"You think too much," Jenny said to him.
Giles opened his mouth to protest-- no, I do not think too much-- but in the next moment she plucked off his glasses and the audacity chased his words away. She untied the scarf from around her waist-- black silk, yards of it, heavy and rough under his hands-- and wound it around his forehead, blinding him. Once, twice around. She tied it at the back of his head. The tails hung heavy down his back. Giles sucked in a breath. She couldn't know. Couldn't. Though his reaction might have given it away already; he was trembling. He raised a hand and touched the silk.
"Jenny--" he said, but didn't know how to continue.
"Rupert, sweetie, you spend too much time in here." Jenny's hands rested on his temples. "You live there. Behind your eyes. Thinking, reading, watching. I want you to live here tonight." She rested a hand on his chest, over his heart.
"Oh," he said, foolishly. He searched for some other response that wasn't inane, but thinking was difficult. All his blood seemed to have rushed below his waist. He wondered if she'd noticed. He wondered what she was planning to do.
"Where were we?" she said. "What were you about to do, Rupert?"
"Ah. Um. Kiss you. If you seemed agreeable, that is."
"And why would I not be? See, this is what I mean, Rupert."
Giles laughed nervously. Her fingertips stroked down his face, down his neck, and rested on his tie. She tugged at the knot. Giles felt it loosen, felt the collar of his shirt open as she undid one button, two. He concentrated on keeping his breathing steady, on the warmth of her body brushing against his, on her scent, on the pleasure of arousal.
"What were you hoping would happen tonight?"
"I, uh, more of what happened Tuesday."
Tuesday night had been dinner, followed by Jenny's invitation to have a glass of wine. The wine bottle had sat open on the coffee table, driven entirely from mind by their fascination with each other, their first tentative kisses and caresses. The evening had ended with them stretched out side by side along Jenny's sofa, pressed against each other. Not quite ready to go to bed, but close, so close. In a state of sweet sexual frustration, tightened and heightened and wound until at last they would yield. Soon. Tonight? Almost certainly. All the sweeter for the delay, in Giles' opinion.
"Is that all?"
He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, then pulled them out. He felt faintly ridiculous again. He rubbed his palms against his trousers. "Well, I-- I had some ambition. That we might consider, ah--"
"Consider what, Rupert? Hmm?"
"Going to bed. But I wasn't in a rush."
"Mm. Is that how it is with you?"
Giles touched his hand to the scarf again, at once abashed and pleased by her perception. Jenny tugged at his tie, and he obediently took a step forward. Two steps, into the center of her living room. She pushed his jacket off his shoulders. Giles obligingly shrugged it all the way off. She whisked it away from him and stepped away. He took the opportunity to slip his watch off and into his pocket. Thinking again, he realized. Thinking, planning, plotting, looking ahead. It took more than a simple blindfold to blind the Watcher. As Jenny would learn.
He shifted his stance, balanced himself, and got himself oriented. Reached out with trained senses. Found her-- three steps away, by the sofa. Giles moved, seized her around the waist, and bore her down onto the sofa, giggling. He pinned her and slipped his knee between hers and showed her what he hoped would happen next. At last he kissed her. He'd never tire of kissing this woman. Never.
He pulled back to catch his breath again. He nuzzled under her ear. "I love that scent. What is it?"
"Honey, musk, and rose," she said. "Do you like it?"
Giles answered by biting gently along her throat, down her neckline, between her breasts, as far as her dress would allow him. She'd scented herself here as well. He groaned. It was driving him mad. He needed to see her.
He reached up to push off the blindfold, but she laid her hand over his.
"Do something for me," she said, breath on his cheek. "Leave it on. Trust me."
"Whatever you wish," Giles said.
"Oh, really?"
"Yes." And he shuddered again.
She squirmed out from under him. Now he was underneath her. She had an agenda, it seemed: one shoe pulled off, dropped, then the other. There went his tie, yanked out from his collar. Jenny's weight shifted. She moved down so that she was straddling his hips. Giles groaned and writhed under her. She ignored him and made her way down his shirtbuttons. His shirt, gone. His chest was bared to her gaze unseen by him, to the warm air of her flat, to her hands moving everywhere. Flickering touches, through the hair on his chest, over his nipples, tickling down his ribs. He reached up to seize her and stop her, but her weight was gone.
