63

Stolen Moments

Rose was on her way to lunch when she passed by Lorne's office. She missed him, he was someone she'd always been able to talk to. On an impulse, she stepped inside. Her eyes roved around the room, taking in the familiar details, and finally came to rest on the planter that still sat on his desk. To her admittedly inexperienced eye, the plants contained therein did not look happy. They probably hadn't been watered all week. She checked through Lorne's collection of potables and actually found a bottle of water. She applied a generous amount, then just stood there, mind wandering.

He moved so quietly she didn't hear him enter the room. Didn't realize she wasn't alone until his arms circled her waist, causing her to start.

"It's just me," Angel whispered in her ear. "You're not afraid of me, are you, Rose?"

"Of course not," Rose answered softly. She turned in his arms, so she could face him, and almost of their own volition, hers reached up to twine around his neck.

It never once occurred to either of them that as short a time ago as the beginning of the week they'd never even have dreamt of doing what they were doing now. Now was all that mattered, and now they felt an insatiable craving for each other.

His lips brushed across hers, gently, tentatively, not entirely sure if she wanted it as much as he did. Then, Rose's lips parted in invitation, and she pressed her body close to his, and he unleashed the hunger that had been building to such an exquisite torment. Drinking in the taste of her like he was in the middle of the desert and she was an oasis.

&&&&&&&

Spike stepped out of the shower stall, thankful that someone had been thoughtful enough to install the things in his section. He felt like he must have washed a couple of pounds worth of demon's blood and guts off himself. Since it had happened before, he also had a spare set of clothes that he kept here. Good thing, too. He examined what he had been wearing and chunked it all in the waste bin. Total write off, beyond the help of any laundry detergent. He looked at the time and saw that the lunch break had been and gone while he was out. Oh well, he thought. It wasn't like he hadn't gotten a workout today. And the way the ponce had been fighting of late, it wasn't really worth the effort. He strolled into his office, put his feet up on the desk, leaned back and closed his eyes.

&&&&&&

Spike had been as good as his word, and before he and Rose had been gone an hour, one of the research department brought up the requested book. Oz had read to the kids for over an hour, and had only been allowed to stop by pleading a dry throat and promising to read more later. The book was badly written, leaping from subject to subject and back again with very little that seemed coherent. But the twins had sat and listened intently, trying to absorb it all, and interrupting only when Oz came across the occasional word that they needed defined. They were napping now, and Oz was cleaning up after 'tea time', even though Rose had protested time and again that he didn't need to, that she'd attend to it when she returned for the evening. Oz had pointed out that while the kids were asleep, he really didn't have much of anything to do, and it was a small enough chore. They wrangled about it on a semi-regular basis now, with neither side giving an inch. Rose still insisted that he not do it, and Oz went ahead and did it anyway. He looked at the clock and found that nap time wasn't even half over. It was amazing how quiet the place became when Alaric and Ariel were asleep. Even when they weren't talking the place seemed filled with their energy. It just seemed unnaturally still when they weren't keeping things alive. He looked at the clock again, and sighed. Even reading spells until he was hoarse was preferable to this.

&&&&&&

He'd lifted Rose up onto the desk to bring her more on a level with him. Their lips had scarcely parted company during the maneuver. Or at all, since they'd started. Now, he pulled away. Not too far, though. "I can't believe I haven't noticed how beautiful you are before," he breathed. "How sexy. I want you, Rose."

"I want you too," Rose replied breathlessly. Her hands slid inside the open collar of his shirt.

Angel groaned and pulled her closer again. He bent his head towards her, not seeking her lips this time, but going for the base of her throat. He'd just reached his initial goal and was beginning to work his way downward when an insistent beeping came from his jacket pocket.

Rose jumped as though she'd been bitten, and Angel growled a curse. He pulled out the source of the offending sound. He looked at the message on the pager. "Damn. I have an important meeting with a client." He looked at Rose, saw the disappointment in her eyes and was sorely tempted to consign the client to a warmer climate than California.

Rose felt almost as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on her. She looked at the time. "Oh heavens," she gasped. "I'm almost half an hour late. Wesley will kill me."

