, she thinks. It's kind of special that way. But there's just enough light here for her to see that little by little some of her old Wes is reappearing. Not too much, unfortunately, but enough to be comforted for tonight.

Of course, she'd enjoy that feeling more if the numbness wasn't creeping past her elbow now, and if there weren't gonna be mad tingles when she finally does move it, which is a slightly nauseating prospect.

“Wes, we uh, kinda need to move. I can't feel my arm...”

He laughs at that, a gentle chuckle that makes her feel warm down to her toes. “After you, dear,” he says, giving her a gentle shove and she slides back down to the floor, skirt and blouse askew, hair nearly matted in a spot that he'd twirled around his fingers endlessly for the past few minutes. He leans over to kiss her on the forehead as he glides off the sofa with some semblance of his usual grace. “I'm off to have a bath now, I think. Then we definitely need sleep.” He pauses, swallows deliberately. “You're not sleeping alone tonight.” She's wrapped up in shaking the pins and needles out of her arm and looks up with a start, agape, because it's that thing he does, that thing where he makes something that should be a question into a statement. A direct statement. She's not sure she heard that right, not at all. But he's got a brilliant grin on and winks.

“Oh, God, Wes, really. Obviously you're feeling better if you're in the mood to tease like that.”

“I am, thank you.” He's suddenly horribly serious. “Come to bed soon, Faith?”

“Sure, sure.” Her voice is barely a throaty whisper, and she clears her throat. “I'll be there after I clean up the kitchen. I kind went a little overboard while you were resting..." She's blushing up to her ears now. "I tried ... to make some cookies. And I wasn't very successful.” Yeah, that was one way of putting it -- even if success was measured in the ability to removed blackened chunks of overcooked dough from a cookie sheet. Because she totally didn't even accomplish that.

“Good lord, you must have been completely traumatized if you tried to bake! I'm so sorry – I had no idea I'd driven you to that!” He's laughing heartily at her now and she's ready to let it slide for tonight, 'cause she'd sure love to hit him, but she's not sure how achy he still is.

“Look, we had no junk food. I was desperate." She gives him a very stern glare and points in the direction of the stairs. "Now, get to your bath -- before I totally make you eat some of 'em!”

Chapter One Hundred and Eighty Six

The kitchen's spotless by the time she's finished. Munching on the couple of chunks of cookie that were all she could salvage from the blackened tray, she climbs the stairs, hauling herself up with her hand on the banisters.

She can't ever remember feeling this tired, so weary that it seems to have seeped in to her bones. Because she can't find peace and quiet anymore - doesn't know where it lives, but it sure as hell isn't here. There's this constant sick feeling in her stomach and it's nothing to do with skipping lunch and dinner today, it's more that her insides are tied in knots with the constant nagging fear that tugs at her every time the phone rings, every time it doesn't.

And it was just about bearable when Wes had all of those delicious ways to clear her mind of everything but him. Replaced the doubts and the worry and the guilt with the pure truth of pain and pleasure. Fucking it all out of her system, then wrapping himself tight around her and keeping her safe while she slept.

She pauses at the top of the stairs before taking a deep breath and opening his bedroom door.

The covers are pulled back on the bed, the pillow rumpled and she takes a movement to tidy it up before knocking on the bathroom door.

"Wes? You nearly done?"

There's the gentle lapping of water as he moves and then calls out hesitantly. "Almost. You can come in if you like."

He's still in the bath and she almost can't look at all that burnished, damp skin as he lies back in the water, head lolling over the rim top. But then her eyes skitter to the sink and the shaving kit and the mirror and looking at him seems like the safer option.

"You look better," she says, hovering over him and not sure what the new rules of normal allow. Her panties are clinging to her sticky flesh and she feels grubby from all the anti-Martha-ing in the kitchen and this time last week she'd have been hauling off her clothes and getting in. In fact, he'd have told her to haul off her clothes, slowly while he watched, but even though he's not barking out orders any more, she's still waiting for his permission.

"I feel better, thank you." His eyes are still closed but his brow isn't furrowed in pain any more.

"You're gonna turn into a gigantic Wes-shaped prune if you stay in there much longer."

His eyes drift open and he gives her a lazy smile that still makes her tummy start dancing the marenga. "If you let out a little of the water and put some more hot in, then I wouldn't be averse to you joining me in prunedom."

It's not an olive branch. It's a whole fucking olive tree. And she flashes him her special smile, the one she only doles out on really rare occasions because she doesn't want him to get too used to it. She even tickles the soles of his feet as she gropes for the plug.

"Faith!"

"What? I can't see. Did I just get your little foot? Sorry 'bout that Wes," she protests and she's so relieved that they can still do this, that they're still allowed to do this, that she grabs his big toe and squeezes it gently before shoving the plug back. And all he does is roll his eyes and smirk.

He leans forward and sends a stream of steaming hot water in to the tub as she wriggles out of her dress and underwear. She can see his appreciative gaze in the mirror, the way it lingers on the faint bruises still left on her ass and the sway of her breasts as she takes off her bra and throws it in the direction of the laundry hamper.

"Bullseye!"

"I do wish you wouldn't do that, Faith," he huffs and she puts her hands on her hips, knowing full well that the movement lifts her breasts so they're all perky and pretty. "I've still got a headache," he adds, folding his arms so all that smooth Wes chest is hidden from view.

"You know what the best cure for a headache is?" she asks him as she clambers into the tub, carefully stepping over his legs and sliding with a little sigh into the water.

"Two aspirin and a good night's sleep."

They both reach for the washcloth and he gives a start and then settles back in the water as she grabs the bar of soap. "Orgasms are, like, really good for headaches."

He doesn't say anything, just arches an eyebrow in a not very encouraging manner.

"I read it in this woman's health book for this social education class I took…”

"Which is why the US school system is so deplorable," he drawls, because it's one of his very favorite ranting topics. "Social education, honestly, what utter rubbish."

She rubs the soapy washcloth under her arms and along her neck and says quietly, "It wasn't in school. I took my GED in juvenile hall."

His eyes haven't left her breasts because he might be fucked up right now about the whole fucking thing, but he's still a boy. "Oh… well, yes. I forgot about your youthful misdemeanors. But that's all in the past, Faith. You know it makes no difference to me, it never did."

Just for that, because he sounds so goddamn sweet and honest about his belief that she's given up her thieving, cheating ways she slides the soap over her breasts, catching the edge of the bar on her nipples and staring him straight in the eye. "I've done a lot of stupid stuff, Wes. Lots of things I wish I could rewind."

He waves his hand in a dismissive gesture. "The past is the past. I'd much rather talk about your future. Have you given any further thought to what you'll do in New York? I really should get some prospectuses in from Parsons for you."

She shrugs and lifts her leg up so he can see it all pale and gleaming in the soft light. "I don't think I'm cut out for college, Wes. I'll just get some little job, maybe waitressing or helping out in a clothes shop or something."

Her legs are pretty fucking hot, if she says so herself and he can't take his eyes off them so why the fuck is he still banging on about improving herself and not "entirely ruling out a course of further education."

"Maybe I'll take a cookery course," she says, more to get him to shut up than anything else. "I could stay home and bake cakes and, like, cordon bleu meals for you. Fatten you up so no one else will try and take you away."

"I'm sure that no one else would be foolhardy enough to even try and take me on," he mutters half to himself and she's fed up of all this talking and none of them saying what they really mean. 'Sides, her calf muscles are starting to ache from holding her legs aloft for so long.

She slides under the water to rinse the soap off and then sits up. "We need to get out now," she says firmly, squeezing the water out of her hair and standing up. "Are you gonna wear your shorts in bed?"

He gives her this 'what the fuck?' look and almost slips on his cute ass which she hasn't seen an inch of in the last couple of days. "I beg your pardon?"

"'Cause if you are, I'm wearing a nightie." She wraps the towel round her firmly so he can't cop any more eyefuls. "It's not fair, Wes. I can't sleep all naked next to you and have you not be the same. So either we're both naked or we're not, it's your call."

"You really are the most impossible, maddening girl I've ever come across."

"Well, yeah and your point is?" Her cheeky grin is kinda lopsided but he doesn't seem to notice because he's putting his arms round her and pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"This is hard for me too, Faith," he murmurs in her ear. "You really have no idea. Or maybe you do, which is why you just put on such a delightful show for me."

"So you noticed? I knew it!"

"We can still make love. It was better this evening, wasn't it?" He cups her cheeks in his hands and tilts her head so she can't look away from the intent blue of his stare.

I don't want you to make love to me! I want you to fuck me. I want you to make me scream. I want you to make come so hard I forget everything.

"Yeah, it was, Wes. It really was," she says and then crosses her fingers behind her back just to be on the safe side. "So, do I go and get my nightie or what?"

Anyone would think she'd given him this dilemma of end of the world proportions. He bites his lips and she swears she can hear his brain whirring through half a dozen different scenarios before he says: "Well, no, why don't you just get into bed and we'll take the whole naked issue under advisement."

And in the end, she wishes that they'd both put on all-in-one sleepsuits with the feet in the bottom. Because it's too hard and he's really hard. She can feel his cock nudging against her bottom and he keeps shifting away from her like she's going to have an attack of maidenly outrage. Not fucking even! She's more likely to jump his stupid, conflicted bones and ride him so hard that he can't see straight. Which is why he's being really careful to keep to his side of the bed.

Thing of it is, she's such a slave to him, to his dick, that she's getting wet. And even though it's warm under the covers, her breasts are tight and heavy like she's walked naked through a blizzard.

"Wes? I know you're not asleep," she whispers.

"What?" he mumbles, sitting up and shaking out the pillow.

"Why won't you touch me?" she whines. "I thought the whole point of me being here was that we'd cuddle up."

"It's awkward," he begins and she's just about had enough of this.

She snakes out her hand and clasps the warm, wet length of him, revels in the feel of it quivering in her grip. "It's not awkward, Wes, it's hard," she hisses and then before he can mouth the million objections that he's working on, she shucks off the quilt and straddles him. "And I don't want you to make love to me, I want you to fuck me right the hell now."

Chapter One Hundred and Eighty Seven

Now she's got his attention. And she's hoping against hope that this will short-circuit once and for all whatever fucking bizarro-world logic he's been working on these past few days.

Maybe that's too much to hope for, but even so —he doesn't fucking say a word, just lets her take over. God, it feels so good after all this strain, all the mixed signals and long silences. She'd gotten so used to being worried about past, present, and future that being in the moment for once is an incredible relief. And she can see it written on his face, too —all those harsh lines have been smoothed away, for just a moment.

And she's going to take advantage of that.

"Gonna make it better, Wes," she whispers softly as she leans down to kiss him. He wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her down onto him with this almost feral little growl. Which in and of itself sends this little thrill through her, because that isn't Pod!Wes talking. Oh no.

She can feel the difference at once, and she’s lost in an all-over thrill of lust that slams into her like a cold wave at the beach, leaving her gasping and exhilarated; because it doesn’t matter what they do so much as who she’s doing it with. Wesley trying so hard to be like the boy next door could spank her even, and it wouldn’t feel right, not really, but Wesley, her Wesley, can make her wet with a look, whimpering with a touch and coming with a word.

And that’s something to think about, but later. Much later.

She feels his cock slide into her in one heavenly hard thrust and his hands come to her hips, her waist, and finally her breasts, moving possessively, almost greedily over her skin. His thumbs skim over her tight, hard nipples and then return, pinching them just a shade too gently, a little too carefully. She gives an inarticulate moan of protest, arching her back so that his hands are filled with her breasts and waits for him to use his mouth on them.

There’s a tiny hesitation – what, is he consulting a freaking manual of officially allowed foreplay or something? – and then his lips fasten onto a nipple and suck hard, and thank fuck, he’s using his teeth too, sending shivery stabs of arousal through her. She murmurs encouragingly, grinding against him and beginning to move slowly, feeling reluctant to lift up and let his cock slip out of her even for a few inches, even for a few seconds.

He’s pinching and squeezing her other nipple harder now, doing it just right, and she’s starting to feel as if it’s all going to be fine...then she speeds up a little too suddenly and his teeth dig in and surprise a yelp out of her that’s pure pain.

Fuck. He grimaces, lying back and giving her a despairing, apologetic look. No. No. She realizes she’s saying it aloud and glares at him. “Don’t stop. I’m fine.”

His finger traces the swollen, reddened flesh. “Sore,” he corrects.

