Part 17: I Want My Life To Be With You


Buffy closed the door of her apartment behind her and for the tenth time gave
Angel an apologetic look. "I'm so sorry, but I should've warned you that Giles
tends to go into full father-mode sometimes."

"It's okay," he assured her and pulled her into his arms.

"I didn't want him to corner you like that. After all we're only back together
for a week and the last thing on your mind probably is a commitment and ..."

He silenced her with a passionate kiss and when they pulled back they were both
slightly breathless.

"Wow," she whispered.

"Yeah, wow," he agreed. "Buffy," he put a finger under her chin to make her look
at him, "I don't mind Giles asking, actually there's something I want to ask you
myself, but I wasn't sure if it was the right time ..."

"What?", she interrupted him.

"I ... I really don't want to make you feel uncomfortable or pressed and so ..."

"Angel," she said impatiently. "Just tell me."

He let go of her and walked over to the living-room, "It wasn't Cordelia's fault
we were late tonight," he began and poured himself a glass of red wine. He knew
that Buffy liked to drink red wine from time to time and although he wasn't much
for alcohol, he welcomed it now. He was terribly nervous, although he told
himself he didn't need to be. All she could say was no and that wouldn't mean
their relationship was over. But he wanted it so badly, it was so important to
him that he couldn't control his nerves.

"It wasn't Cordelia," she repeated his words and waited for him to continue.

"No," he took a sip from the wine, "the reason we were late was that we were
looking ... no, I was looking at a house here in Sunnydale."

"You did what?"

He finally turned back to her and his words came out in a rush, "I don't want to
be so far away from you, so I thought about moving to Sunnydale. So Cordelia
searched the net for me. She came up with three possibilities. An apartment and
two houses. The apartment wasn't an option, and so we looked at the houses. One
of them is really nice and I signed the contract just before I arrived at your
mother's house." He took another big gulp from the wine and looked at her.

"I see," she said slowly and stepped closer. "Well I for once like the idea of
you living closer to us."

He put the glass down, then shoved his hands into his pockets and clenched them
into fists inside, "That's not all."

"It is not?", she raised her brows.

"No," he shot her an irritated glance. Her attitude was making him even more
nervous than before. "The house I rented is really nice. There's even an option
to buy it. It has six bedrooms and a nice garden and it's ... it's actually too
big for me. But I thought you might consider ... well, that is I hoped ...," he
took a deep breath, "would you consider to move in with me. You and the kids?"

She stared at him. The expressions on her face changed so quickly that he
couldn't make out their meaning. After some minutes he became impatient.

"Buffy?"

"Huh?," she asked as if she hadn't understood what he'd said.

"I ..."

Suddenly she seemed to snap out of her daze, "Yes."

"What?"

"I said yes, the answer is yes." She flung herself into his arms and sprinkled
kisses all-over his face, "yes, yes, yes, yes, yes," she said again and again. "Oh yes, I want to live with you. I want to wake up with you, go to bed with you and don't worry about the kids. They love you anyway. David adores you and Ashlynn might even be a little bit in love with you." She beamed up into his smiling face. "Did I already tell you that I love you."

"Yeah," he kissed the tip of her nose, "but you can say it as often as you want.
I'll never grow tired of it." He felt like the king of the world and he wanted to shout it out, how much he loved her and that she was his now. And nobody, he
vowed to himself, nobody would take her away from him again.

"Good," she smiled, "because I intend to say it more often. Twice a day at
least," she considered her words and then amended, "no, more often. Well, we'll
just have to wait and see," she decided finally.

"Oh Buffy," his voice was full of emotion, "When?"

"As soon as you want us."

"Tomorrow."

She laughed, "Well, as much as I like the idea, but tomorrow we're going to have
this picnic with the gang."

"Damn," he grinned. "But maybe on Sunday."

"We should at least ask the kids," she tried to slow down his enthusiasm a little bit, although the joyous expression on his face took her breath away.

"Oh," he seemed a bit disappointed, "yes, of course."

"They'll say yes, I'm sure," she assured him. "They don't like the apartment very much anyway, but I didn't want to stay in the house. With you on the other hand ...," she trailed off and planted a kiss on his Adam's apple.

"God, I can hardly wait, I can't believe you actually said yes."

"Did you really doubt it?"

"I ... I wasn't sure," he admitted honestly, "I thought it might be too fast and
..."

"But Angel, I waited almost 15 years for this. Nothing can be too fast," she
kissed him on the mouth. "And now that we have worked that out and we're going to move in with you, can we go over to the really important things tonight?"

"Really important things, huh?," he teased.

"Hmmm," she purred and opened the first button of his shirt, kissing the warm
skin on his chest. "You smell wonderful," she whispered.

Angel closed his eyes at the sensations her kisses initiated in him. His
heartbeat accelerated and he could feel the blood rushing through his veins.
"Buffy," he murmured when her hands moved over his chest and he felt them through the thin material of his silken shirt. It was as if fires were burning wherever she touched him.

"Maybe we should finish this somewhere else," she smiled up at him.

End of Chapter 17.