WILLOW

She'd say third time's a charm except this is their fourth kiss, and she went all squiggly on the inside just from the first one, so the saying's not so appropriate any more. Now, her insides are jello, the green finger kind that's firm enough to poke but doesn't fall apart when it's handled, and her head is like the whipped cream that the lunch ladies used to put on their portions in first grade, all whipped and light and ready to float away if she blew on it too hard. Which makes no kind of sense, but then neither does kissing Wesley, and she's doing that now, too.

She uses his chest to hold herself steady during the kiss, and the tips of her fingers scorch from just the feather contact they maintain. It leeches down into her hands, softening her control, so that by the time he reaches up to hold the back of her neck, deepening the caress, Willow is living up to the tremulous nature of her namesake.

Not just on the outside, though it feels like her skin would shimmy right off her body the way it's fluttering.

It's her heart that balances so precariously. On a ledge she hadn't realized she'd been walking. Wesley on one side. A black void on the other.

His other hand has dropped to her knee, and slowly skates up the outer side of her thigh, hesitating where it reaches the hem of his shirt she wears. How long has it been since someone touched her so resolutely? Oz doesn't count. Oz was always gentle, considerate, too considerate maybe because of his whole fear of hurting her, but he'd stopped being as ardent about their lovemaking weeks before she'd learned the truth about---her. She isn't even going to think the bitch's name.

While Wesley is being tender, there is a need in his touch that she hasn't experienced in a partner in months.

He needs me.

The thought makes her gasp.

He pulls away at the sound, and Willow opens her eyes to see him gazing down at her with that faint worry that seems to saturate his every blink. "I'm---," he starts to say, but she silences him by kissing him again.

She doesn't want to talk.

There are better things they could be doing with their mouths.

Leaning forward, she presses herself into his side, encouraging the contact of their upper bodies, and hears him moan when the movement makes his hand disappear beneath the cotton of the shirt tail he's been so carefully skirting up to now. Strong fingers trace the lacy edge of her panties, around the side of her hip to the lower curve of her bottom, then take hold around her upper thigh to tug her onto his lap.

She gasps again, but this time, Wesley doesn't break away.

If she doubted his desire before, now there is no mistaking it. Seven? Eight? And then her inner mathematician is banished to the farthest corner of her head, with a muzzle around her measuring mouth and an order to stop interfering with the best thing that's happened to Willow in weeks. She wriggles just enough to get comfortable, and then the world goes wonky.

And soft.

Oh.

Wesley has pressed her back to lie down on the mattress.

And he did it without breaking his kiss. It seems very worldly to Willow. She has to admit to feeling impressed.

"Willow," he breathes. He makes her name sound like the cry of wind, ethereal and timeworn and magical and seductive all at the same time. Maybe it's the accent. She's always had a soft spot for English accents.

She's waiting for more, though why she would think he is a talky type in bed when he's been so recalcitrant about other details throughout the day, she has no idea. It doesn't come. In fact, his mouth is no longer near hers, and she can no longer feel his chest either.

"Is something…wrong?" she whispers. She asks without even opening her eyes. She's afraid of what she's going to see.

"Willow…look at me."

No way can she refuse such a gentle request.

He's not as far away as she thought, inches as opposed to miles. His eyes don't even seem blue this close up, but then again, the only light in the room is now behind him.

"Before we…take this further," he says, "I need to know if…this is what you want."

She stammers through her assent, but when he asks about birth control, she freezes.

Of course she's been on the pill since way before she was sexually active, courtesy of the joy of having a feminist mother insisting her daughter be the one in control of her body and not a randy teenaged boy. And of course, she's been taking it regularly, even after Oz left. She even brought her pills with her---not because she had any real expectation that she and Oz would make love, but out of habit---but in the hullabaloo and hurry of the morning, she's forgotten to take it today.

Can I get pregnant if I forget once? is quickly followed by memories of her mother's strident voice, reminding a younger Willow that nothing is completely effective and the only answer to not getting pregnant is not to have sex in the first place. But I want this.

What is this?

Wesley takes her silence for a no, and pulls back, away, up and off the bed, over to the dresser where his toiletries rest. When he pulls out a silver packet, her eyes widen.

"It's not what you think," he says, and rushes back. Almost too casually, he tosses the condom onto the nightstand before pulling her flush against him again. "I had no idea this would happen. I didn't plan to…Please don't think..."