“Doesn’t matter,” she grits out. “Wesley, it doesn’t matter. I zigged when you zagged, that’s all.”

She’s not getting off him and he’s not going to make this an excuse to stop. No fucking way.

“Perhaps I should kiss it better?” he suggests hesitantly and she gives him a relieved smile.

“You totally should. Lots of kisses.”

His hand comes up to cup her breast and she feels his tongue lap at the nipple until it’s wet and then he purses his lips and blows over it, making it pucker up, making her giggle.

“Am I tickling you?” he murmurs, doing it again anyway and then kissing it softly.

“Kind of, but don’t stop,” she says breathlessly. He’s sucking on it again and it’s tender enough that he doesn’t have to do much to have her right back where she was, squirming helplessly and feeling a moan rising to her lips.

She closes her eyes for a second and he takes shameless advantage of that, moving his free hand down to tease at her clit, rubbing it hard and pinching it just as he transfers his attention to her other breast and captures her nipple between his teeth.

“Wes... oh God, Wes...”

There’s this connection between clit and nipples, and she’s not sure where the tingles are starting but it doesn’t matter because they’re spreading until her whole body is twitching and anxious and so very needy.

“You look so beautiful right now,” he whispers, lying back and staring up at her. She smiles because he doesn’t know what that is until he’s got the view she has. It’s dark, so a lot of it’s memory and guesswork, but she can see enough to tell that his jaw’s clenched and his hair’s tousled up and she wants to get him relaxed and three times as messy.

And, hey, she can if she wants to. No rules isn’t all bad... and she leans forward, so just the tip of him is caught in the slippery heat of her cunt, and kisses him, darting her tongue out and then sinking back so he has to chase her, lifting up onto his elbows to keep the kiss going.

She ends up sitting in his lap, with her legs wrapped around his waist, kissing him fiercely with his cock deep inside her. She can’t move like this, not really, not well, but she can rock a little and it’s enough to make his face contort as her nails rake down his back demandingly and just a little too deeply.

It’s that little pain that does it, she decides later. He retaliates with a smack on her ass that’s instinctive, not planned, not even hard enough to pink up her skin, but it doesn’t matter. She holds his gaze and sees the indecision there and makes it easier, leaning in and biting his shoulder as hard as she can without breaking the skin. The second slap lands on her other cheek and it’s got a bit more zing to it.

Breathing shallowly, she curves her back, bending forward, and sets her teeth in the skin around his nipple, drawing a hoarse groan from him as she digs them in. This time the slap’s hard enough to sting and he’s reached around so that his hand comes down on the center of her ass.

It’s all she gets. With a frustrated, almost angry sound, he flips her over onto her back, rolling with her, and then pulling out at once.

“Hands and knees,” he says harshly, kneeling back and watching her move quickly into position, hurrying because of the tone of his voice, even more than the need to have him inside her again. Three slaps and she’s burning, on the verge of coming.

He bends over her and she feels his lips against her ear, tickling it as he whispers, “I’m not going to fuck you, Faith.”

There’s something familiar about those words but swamped in disbelieving despair as she is, it takes a while to place them. His office. Early on. When he – oh, fuck...

It takes him about a minute to jack off, and it feels like an eternity, but she stays where he’s put her and somehow, even though it’s not what she wanted, it’s still something. He relents enough to touch her, after endless moments when he’s just a presence behind her, and she sighs as his hand comes to rest on her hip, gripping it hard. Each sound that he makes; the brush of his cock against her ass as he leans forward, the final cry torn from him as his cock jerks and his come falls warm and wet on her back; they all combine to make her feverish and lip-bitingly frustrated, so that she’s got fistfuls of quilt bunched up in her hands and she’s making noises of her own; desperate little whimpers with his name mixed in there.

When he finishes, she stays still, quivering, and he sighs and brings his hand to her cunt, pushing his fingers into her with a deliberate slowness that drives her crazy with the need to push back. “You’ve been very disobedient,” he says softly, and she has a feeling that all it’ll take to make her come is Wes telling her she’s not allowed to, she’s so mixed up right now. “Disobedient...” he repeats, running a finger through the stickiness painting her back, “but perhaps I expected a little too much of you...”

And it’s not fair to blame her, but she’ll save her protests until after she’s come, she decides dizzily, as he pushes her forward and spreads her legs wide enough to let him reach her with his tongue. She’s arching and wriggling and just fucking grinding against him, and when his fingers move to her clit, just out of reach of his mouth, she comes in spasms that go on and on and leave her wrung out and spent.

She thinks she hears an indulgent chuckle as  he cleans her up and she’s sure he pats her ass almost hard enough to qualify as a spank, but she’s just too tired to do more than reach out and hook her fingers into his before falling asleep.

Chapter One Hundred and Eighty Eight

She's pulled out of sleep by his hand on her shoulder, gently shaking her awake and she comes to with a groan, "No! Leave me alone." She buries her head in the pillow and arches away from his hand, which now has a firm, tugging grip on her arm.

"Faith, please wake up." His voice is gentle but his touch is insistent. "I'll buy you a muffin for breakfast, a chocolate one."

And then he snatches the quilt off her and she's sitting up and blinking blearily at him. "Is there a fire? Are we on fire?"

"Of course not, now, please, get up." He's wearing a T-shirt and jeans and she'd be happy to see that his face isn't squinched up in a pain or angst any more, but it's still dark and she peers at the clock on his bedside table.

"Wes, it's two in the freaking morning! What's so important that you have to interrupt this killer dream about me and…"

He doesn't say anything at first but walks to the bathroom and reaches behind the door to take down the white toweling robe.

"Put this on, please," he says equably.

She staggers to her feet and lets him carefully thread her arms through the holes but she gives him a face full of grump to let him know that she's not down with having her beauty sleep snatched away from her.

"The study, I think," he says and then turns and walks out the door and she has no choice but to follow him because he's using the voice and this had better be fucking good.

"I couldn't sleep," he begins, when she curls up in the wing armchair opposite his. "Probably because I've been sleeping all day and I didn't want the morning to come with matters still so unresolved between us."

She gives a sleepy little yawn and stretches, feeling the familiar ache in her muscles from being locked rigid while she crested the wave of a serious orgasm. "I thought things got pretty damn resolved between us," she mumbles.

He gives her this sly little smile. "Yes, well I must admit that your guerilla tactics were rather effective in clearing up some of my more convoluted theories."

"Your totally whacked theories, you mean."

He nods his head a fraction. "I'm willing to concede that while my intentions were good, maybe the practical application lacked something in the execution."

"I'm sorry Wes, I don't speak lawyer. Not at this time in the morning anyway. You wanna simple things up for me?"

"This isn't working," he states baldly and her entire face feels as if it's dropped to the floor and she clings to the arms of the chair so her whole body doesn't follow it.

"What do you mean?" she whispers.

"No, no, Faith, I didn't mean us," he assures her gently. "I meant my ridiculous notions of what constitutes normal. We're not normal, are we? Not either one of us."

She lets herself relax just a fraction and sags back in the chair wondering whether it's possible for her to have a heart attack at the tender age of 18. "You finally got that memo, did you?" Her hands are in her hair, pressing down on her skull almost as if she can find the bit of her brain that can actually make sense out of stuff that's ultimately senseless. "Look, Wes, we do normal stuff all the time. We go to the movies and we eat breakfast and we floss. But it's the other stuff we do that makes us special. And anyway, no one knows for real what other people get up to behind closed doors. Bet there's a whole bunch of other couples getting up to way kinkier shit than we've ever done."

He lets her finish, which is one of the reasons why she loves him so much. He doesn't interrupt as she's stammering and trying to force the words out, just watches her through narrowed eyes, his gaze cool and assessing.

"We've taken risks. Appalling risks," he says finally when the silence has almost had a chance to apply for its own show on cable. "And I know that sometimes I've hurt you, pushed you too far, no matter how prettily you insist otherwise. And I don't like how that makes me feel, Faith."

She's flashbacking a series of freeze frames in her head. Being pushed up against his office door, the sound of her blouse ripped by his angry fingers. The whistle of the switch as it cut through the air and then the skin of her ass. The red, weeping marks on her wrists left by the belt when he tied her up. None of it was much fun.

"OK, I get that, like, sometimes things got out of control but most times they don't and I love it. Like, there's nothing else but you and what you do to me and how it hurts and then you make it better, God, you make is so better and… and… how you've been these last couple of days, like you don't know me, like you're fucking scared to touch me, I don't want to be with that Wes. He's an asshole." She shifts back in her seat, giving him a look from under her lashes 'cause her little speech started in one place and ended up somewhere else, but he's leaning forward, eyes burning into her and he looks so fucking serious.

"You see, Faith, I wanted proof that you could love me without any of the games getting in the way…"

"I fucking do, Wes!"

Oh, that gets her the classic Wes glare version 0.1. "Kindly let me finish," he snaps and she bites her lips and sinks back down. "And even if you hadn't been so wonderfully solicitous of my wellbeing today, despite the fact that apparently I've been acting like an asshole-” he drawls out the word American style, almost putting inverted commas round it “– I've been thinking that maybe your acceptance of me, of my needs, even my less appealing character traits, well…" He tails off and looks down at his hands, which are plucking at the knees of his jeans.

"Well…?" she prompts.

"It might sound incredibly presumptuous of me but I believe I should stop worrying about why you love me and er, go with the flow." He looks horribly embarrassed and she's not sure if it's because he just said the words 'go with the flow' or because he's had to agree with her on the whole asshole issue.

"You'd better fucking believe it, mister," she says fiercely, getting up and sliding on to his lap. His hands settle round her waist as she presses tiny kisses along his jaw line. "You might be big with the book learning, Wes, but sometimes you're so fucking stupid. I love you even though you're a control freak and you hurt me so badly. Not like that," she assures him, as his fingers trace marks that aren't on her wrists any more. "By shutting me out and thinking you know what's good for us. You don't get to decide what's good for us, we both do."

And she sounds so sure of herself, feet planted firmly on the moral high ground, even though she's aware that she's made plenty of bigass decisions about what's right for them, without asking his opinion. But it's not easy to bring it up, especially now. What's she gonna say: "Hey Wes, I'm giving my dad $6000 of your money 'cause he's got these sick pictures of us. That's OK, isn't it?"

She looks pleadingly at him, willing him to speak, to chase it all away, and obligingly, he cups the back of her head and pulls her in for a deep, wet kiss which makes her squirm against him, but when she grabs at his hand and tries to place it on her breast, he pulls away and tuts at her disapprovingly. "Don't think that your flagrant disregard for my rules, no matter how ill advised they might have been, will go unchecked, Faith," he drawls, giving her an arch smile that she's missed so much that she has to kiss it.

"I'm counting on it, Wes."

"But you do have a point when you say that we should both contribute to decisions about our relationship, which is why I haven't been able to sleep. It seemed such an insurmountable problem given that we're, well… not like…"

He's floundering again, brow all wrinkled, hair still rumpled and he looks so fucking cute and he's being all wordy and trying so fucking hard to meet her halfway, that she's melting into a little puddle of goo.

"Because we're not normal," she suggests, giving into the urge to rest her head on his shoulder.

"Well, no, I think that's become abundantly clear." He shifts her on his lap so she's sideways on and she hitches her legs over the arm of the chair and burrows deeper against the warm, toasty smell of him. "But to avoid any more confusion, I've been working on a contract…"

"Huh?" Jesus, those joints he had at the cottage had addled his mind. "A contract, that's kinda cold, Wes."

But his kiss and his hands on her are burning hot and she's wriggling frantically as he drags the flat of his tongue along her neck, gathering up the skin between his teeth and sucking hard. "It doesn't have to be, Faith. You may find that having a contract could afford you all sorts of benefits that you're unaware of."

And she's just about to complain that he's speaking lawyer again when his hand flicks out and the loose knot holding her robe together comes undone, just like that. Which is a language she's fluent in.

"For instance," he continues, his fingers skittering across her belly like they're dancing and she bites back a giggle because it's just one pressure deeper than tickling, "you could have a clause that if you have to wait longer than an hour for an orgasm, you're allowed to eat one piece of food that's positively crammed full of sugar."

Man, she likes the sound of that. It's practically a win/win situation 'cause the orgasms she has to work for are always the best, plus she gets a Snickers bar on top of it. "And I get a say in the contract, right?" she asks suspiciously. "'Cause I want a clause that says that you never, ever wear your boxer shorts in bed again."

