Chapter 4

Cordelia walked into the Hyperion Hotel and casually looked at her watch – 5:30 am, much earlier than normal. She sighed and looked around the dark lobby; it seemed so quiet this early in the morning, unusual really. Sure she had been here lots of times at daybreak, but that was usually only after an all nighter of fighting demons, and then it would be so she and Wesley and sometimes Gunn would have their boss make them breakfast.

Funny, come to think of it, Angel had stopped making them breakfast, in fact she couldn't remember the last time they all sat around the table eating eggs. Strange how life takes twists and turns, Cordy thought. Walking over to her desk, she placed her bag down on the chair and looked at the paperwork that was waiting for her. Paperwork wasn't what she was really interested in, not after last night. She had spent all night wondering if there was anything between her and Angel.

Spending the better part of the night tossing and turning, she finally gave up on sleep and figured heading to the office would keep her occupied. Well that was the excuse her rational brain made up. Her heart was telling her to march up the stairs and confront Angel.

And ask him what? Hey Angel, thought you were going to kiss me then you didn't, was it cause I am not a blonde? In her mind she had had one sided conversations with Angel the entire car ride back to her apartment. Hey Angel, it was as if you were going to kiss me, you know it's okay to kiss me don't you? The theme was pretty much the same the whole car ride. Angel had said nothing, just driven, in that stoic manpire of few words way he has about him.

Cordy looked at the staircase and it looked much longer and higher than it normal.

"Maybe the dork is still awake, heck if I can't sleep why should he?" Cordy said out loud to the empty lobby. Part of her was surprised to not get a response. At least at home Dennis would flick a light if he agreed or disagreed with her. She was on her own in making the decision to climb the stairs to Angel's suite.

Deciding that it was now or never, Cordy started up the staircase, to face her destiny. With each step she tried to figure out what she was going to say to him. Did she just go in there full force and ask why he didn't kiss her last night. Or did she go for a little subtly and make with the small talk. Hey Angel, it is going to be a really nice sunrise, wanna watch? Before Cordelia knew it, she was standing in front of the door to his suite. She raised her hand to knock, but then lowered it.

"What am I doing here?" She whispered, more to herself than anybody else. "I am imagining things, if Angel wanted to kiss me he would have." Cordy turned from the door and quickly walked away, not ready to face a conversation with the man on the other side of the door. Not ready to admit that she had feelings for him. She practically sprinted down the stairs and looked around the empty hotel…she felt like a coward. Cordelia Chase was no coward.

Angel opened the door to his suite. He could have sworn he had heard Cordelia's voice just moments earlier. He unconsciously sniffed the hallway and picked up her scent and it well smelled fresh. It was sometimes hard to tell, as she and Wesley and Gunn for that matter, spent so much time at the hotel, everything was covered in their respective scents. But he had the feeling his hearing had not deceived him. What is Cordy doing here at the crack of dawn? She must have had a vision.

At that thought of Cordy being in vision pain, Angel ignored his state of undress – no shirt or shoes, and his black trousers without a belt and the top button just undone – and followed his nose to the staircase. He got to the edge of the landing and looked over the railing, and there was Cordelia. She was pacing and muttering to herself, something that sounded like 'be brave, be brave'. Now he really wondered what was going on, and wasted no time getting down the stairs to confront his seer.

Cordy in her mind wanted to do nothing more than to go back upstairs and ask for answers, answers to questions that had been lurking ever since their series of dates started. As she turned to start her 17th lap of pacing she ran into the object of her nervousness…literally. "EEEKKK!" She screamed, surprised by Angel, her hands now resting on his chest, as his gently grasped her upper arms.

"Geez Angel, what's with you and sneak attacks?" Cordy huffed, a bit embarrassed by her reaction. She noticed that her hands were on his chest, and didn't move them, not yet anyway. His body felt cool to the touch, and it always surprised her that there was no heartbeat.

"I thought I smell..uh..heard you a little bit ago outside my room. What's wrong, did you have a vision?" Angel looked down at her, and noticed that her eyes looked tired, as if she hadn't gotten any sleep.

"Vision, no, uh…just couldn't sleep, and the paperwork is just piling up around here, so I decided to get a early start and you know de-pile." Cordy found it hard to talk at first, being surrounded in his embrace, and then the babbling started.

Angel looked at her, maybe keeping her off guard was his best move, he had been thinking about holding her all night, and now here she was, standing in his arms. "What do you need to be brave about?" He asked quietly.

"Brave?" Cordy played dumb, damn vampire hearing. She would need to learn to not mutter at the hotel anymore, at least not to mutter things she didn't want Angel knowing. It felt like Angel pulled her an inch closer, into his arms.

Angel nodded, maybe if he kept her talking the urge to kiss her would go away. But as he watched her breath, and felt the air passing over her lips, the only thing on his mind was that he wanted to taste that breath, taste her lips. He wanted to know if what he was feeling was mutual.

Cordy looked up at Angel, and saw a glint in his eyes…was it humor or oh god…it was… Cordy took a closer look it was definitely borderline lust in Angel's eyes. Before she could react, his head angled down and he pulled her closer, definitely noticeable this time, and kissed her softly on the lips. Her eyes widened as she felt his cool lips touch hers.

Angel is kissing me, she sighed and moved her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, wanting to never end this magic of a first kiss.

Angel's head was swirling with the first taste of Cordelia, and joy coursed through his body, when he felt her hands slip around his neck and pull him closer. He deepened the kiss, wanting to just be lost in her, wanting more, knowing deep down that more was not likely possible.