"Only if he catches you," Angel pointed out. He pulled her close for one last, quick kiss.

&&&&&&&

"C'mon, guys, even big people have to stop and play sometimes," Oz said. The twins had demanded that he resume reading to them the moment they woke from their nap.

"This is 'portant," Alaric stated. "We need to find out how to fix mummy."

Ariel shot her brother a look. They hadn't been going to tell Oz about it.

"He already knows," Alaric answered, before she could ask. "Daddy told him."

Since the cat was already out of the bag, Ariel decided to turn on the charm for all it was worth. "Please, Oz," she begged, large gray eyes wide and ingenuous. "We want mummy back."

Oz hesitated, then gave up the fight. "A half hour," he cautioned. "No more. Then we'll have to put the book away. Your mother doesn't know we're reading it. She'd probably want to know why."

The children nodded sagely, oddly adult expressions on their chubby-cheeked little faces. "We could put it there." Alaric pointed towards a woodbox with a lid near the fireplace.

Ariel nodded. "Mummy never looks in there," she agreed. "Not after she saw the baby spiders hatching."

"Sounds like a plan," Oz conceded. He wasn't exactly thrilled with the thought of keeping things from Rose. After all she was his employer, or at least, one of them. But Spike approved, and that would have to be enough. That and two very special children on their own personal quest to 'fix' their mother.

&&&&&&

Rose got back to her office with apparently no one the wiser. Once there, it occurred to her to wonder just how her appearance had fared the interlude in Lorne's office. She pulled out a small mirror that she kept on hand, mainly for use in reading some very obscure texts that were written back to front. A critical look showed that her lips had a full, almost swollen look that screamed out the news that she had been kissing someone. She took another look and decided that no one would notice it if they weren't looking for it. But her hair was severely disarranged. She pulled out her hairbrush and effected some damage control. One last look, and she determined that no one would be the wiser. She hoped. With a sigh, she pulled the employee evaluation forms towards her and started filling out the top one.

&&&&&&

As Angel approached his office, he saw Harmony unsuccessfully trying to cover a huge yawn. "Late night?" he guessed. He was in too good a mood to even bother being irritated.

If Harmony hadn't been a vampire, she probably would have blushed. "Yes," she admitted. "The clients just made it to the lobby a couple of minutes ago. They ought to be up here any time." As Angel walked on by, she yawned again. She hadn't had more than four hours of sleep, if that. She and her two new suitors had been out dancing till all hours. Okay, so someone really ought to tell them that disco was dead, but at least they made the effort. She couldn't recall when she'd last been out with a guy who had been willing to set his feet to the dance floor. But there were two of them and only one of her. She decided that from now on, maybe she'd better keep the dates reserved for the weekend nights, when she could sleep in the next day. She yawned again.

&&&&&&&

Spike's little nap had re-charged his batteries, and he found himself brimming with energy and in need of an outlet for it. He decided to have another go at his two new recruits. He was starting to wonder about his initial suspicions of them. He really didn't see them as being conspirator material. A short laugh escaped him. The Cheech and Chong of the vampire world, he thought. Humility wasn't something he was possessed of in a great abundance, but he was beginning to wonder if he could ever get those two shaped up into anything remotely resembling a well-trained member of his team. On the other hand, he'd done it with Josh Maxwell. If that sorry sod could make a go of it, then there was hope even for Val and Den. Maybe. He picked up his staff. He thought he'd let the pair of them have weapons too. Show them that being better armed didn't mean bugger all if you didn't know how to use the stuff. He started whistling as he went into the practice room.

&&&&&&&

The two demons stared at Angel with an unblinking gaze. Not surprising, since they didn't have eyelids. But it was disconcerting as hell even knowing that. And they had made it plain that they didn't entirely trust him. While the untrained eye couldn't tell it, and his wasn't, and he couldn't, he just had to take their word for it, they were both female. From an entirely matriarchal society. They wouldn't take the translation in his hands at face value once they knew that a male had done the translating. They wanted a woman's word on it. Angel almost started to smile, but stifled the urge. There was only one female on the research staff that was adept at demon languages. He picked up the phone. "Hello, Wes. Can you send Rose up here?"