It's hard to think 'cause his fingers are tracing a lazy line along her inner thigh and he's peering intently at her skin in the dim lamp light. "You have a little trail of freckles just here," he remarks almost dreamily. "I always kiss them when I get the chance."

She clamps her legs tight shut, trapping his hand between them. "Off topic, counselor," she mock-growls and he flexes his fingers experimentally and gives her a warning smile that she's on dangerous ground.

"Of course, we'll review the matter on a weekly basis and one of my clauses will be that Sunday afternoons are spent revising the contract and assessing how many times you've infracted on it."

"And then I guess the rest of Sunday afternoon's gonna be spent with you taking the infractions out on my ass." And she rubs that part of her against the part of him which is beginning to sit up and take notice.

All of a sudden she's being lifted as he stands up. "See, we're already finding common ground," he tells her smugly as he begins to walk to the door. "We'll work on the draft tomorrow at lunchtime."

"And then I'll make two copies," she adds, clutching at his shoulders as he almost trips on the dangling belt of her robe. "Don't drop me. And then we'll both sign them and I'll file them in your study here so we can go over them on Sunday." She ruffles his hair because she can't not. "Aren't I the perfect secretary?"

He toes open the door of his room. "I refuse to answer that appalling attempt to fish for a compliment, Faith, on the grounds that it might incriminate me."

It takes two minutes until she's lying in bed, the comforting weight of him pressed against her back. One of his arms wrapped around her ribs, brushing the underside of her breasts as she takes deep, even breaths, his other hand resting heavily between her legs and even though she was wide awake and thinking of all the things she was going to put on her half of the contract, she's asleep within seconds.

Chapter One Hundred and Eighty Nine

She's just come in from her second smoke break of the morning at 10:45 on the dot to find Wes standing in the threshold of the hallway, a hefty sheaf of documents in hand. The phone's been ringing off the hook for hours and she got all glowy and smiling every time she heard him using that no bullshit, thank you very much voice on client after client. They were all full of petty demands this morning, but he fielded every call with a fortitude he hadn't exhibited in ages, leaving her feeling rather proud.

But that doesn't even begin match the feeling that starts to squish up in her chest when she sees him flash that patented goose bump-inducing smile of his before crossing over to her desk and plunking the documents down with a satisfying thud.

"Our contract," he says, and she can't help but immediately begin to run her fingers over the neatly indented text, the pads of her fingertips thrilling over the indentations that the Selectric's daisywheel left after each impact on the thick bond paper. When the hell did he have the time to type this up? Could he even type? She snickers, thinking of him hunched over the keys, picking out letters one at a time, like an old, crusty journalist in a black and white film.

"What?" he says, peering down at her.

"You didn't actually type this yourself, did you?" She tries to hold the laughter in, and nearly loses it entirely when his forehead crinkles in dismay.

"Certainly not. This is just the most relevant a boilerplate contract I had on file. But you'll see," he flips past the first few pages of affirmations. "I've made some revisions here," he flips a few more pages. "And here. And all the other flagged pages." She sees his neat handwriting in the margin, reading: Twinkies, Doritos, etc. and rubs her pinkie possessively over the crabbed letters, smudging the brown ink that's still a little damp. He must have written that in just a few moments before; he didn't even blot it properly. Just like that her giggles are gone and there's little tears pricking behind her eyes, and she's afraid to look at him, 'cause if she does, her heart might just fucking explode. But then she realizes she can't exactly look at the paper either, because those tears become awfully real when she tries to focus on the recital paragraphs, the words now swimming on the page. His little scribbles and revisions are all over a prenuptial agreement.

She doesn't give a shit that she's really crying and snuffling now; forming a complete sentence is totally out of the question, but she tries anyway. "You... This... I..." She ends up just pointing at the words, index finger tapping them insistently.

"Well, I couldn't very well use a real estate contract, now could I? And I thought perhaps incorporation documents were a bit cold as well," he says, handing her his handkerchief and tilting up her chin to plant a little kiss on her lips. "Why don't you let the calls roll over to the answering service while you look this over, as I'm sure you'll want to add your own riders? I'll order lunch in, and we'll discuss this at say..." he looks at his watch. "Twelve-thirty? Will that give you enough time to type up a new copy?"

"Yeah," she croaks out and dabs the hankie at her eyes, staunching the rivulets of mascara that she’s sure must be running down her cheeks, making her look so lovely right at that moment. That's when a few words written in the margins catch her eye, regarding the number of cigarettes she could have per day, and the number of times she was allowed to use the word "fuck, fucking, or any other form of the word in the adjectival or exclamatory case,” and she feels like maybe instead of reaching for his hand and squeezing it meaningfully, as she had been thinking of doing, she should be kicking him in the shins instead.

"Hey! Hey! That was totally cheap, Wesley. Getting me all emotional like that -- you'd better not be thinking that I wouldn't notice this fucking section."

He gives a little guffaw and mutters, "Hardly..." and she yanks a well-chewed No. 2 pencil from the desk caddy, crossing out the “five cigarettes” and writing “up to one pack” over the strikethrough and then flips to the last page and writes: DIGUSTING FOOD RIDER: Under no circumstances will the party of the first part force the party of the second part to ingest asparagus or gross, stinky cheese from any European country. After tapping her eraser on the desk impatiently for a few seconds she adds: No liver or any form of fois gras EITHER!

Chapter One Hundred and Ninety

“Well, I can see you’re entering into this with a commendable enthusiasm,” he says in a snit she’ll bet, brie to donuts, is fake. “Do please remember that I’ll contest every amendment if I feel they’re prejudicial to what I’ve decided is best for you. For us.”

“Wes,” she complains. “You’re totally anticipating problems here.” She glares at him and nods meaningfully at the corridor leading to his room. “And I can’t concentrate when you’re looming over me.”

“Are you telling me to leave you alone?” he asks.

“You bet I am.”

“Really?”

He sounds so interested in that notion that she pauses, panics, and rephrases it.

“Uh... maybe I’m reminding you, sir, that you’re supposed to calling Mrs. Linley back at eleven, and it’s nearly that now?”

“Efficient, polite and so very quick on the uptake. I’m impressed.”

She sticks her tongue out at him and loses it when he gives her an outraged glare even he can’t keep from turning into a grin. Then he goes off to soothe his client and she carries on with her notes, alternating between delighted giggles and indignant gasps.

I have to stop calling him ‘Wes’ in office hours? Screw that! she thinks, scribbling in, ‘when clients are present’ with an emphatic nod of her head and then relenting enough to add, ‘or I feel like it,’ because yeah, she gets off on the whole idea of him being her boss and it’s the one thing she regrets about the upcoming move. She starts to wonder who’ll be assigned to him in New York and feels a pang of sheer jealousy directed at that unknown person.

And there’s no fucking way he’s getting her to agree to ‘ a complete cessation of the use of the adjective ‘pretty’ to describe the person of the first part.’ She underlines the, ‘Wes, you’re fucking pretty. Deal.’ with a deep, dark slash of her pencil and feels a glow of satisfaction. She’s not moving on that one, and if she has to pay for it, well, it’s worth it.

Humming to herself, she doodles in some completely unnecessary hearts and carries on reading.

By the time the delivery arrives from their usual diner, she’s ready with two neatly typed, perfect copies.

Well almost perfect; in the space for both their signature she’s –

“Faith, I have to assume you did this deliberately,” he says. After his first cursory read through, his eyebrows have been alternating between rising and snapping together, but it’s the final line that gets him. “In fact, if it wasn’t deliberate, I can only think that –”

“Totally deliberate, Wes,” she assures him after gulping down a bite of her sandwich. “Can’t tell me it doesn’t bring back pleasant memories?”

“Didn’t we recreate what happened the last time you spelled my name incorrectly just last night?” he asks pointedly.

“I guess.” Fuck, now she’s blushing. And staring at his desk, which she hasn’t seen up close and personal for a while...

“You’re really quite sentimental, aren’t you?” he drawls and she’s too taken aback to do more than gape at him. “Faith, I can’t begin to tell you how much of this will have to be altered.”

“Negotiated,” she hisses.

“Well, yes,” he concedes. “But implicit in that is the idea of compromise, so I suggest you begin to think of the areas in which you’re willing to do so. And –” he flicks back a few pages and thins his lips, “might I also advise that you resign yourself to giving way completely on section 6.4?”

She knows which one that is and she gives him back a look she’s learnt at his knee, all steely-eyed and uncompromising. “Pretty sure I know which part you mean, Wes, and that’s staying.”

She folds her arms and stares him down, watching the flush rise in his face.

“I think we’ll save this to discuss in detail on Sunday,” he decides. “And spend the intervening period in thought.”

She’s actually got other plans, involving making up for lost time and the kind of orgasms that a girl remembers when she’s ninety, but she’ll spare a minute or two for the contract as it’s in her best interests.

“And now,” he says, with a bland smile that tells her he thinks he’s won a point, “I think you’d better get back to work, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” she coos with an outrageous flutter of her eyelashes and a sultry pout.

He raises his eyebrows. “Are you feeling unwell, Faith? A touch of indigestion, perhaps?”

She glares at him, snatches up her copy of the contract and leaves in a huff that lasts for about a minute before she’s dreaming about what they’ll do tonight.

The phone’s an unwelcome intrusion into dreams that have left her clit throbbing gently, but she musters up her best secretarial voice as she warbles out her usual greeting.

“Well, don’t you sound chipper?” Liam slurs.

And reality strangles her dreams and leaves them dying.

“What the fuck do you want?” she asks, knowing the answer, just as she’s known it since she was a child.

He wants to hurt her, and the best she can hope for are the days when he doesn’t care enough to bother.

Chapter One Hundred and Ninety One

When she was a kid, she used to play this game. Mostly when he and Darla were fighting and she couldn't hear the roar of the TV over the roar of alcohol fuelled fury and bile. She'd shut her eyes and wish really hard that she was somewhere else. Never worked but she used to wonder if she just wasn't wishing hard enough.

She tries again now; screwing her eyes tight shut so all she can see is her and Wes, hand in hand, floating high above the skyscrapers of the New York skyline.

"Can't a father phone his darling daughter?"

It didn't work. Never does.

"What do you want?" she repeats, her voice too scratchy to make it a proper hiss.

Liam pauses and it makes her heart lurch, like she's caught between dreams and waking and falling forward. He never pauses unless even he realizes that he's pushing things too far, too fast, too fucked.

"Baby, Mommy's not well and had a fall, you couldn't be an angel now, could you, and call 911?"

"Those checks," he says, turning on the Irish charm, which is so shop-soiled that she wonders why he still bothers to make the effort. "What were you saying the withdrawal limit was again?"

She looks up to the heavens and finds that there's a big 'No Trespassers Allowed' sign hanging up. "A thousand, I told you already. Jesus!"

"No need for blasphemy there, Faithy," Liam says disapprovingly. "You'll never make it past the Pearly Gates with that kind of talk."

She ignores him because she reckons that she's pretty much tagged on to his one way tickets to the burning fires of Hell. "That first check was meant to last you ten days, it's only been a fucking week."

And the fact that he's not hurling a spew of invective at her makes the goose bumps on her arms pop out. "Well now, I managed to run up the mother of all tabs at Paddy's and you wouldn't believe the spot of bad luck I had on the horses…"

"How many have you cashed?" she asks in this hollow voice, wishing that she'd been smarter that she'd doled out the checks one at a time.

"Well, there was one on Friday and, Faithy, I was cleaned out by Sunday night so I had to go to the bank again on Monday and I should be able to get there again before they close. Not like he can't afford it. When I think about what he's done to my poor little…"

"Just save it for someone who gives a fuck," she mutters and then she can't hold it back any longer. "Three thousand in a week? Who the fuck do you think you are? Donald Trump? Like, he's not going to notice?"

"Aw, honey, sweetie, baby girl, give your old fella a break, will you?" He's trying to cajole her now, like they're the best of buds and she's Daddy's little girl. Then he plays his winning hand, even though he's a lousy poker player. "I've been thinking, Faithy, and maybe I could let you have another two snapshots of you and your boyfriend."

"You are such a bastard…"

"I'm a bastard now, am I? Well, tell me this: would a bastard be looking out for you, telling Miss Lilah Morgan to stay the hell away from my little girl?"

The goose bumps are now accessorizing nicely with the cold sweat and she almost drops the phone through her clammy hands. "What did she say?" she gets out in this broken whisper. "She gonna leave us alone?"