The kiss came to a natural end, but Angel, instead of pulling away, slid his lips along her jaw line until he could nuzzle her ear. He spoke softly, "I wanted to do that all night," confidence back in his voice, as he felt that Cordelia did not mind being kissed by him.

"Angel…I…uh…" Cordelia was more than a little dazed by his kisses, and found it difficult to form a coherent thought with him nuzzling her neck. Woah…vampire…neck nuzzling…not good…

"EEEK! Angelus!" Cordy screamed and pushed away from Angel, startling him both with her scream and the use of his alter-ego's name. She was now standing three feet away and was obviously looking for an escape route.

"What? Why did you just call me Angelus?" Angel looked at her confused, not sure what the hell she was talking about.

"Well you started the neck nuzzling thingie…and I, ah, I just thought that maybe you had…ah turned." The words fell out of Cordelia's mouth before her brain was engaged, for some reason she was worried about the perfect happiness clause kicking into effect with the way he kissed her.

"Angelus?" Angel looked at her a little befuddled and then it hit him, She really does like my kisses.

"I don't think that one kiss will bring out my evil twin Cordy."

All of a sudden, something akin to fury raced across Cordelia's face and Angel realized that he some how had said the wrong thing.

Cordy folding her arms over her chest glared at Angel, "Kissing me is not the cause for perfect happiness buster!"

Angel couldn't help himself, but he let out a little chuckle. The look on her face told him that was the wrong sound to be making at this juncture. He wanted to kiss her again, and thought that his chances were going downhill rapidly.

"No" The look on her face made him quickly back pedal, "yes, it was very good, I like kissing you" Angel had a strong feeling he was going to loose this battle.

"Good, my kissing is only good?" Cordy asked flustered. Her functioning brain realized that no, a kiss did not equal perfect happiness, but damn it she was Cordelia Chase.

Angel smiled, not an evil smile, but a genuine one, as this was his open door, and he was going to take it. "One kiss really isn't enough to tell." He took two steps closer to Cordy, lessening the gap; he could hear her heart racing.

"Let's try again, and see if we can do better." Angel pulled her to him and kissed her thoroughly.

Jillinan's head was spinning from the headiness of Holden's kiss. Feeling the water of the creek rush past their bodies, cooling them while at the same instant she felt like she was on fire. Her arms tightened their grasp around Holden's neck, and she felt his one of his hands move off of her back and trail a path up her body to cup her breast. When he squeezed slightly, she sighed into his mouth and moved to push her body closer. Holden moved his mouth from her lips and trailed kisses down her neck, and was gently kissing her collar bone, while his thumb was flicking over her nipple. She had never felt this way in her entire life, and it scared her to know that she would do whatever Holden had planned. They were married, so it was okay…right?

And that is when Jillian's brain kicked into gear. They couldn't be together as husband and wife; she would never be able to get married into New York Society if she was compromised. Even though Jillian's head was spinning from the temptation Holden was creating she somehow found the strength to push herself away from him. She looked at him, panting, the water from the creek rushing past her hips. "We can't do this, you know we can't" She said breathlessly.

Holden looked at his young mail-order bride, and she looked as skittish as a deer during hunting season. He had felt something in that kiss, and knew that she did too, why was she denying it. "Darlin, you don't want to stop anymore than I do." Seduction filled his tone, and he looked at her hotly.

Jillian knew that he was right, what had made her stop was the one thing she wanted to hear before she gave her virtue up to a man – that he loved her. "Mr. Montgomery, I will have you know I can control my lust." She said, straightening her frame and standing tall, folding her arms over her chest to hide her nipples straining against the wet fabric.

"Oh really Mrs. Montgomery?" Holden looked at his furious young wife and wondered what was going through her head, but felt that she had just issued him a challenge.

"Really Mr. Montgomery," Jillian said, as she started to slosh past him to get out of the creek. "This is only temporary and in a few months I am going back to New York and you will have your ranch. I think we can control our baser urges, so we can successfully annul this sham of a marriage." Jillian made her way to the edge of the creek and stepped up onto dryer land. Her words made her sad beyond belief, but she knew that it was how it had to be. She walked away from the creek and her husband without turning back.

Holden watched her and decided that a challenge had indeed just been issued and he was up for that challenge.

Cordelia more and more realized that her life was starting to look exactly like Jillian Wentworth Montgomery's life. Right down to the scene she just finished reading in Chapter 27 to what had happened this morning with Angel. Looking back on it she didn't know how to feel. The second kiss from Angel this morning more than spun her head, it made her want to grab him by the belt buckle and drag him upstairs to his bedroom and not let him out for a month. For someone with no body temperature, he certainly knows how to kiss a girl, and make her so hot she is on fire. And whoa boy does he know how to unbutton a girl's blouse in record time. Suddenly she was in his embrace with just her lacy peach bra separating her hot skin from his cool chest. And that is when something snapped in her brain, reminding her of what would happen if things went any further.

Cordy pushed back from Angel, pressing the palms of her hands against his chest as he tried to lean in and kiss her more. He looked in her eyes and saw something he wasn't expecting, mixed with lust was a thin layer of sadness in her eyes.

Angel moved a hand up to cup her chin "Cordy, what?" asking, not sure if he wanted the answer.

"I want to, but Angel we can't." Cordy didn't say anymore than that, the meaning was all to clear to both of them. They couldn't risk Angelus making a return appearance.

TBC