She gripped his hand, reassuring and firm, and tugged him up. Giles stood uncertainly. She led him forward. He was too aroused now to be aware of where he was, and he stumbled. She guided his hand to her waist.
"Trust me," she said, and he stepped forward more confidently.
She led him out of the living room, down what felt like a hallway, into another room. Hushed, quiet. It smelled like incense-- piñon and chaparral. Wonderful; not what he would have expected. Giles drew in a deeper breath, and felt a little more of the tension leave his back and shoulders. He felt safe in this room, though he wasn't sure why.
He heard the sound of a match striking, then Jenny moving. Candle wax. He could imagine what she looked like in the warm light, dark eyes and dark hair, pale skin over the deep red of her dress. He raised his hand to the scarf again, at his temple, but left it in place.
Hands on his belt, tugging. Giles resisted the urge to help, to bare himself more quickly. Belt open, trousers undone, unzipped, pushed down. He lifted one foot, then the other. A moment of uncertain vanity: would she admire him? He wanted desperately to hear that he pleased her. Rustling, and then a touch on his chest, trailing down his belly. A hand on his hip.
"Mmmmm, nice. The tweed hides more secrets, doesn't it, Rupert?"
Giles felt a flash of satisfaction, then her hand stroked down the underside of his penis, and he was unable to answer. He swayed, and reached out to steady himself against her. But she had moved, and was behind him. She touched his rump.
"Why do they allow you to wear clothes? It's indecent to hide this."
Giles smiled, then hid his mouth behind a hand.
"I saw that, English," she said, but he could hear the laughter in her voice. "Okay, to bed with you."
She pushed his chest. Giles staggered two steps backward, then the bed caught him in the back of the knees. He fell into sheer bliss: satin sheets, soft pillows. He wriggled himself into the middle of the bed.
"You just relax, sweetheart."
Giles lay on his back on her slick sheets and tried to obey. It was impossible. He strained his ears listening, trying to guess what she was doing. Undressing, he hoped. The bed shifted; she was with him now. Skin to skin, breath to breath. Giles wished he could be looking into her eyes, hoping that she could see in them how he felt, because he had no words for it. Couldn't say it. I think I'm in love. I might be in love. I'm scared and thrilled and please please touch me like that again. He kissed her desperately and wished her to guess.
Jenny urged him onto his back. She sank down onto him. He raised his hips to meet her. He swore under his breath.
"I heard that," she said, but her voice was unsteady.
And now the timeless rhythm of man and woman, moving together, pleasuring each other. He slid a hand up along her thigh, her flank, seeking her breast, as yet unseen. Cupped. Dared to pinch, and was rewarded with a gasp.
"I wish I could see you. Jenny."
"What do you think I look like?"
"Beautiful. You're beautiful. My darling Jenny."
She would be a dark-haired goddess, astride him. One hand touching herself, he hoped, the other stroking his belly. Head thrown back, as she got closer and her breath grew more ragged. He groaned and thrust up underneath her. He shifted himself so his feet were flat on the bed, for better leverage. And then she was shuddering around him and crying out. Giles nearly followed. Not quite, not quite. He held still, letting her ride out the last of the waves.
She collapsed forward onto his chest. Her hands were on his shoulders. Rings on her fingers, the pendant around her neck falling forward, resting on his chest. Giles breathed in her scent: honey and musk, sweat, sex. He wrapped his arms around her and rolled, took command, willing to wait no longer. He left the scarf around his eyes. His eyes were closed underneath it anyway. She wrapped her legs around his back, pulled him in deep, and shuddered again beneath him. That was enough to send him over.
He slid off and collapsed face-down on her bed. She sighed and stretched next to him. He rubbed his face against her arm, kissed the warm skin, then let his head fall onto her pillows. Marvelous. Perfect. Everything he'd hoped for.