"If she knows what's good for her," Liam assures her with his usual punch-drunk bravado. "We're family, Faithy. Gotta stick together."

And the really fucking laughably tragic part of it is that in this moment, in his addled brain, he believes it. "Dad, could you not cash another check, just leave it ‘til next week. I can get you… like, maybe $150 for the weekend, I just got paid…"

"I couldn't be taking the food out of your mouth," Liam says, shocked that she'd suggest such a heinous thing, and then he ruins it. "Though if you could get me some more blank checks that'd be grand."

"I can't, I really can't… if you knew what this is doing to me, Dad. Can't sleep, I can't eat… if he ever found out, he'd leave me and I'd want to die. Why the fuck do you have to ruin everything for me? Don't you want me to be happy?" And she thinks if she keeps talking long enough, if she can hit on the right combination of words, keep him on the phone til the banks close, she's bought herself another three days. Three days with Wes. Three days closer to getting the hell away from here, from him. Which goes to show how dumb she is.

"Ah, Faithy, you worry too much. He finds out then he'll spank you so hard that you won't be able to sit down for a week and you seem to like that, don't you, darling?"

"I fucking hate you…"

"So if you're hating me that much, then you won't want to meet up and get your photos then?" Liam crows. "What's it gonna be? Cause I've got an appointment with my friend, the cashier."

"I can meet you tomorrow," she says dully, 'cause there's no way out, just round and round in these endless circles. "One at the diner on Peachtree and Main. And I want two photos and the negatives or I'm canceling the rest of the checks right the hell now."

And finally, he's ringing off with a breezy goodbye like he just phoned up to ask after her health and she's running down the corridor and into the bathroom so she can throw up the sandwich she has for lunch and the half cup of coffee that's now grown stone cold on her desk.

As she sits, trying to type with fingers that have turned into sausages she can't believe that Wes is still in his office. That her distress and misery aren't sending off some high-pitched sonic waves that are going to have him cat-footing in and demanding to know what the matter is.

Two cigarettes and a steno pad later, she's just coming in from the backyard when she hears her phone ringing and she's breaking the world sprinting record to get to it in time.

"Wesley Wyndam-Pryce's office," she chokes out. "How may I help you?"

"Faith? It's Mrs. Waverly from the bank. You sound like you're coming down with something."

She thinks she's going to die. Her whole body is shuddering between hot and cold and her feet are shaking so hard that she plants them firmly on the floor and wishes that her knee wouldn't keep banging against the desk.

"I'm fine," she says and she's amazed that she still remembers how to speak. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"Could you put me through to Mr. Pryce please, honey?"

She doesn't even have the time to cut her off but sees her fingers moving in slow motion and punching the R button on the phone, followed by Wes' extension.

"I've got Mrs. Waverly from the bank for you," says the girl who sounds like her and Wes is making this tutting sound because he's been interrupted and then telling her he'll take the call and she's sitting there and watching the red light on her phone and it's glowing and glowing, taunting her and then suddenly it's not lit up anymore and she feels even worse.

She sits there, statue still, waiting for his door to open because of course it will and it does and she can't move, just listen to the pad of his footsteps get nearer and nearer.

Her eyes are fixed on the archway waiting for him to come into view and it's almost a shock when suddenly he's there, a slight frown on his face that smoothes away when he sees her.

"I have to go to the bank," he's saying but his voice is coming from a long way away. "It's really very inconvenient… are you all right, Faith? You're very pale."

She opens her mouth and there's nothing to say and now he's frowning properly, walking towards her and she's shifting back on the chair as he places a cool hand on her forehead, in a repeat of the same move she made the other night.

"You're absolutely freezing," he says worriedly and he sounds so concerned, so like he fucking cares that she can feel another wave of nausea hitting her so she has to get to her feet, the chair crashing back into the wall and push past him to get to the bathroom.

She makes it just in time, throwing herself on to her knees and puking up mouthful after mouthful of bile. And then she feels his hands in her hair, holding it out of the way, rubbing her back soothingly, then lifting her up from her prone position and sitting her gently down on the chair while she starts to cry.

"Was it something you ate?" he enquires softly, snagging a handful of toilet paper and running it under the cold tap.

"I don't know," she mumbles, taking the damp, wadded tissue from him 'cause she can't bear his gentle, deliberate movements when she doesn't deserve them.

He stands there, hesitant, head tilted as he looks at her and she can't do anything but turn away from him. "Maybe I should take you home first," he murmurs. "You really are incredibly pale."

"No, Wes, I'm fine, you go," she says in a voice that sounds like she's upgraded to three packs of cigarettes a day. "I can get a cab, I'll be OK."

It takes her three minutes and, like, a thousand different permutations of the phrase "I'm fine", before he gives in.

"I don't like to leave you like this but Mrs. Waverley said it was rather urgent though I can't imagine what's so pressing," he says irritation sharpening his words as he helps her back to reception like she's a doddery maiden aunt. "I'm sure it's nothing more catastrophic than me writing the date wrong again."

"Huh?"

He pauses in wrapping her cardigan round her shoulders and gives her a rueful smile. "I always forget that you Colonials put the month before the day and the bank seem to get awfully irate when I insist on doing it the other way round."

It's totally stupid but the tiny flicker of hope is starting to thaw her out.

"You think that's all it is?" she asks him eagerly. "That you still write British?"

He drops a kiss on the top of her head. "If it hadn't been for the unmitigated disaster that was the War Of Independence, Faith, you'd all be writing British," he intones huffily and then he drops the act and gives her another of those soft-like- feathers looks that makes her want to throw up all over again. "You're to call the car service and I expect to find you tucked up in bed when I get home. Is that clear, Faith?"

She nods slowly. "Yeah, but really, Wes…"

"Yes, I know, you're fine and I fuss like an old woman," he sighs, pulling on his jacket and then he opens the door, steps out and it's almost like he's swallowed up by the blinding sunlight and she can't do anything to stop it.

Chapter One Hundred and Ninety Two

At least when he's gone, she doesn't feel like she's about to puke. That's also kind of because she remembered what Darla used to tell her about putting your head between your knees and taking deep breaths if you felt queasy. She doubles over in her desk chair and makes a lame stab at breathing evenly for a few moments -- and yeah, that helps a little, but it really doesn't get rid of the whole new wave of aloneness that sweeps over her. Staring at the pointed toes of her shoes through the thick curtain of her hair, she's suddenly very aware that there's no one she can call, no shoulder to cry on. No point in worrying about that now. Hell, she's sick of crying today anyway, and she shoves the heels of her palms over her eyes and tries to think clearly for a minute. It's fucking impossible, though, and all she can think of is Wes striving purposefully into the bank to find the cops carting Liam away... It's just gotta be the dates, right? It's just a coincidence that he botched a check on the same day, right? But that line of thinking just makes her head spin again. It's just too much to think about now, so she gets up with a sigh and switches on the autopilot, wandering through the office, shutting the curtains and turning off all the lights, and calls a cab to take her home.

**

The house is dark and quiet and empty and the biggest echo chamber of all time. It takes every ounce of effort she's got left to force down a glass of water and in the end she doesn't even make it up to bed. Kicking off her shoes and collapsing on the sofa, bone-weary and ragged, she's asleep within minutes.

**

She's faintly aware that Wes is stroking the bridge of her nose, a new habit he's picked up since the weekend in the cottage by the sea, which seems so far away now. But he's close now, so close she can tell he's already had a cocktail for the evening; his breath is warm and suffused with scotch. She takes it as a good sign that the warm spiciness is comforting and doesn't make her want to retch. “I told you,” she mumbles, still half-asleep. “You don't do that to wake people up... use it to put them to sleep.”

“In keeping with your contrary ways, Faith, I've found it to be the most effective way to rouse you... I believe I expressly indicated that I was to find you in bed and not on the sofa.” His voice is low and soothing and he's moved to stroking her hair and she just wants to curl up next to him in bed forever and never come out.

It takes her a few more groggy moments to realize that, miracle of miracles, he's not yelling, not throwing her out – so it must have been some bureaucratic bullshit at the bank after all.

“It was the silliest thing at the bank,” he says, so on-cue it's almost suspicious, but she'll take any small relief at this point. “Not even worth mentioning.” He takes another sip of his drink. “Are you still feeling ill? I brought you some soup – not from the diner, of course...”

She struggles to sit up and shakes her head. “I can't eat. I just really want to go to bed now...” She can't deny that it would be nice to be lost in a blur of pleasure and pain for a few hours, but if she's asleep, he can't ask her if she's fine every few minutes. She won't have to fight back the tears for a few hours. She won't have to feel guilty every time he's sweet or tender or loving; won't have to feel guilty that he's still mercifully unaware of everything she's hiding.

And when he doesn't say anything and just scoops her up and carries her upstairs to bed, she realizes this is what it's gonna be like now, fighting the battle a few hours at a time and snatching slivers of stillness whenever she can.

Chapter One Hundred and Ninety Three

Because she’s young, healthy and her body doesn’t seem to realize that she’s in the fucking pits of despair, she wakes up at around nine, starving, horny and restless. It’s a mood swing that’s as unexpected as it is unwelcome because it means there’s no way she can stay curled up in bed, alone in the dark. And that means she’s got to face Wesley, who’s probably wondering what the hell’s wrong with her.

Inspiration strikes. If she gets Wes in the right mood he’s not going to asking any questions because he’s going to be doing the equivalent of eating a pizza and a gallon of ice cream after being on a diet for a week. Which has the added benefit of solving two of her problems as well...

Afterwards, she’s not quite sure if she wasn’t a little feverish, or maybe not quite as awake as she thought, but at the time it all makes perfect sense.

She freshens up, humming to herself as she paints her lips in a kiss-me color, and brushes her hair with long, dragging strokes that leave it silky and curling wildly at the same time. Then she goes to her room and searches through the closet until she finds what she needs.

She walks down the stairs, mind blank of everything but what she’s got planned, and into the living room, where Wesley’s lying back on the couch, a book in his hand and nothing for company but some music he’s turned down so low it might as well not be on – in case she called out to him, she finds out later.

He looks at her, and the words he was about to say, which she’d bet involved asking how she was, never leave his lips. He swallows, which for Wes is the equivalent of an extreme reaction, and the book gets closed and put aside.

“I can only assume you have something in mind, Faith,” he says, with an intonation to his voice that’s not quite cool enough to hide his curiosity, the same way that his position isn’t enough to hide the way his cock’s starting to harden. “Am I supposed to guess? Or do you plan on telling me?”

She spins in a slow, lazy circle, giving him chance to see her, dressed just as she would’ve been for a night at the club with Xander; red halter top, no bra, short, tight leather skirt skimming the curve of her ass and finishing a few inches further down her thighs. Black, barely-there tights, cheap, black high-heeled shoes that she’s danced in until they’re as comfortable as slippers. Faith in her pick-up gear. Faith in her slut costume. Faith on the pull, out for fun, Faith as he’d seen her the first time.

“You wanted me when you saw me like this, Wes,” she says, making her voice low and husky. She moves over, CD in hand, and changes the music, knowing he’s watching her though he’s silent now. She turns the volume up and smiles as the steady beat hammers out, bringing her old world into his, a brash intrusion that he doesn’t like, if the slight frown’s anything to go by, but that he doesn’t protest.

She doesn’t start to dance, but when she walks over to him there’s an exaggerated sway to her hips and she’s forgetting the way the clubs used to make her feel lonely and used and remembering the heat, solid and wet, so every breath she took was soaked in it, so she was filled, inside and out, with the noise and the lights and the heat and standing still just wasn’t an option.

She’d fucked more men as she danced than she had in the bathrooms, dark corners and alleyways. Writhed against them, letting their eager hands paw and pry, pouted at them, whispered words they couldn’t hear, felt their cocks dig against her stomach, her ass... then swirled away, grinning back over her shoulder, and wrapping her arms around someone else. Fucked them in a different way than they wanted, but hey, girl’s gotta have fun... and now she knows Wes was watching her back then, watching, wishing, wondering...

“I’d have gone home with you,” she says, and it might not be true, but she wants to think it is. Wants to think she’d have seen what he was right away, responded to it...

“Why don’t you pretend I did?”

He stands up and walks over to her, pausing a few feet away. His gaze sweeps over her, head to toe, and then he tilts his chin and purses his lips in silent contemplation of her charms.