He's so earnest, she has no choice but to believe him. But then she asks the question that has been lurking in the back of her mind, and it's his turn to be silent.

"Not that it has to be anything," she rushes to say, desperate to fill the void that seems to have settled between them. "It's just…well, I don't know. And I go back to Sunnydale tomorrow, and…I wanted to know what you think."

When he starts speaking again, there is a quiet ferocity in his voice that makes her start quivering again. Because he speaks of how having her around the past twenty-four hours has made him start feeling like a man again, how she makes him forget his failures.

He ends with, "And what's so absolutely compelling about all of it is that you truly have no idea how lovely you really are."

"Lovely? Me?"

It makes her smile, which she thinks was his intention, and her heart is teetering even more precariously on that ledge when his fingers reach to ghost over her cheek.

"I won't deny I want to make love to you," Wesley says softly. "But I only want whatever you're willing to share with me. And I know there is nothing more for us after I take you back to Sunnydale tomorrow. You have your life to live, and I have mine. If, because of that, you wish me to stop right now, all you have to do is say the word. I'll honor whatever it is you wish."

He is giving her the power to put a stop to this now. To prevent her heart from getting hurt if this isn't what she wants. All she has to do is say the word.

WESLEY

Perhaps his haste to surrender to the desire to kiss Willow so frequently is a portent of some fashion. A test of his fortitude. An assessment to prove his inability to escape the wrongs of his past.

If it is, he's already failed. In for a penny, in for a pound.

He doesn't remember the twinge in his arm when she touches him, brings those tiny, powerful hands to his chest and just holds him, like he's an anchor, like he can support her, but how can he, when kissing her like this proves to him that he can't even support himself? So he does what he can to make himself stronger. He cups his hand around the base of her neck and commands the kiss to deepen, forces her mouth to open wider, to allow him entrance, to seek and search the honeyed secrets she holds and pray they don't make him crumble when he finds them.

The world is trembling.

He is certain he will fall off its edge.

The soft brush of her collar against his clavicle reminds him of the delight in seeing her in his shirt again, the promises that she hid beneath the crisp cotton. Wesley drops his hand to her knee, and though the feverish sinew is tempting, his fingers drift up the line of her thigh. I just wish to touch her. I just need to feel the power of this woman for a single moment, and then I can let her go.

Her strength sizzles. Though he's convinced he's going to burn for this, he cannot stop.

And then the back of his hand brushes against the hem of the shirt, and the determination of what he'd been about to take falters. What if she doesn't want this? Except she's kissing him back, she's touching him like a woman does when she's willing. He vaguely remembers what that is like. But the niggle remains. It tempers his ardor. And when she gasps out loud, he can't help but think that his conclusion is correct, and breaks away.

Except for the twin flushes high on her cheeks, she is pale, frighteningly so, and his throat is too dry, too tight as he flashes on his attempts to re-animate her. "I'm---," sorry, he's going to say, but then she's kissing him again, harder, faster, hungrier, and he'd been right, she does want this, she wants him, she wants them.

And, oh, it feels like the heavens themselves have opened.

Because she is leaning into him, all soft and pliable and ready and willing. So hot, and smooth, and Wesley swears he can feel her heart pounding inside her chest when her breasts flatten against his skin. Or is that my heart? He'd forgotten that it could still beat, let alone trumpet so.

The shift has changed the fall of her shirt, billowing so that the hand that had hesitated on the threshold of its hem is now enclosed within its shelter, inviting him to advance, to explore what he's been dreaming of since the previous night. He moans---he can't help it---and finds the lacy edge of the pants she'd held---the pair she bought after deciding to stay---following its path with resolution.

Tomorrow may bring the need for penance, but tonight, Willow wants this, just as much as he wants her, and he grabs her ass to tug her onto his lap.

Wesley knows she can feel the hard line of his arousal pressing into the hot cleft between her legs; he'd placed her there on purpose. Do you see what you do to me? Do you feel how desirable I find you? He wants to smile when he hears her gasp, because this time, he knows it isn't fear that prompts the exhalation. She knows, as well.

But then she does the unthinkable.

Unthinkable to him, at least.

For he's never considered that the passion that drives him could be reciprocated quite so bluntly.

She squirms. Against his erection. Placing it very deliberately between the heated cheeks of her bottom, with only the cotton of his sweats and the flimsy lace of her panties separating them.

Wesley growls. He's never growled before. This is something new.

Hopefully, she didn't hear him.