At last she undid the knot at the back of his head, and unwound the scarf. Giles blinked, and rubbed a hand over his face. His eyes adjusted. Flickering candlelight, a four-poster bed, hung with patterned fabric, dark colors against white walls. He pushed himself up onto an elbow and looked at his new lover at last. She was beautiful, and perfectly comfortable in her nudity, lounging next to him. Her skin shone with sweat, and her hair was a scattered ruin. Her jewelry glittered against her skin, rings and earrings and pendant resting between small perfect breasts. Something glinted in her navel-- a gold ring, with a red jewel.
"Oh! That's where you, ah, dangle--" He touched it with a cautious finger, then smiled up at her. He blew breath against her navel and recited. "My well-beloved was stripped. Knowing my whim, she wore her tinkling gems, but naught besides."
She closed her eyes. "Mmm. I'm no sultan's slave."
Rather the reverse, Giles thought, but he occupied his mouth kissing his way up from belly to breast. A gentle kiss between, another hint of that honeyed musk, and then he sighed. He subsided next to her, his head on her shoulder, one arm across her waist. Jenny idly wrapped the scarf around his wrist. Giles held out the other to her, tentatively, wondering if she played those games as well. She froze for a moment, then bound his wrists together, loosely. Giles shivered, and let his joined hands rest on her thigh.
"You've done this before," she said. She tugged at the scarf gently. "Cheater."
Giles cleared his throat. "Yes."
"You like this."
It was not exactly a question, but he answered anyway. "Quite a bit."
"Oh, Rupert, we are going to have such fun."
thady
BtVS, Giles/?
prompt: revelations
kink: blindfolds
"Thank you for coming by, Buffy. I'm sorry about the short notice, but it's rather urgent."
Giles hadn't met her eyes since she'd come in the flat. Buffy began to feel nervous. What was he about to tell her? That he was going back to England? Her stomach felt funny when she thought about that idea. She freely admitted she hadn't seen much of him the last few weeks. Partly that was because Riley had thrown a jealous fit when she'd said she was thinking about training with Giles again. No, it was mostly because of that, and because Riley had invented things for them to do every time she tried to come over here. She'd had to tell him to get bent tonight, even.
Buffy was sick of that. She needed Giles' training, needed his special knowledge of Slaying and the occult. And it was past time she took charge of her life and did what she knew she needed. And what Buffy needed was a Watcher. Which wouldn't happen if Giles left. What was up? He was feeding her tea with little cookies. That said it was serious.
"Giles. This is killing me. Please just tell me what's up."
"I, I..." Giles shook himself, and when he spoke again his stammering was a little better. "I'm being blackmailed. Or rather, someone is trying to blackmail me, and I have told them to publish and be, be damned."
Buffy let her shoulders sag in relief for a moment. Then she tensed again. Somebody needed to have their head ripped off.
"Who?" she said.
"No one important to you. The information they're attempting to hide is important. The location and weakness of a demon new in town. They know of my connection to you, and were attempting to get me to hide it. I cannot... I cannot be used to protect demons." Giles still wouldn't look at her.
"Okay. I get that. What's the threat? Do you need me to stop it?"
"The threat involves you. I will tell you about the demon, you will Slay the demon, and then, ah. They will send photographs to you."
Buffy watched Giles's hands fidgeting with his teaspoon.
"There really isn't anybody else they could use against me," he continued, almost muttering. "I have no job, no other personal relationships. Nobody else matters to me as much as you do. I, uh, I will understand, Buffy, if you choose to, to avoid me after this."
"Avoid you more than I have been, you mean," Buffy said, drily.
"Well. It can get worse. Or so I have assured myself." He sounded endlessly sad, and worse. Resigned to it.
Buffy rubbed his shoulder, on impulse. Giles flinched. She kept rubbing, though, and he seemed to relax a tiny bit. "Okay, tell me what to expect. Photographs of what?"
Giles stiffened again. "Ah. Sexual activity."
"With what, a goat? 'Cause I gotta tell ya, regular old--"
"With a woman. A, a, professional."
"Oh," said Buffy. She thought about that for a bit. That had a lot of implications. At last, she said, "I'm not happy that my Watcher has to pay to get what he ought to be able to get from a regular smoochie-partner."
Giles flushed and cleared his throat. "Yes. Well. The reality is that I haven't been able to, to, to find a partner. And so I paid for it. And now I am paying again."