“No,” he says and there’s a sickening sense of disappointment and, yes, humiliation, because being turned down by him isn’t ever going to make her list of favorite things, but then he smiles, a predatory, totally hungry smile. “As ever, Faith, you’re just a little inclined to rush things.”

“What?”

“Give me a moment to change and we’ll do this properly,” he says, being suspiciously agreeable. “You can wait for me in the car; I won’t be long. Thursday night... hmm. It won’t be very busy, but if I remember rightly, it’s happy hour at the Alibi until midnight.” He gives her a meaningful look. “And, Faith?”

She can barely speak, she’s so busy freaking at the idea of going to a club with Wes, but she manages to croak, “Yes?”

“I went there to pick girls up. I didn’t go to dance.”

She absorbs the warning and then shrugs. “You want to pick me up, Wes, that might have to change.”

There’s a long moment when their eyes meet and then he smiles, with a promise of danger in his eyes that makes her quiver. “Oh, we are going to have fun, aren’t we?”

Chapter One Hundred and Ninety Four

The second that she gets in the car, she tunes the radio in to a station playing old rock 'n' roll classics and settles down to wait for him.

The leather of her skirt slips against the seat and it's impossible to get comfy, which just adds to her feeling of restlessness. This is either the best idea she's ever had, that he's ever had, or else it's going to go horribly wrong and she'll end up having to go home with some biker called Chuck who wants her to be his den momma.

But she's so keyed up and tense, mostly about what the fuck Wes is going to change into (and she hopes that he hasn't got some hideous pulling outfit that's 20 years too young for him) that it works better than a hefty whack on the head with a crowbar at filtering out any thoughts that she doesn't want in there.

And, Jesus! What the fuck is taking him so long?

She's just working herself up into a state of mild hysteria in case they bump into Xander when she hears the click of the internal garage door and she wriggles in the seat like this is a first date or something equally whacked.

There's barely time to register what he's wearing, which is jeans and a dark-colored T-shirt and she's marveling at the previously unimagined image of Wes in a T-shirt and yum, a really expensive-looking black leather jacket that she's never seen before, when he settles in beside her and smirks at the blatant way she's staring at him.

"You have a leather jacket, Wes? You been holding out on me all this time," she teases and she's using a voice that's a little cracked from such a long time in retirement. A voice that's half flirt, half promise, meant to be slurred in someone's ear over the thump thump thump of a heart-shuddering bassline.

He gives her this look, amused but with just enough bite to it that she knows that if they were back in the library he'd have her tipped over his lap in the blink of an eye. Instead he shoves a brown paper bag at her.

There's something warm in it and she opens it to find a thermos flask and a warmed bread roll wrapped in a napkin.

"I don't want you drinking on an empty stomach," he says, leaning over towards the radio and then thinking better of it. It's a tiny, tender moment out of this weird time that they're about to have. "And if you get a single crumb anywhere on my upholstery, Faith, I'm afraid you'll have to suffer my wrath."

"You really need to start working on your threats 'cause they're kind of losing their edge, Wes," she grins at him and he gives her a smile that's an eighth of an inch away from savage and starts the car.

It takes just over an hour to drive in to the city and neither one of them says much. There's this air of anticipation unfurling between them and she can't stop fidgeting, legs and arms twitching, and he's doing a cool 100 miles per hour down the freeway which just makes the itch in her veins that little bit more intense.

By the time he's pulling up to the curb, just down the street from the Alibi, she has to force herself to try and stay still. She wants to be moving, in motion, dancing in a crowd of hot, sweaty strangers and knowing that it's all for him, hidden in the shadows, watching her.

"How are we gonna do this?" she blurts out. "Are there any rules I should know about?"

He gives her this slow, cool smile, completely at odds with the burn of his gaze which stings her flesh, so her nipples are hard beneath the red halter top and there's this hot, sticky feeling between her legs.

"Just one," he drawls and his knuckles are white on the dashboard. "You can smile at them, you can dance with them, let them grind against you, Faith, as they'll no doubt want to, but if I see you touch them, then, well… you can forget about being able to sit down for the rest of the month."

"I wouldn't want…" she begins, but he stills her frantic rush of words by placing a finger against her lips.

"I'll see you in there," he says and leans across her, his wrist brushing against her aching breasts to open her door.



She's almost forgotten the girl she used to be; the one who doesn't wait in the queue but gets the velvet rope unclipped for her by the bouncer who she shared a moment or two with last New Year's Eve. The girl who doesn't have to pay the cover because she gave the guy on the door a blowjob last Halloween. The girl who doesn't even have to pull a ten dollar bill when she gets to the bar because some vaguely familiar looking guy with a Strokes T-shirt is asking her if she wants a drink.

She lets him buy her a double vodka and Red Bull, stays long enough to chug it back in three long gulps and listen to his lame attempts at a pick-up line, before she's giving him a "what can you do?" smile and heading right for the center of the dance floor.

It's been so long, that for a second she just stands there frozen, not sure what she's going to do and the last beats of the song are ebbing away and then she hears the slow fade-in of an old Daft Punk tune and her hips are swaying and her arms are rising up above her head and she starts to move.

The song merges into the next one and she feels lit up; like the music's washing over her and all she can do is dive right in. And, yeah, there are boys catching her eye and sidling up, trying to match her steps and the shake of her hips but she doesn't let her eyes linger. And Wes might have his one rule but she has one too. Not going to let anyone buy her a drink that she hasn't seen the barman pour herself. That was one lesson learned the hard way; losing six hours of her life and waking up in a strange room, all sticky and sore, with some guy she'd never seen before lying next to her on a come-stained mattress.

It's the familiar pattern of her feet moving on the sticky floor, chasing a dance of her own making, then heading for the bar, fighting her way through the crowd, avoiding the catty stares of the girls whose boyfriends were leering at her. But tonight, it feels different 'cause she knows he's in here somewhere, watching her, waiting – 'cause he's gonna make her wait until she's frantic with it – for just the right moment to pick her up, take her somewhere and rewrite history with his fingers and his tongue and his cock when he fucks her.

And then she forgets about him. Because they're playing her favorite song, and then the one after that and the one after that and the one after that is also her favorite and all she wants to do is lose herself in feeling. Her hair's damp as she brushes it impatiently back from her face and sings along, "I'm moving on up now out of the darkness…, grinding out the rhythm, and then she feels an arm clamp round her waist.

She rolls her eyes and gets ready to dig whoever the fuck it is in the ribs with her elbow when she feels his breath hot on her neck. "Can I buy you a drink?"

Wes.

Chapter One Hundred and Ninety Five

If she didn't know better, she'd think Wes had paid off the dj to spin out the soundtrack to their little fantasy night, 'cause the music's changed gears and the mix slips into the cold grind of electro, and she doesn't know whether to roll her eyes or take it as an omen as the speakers blare out “they only want you when you're seventeen, when you're twenty-one, you're no fun.”

She slithers out of his grasp, spinning 'round to face him. She's not ready for that drink, not just yet -- just clamps her hand around his wrist and pulls him with her deeper into the writhing crowd.

“In a minute,” she says, getting up right close after finding a clear space on the floor, crushing her breasts against his chest and leaning in so he can hear her over the bombastic throbbing music. “I like this song.”

She doesn't expect him to dance with her; but he sure as hell didn't fight when she pulled him over here and he doesn't look nearly as uncomfortable as she'd expected. He's shed the jacket at coat check and probably had what she'd reckon to be at least three fingers of scotch just to come out of the shadows. He smells like expensive leather and even more expensive booze, which, until that moment, she didn't know the Alibi even stocked behind the bar.

She likes being smooshed up next to him like that and runs with it, wrapping her arms around his waist and pulling him closer until they're doing a kind of dirty grind at half speed to the beats ping-ponging from the speakers. “I knew you could dance, at least a little,” she says during a quiet segue, with a little knowing smile that's probably a breach of protocol for this game, but she so doesn't give a shit 'cause she'll have this Hallmark moment tucked away for later. He's about to say something, but is drowned out with the aggressive thumping of The Faint. She just shakes her head with a laugh, clamping her hand possessively around his wrist again, making a bee-line for her favorite bartender.

They're just crossing over to the part of the club where you can kind of hear yourself think again when this girl, this wan little blonde who kind of looks like Buffy Summers, if you cock your head and add some smack to the equation, comes slinking out of shadows, right into their path.

“Hey. Heeeey, Wesley!” Blondie's a slurring mess, an early drunk; teetering in her Manolos, straps of her ill-fitting cocktail dress slipping down her shoulders.

“Wow, you sure can pick 'em, darling,” Faith hisses in his ear as she slides around to miss a collision with Blondie's prissy pink cocktail. The high, hot track lights have thrown half his face in shadow, and with his lips pulled into a thin line, he looks downright sinister.

“Don't you remember me, Wesley?” Blondie simpers, adopting an awkward pose that thrusts her minuscule rack right up in their faces. “We had such a great time that night... But you, like, never called me!”

“Mmm. Yes. Claudia?” Wes drawls at her, sliding his index finger over her elbow and up her arm to push a wayward dress strap back up to rest on her shoulder. She whips away, as if he's shocked her with a tazer.

“Hey, don't touch me, asshole! And fuck you... my name is Christina!”

“Very well then, Christina.” He's got that voice on, the one that's like the silence before slivers of shattered glass come tinkling to the floor after a wayward baseball comes crashing through a window. “I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me, I hate to leave the barkeep waiting.” He wraps his arm possessively around Faith's waist. “It was lovely running into you.”

His hands are steady as he steers her to the bar, but she can see them shake a little as he picks up their drinks and leads her to one of the dark, plush booths that line the back wall of the club.

Chapter One Hundred and Ninety Six

She slides into the booth and he's following her, sitting down next to her and leaning forward so she can't see anything but him.

"Cheers," he says, handing her the vodka and Red Bull he's just bought for her and waiting for her to clink it against his whiskey.

And she's not entirely sure how he wants to play this but she has a pretty damn good idea. "So, like, you English?"

He smiles faintly into his glass and she knows that she's on the right page. "Yes." He doesn't give her anything more than that, unless you count the way his eyes are running over her, assessing her, like he's just bought her or something and he wants to check that she's in full working order before he plugs in. "What's your name?"

She takes a good long suck on the straw that's poking out of her drink and shoots him a flirtatious look from under her lashes. "Tiffany."

"You don't look like a Tiffany," he drawls, his hand reaching up to brush a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

"Yeah, I get that a lot," she smirks. "And you're Wesley, or at least that's what your skanky little friend just called you."

And if she sounds jealous, then hell, yeah she is. "Wes," he corrects her and then slides a fraction of an inch nearer, so his thigh is pressed against her and he's leaning his arm over the back of the seat so it's like there's only them. "Chrissie or Christina or whatever her name was… really not someone you need to concern yourself with. You're very pretty, Tiffany."

"I get that a lot too," she husks, inching away from him and pressing her back against the wall so he can get a better view of her breasts and just like he's been handed the instruction on a flashcard, his eyes are fixed on them.

"How old are you?"

"How old do you want me to be, Wesley?" She kinda feels that she's been shoved on a stage and she already knows the script though she didn't have time to read it while she was waiting in the wings. And she's fiercely glad that it never went down like this, that she was just some girl that he picked up in a club, fucked her, forgot her name. But she's happy to pretend for just one night, more than happy because he's leaning into her so every single molecule in her body is straining towards him and all it takes his the pad of his index fingers trailing a lazy line up her thigh to make her suddenly, shockingly wet.

"I'd rather like you to be legal," he decides after a moment's thought, finger tracing a figure of eight and grazing the edge of her skirt on the upstroke. His tongue licks a blazing trail along her earlobe as he suddenly moves in for the kill. "You are, aren't you?"

"Barely," she breathes. "Guess it's your lucky night."

And he gives her a slow, satisfied smile and pulls away from her, leaving a respectable six inches between them on the seat. "Why don't you tell me about yourself, Tiffany?"

Now it's her turn to sidle closer to him and with every story she makes up about Tiffany, making head cheerleader, acing her SATs, her best friend, Brandi, she shifts another inch nearer to him. And it's not just the four double shots of vodka that are making her lightheaded, or the reflection of the strobe lights in his blue eyes, she's getting off on being someone else. Some golden girl who leaves her perfect life behind to sneak out to clubs but when she comes home at some ungodly hour in the morning that perfect life is still waiting for her: Mom, Dad, her little sister Amber, who fucking worships her and Charlie, her cocker spaniel who sleeps at the foot of the bed.

