Some days it was so goddamn hard.

No, it was always hard. It was only that sometimes it was worse. It was only that sometimes it was like trying to hold onto a cliff with his fingernails, but he knew that the cliff wasn't very high and at the bottom was something amazing.

Thinking about Hell helped, sometimes, because that was really what would happen, wasn't it? Probably, anyway. It's not like he could know for sure…

Angel wondered if Buffy knew what she did to him.

Like tonight, when she had come to the mansion after slaying and curled up on his lap. Her body was warm and soft, and she smelled like Buffy, touched with a hint of lust that he was almost certain she wasn't even aware of. Angel could see the pulse under her skin and smell the powerful blood underneath, with its rich (too well remembered) taste. She rubbed her nose against his shoulder, almost absently.

"This is nice."

For you, Angel thought. You can waltz on home and I'll stay here trying not to think…

Not to think about the part of him that wanted to toss her back on the couch and ravish her. Or the other part, which whispered about blood and maiming and just how far do you think she can endure, our Slayer…

Buffy was humming. He wouldn't have asked her to leave for the world ending. Or maybe then, but for no other reason. Sometimes Angel suspected that he was a glutton for punishment.

(A glutton for something, maybe, was the quiet whisper inside his skull.)

She was gone now, and he was left with more than one kind of hunger. He retreated to the refrigerator and drank a bag of blood, barely warming it, in the hope that it would at least help with one of them. It didn't. His skin was too tight and he wanted nothing more than to follow Buffy and do (unspeakable) (wonderful) things to her.

Angel went hunting.

~.~

Buffy was sitting in one of the chairs, her leg hooked over the side. She swung it idly, her strappy sandals dangling off one foot, the other already bare. Otherwise, she was wearing nothing but plain white underwear.

Angel stopped dead, and was grateful he didn't have to breathe.

She pouted at him. "Are you just going to stare or are you going to play with me?"

"Buffy-" He swallowed. His mouth felt dry. "We can't." Fingernails. Cliff. Damn her, damn her and himself, too, twice over, for not being able to (not wanting to) look away.

She batted her eyelashes, and kicked the last of the sandal off her foot. "Come on." She slid her eyes down his body. "Don't you love me anymore?

This is a dream, Angel realized, and he was pretty sure. Almost sure. Maybe. If he'd had a real heart it would have been pounding. "Of course I love you," he said helplessly. "I'll always-"

"Then show me." She stood up, in one fluid movement, bold and wild and shameless. Beautiful and – (his. No, don't think that, don't you dare.) She sighed, when Angel continued to stand perfectly still. "Do I have to do everything? If I were bleeding you'd be over here in a second."

"Don't you dare," Angel said, quickly, and she laughed at him, and stretched out her hand.

"Just come with me," Buffy said, and her smile had a touch of 'killer' around the edges that made his already wakened cock stir to further alert. "It'll be fine. I promise."

Angel took her hand. She drew him along, back to the bedroom, and he saw the manacles on the bedposts. If he hadn't been before, he was hard and aching now. Too aware of her body and the distance between them. But this was her game, and he was (shouldn't be) following along.

"If something goes wrong those won't hold me," Angel said, needing to keep something, some kind of semblance of protest, but oh…

"I can hold you." She smirked. "Lie down. Let me strap you in."

Her scent was heady, rich. Angel imagined he could get drunk on that smell alone. As she tightened the first manacle around his left wrist, for a moment he thought of Darla, but then she glanced at him with a momentary look of worry and asked if it was too tight. He shook his head, but his pants certainly were.

Buffy did the second manacle and then stepped back to survey her work. She looked pleased with herself. Angel's cock felt as though it were nearly throbbing in its prison. Then Buffy shifted slightly, and slid her hand down the front of her panties, and god, he was going to explode, or at least die happy.

"Buffy," he gasped. Her eyes didn't leave his. He could smell the honey her body was producing, his senses almost too sharp, too attuned to her. Angel tugged helplessly at the manacles, but only managed to make the metal bite into his flesh. The pain should have grounded him. It didn't.

Darla had trained that reaction into him too well.

"Lie still," Buffy said, and removed her hand only to slide her panties off and kick them aside. Angel wondered if her fingers had slid into her slick passage. He wanted his own there, wanted to touch her and make her wriggle and gasp (and scream and writhe and oh god).

She climbed up onto the bed and straddled his legs. Her hand brushed lightly over the tent in his pants and then she slid up his body and laid her hands on his chest. "I want to taste you," she said, and Angel blinked.

"What?"

Her strong fingers kneaded muscle like a cat, and he arched his body toward her with a small groan. "You've tasted me," Buffy said. "Why can't I…" She lowered her head to the side of his neck and kissed the skin, and then nipped at it. Angel's cock jerked. His body tensed. Buffy sat up.

"Shh," she said, and moved back down, started undoing his pants. "Trust me." She slid his pants down to his knees and wrapped her hand around the base of his cock, slender fingers squeezing lightly. A sound that Angel refused to classify as a whimper escaped his mouth, and his arms tugged again, automatically. He wanted to touch, to hold, to caress, to…do other things. Harsher things. Buffy slid her hand slowly upwards, delicious friction making all his muscles tense and then go slack.

He panted, unnecessarily. "Buffy, please," he said again. She smiled at him, and crawled up his body again. She shifted, and sank slowly downward, sheathing him inside her, her inner muscles clenching and making Angel's whole body shudder. All the power in her. She could break him; just now, he was helpless.

He could move, buck up against her, but it hardly mattered. Buffy was driving, and she was riding him slow and deep, smooth and muscular body undulating. It was all sensation; the moist heat inside her body, the feel of her muscles squeezing him, the smell of her wet and hungry mixed in with sweat and lust and blood running just under the surface. She tossed her head and Angel could see her neck, extended, inviting…his eyes rolled back, riding the edge and trying to hold on, to make it last.

She moved, and the pain was sharp and sudden, and then her mouth was a warm seal over it, and he was coming inside her in bursts as he felt her suckling from the junction of neck and shoulder. She pulled away after only a moment (a couple mouthfuls) and licked her red smeared lips with her small pink tongue.

"Buffy," he whispered, horrified. And very nearly aroused all over again.

"You taste," she said, thoughtfully. "Like moonlight and autumn. Like darkness."

There was a stake in her hand, coming down.

Angel jerked awake with a yell and realized he was not alone. Buffy sat in the corner of the room, as though she'd been there for a while. She was fully clothed, and smelled of nothing but vanilla and soap.

"Whoa," she said. "Quite a dream you were having there."

"Nightmare," he corrected her. "It was a nightmare."

"Oh." Buffy chewed her lip, for a moment. "Was I in it?"

You're in all my dreams. And nightmares. "No," he lied. "You weren't in it."

"Oh. Good." Buffy stood up. "I have to go."

"Yes," he said. "Of course."

She seemed to hesitate for a moment, then darted over and kissed him. Her lips tasted like chapstick, and nothing like blood. "I'll see you soon," she promised, and then pranced out the door. He watched her go.

The memories were screaming in his head again. Buffy's heartbeat seemed to still be thudding in his ears.

It was going to be another one of those days.