Buffy knew this had to be killing Giles, to go through exposing his private life to anybody. The idea that strangers had taken photos of him had to be hell all by itself. He looked like it was killing him, all hunched in on himself at the other end of the couch. "Hey. Giles. Don't worry. I promise not to hate you."
"Still. If you could refrain from looking at them, when they arrive, I would be obliged." He fumbled off his glasses and gave them a polish on his sweater.
"Right. Now tell me all about this demon I'm gonna kill tonight."
The package arrived two days later, in her dorm mailbox. A manila envelope, with a local postmark on it and no return address. Stiff from what felt like a piece of cardboard. A little thick. Buffy carried it up to her dorm room, tucked into the three-ring binder with her life sciences labwork. Willow was there, chattering about impending finals. Impending, hell; they were three weeks away and Willow was studying already. But Buffy couldn't do anything about the package while Willow was there to be curious about it. And she didn't want Willow knowing about this. Giles would die.
Willow took off around dinner time to hang out with Tara. Buffy continued with her English Lit reading for a little while after that, but the package was staring at her. Even hidden in the binder. She should burn it. Tearing it up probably wouldn't be enough. She dug in the drawer where she had a Zippo stashed away, for the naughtier sort of dorm parties, then stopped when she remembered she couldn't burn it in the dorm. Tonight on patrol, maybe? Would it catch fire all in a lump like that? Maybe she should burn the photos one at a time.
Buffy ripped it open and slid out the contents face-down. Photos, cover letter, sheet of cardboard. She counted. Twenty photos. Eight by ten glossies.
Buffy reasoned this way: If she didn't look, this would always work as a threat. If she didn't really, totally know all the way what Giles had to hide, somebody could always threaten to expose it. And how wild could it be, anyway? He'd said a woman. One woman.
She turned the cover letter over without reading it and looked at the first one. Okay, she could see why Giles didn't want people knowing about this. Yeah, it was sex with a woman, but it wasn't exactly vanilla. Vanilla didn't involve the guy on his knees with a blindfold on. And his hands tied. And wearing what Buffy had learned from Dorm Porn Night was a cock ring. Around what was a pretty impressive package, she had to say. Gotta hand it to the Watcher there.
Vanilla definitely didn't involve the stuff in the next few photos, either. Buffy had seen it all before, at the aforementioned Porn Night. And some of it she'd read about, in books that she kept hidden in boxes deep inside her closet where even Willow's curiosity wouldn't turn them up. The bondage video they'd run had had Buffy breathing hard in seconds. She'd hidden herself in the corner of the room and hoped nobody noticed. She was breathing hard again now.
Lucky Giles, who got to do some of that stuff, even if he paid for the privilege.
Though Buffy admitted, as she lingered on the one where Giles had come, she envied the woman in the photos more than him. You never saw more than her high-heeled boots and legs, and her hands with the whip and the other stuff, but in Buffy's book, she was having the most fun. Not that Giles wasn't. The expression on his face was amazing. Pained and ecstatic and wild. Buffy wanted to see it without the blindfold in the way. It was just that Buffy wanted to be making somebody else's face screw up like that. Be the one in charge.
She imagined doing those things with Riley. Good old solid soldier boy, with his hands tied in the small of his back and clamps on his nipples. Begging her. Buffy couldn't see it. That was never going to happen. Riley bitched when she wanted to be on top when they had sex. As if that meant anything at all.
The expression on Giles' face when she had said "bondage fun" to him once. The little dip of the head Giles made when she went into in-charge Slayer mode. The way Giles did what she ordered him to, when she bothered to. How amazingly turned on she was, right now, thinking about that first photo of him, just kneeling with his hands behind his back, cock jutting out.
Doing those things with Giles, now that would be hot. The thought of that careful, buttoned-up, controlled man, coming unglued, letting it all out. Oh, god. Pity he'd never consider doing it with her. He'd probably get all stuffy and talk about propriety. As if Watchers and Slayers hadn't been getting it on for centuries.
Buffy flipped back through the photos one at a time, paying careful attention to Giles' face. She knew him well, from years spent fighting together. Some of that stuff he loved, and some things he liked less. The top should have spent more time talking to him first. Buffy could do better, she bet.