And Tiffany has all that and she's going to get fucked by Wes. Man, who wouldn't want to be her?

"You're a very accomplished girl," Wes says, finishing the last dribble of whiskey in his glass. "I'm sure that you have a devoted boyfriend somewhere."

The words pop out of her mouth before she's even thought them 'cause she's so wrapped up in her sunny fake life that she's gone totally method. "You wanna know a secret, Wes?" she says, biting her lip and looking away as if she's going to confess that actually she murdered Mom, Dad, annoying little Amber who trashes her clothes and even Charlie and buried them under the patio. "It's kinda embarrassing but you look like a decent, upstanding guy."

Wes' hand covers hers where it rests on the sticky tabletop and turns it over so he can rub his finger over the fleshy mound just below her thumb. And it's the exact same way that he teases her clit when he's fucking her and he wants to keep her right up there without actually spilling over into orgasm. "Only if you'd like to tell me, Tiffany."

She swings her legs up, kneels on the seat and crawls towards him. "I've never, like, done it."

His mouth hangs open for a split second and then he's schooling his features into something that resembles polite interest, arching his eyebrow meaningfully. "You're still a virgin? I'd never have assumed… the way you let those boys rub themselves against you when you dance."

And his hands are on her hips at exactly the same moment that she lifts herself up so she can clamber on to his lap, the hard rim of the table digging into the small of her back, which matches the hard throb of his cock prodding against her thigh. "Well, see, Wes, none of the boys I hang around seem to know what to do and so I came here looking for someone who'd…"

"Fuck you in a style to which you'd like to be accustomed?" he suggests archly. "Well, Tiffany, I rather think it's your lucky night, don't you?"

Then his hands are gently cupping the back of her head so he can bring her lips closer to his, his tongue snaking into her mouth and it's slow and sweet and measured like it's the first time he's ever kissed her and he wants to savor her taste.

And Tiffany's way inexperienced, despite her nice line in sleazy club wear and she's getting really hot straddling the lap of the sinister but attractive older guy so who can blame her for grabbing his hands and placing them on her tits? "I'd really like you to be my first, Wes," she hisses as he cups her breasts, tracing the tip of her hard nipples as she grinds against him. "You wanna go where no man has gone before?"

He gives her another NC17 rated kiss, all wet and hard and stubbly, before tipping her off his lap and placing her on her own trembly feet. "Very much," he says, standing up and she's forgotten how tall Wes is, how he can loom over her and give her a shark-like smile that's as scary as it is sexy. "But I doubt your devoted parents would appreciate me deflowering their daughter on her Bed, Bath And Beyond sheets."

Tiffany disappears stage left for a second as she glares him. If he thinks he can get her all primed and good to go and then wimp out on her, he's got another fucking thing coming. Or, like, not. "The bathroom," she says frantically, grabbing a handful of his ass and rubbing her thigh against his. "We can see if the end stall's free."

"Oh, Tiffany, Tiffany, Tiffany," he sighs sorrowfully, tutting and tipping up her chin so he can give her a reproachful look. "I really don't think a toilet cubicle is an appropriate venue. Your first time should be special."

"You could take me back to your place?" The back of her hand brushes against his cock, which feels like it's going to make a bid for freedom any second.

He stills her hand. "I don't think my wife would be very keen on that idea. She can be annoyingly jealous." And fuck him 'cause he chuckles like he loves the idea of some little woman waiting for him at home while he's trawling the clubs looking for innocent little girls to fuck.

"Well, fuck you!" she snarls, whirling round and all ready to dive back on to the dance floor and start this game again so she's Faith and she's going to get…

"Yes, that is the general plan, Tiffany," he purrs in her ear, wrapping his arms round her waist and letting her feel the insistent promise of his cock against her ass. "Oh, stop pouting, princess. I know a place where we can go."

Chapter One Hundred and Ninety Seven

And she’s not sure she likes that he knows somewhere, not sure at all. Because, even more than Little Miss Name Begins With’C’, it’s making her realize that, yeah, this might be a game for them tonight but it’s something Wes has done before. She thinks about it as Wes retrieves his jacket and weaves his way through the crowd, not looking back because he’s so fucking sure she’ll be there, and if she isn’t he can always go and get a Traci, a Tara, a –

“Wes!”

She tugs at his arm and he halts and glances back at her.

“Having second thoughts?”

And she is, which is why she’s biting her lip hard enough that it stings and throbs, but not about being fucked by him. That, she wants.

“No.” She slips into his arms, tilting her head back and giving him the most provocative smile she’s got as she rubs up against him. “Just making sure you’re still in the game, Wes.” She keeps her arms locked around his neck, wrists crossed, hands not touching him, but she tilts her hips forward until she can feel what’s waiting for her. He’s hard enough that it starts a low ache between her legs but she doesn’t let her reaction show, just widens her eyes and moans like she’s got a mouthful of hot fudge sundae melting sweetly against her tongue. “Mmm... guess you are.” She lets her lips get close enough to his that a pout’s all she’d need to make them touch, and whispers, “You’re going to have to tell me what to do, you know.”

He smiles down at her as he reaches up to tug her hands away, circling her wrists with his fingers in a light grip. It’s a fucking scary smile and it’d probably have Tiffany running home to cuddle her teddy but Faith’s not going anywhere. “And will you be obedient?” His fingers tighten. “Or will you need... correcting?”

If she could just stop thinking about who else he’s said this to, she’d be fine, but she can’t and it’s razor- edging every word.

“Guess, we’ll have to wait and see,” she says. “Always been quick at picking stuff up, though.”

“I’m sure you have,” he says, all cool eyes and bruising fingers. “It’s possible though, that I might have slightly more exacting standards than you’re accustomed to.”

And before she can ride out the shiver of lust that sends through her, he’s dragging her off, one hand still clamped around her wrist so that’s she’s stumbling to keep up with him.

When they get into the street he slips his hand into hers instead, and the feel of his fingers threaded through hers is all that keeps her from spitting out a seething spate of words that would all be so unfair because when he was picking up girls to fuck, she was yards away on her knees sucking dicks that went limp when she was done, skinning her knees on filthy concrete. Reason’s left the building though. She feels as if he’s betrayed her because he’s hers and she wants him to always have been hers. Past, present, future; hers.

“Stop it,” he says quietly as they come to his car. “Stop thinking about it.”

“Can’t - help it,” she gasps out, and it’s muggy and hot out here, but compared to the club it’s a winter’s night and she can feel every drink slam into her body and loosen her knees and her tongue. “That girl – all of them – fuck, Wes. I hate them. I want to hit them. I want to hurt them for having you, any part of you. It’s stupid and wrong and I hate myself for feeling like this, but I can’t fucking help it...”

There’s an astonished look on his face and he clears his throat as if he’s lost for words. “Faith –”

And hearing him call her by name is all it takes to ground her again. She leans forward and kisses him fiercely, letting her tongue slide deep and curl around his. “Now, how did you know that’s my real name, Wes? You been keeping tabs on me? Are you mad I lied to you? ‘Cause a girl’s got to have some secrets you know.”

He pushes her away just enough to study her face and then nods slowly. “I asked the barman,” he says smoothly, back in his role as if he never left it. “I gave him money and he told me all about you. You’ve got quite a reputation, it seems.” He brings his hand up to her breast and flicks her nipple with his thumb, pinching it so that it swells and hardens against the thin stretch of her top. “You’ll go so far, and then you stop. Do you like teasing those boys, Faith?” His mouth’s hot against the hollow of her throat. “And do you really think I’ll permit you to do that to me?”

She can feel herself sway and his arm snakes around her waist, supporting her. “Maybe I’ve been waiting for someone special,” she says. She takes a quick breath and gets herself together enough to make her next words a taunt and a challenge. “Think you’re it?”

“Get in the car if you want to find out,” he says and turns away abruptly.

She misses him opening the door for her but there’s something satisfying in knowing he wouldn’t have done it for Tiffany or – fuck, even she can’t remember that girl’s name...

“Nice car,” she says, running her fingers over the leather seat as Wes pulls out into traffic with barely a glance behind him. “You get it to match your jacket?”

That gets her a chuckle. “Not really.”

“So where’re we going then?” she asks after a long silence, wondering if even Wes had the balls to go somewhere snazzy with someone like her and ask for a room. Not that he’s heading to the good part of town... the streets are the kind where every third light’s been smashed and there’s litter piled high against trash cans that haven’t been emptied in weeks.

“Not far now,” he says, turning off the main street and then making his way through a maze of streets without hesitating. His hand moves over to her thigh and even though the way he drives she really thinks he should keep it on the wheel, she’s had enough experience with his multi tasking not to protest. His hand doesn’t inch higher as if by doing it slowly she’s not gonna notice he’s heading for her cunt; no, this is Wes, he just puts his hand exactly where he wants it and says in a conversational voice, “Are you wet?”

“What the hell kind of a question is that?” she says, with the words bursting out of her. She’s so into this now that she’s genuinely outraged, as much by the question as the smile that quirks up his lips.

“One I suggest you answer,” he says, “unless you’d prefer I find out a more direct way?”

She can’t speak, just gives him this imploring, helpless look, and he sighs, sounding a little bored, a little impatient, with the pulse beating strongly at his throat giving him away. “Very well. Spread your knees a little wider, please.”

They’re parting before she can stop them, because when he drawls out a command like that her body knows it’s going to get a treat. Eventually.

Long, warm fingers move high, go deep.

“Fuck!”

If she’d been driving, they’d have crashed. He’s managed to bypass her soaked thong and thrust two fingers into her, with the heel of his hand rubbing hard against her clit and his elbow holding her in place, pressing against her stomach.

“Oh, you are wet, aren’t you?” he murmurs. “Does that feel good, Faith?”

“Yeah,” she gasps. “Feels fucking amazing...”

He lets her writhe against his hand until they pull up at a red light and then he pulls away, drying his fingers on one of those handkerchiefs he always has handy.

“Here we are.”

He pulls up outside a hot sheet motel that’s had the nerve to call itself the Alhambra, in front of a concrete planter that’s growing nothing but cigarette ends and oh, look, a really rare can of Bud, and smiles at her.

“One hour should be sufficient, I think. Wouldn’t want to keep you up too late...”

She’s got just enough control to say tartly, “Yeah. Hate to oversleep; my boss is like totally freaked about the whole punctuality thing, y’know?”

“Really?” he says, opening the door. “He sounds most unreasonable. Perhaps you should hand in your notice.”

She watches him as he hands over enough cash to buy an hour in a twelve by twelve box with paper thin walls and sheets threadbare with use, and hopefully washing, and smiles. “Never gonna happen, Wes,” she says softly.

He locks the car, unlocks the motel door and walks in.

She doesn’t miss the fact that he knows just where the light switch is.

Chapter One Hundred and Ninety Eight

“Home sweet home,” she mutters under her breath and if Wes hears it he doesn’t say anything, just shrugs off his jacket and throws it down on the ratty chair. She’s a little sorry he even turned on the light, because the place is as seedy and depressing as she’d thought it would be. The bedside-table Bible is a well-thumbed through copy of “Leg Show” (management is obviously detail-oriented), the bed sags alarmingly towards the floor, there’s water stains everywhere and some other, mysterious ones that she really doesn’t want to think too hard about —when all of a sudden the vodka isn’t working all that well and she’s feeling kinda nervous about this whole thing. She sure as hell misses the Egyptian cotton sheets already.

She’s not gonna let that change anything though. But she wouldn’t turn down another red bull and vodka if that meant getting rid of the weird little knot in her stomach…

He cuts off that train of thought quickly enough. “I’m going to undress you now.” He’s coolly assured as always; the full force of his conviction is enough to make her fall back into the moment, right back into the role she’s chosen for herself.

“What? I mean, don’t you want me to—”

He pins her up against the door, palm open flat against her thigh. And he’s giving her this steely, intense stare that’s chilling and really fucking hot at the same time. “How far are you willing to go, Faith?” And Jesus, if she hadn’t been wet before…

He’s not boxing her in anymore, but one hand is ghosting lightly over one nipple, almost absentmindedly, and he’s pushed her panties aside with the other. She’s trying to stay in the game, but the promise of his deft fingers is almost enough to make her forget her fucking name…

Thank Christ she’s not —Tiffany?— any more but she’s not all that sure which version of Faith she is either. Or which Wes he is, for that matter. She’s pretty sure she’ll find out soon enough.