&&&&&&&

Wesley poked his head into Rose's office. "Angel wants you upstairs right away," he said urgently. "I should have thought of this myself. Varhesh demons have a practically Amazonian society. They won't take our word for anything until they hear it from another female." He did a double-take at Rose's appearance. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was something about her that looked out of the ordinary.

Rose put aside the evaluations with a grateful sigh. She hated the administrative chores at least as much as her department head did. "Do you have any idea how long this is going to take, Wesley?" she asked. "I got sidetracked on my pen-hunt last night and was late. If I'm going to be tonight, I ought to let Spike know that it's a possibility."

Wesley gave it a few minutes consideration. "It depends," he answered slowly. "To be honest, Rose, I really don't know. Would you like me to call Spike and warn him that it could happen?"

"If you would," Rose answered. "I gather that the children were very upset. And even though he didn't say so, I think Spike was more than a little put out with me."

"I'll call," Wes promised. "You'd best hurry on up to Angel's office before the clients decide to go elsewhere."

&&&&&&&

Val and Den each had a wicked looking knife in their hands. They were stunned to see that all Spike had to defend himself with was a stick. It was a pretty big stick, but it was still a stick.

"You hit him high, and I'll hit him low," Val whispered to his partner.

"Will do," Den agreed. "Shall we dust him if we get the chance?"

Val smacked him on the back of the head. "We're doing this because Drusilla wants him back," he reminded his friend. "If we dust him, we'll have that crazy chick after us." He paused and forced his atrophied brain cells into some semblance of working order. "But if we can kick his ass, I don't think she'd object to that."

"You two going to stand there flirting with each other?" Spike asked. He gave his staff a negligent twirl. "Or are you going to show me what you're made of?"

It was over almost before it began, and Spike regretted that he'd even wasted his time on them. Although it wouldn't be a waste if it made any kind of impression on the brain-fried pair. One moment they were rushing him, and the next, they were flat on the mat, minus their weapons.

"You've been here almost a week now," Spike commented. "And I don't see that you've learned a bloody thing. Maybe I just ought to spare Lorne having to listen to the pair of you murdering some innocent song and give you the sack right now."

"You haven't even given us a chance yet," Den grumbled. "You put us up against guys that have been training for years and expect us to be able to take them in a couple of days. It isn't fair."

Val decided to take the more diplomatic approach. "Give us another week, Spike," he suggested. "We'll try harder, I promise. If you don't like how we look by then, we'll go without a fuss."

Spike considered. It would be a blow to his vanity to give up on them. But he really was starting to consider them as hopeless cases. And he still wasn't one hundred percent convinced that they didn't bear watching. "Well," he said, making a show of being reluctant. "I guess one more week wouldn't hurt. But you two louts had better shape up big time, or I'll boot your sorry asses out myself."

&&&&&

Rose had had to go over the material two or three times before the clients agreed to the terms. Both she and Angel gave a sigh of relief when they finally filed out of his office. They looked at the time. It was already past quitting time, and Harmony had taken off promptly.

Angel grudgingly admitted to himself that finding Rose with him a second night in a row probably would make Spike more than a little suspicious. "I guess you ought to be getting home now, Rose," he remarked quietly. But everything in his demeanor suggested that he didn't want her to go.

"Wesley was supposed to call Spike and tell him I might be late with the clients," Rose suggested hopefully. She wanted to stay with Angel, to intoxicate herself on his kisses.

Angel shook his head and gave her a sad smile. "I'd like nothing better than to have you stay," he replied. "But we can't risk it. Not unless you're ready to tell Spike about us."

Rose shook her head. "I know I'm going to have to sooner or later," she confessed. "But I'm going to have to figure out how to go about it. And I have to consider the children. This is going to be hard for them."

"It's hard for us too," Angel pointed out. He pulled her close, molding her to his body. "Especially for me," he added teasingly. He gave her a brief, time-stopping kiss. "Go home now, sweetheart. We'll get this all worked out. Eventually."