She flipped back to the cover letter. Laser printed, her name in the salutation, then a single paragraph: "Perhaps you find this information as interesting as we did: He addressed her as Slayer."
Buffy slid the photos back into the envelope and locked it into her desk drawer, along with the Zippo. She sat back and thought. Planned. Seize the day. Bank balance, okay. She knew where the fetish shop was, and she knew that the tattoo and piercing place also carried BDSM stuff. But first, the university library. She had to know what she was doing, or this plane wouldn't fly.
The Slayer uncoiled herself from her chair and was in motion.
Five days after he and Buffy had cleared the nest of Kammer demons, at nine-thirty in the evening, Rupert Giles sat in his armchair, drinking two fingers of the Macallan neat and attempting to read a spy novel. He'd been staring at the same page for half an hour. He thought that he should probably give it up, toss back the whisky, and turn in early. He hadn't seen Buffy since they'd slaughtered the demons together, and he'd been on edge the entire time.
The demon's representative had to have followed through on the threat by now, and sent Buffy the photographs. Giles knew what they showed. The man had shown them all to Giles first. The bastard had been human, so Giles hadn't been able to kill him. Instead, he'd endured the humiliation for every second the man had wanted to draw it out.
And now his Slayer hadn't rung him or dropped by. Had she looked, despite her promise? Or was it just coincidence, and she'd simply forgotten about him again as she had so often this year? He had no idea.
Giles damned himself, his fetishes, every fool thing his willful cock had ever led him to do. Go to bed with Ethan. Raise demons. Seduce Olivia with lies. Hire that woman. Role-play with that woman. It had almost been worth it. Almost. To taste that release one more time. To be taken out of himself, purified, drained to serenity. Those moments of anticipation, feeling the bonds tight at his wrists and ankles, tugging at them and knowing himself helpless, the breathless wait for what would happen next, for the first touch of a merciless hand on him... God.
It wasn't going to happen again. He had to resign himself. The risk was too great. He was known as the Slayer's Watcher, here and in Los Angeles. There was no way he could find someone. It would be himself and his left hand, alone in his bed.
He wanted it worse than ever now that he knew he couldn't have it. Giles had a gulp of whisky and swore under his breath, deeply.
Someone knocked on his door. He twitched up from his armchair to answer it, but it opened before he finished standing. Buffy. She turned, closed it, and locked it. She stepped into his little living room area. She was wearing engineer boots and a leather jacket. Full Slayer mode, fierce and focused. Deadly and attractive. But the expression on her face was stormy.
Giles picked up his tumbler and had another gulp of whisky. Apparently the other shoe had dropped.
"Giles. Watcher." Buffy let her messenger bag slide to the floor.
"G-good evening, Buffy. What brings you here?" Disingenuous, pathetic.
"I have a problem. I think I know the solution, but I definitely have a problem."
"Oh! Er. What sort of..." Giles trailed off. She had advanced until she was standing in front of his fireplace.
"Stand up."
Giles had another pull of the whisky. What the hell was she up to?
She took the glass from him and sniffed it. She had a sip, shrugged, then put it on the mantel. "I believe I gave you an order, Watcher."
"Buffy, I--"
"Stand up."
Giles stood.
He thought about asking her again what was going on, but saw the look in her eye and decided against it. He stood watching her. He didn't know what to do with his hands. His palms were wet. He rubbed them against his jeans. He tried to breathe. When she'd snapped out those words, it had gone straight to his cock. This was not the time to be dizzy with lust for his Slayer. Again.
Buffy regarded him silently. She had another taste of his whisky. One booted foot was on the raised hearth. She was wearing black jeans. Tight jeans. Oh, God.
"Giles. We need to talk. About what was in those photographs."
"I asked you not to look at them!" Giles flushed red. Mercifully, his arousal faded.
"Well, I did. And I read the letter that came with them."
Giles had no idea what was in that letter, but whatever it had been, it had angered Buffy. Angered? Not exactly. The expression on her face was something else. Something far more frightening to him. She was intent, though to what purpose he could not guess. On humiliating him further?
Giles turned away. His shoulders were tight. Might as well get it over with. "Say what you need to say to me."
"Giles. Relax."
He snapped. "Why in sodding hell would I relax?"