He hooks his fingers into the waistband of her panties and begins to slide them down, slowly. “You’ll not be needing these.” She parts her thighs just enough so they drop to the floor, the tiniest moan escaping her lips as he pinches her nipple, hard.

Then he’s leaning close and whispering in her ear: “Has anyone else ever made you come, Faith? Tell me the truth.” And he almost fucking smirks when he says it.

Three fingers now. They’re making these slight, slow thrusts that are making concentrating damn hard.

She just nods, no.

“It’s not going to be like the feel of your own fingers, not at all. You know how to make yourself come hard and fast, don’t you? Know instinctively just where all those little spots are.” A pause as he kisses right behind her ear, and the gentleness of the gesture is at odds with the terse quality of his voice. “This is going to be different. It’s going to be slow and steady and you’re going to come when I’m ready for you to come. Do you understand me, Faith?”

One finger is flicking slowly over her clit again and it’s all she can do to bite back a groan. She’s always ready —he’s made sure of that. But this version of Faith isn’t sure at all and she whispers, “Yeah, I-I think so…”

“Good. I’m glad we’ve reached an understanding.” His voice is cool, detached, as he’s plunging his fingers deeper inside of her. “Now,” he says idly, as though musing aloud to himself, “Did you dream about this, Faith? Did you think it was going to be like a fairy tale —with a white canopy bed and rose petals?”

Nah. She was never that naïve, never had any illusions. Pure-as-the-driven-snow princess Tiffany probably bought the knight in shining armor bullshit, hook, line and sinker, but not her.

“No, but I want this, Wes. Want you to make me come. And I want you to fuck me.”

He tilts her chin up and forces her to look him in the eye. He’s silhouetted in the light and she can’t read his expression at all. But he’s never looked so fiercely self-possessed. “You’re a demanding girl. You’re lucky I’m in an indulgent mood this evening.”

That’s when he kisses her, finally, and there’s such need behind it that she relaxes again, even if it’s just for a moment. She doesn’t know which is hotter —when they’re in the game or when they’re flickering out of it, however briefly.

Chapter One Hundred and Ninety Nine

His hand slips inside her top and he runs it over an aching nipple before sliding it under the strap all the way up to her neck, where he deftly unties the neat bow with a decisive tug.

“Such a deceptively complicated garment,” he growls in her ear as the straps tumble down, fully exposing her breasts now. “But so very provocative, the way it barely covers you.” His hand follows the straps down, fingers skittering along her neck and back over her breasts. “Your mode of dress would be appalling if you were more conscious of what it does to men -- but you don't know, do you, Faith?” The one-two punch of his fingers still working inside her and the other hand slipping possessively over her breasts, rolling each nipple briefly between his warm fingers, has left her in a state of dry-mouthed incoherence.

“No...” she manages to breathe out before he's shoving the top over her hips and unhooking her skirt while slowly dislodging his fingers from inside her bringing them up to her lips.

He's barely rasped out “Suck on them,” before she's taken his fingers in her mouth, swirling her tongue around them, the salty tang of her own juices blossoming up her palate and down to the back of her throat. “You must know, at least a little. See how wet you are...” His voice fades to a guttural moan as she sucks and nibbles the tip of his index finger. She's so intent on this task that she hardly notices that he's sliding the top and the skirt off her at once, hands lingering to cup her ass cheek as her clothing slips past her knees to the floor. “Were you excited when you got dressed this evening?”

He hasn't unlocked his eyes from hers the whole time and she knows her eyes are wide and near-wild when he drags his fingers out of her mouth and latches them on one nipple, then the next, tweaking them again to impossible hardness. “Yes,” she whispers, faintly. “Yes...”

She's not really ready for the first smack of his hand on her ass, but it rings out dully in the low-ceilinged room, echoed by her cry of astonishment. It wasn't a particularly hard blow, as he had little leverage with the door in the way; she's more reacting to the little sneer curling over his lips; the way his hand snakes up to tangle in her hair, sending an explosive shudder down her back and involuntary tears squeezing out of the corners of her eyes. Her mouth's still agape when he pulls her roughly to him for a feverish kiss, snagging her lower lip between his teeth before pulling away with a wolfish grin.

It's like he's Wesley concentrate; each touch, each action is familiar and yet not, infused with a potency she doesn't even remember being there even in the early edgy days of their dalliance; he didn't have this ... confidence then. She knows then that damn forgettable girl at the club didn't get a half of this, a fifth of it, even.

“It would be trite to call you a bad girl, Faith. But that is what you are.” His hand circles her tingling ass cheek, warming it further. “And I wouldn't presume to discipline you, but your parents seem to have been quite lax, seeing as you're able to sneak out as often as you claim...” The mention of parents makes his words tart and forced. “Turn around and face the door.”

She blinks slowly at him and tilts her head questioningly, playing the innocent card to the maximum. He leans in closer, pressing her against the door with his body now, rakes his stubble along the tender flesh of her neck.

“You liked it when I struck you,” he whispers matter-of-factly in her ear. Without waiting for her response, he continues. “And you want more. So be a good girl, Faith, and face the door.”

He steps back and unpins her; she kicks her clothes away, where they've pooled around her ankles, and turns around as gracefully as possible. He's still close, and practically boxing her in, and her hands scrabble against the door for something to hang on to.

“Palms flat, elbows bent, legs apart.” His hands are stroking her back tenderly, but the words are like daggers.

The pose is awkward, but when she slides her feet apart, she finds herself instinctively pressing her torso into the door, which thrusts her ass out perfectly. She almost shifts back, thinking maybe this version of Faith wouldn't know to do that...

“Mmm. Yes, you are a quick study,” he mutters, more under his breath than directly to her. “Perfect.”

“Wait, Wesley.” She pulls away from the door and peers over her shoulder at him, her stomach now starting to churn aggressively, as if she doesn't know what to expect from him, 'cause really, she has no idea. “I...I don't know much about this, but shouldn't we... Shouldn't I be able to tell you, you know, if something hurts too much?”

“For a virgin, Faith, you're quite knowledgeable ...”

She yanks out the first yarn that pops into her head. “I read this book... the other cheerleaders were passing it around one day... They thought it was funny, but it turned me on.” She's even astonished by the bold frankness of her story.

His harsh laugh is dark and hollow. “Very well, then, Faith. You know then if you say 'stop', I won't. The only way I'll stop is if you say...” He trails off for her to fill in the blank.

“Tiffany,” she whispers, and presses her cheek against the door, ass poised and ready for his hand.

The first few smacks aren't too hard, but they're enough to set her cunt throbbing and when he pauses and slips his hand between her legs to find her dripping wet, he lets out another cold laugh. “Better in person than in a book, isn't it?” he says, gently stroking her clit. She can't do anything but nod, but he doesn't let that slide. “I'm sorry, Faith, I didn't hear you...”

“Yes. It's much better,” she whispers, shaking her hair away from her burning face.

“Good girl, that's the right answer.”

He continues to rain blows on her upturned ass, pausing after every two or five or whatever strikes his fancy; sliding his fingers over her clit or inside her pussy, bringing her so near the edge of coming again and again before pulling his hand away completely and returning his open palm to her ass.

She's screaming, begging, nearly crying – plaintively asking for him to let her come. He ignores her, smacking her ass again and again – until her fingernails are scraping against the worn paint of the door and she really is crying, pleading for release. He shoves three fingers inside her, thumb working her clit, and when he finally whispers in her ear, “Now, Faith...” she's afraid her knees will give way and send her crashing to the floor. But he holds her there, pressed against the cool metal door, running kisses along her neck long after her sobbing's ceased and her ragged panting gives way to more even breaths.

Chapter Two Hundred

It’s only as she turns within his arms that she realizes he’s still dressed. The T-shirt leaves his arms mostly bare, but he’s as composed in it as he is in one of his suits, tie knotted squarely, cuffs a white edging against the dark, fine wool of his jacket.

She’s feeling exposed and awkward now and as he steps back and stares at her, she has to bite down on the urge to cover herself with her hands; shield her breasts, send one hand fluttering down to spread across her smooth mound. She can just imagine his reaction to that...

“You beg so nicely,” he says and the approval in his voice deepens the flush on her face as she plays back the sounds she made as he spanked her, the throaty, tortured gasps torn from her; the pleading demands she made that sounded so reasonable in her head - let me come, not there, not there again, please- that emerged as helpless, incoherent babbling.

“And all that, and you’re still a virgin,” he murmurs, leaning in again. “In so many places...”

And he must think Tiffany/Faith’s a little slow, because as he says it his eyes go to her mouth and his fingers trail down the cleft of her ass and she’s stammering, shaking her head.

“I don’t know – what do you mean?”

“Oh, Faith...” and the amused tolerance scrapes at her, leaving her raw. “You know you do really. But perhaps I’m misjudging your... innocence?” And, fuck, the spaces he leaves between words could hold a dictionary.

A finger taps at her lips. “You certainly seem quite adept with your mouth, for instance. Tell me, Faith, have you ever been fucked in it?”

He’s not sparing her, she thinks, not candy-coating any of this, and she doesn’t fake the shamed shyness that lowers her eyes and trembles her lips as she nods.

“Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,” he says sharply, fingers pinching her chin, forcing it high. “When I ask you a question I require a verbal reply and I’d very much prefer that you look at me as you give it. Do you understand?”

Her eyelids feel heavy, so it takes eternity to lift them and stare back into his eyes, blazing with a control that’s freaking her out, though God knows she should be used to it by now.

“Yes,” she says, and then, because there’s only so far she’ll let herself be pushed down without shoving back. “Yes to both.”

“And are you good at it, Faith?”

She falls to her knees and looks up at him. “Yeah. I really am,” she says.

He gives her a remote, wintery smile and reaches down to tuck her hair behind her ears. Guess he doesn’t want to miss a thing.

“Show me.”

All she can see is the rigid length of his cock outlined by the dark blue denim and she doesn't know whether it's easier to look at that or the intent, almost savage look on his face as he stares down at her.

Her hands are shaking so hard that she fumbles with the button on his jeans, biting her lip and trying to force the small brass fastener through the hole. She manages it on the third go and he pats her head, which makes her want to snarl.

"See, that wasn't so difficult was it, Faith?" He sounds amused but there's this edge to everything he says now so it's not about what he's saying but how he's saying it. It's making her feel like he's on a different page to her. Fuck, he's on a completely different book. Like, he really is this hard faced stranger and she's an inexperienced virgin whose only talent in the bedroom is sucking cock.

And then she's not thinking any more because she slides down the zipper and it sounds deafening in the tinny silence of the room, punctuated by Wes' harsh exhalation of breath. Her hot, sticky hands drag out his hot, sticky shaft and she looks up at him just once, long enough for their eyes to collide and then she lowers her head and drags a delicate path with the tip of her tongue from his balls to the leaking head.

And she's going to do this her way. The Faith he's just picked up's way. Like she wanted to that first time. Like she would when she's spent six months of soul-destroying Saturday nights blowing random guys in toilet stalls and back alleys.

She swirls her tongue over the head again, closing her eyes and getting used to the hothardwet feel of him and the bittersweet, salt taste in her mouth, like it really is the first time.

"Are you sure you've done this before, Faith?" he asks in that taunting voice but she drowns him, shuts him up by opening her mouth and taking him in inch by inch. One of her hands finds purchase on the tacky carpet, the either firmly grasps the base of his cock, jacking him off with firm strokes, tickling his balls when she thinks about it, which isn’t often 'cause she's entirely caught up in the tricks she's learnt to make him see stars, make him see God.

Then she can feel the tip of him nudging the back of her throat and he feels it too because his hands are tangling in her hair, pulling on it so she can tip her head back as he thrusts.

He wasn't joking when he asked her if she'd been fucked in the mouth because that's what he's doing now. Barely giving her a chance to drag in air through her nose and mouth as he pulls out before he slides it again with these snaky, little twists of his hips. But he's not going too fast or too forcefully and when he does push it in a little too hard and she makes a gagging noise of protest, his hand smoothes down her hair soothingly.

"Do you like having my cock in your mouth, Faith?" he asks and he sounds so curious that she's almost tempted to stop what she's doing and give him a eulogy on just how much she does like it. But she's kinda busy here and though his fingers are tightening around her skull, these shallow thrusts aren't making him come undone like she wants.