All he wants is to feel her completely against him, around him, below him, and he moves without thought, tumbling her to the bed so that he doesn't have to worry about physics any longer in exploring her. The pillow bunches around them, but it's not enough to distract him from kissing her. She still tastes like sugar, and the irrational desire to know what the rest of Willow tastes like suddenly consumes him.

He murmurs her name when their mouths part, his tongue bent on memorizing every angle of her jaw. He must touch as well, and his hand mirrors his oral attention, finding the taut line of her abdomen, delivering tiny lines of fire from his fingertips to the nerves of her trembling skin. As if it knows for itself what is so near, his hard cock strains to be freed from his sweats, and it's only when he brushes against her pelvis that the humdrum of reality comes throttling back into the forefront.

He stops before he can't, and pulls away, trying to steady the erratic rhythm of his breathing. The sight of her swollen lips transfixes him. I did that. But when she asks what's wrong without even opening her eyes, Wesley realizes he is going to be the necessary voice of reason, and the flash of glee at being thrust into that role surprises him.

"Willow…look at me."

She does so automatically, and for a moment, he forgets what he was going to say. It takes the parting of her lips to speak again to prompt his own speech.

"Before we…take this further…" Before I lose all control. "…I need to know if…this is what you want."

Her eyes widen. Apparently, this is not what she expected him to say.

"Of course," and she's stammering in her haste in assure him, so adorably honest and sincere that he can't help but smile. It doesn't, however, make his next question any easier.

"Are you…prepared?" Well, that sounded foolish. That could mean anything. "I don't know what…precautions you normally take."

He almost says you and Oz, but checks himself in time. The last thing he wishes is to bring the name of the other man into their bed; they must already battle with his specter with every nuance of their every word. And when she stills beneath him, when even the flutter of her pulse calms in the hollow of her throat, Wesley has the answer he needs.

Rising from the bed, he crosses to his overnight bag and takes out one of the three condoms he has in it, halfway back to the bed before he spies Willow's perplexed aspect. "It's not what you think," he blurts. She believes I arranged all this. Dear Lord, what was I thinking? He has to fix this. He can't lose her. He can't lose this.

First, he gets rid of the condom, tossing it to the side so that he can take her back into his arms.

Then, he just begins babbling, hoping that some of his words will make sense, that she'll understand that he isn't a cad, that the condoms are months old and the bastion of a single man with dreams that often exceed his capabilities. He thinks she believes him, but when she finally speaks, he is struck dumb.

"What is this?" Willow asks. There is no artifice in her; she asks from the font of curiosity, though it's likely she's also seeking to protect her own interests by forcing him to declare his first.

But his silence stretches for too long, because he doesn't know what to share with her. And it's her turn to babble, to tell him it doesn't matter, she's just unsure, she only seeks to understand.

To understand.

Seeking.

Understanding.

He finally does.

"Willow," he begins, and he pushes back a lock of hair that clings stubbornly to her cheek. To be said tress. But he doesn't allow it to distract him from what he must say. He meets her eyes, and though the urge to drown in the strength that shines there is acute, he goes on.

"I've spent the last four months of my life trying to atone for my failures with Buffy and Faith." How it hurts just saying the names. "In the last twenty-four hours, you've managed to achieve what all that other time couldn't. I see you, and I see the power that you wield to hold your world together, and I start to believe in the good again. I…start to believe that it's possible to win again. To be…a man worthy of respect. Whether anyone else recognizes it or not, you have this gift to make those around you want to be better. To see the world as you do. To believe in it. To believe in themselves. This, with you, right now, is the single best thing to happen to me since I first set foot in this country. Because I can begin to forget. And I can begin to forgive. And what's so absolutely compelling about all of it is that you truly have no idea how lovely you really are."

Her blush of pleasure and her smile of delight at his choice of words are the only confirmations he needs to know he did the right thing. So, he continues, though she doesn't seem to need to hear the rest of it. Wes, however, needs to say it.

"I won't deny I want to make love to you," he whispers. How could he? His body is aching to return to touching her so freely, but he can't, not until it's all said. "But I only want whatever you're willing to share with me. And I know there is nothing more for us after I take you back to Sunnydale tomorrow. You have your life to live, and I have mine. If, because of that, you wish me to stop right now, all you have to do is say the word. I'll honor whatever it is you wish."

With nothing more to bare, he waits. Because it rests with Willow now.

Funny how fates could be decided so definitively just with the utterance of a single word.