Buffy took his arm and spun him around roughly to face her. "Giles. Calm down." She gave him a few moments, then said, "It's perfectly all right to want those things. What isn't all right is the way you got them. You laid yourself open to blackmail. You went to somebody else. You should have come to me."
Giles opened his mouth to protest, but found himself speechless. Eventually he sputtered out, "Buffy, don't be absurd."
Buffy advanced on him. He backed until he was against the wall beside his fireplace. She stood inches away. He could smell her leather jacket, the musky perfume she wore. He was half-hard again. His cock admitted what he wanted, even when he couldn't. Damnable fool.
"I've read Watcher diaries, Giles. I know what our predecessors got up to. We wouldn't be the first, or the last."
"You can't want--"
"But I do want. I want you. And I know that you want me."
"I don't--"
"Don't lie to me. I know you do. You called her Slayer."
Giles felt his world falling in on itself. Buffy's gaze on him was the only stable thing around him. He clung to it. She knew, and she was here, and she was... She wanted him? He flattened his hands against the wall, to hold himself up.
"I won't have you calling anybody else your Slayer, hear me? I'm your Slayer. I make you feel what you need to feel. I do those things to you. You're my Watcher, understand? Mine. Not going to share you."
"I haven't been your Watcher for a year," he whispered.
"Would you like to be my Watcher again?"
The shock of hope nearly brought him to his knees. "God. Buffy. You know I would."
Buffy said, "So. You will be my Watcher. You will train me, teach me, translate for me. Sharpen my sword. All that. In exchange, I will be everything you need in private. Your Slayer. Your mistress."
His mouth went dry, at the sound of that word from her lips. He fought to swallow. His mistress. He felt as if he were standing on the edge of a cliff. His Slayer was asking him to step off. No. He'd already stepped off. There was no going back on this conversation.
"An exchange," said Giles. His voice was hoarse. "Buffy, do you understand what you're offering me?"
"Yes."
"Have you, um, have you... done this before?"
"I don't have a lot of practical experience. Just reading. But I do know that what you want and what I want are a match. We go together."
She sighed. "I haven't been able to find anybody either. So many guys are either wimps or too macho. Like Riley. Think he's not a man if he's not on top. I've had enough of that. I want an adult. Somebody who knows himself."
Giles breathed out a nervous laugh. "I'm not sure I'm that. But I suspect I know myself better than your Riley does."
He stared at her boots, at the worn and creased leather, and thought hard. He wanted to say yes. God, he wanted to say yes. She was everything he'd ever desired in women: strong, willful, impish, quick-witted, capable. She was pure power and grace. She was the Slayer. Could he let himself say yes?
What would happen if he said no? She needed him. Needed his skills. He knew that. He knew it would kill her, eventually, if they carried on this way, and she were further separated from him.
He had to accept. For her own sake. And if that was rationalization, so be it. Giles surrendered, all in a heap.
"I... I accept your offer."
She shifted in place, sharply, as if preventing herself from moving to him.
"I will be your Watcher. And in exchange, you will, you will be..."
"Your mistress."
"My mistress." Giles whispered the last word.
She did move toward him then, stepping directly in front of him. He brought his head up and met her eyes. Solemn, intense, and pleased. She held out her hand to him, palm out. He pressed his hand against hers. "My Watcher."
"My Slayer."
She slipped her fingers between his and clasped his hand.
Giles reeled for a moment. The oath the Council had administered to him had been accompanied by lashings of stiff pomp and circumstance, but this simple exchange of words with his Slayer meant far more.
Buffy squeezed his hand. "We start tonight. I'll tell you what I want from you, as your mistress."
He swallowed, then nodded. "Buffy? Tomorrow. We'll discuss what I require of you, as your Watcher."
"Yes," Buffy said. Giles bent his head and kissed her hand.
Buffy took his whisky glass and settled herself in his armchair. "So. Let's talk."
"Talk?" Giles felt a moment of mingled relief and disappointment. Did she not want to follow through immediately?
"I need to know what you want."
"Oh. I, um." Jenny had done this to him as well, make him talk about things he'd never said aloud to anybody. She'd said she had to know, if she were to give him what he needed. And if Giles were to do this right, he'd have to reveal himself as fully to Buffy. How would she react? He rubbed his hands against his jeans again. His palms were still damp. He felt almost queasy from nerves.