When he pulls back slightly, she curls her fingers loosely around the twitching shaft and sucks hard on the tip that's just resting lightly on her tongue. He's so hard and ready now that she's swallowing down the tiny explosions of spunk even as she drags her tongue over the head of his cock again and again and then she tightens her lips around him, hollows out her cheeks and squeezes his balls until he gives this needy groan that rings in her ears even as he fills her mouth.

She gives the head of his cock one last, languid kiss then leans back on her heels, resting her back against the cold metal of the door as she looks up at him.

"Did I… was that OK?" she asks him hoarsely and just shaping the words out makes the taste of him linger in her mouth.

He's already tucked his cock back into his jeans and he shouldn't look so self-assured, so fucking in control when he's just come in her mouth.

"You look very pretty on your knees, Faith," is all he says. "But I'd like you on the bed now, please."

And even the Faith she used to be would think twice about getting any part of her near that sordid mess of stained sheets and nylon quilt but she's rising slowly to her feet, trying to ignore the twinge in her knees, and he makes it easy for her by wedging his hand under her arm and practically dragging her across the floor.

"I did only rent the room for an hour," he reminds her curtly. "And we do have rather a lot to get through. How long did you think it would take, Faith, to get fucked? I'm sure you thought about it."

The backs of her knees hit the end of the bed and he's pushing her down, grimacing slightly in sympathy as the damp skin of her back makes contact with the cheap fibers and she pulls a face. "I don't know," she mutters and her hands are creeping up now to shield herself from his fierce blue stare. But she's curling them over her eyes so she doesn't have to look at him.

"Stop that," he barks, seizing her wrists and pinning them to the mattress as he straddles her hips. "How long, Faith? Five minutes? Ten minutes?"

She thinks back to when she really did lose her virginity, on top of some coats in the cloakroom at a party with some guy who'd latched onto her all night. Spent hours getting her beer from the keg and then took ten seconds to grope her tits until they were sore before pushing into her and coming in a single thrust. "I guess, like, three minutes or something," she mumbles. "Maybe five."

And she doesn't think he's faking the look he's giving her now 'cause it's tender enough that she's not too pissed off about the big dollops of pity mixed in there too. "You poor little thing," he almost coos, slackening the tight grip around her wrists and rubbing his thumbs over her pulse point. "And in this sordid little scenario that you imagined, did anyone go down on you? Did anyone flick their tongue over your clit, push it into your tight, little cunt?"

The "God, no!" is wrenched out of her, not ‘cause the Faith he never knew is squicked by the idea but more because she's in complete agreement with this Faith who's squirming on the nasty sheets, getting wetter as he paints pretty pictures with his voice.

"I didn't think so," he chuckles, dipping down to suck the aching tip of her breasts into the moist warmth of his mouth. "Would you like me to?"

"Yes! Please, Wes…"

But he's giving the pre-show to her tits, moving from one nipple to the other, licking, sucking, nibbling until all she can do is push up against him and give him these airless little moans.

By the time he lifts his head her breasts are glistening. "Ask me nicely, Faith."

"Please, please, please go down on me, want you to, please…" She's stuck on the begging setting, barely even registers the little nod he gives her before he slides down her writhing body.

"Put your legs on my shoulders, Faith," he orders her and she's lifting up her shaking limbs, grateful for the hands that are clasping her ankles and making it easier. "God, you're soaked," he mutters hoarsely and then… and then… and then…

It feels like he's devouring her. Like he hasn't had any food for weeks and she's an all you can eat buffet. If she'd known that the threat of renting a room for an hour could have made him so goal orientated she'd have suggested it months ago. Or would she? 'Cause this is a little bit frightening, she's clinging onto the sheets, to her last shredded nerve but it seems like he's completely lost it.

He's so hungry. Licking a path from her clit to her asshole and getting sidetracked on the way so he plunges his tongue into her cunt over and over again, fucking her with it. And then when she's thrusting against his face, forcing out words that don't sound anything like "please" and "Wes" and "fuck, oh fuck", he's leaving her empty and aching so he can suck her clit into her mouth and graze the edge of it with his teeth.

She doesn't know when she starts to come, only that she can't stop and that she can't see the water stains on the ceiling any more, can't see much of anything but this blinding whiteness in front of her eyes.

"Stop! I can't take it. Need you to fuck me," she gasps, tugging on his hair, his ears, any bit of him she can reach.

His face is slathered in her juices, the sheen picked out on his cheekbones, as he crawls up her supine body, one hand grappling with the fly of his jeans.

"Do you want me to fuck you now, Faith?" He's growling at her and it's fucking scary as fuck but she's not going to back down now.

"Yes!"

"Tell me, Faith…"

"Want you to fuck me," she whimpers pitifully. "Want it so much."

"Even if I hurt you. It is your first time, after all." He's choking out the words superfast like he wants to get to the end of Act Three.

Her hands haul him closer. And she's practically spitting in his face. "I don't fucking care!"

And it's this blur of his hands and his legs pinning her down, pinning her open as he shoves into her so hard that she's screaming because every time with him feels like the first time. She can never get used to the feel of his cock thrusting inside her.

Or him stopping, holding himself statue still and stripping her down to the bone with the fire and ice of his stare.

"Is there something you want to tell me, Faith?" And it sounds like he's finished the script and is improvising.

She grinds against him. Why won't he move? "What?

"Is there something you need to tell me?" His voice is low and urgent and he's another Wes. Not the Wes she's in a motel room with and not her Wes. The other Wes, who's an expert at getting his witnesses to spill their secrets to the judge and the jury.

But he can't be because he's buried deep in her cunt, balls resting against her ass and he wouldn't because he doesn't know anything. "What? What do you want me to tell you?" she whispers.

He lowers his head and kisses this delicate path along her neck to her ear. "I want you to tell me if there's anything I should know."

And it's all wrong, even as her cunt is clutching at him, quivering around him, when she still wants him to fuck her into someone new that her mind is switching off, racing through a thousand horrible possibilities of what he already knows, what the fuck really happened at the bank today and she decides that the game they're playing and this cold, harsh version of Wes that she's playing it with is the lesser of the many evils.

"Um, I don't know," she stumbles, trying to be Faith the blowjob queen who for all her aching knees and empty heart was way more innocent than the Faith she's become. "I'm on the pill if that's what you're worried about."

And it's not what he's worried about. Not if the cold, tight smile he gives her is anything to go by. "Very well," he says, punctuating it with a careless thrust of his hips that isn't what she wants any more. "I can't promise that you'll enjoy this, but then it is your first time and you must have expected that."

He's not holding her down any more, but rises up on his hands as he plows into her and her body is so stupid, so fucking well trained that she can feel the tightening in her cunt, the spasms in her toes and fingers and…

"Wes!" Her arms are wrapping round him now, stroking the sweaty hollow of his back, moving up to brush against his hair, trying to touch him. "Wes, I don’t want to play this game anymore. I want you to come back to me."

Chapter Two Hundred and One

His body is heavy on hers but it’s not reassuring the way it usually is, not at all. Part of her wants to scrabble out from under him, run as far away as she possibly can from this fucking shit-hole of a motel and whatever the hell it is that they’ve been playing at; the other, equally conflicted part of her just pulls him closer, wraps her arms more tightly around him in the vain hope that when he looks back at her the harsh lines of his face and that cold, cold stare will be gone, softened. That he’ll be himself again.

But she’s not even sure that she hasn’t seen the real Wes after all —something dark and scarred over that she’d seen glimpses of here and there but never pushed hard enough to unleash. The cheap quilt is bunched up uncomfortably under her and there’s a trail of cold sweat pooling at the small of her back and she can’t help but shiver. In response, he brushes her hair off of her face with such familiar care and indulgent slowness that she lets out this little involuntary sound that’s somewhere between laughter and a sob.

“You’re not to cry, not any more,” he whispers, ghosting his fingertips lightly over her heated, furrowed brow. She closes her eyes and just lets him, not wanting to say a word in case she fucks everything up, again.

But she’s got this sense memory of him saying those words to her, and the cottage seems so long ago, so far away that almost immediately she’s got an ache in her chest and the familiar, acute prickling of tears behind her eyelids.

But she doesn’t say a fucking word and she doesn’t move, she just waits. The room is silent except for the twinned, steady sounds of their breathing and the tired wheeze of the put-upon bedsprings.

Finally he pulls himself up off of her and sits at the edge of the bed. Buckles his belt with deliberate slowness. He’s turned away from her, looking straight ahead at a fixed point on the wall. That particular water stain must be really fucking fascinating, she thinks ruefully. And she wonders for just a moment if he’s really taking this to the logical conclusion —that any second now he’s going to hand her her clothes and tell her to get the fuck out.

She sits up, reaching out to him, feeling the muscles in his back tighten as her fingers brush against his skin, tentatively.

“Wes—”

“You don’t know what you want, Faith. I know this isn’t— isn’t it.” This time his tone’s not accusatory, in fact it’s almost resigned. But the words cut into her nevertheless.

She pulls her hand away as though she’s been burned. “Don’t fucking think you know what’s good for me, Wesley, because—” She’s holding back tears, and anger, and she’s shaking but she can’t help it. “Don’t …presume…”

Normally he’d smile indulgently and not a little proudly at her word choice but he doesn’t even acknowledge it. He just keeps talking, like he’s got this dialogue already started and he’s only now remembered to share it with her. Except that he sounds as though he’s talking to himself.

“I should have stopped this. I should have known—” He laughs this rueful little laugh. “Variations on a theme,” he whispers under his breath. She’s drawn her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around herself but she’s still shivering. He grabs his jacket off of the chair and drapes it around her. “Somehow I always end up here, in this horrible little box. But it’s not the place for you, Faith, it’s not. And I— you shouldn’t have to—” He stops. Reaches out to pick up her discarded clothes. “Get dressed. I’m taking you home.”

And she’s too bone-weary and sore to protest. She wants to burn the cheap slut ensemble and the room and everything in it. The ache is still there and she doesn’t even know how to tell Wes that it was a mistake, yeah, but she’d wanted it too and everything was going to be okay.

If she said it out loud it would be true. But the silence in the room is deafening and she can’t face it, can’t say a fucking word. She starts to get dressed, quickly, ‘cause she’s not trying to indulge or entertain him, she just wants to get the fuck out. Away. And she knows she’s got to get him out of there, because its toxicity is seeping into everything, making it ugly and fucked-up. She’s sure it’ll all be different once she pushes him into his own shower, scrubs the taint off of him and lays him down on his 300-thread count sheets. Once she can kiss all the doubts and anxieties away.

Or so she keeps telling herself, even as he stalks down the hallway as she stumbles shakily behind him. He doesn’t open her door for her, just nods for her to get in.

And it’s more of the same in the car —just this pervasive, heavy silence. And he’s taking all the curves of the road like they’re speeding down the Autobahn instead of some crappy two-lane backwoods road. He’s taking this roundabout route that she’s not familiar with and she’s got this sinking, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that he’s taking her to Darla’s. Hadn’t he said he was taking her home? What if he meant—

But he finally pulls onto his street and she almost collapses from the sheer relief of it. But he doesn’t pull the car into the garage —just brings it up to the door and idles the engine. He reaches across her lap and opens her passenger-side door from the inside, letting it swing open. “You have your keys?”

“Y-yes. What are you…”

“Go inside. Take a shower.” Voice like cut glass. Not an ounce of warmth there.

“Aren’t you gonna join me?” She tries to make it sound light-hearted and a little coy but her voice quavers a little.

He looks at her then, and there’s a slight thaw in his hard-set features. She reaches out to touch his arm —she needs the reassurance of a kiss, a touch, a word, something, anything— and he presses her fingers to his lips and kisses them with the smallest trace of the reverence she remembers from the early days. But even that doesn’t soothe her, because he looks so much older, and so weary.

“I won’t let you be Persephone, Faith. You deserve something better.”

“I don’t know what you’re fucking talking about, but this isn’t your decision, Wes. It’s ours. Whatever happened tonight is something we can talk about—” And God, she hates the shrill, slightly hysterical sound of her voice but she’s trying to force the words out before they stop making sense and—

“Go inside, Faith. Don’t make me tell you again.” And she doesn’t know what else to do so she gets out of the car, keys in hand, standing in the soft light of the entrance in her ridiculous, cheap clothes. Her thighs feel rubbery and she’s freezing cold. Everything’s all wrong. And she doesn’t know what to do or say because he’s lost it so very badly.

He waits to see that she’s gotten into the house safely before he speeds away.

Part Seven

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