"On your knees. Now. Right here." Buffy pointed.
He moved immediately to kneel at her feet, and folded his arms behind his back. He didn't dream of disobeying. That voice of command came naturally to her, Giles thought. As naturally as submission came to him. Giles couldn't believe he was doing this. His breath was coming fast. His chest felt tight. His head spun. He'd been half-hard since she'd ordered him to stand, and now this had taken him the rest of the way. He didn't dare reach into his jeans to adjust himself to make it more comfortable.
She was studying him. He wondered what she saw. He knew what he saw in her. She had changed so much in the last year. She'd had lovers, had been betrayed, had glimpsed the world of adulthood. She was no longer the girl who refused her destiny. This older Buffy would meet it head on. So much older than she'd been. And she'd always been wise beyond her years. The gift and curse of the Slayers, that her life would be lived more intensely than the lives of ordinary girls. But, ah, a lovely light.
What would she be like in bed? What pleased her? What would she do to him? Giles wanted to know. Needed to know. Would know before the evening was through. He watched her watching him. His hands were not trembling only because they gripped his arms behind his back.
"Okay, Giles. Tell me all about yourself. How did you get started with this?"
He opened his mouth to speak, but it was difficult. He fixed his gaze on her boots. It was easier not to look at her. Giles still could not speak.
"Let's start losing the armor. Take off your shoes and socks. And your sweater."
Giles obeyed, and set them to the side, the jumper neatly folded. He returned to his kneeling position. It was easier to take off his clothes than to tell her his secrets.
"Talk," she said. Commanded, rather. He twitched reflexively in response, and cleared his throat to obey.
"I've had fantasies about it since I first knew it was possible. But I mostly... the first lover who... it was Ethan." He looked up at her anxiously. She hadn't known about his bisexuality before this. She looked amused, and not surprised in the least.
"Giles. Relax." She held out his glass of whisky to him. He kept his hands behind his back and let her feed him a few sips. "I figured out about Ethan. So, did you confess your fantasies to him?"
"No. He discovered it. He dripped candle wax on me when we were, ah, having sex. By accident. He was trying to move the thing out of the way. And I didn't react the way he expected."
"Where did it land?"
"My chest. Just here." Giles rested two fingers below his collarbone.
"What did it feel like?"
"Surprised me. Hurt, but felt so bloody good. All mixed up with how turned on I was. Ethan took one look at me and did it again. He pinned me down."
He remembered that moment: his involuntary moan, and Ethan's startled eyes meeting his. Then the intent look on Ethan's face as he did it again while Giles held himself as still as he could. The hot wax-spatter on his chest, his almost wild excitement at the pain, Ethan's hand on his throat holding him in place. Ethan's delight in the discovery, and the savagely methodical manner in which he explored it over the following days. They hadn't talked about it at all. Ethan had silently acted, and Giles silently submitted.
"That guy pinned you?"
Giles smiled briefly. "I was much scrawnier at the time. And I wanted to be pinned. So he was my first."
"Have you been with a lot of men?"
"A few. Mostly not in, ah, this sort of relationship. I tend to be dominant with men, Ethan aside. And submissive with women. I... well, I have a theory about that." He looked away from her, at her boots on the rug next to him. She nudged his knee, gently, with a boot.
"It's, um, the Watcher training. They condition us, I'm fairly certain, from a young age. To admire power in women. Physical power. Fighting prowess. Everything the Slayer is. And long to serve it. To... bluntly, to worship our Slayers."
"Aha," said Buffy, very quietly. "That's why your fantasy was to call the dominatrix Slayer."
Giles flushed again. He couldn't look at her.
"There is no shame here, Giles. I'm happy you want that. I'm going to give it to you for real."
"Thank you," he said. A flood of strong emotion that he couldn't name welled up in him, and he bent to kiss her boot. He lingered for a moment, then her hand was on the back of his neck, pressing him down, gripping hard. He sighed in satisfaction. His worries that she would be tentative because of inexperience faded. She released him. He knelt up again, cautiously, and met her eyes. He saw approval there. She liked the little gestures, then. He would be careful to please her with them.
"Take off your shirt," she said. Giles immediately pulled it over his head and folded it. She was slowly stripping him bare. Oddly, more slowly than he would have, if he were in charge. He'd be naked already. Jenny had always said he needed to learn patience.
"What made you buy it from someone?"
"Desperation. It had been so long, I... I couldn't find anyone. Either they got frightened off by the Hellmouth, or they were, were, were killed by it. Jenny-- I couldn't risk that again. Getting involved with someone seemed... impossible. But I wanted the sensations. I thought... I thought it could be safe."
She reached out, then, and stroked his face. Giles closed his eyes and opened himself to the touch, to her wordless sympathy and affection.
She gave him another sip of whisky. It was helping. She coaxed it all out of him like that, gradually. A taste of whisky, a question, another secret yielded. It helped that he'd done this before, with Jenny, who'd taught him words for some of his more intense desires. It all came out. The jolt of pleasure he felt when his lover took command of him. The sweet terror of helplessness. The need to have control stripped from him, so that he could be carried beyond himself, let himself feel. His tangled emotions about pain: need, craving, fear. The floating euphoria of the trance-state. The build to breaking point, when he at last surrendered himself to his mistress' will, when he at last let go of himself.
Catharsis, he said to her, and watched her anxiously to see if she understood. She nodded, serious and respectful as she'd been all evening. He recognized the expression on her face. She was thinking deeply, her gaze somewhere over his head. She refocused and smiled at him.
"I can give you what you need," she said.
God, may it be so.
She fed him the last of the whisky. He wasn't drunk, not in the least, but he was smoothed out, damped down by it. He might have fled his own flat in terror without it. He wished he'd had the courage to ask her to bind him immediately.
Buffy stood and carried the tumbler to the kitchen. Giles remained where he was, on his knees, because she had not given him leave to stand. He heard her moving around, opening the refrigerator. She returned with a bottle of spring water. She sat in his armchair again and drank a little. She didn't offer him any.
"Okay. Next. What don't you like?"
Giles sighed. This part of the catechism was more frightening. Ethan would ask him what he didn't like, and then do exactly that. Buffy, he reminded himself, was no Ethan. "I don't like humiliation. Ethan used to like to do that to me, but I... I like being valued."
"Valued for the gift you give to your top, of your body. Your pain and compliance."
Giles was a little surprised she understood this. "Yes, exactly. As I value the gift my mistress gives me, of her attention and her, her, her--" Giles broke off. He didn't have a word to use other than "love", and he didn't want to bring that up with Buffy yet.
There were a few more things he couldn't abide, not even to please a demanding top, but those were easily dismissed by Buffy as uninteresting to her as well. At last she was satisfied. She leaned forward, focused on him with new intensity. His mouth went dry again at her expression. Her hand would be on him soon.
"Right," she said. "I think that's enough talk. It's time to give you a taste of that helplessness."
"Take off your belt and give it to me," Buffy said.
Giles obeyed. She took it from him and examined it as if considering what to do next. "Buffy? May I make a suggestion?"
"Go ahead."
"If you, if you wish to, to bind me, I have some gear you might find useful."
"Bring it to me."
Giles rose smoothly to his feet and padded up the stairs to his loft. It was all in the back of his clothes closet. He came down with a cardboard box. He'd stored the gear when Jenny had died, and it had been a long time before he'd been ready to experience those sensations with somebody else. And then he'd been fool enough to think a professional would be discreet. He laid the box at Buffy's feet and returned to his knees. It was rather a lot; some of Jenny's equipment had been in his flat when she'd died, and he'd had no idea how to return it to her family without enduring an agonizing conversation.
Buffy opened them and began removing the contents. New tools set at the ready for the Slayer, each a weapon to be evaluated solemnly.
Several riding crops. A leather flogger. A horsehair whip. A paddle. Wrist and ankle cuffs in heavy black leather. Carabiners and quick releases. Rope and chain. Nipple clamps. A velvet bag with a selection of cock rings in it, including a thick metal ring that he'd loved wearing. Sometimes the sensation of it snug and heavy around his cock and balls had been the only thing making Snyder's staff meetings bearable.
A few boxes with plugs, some silicone, some metal. Buffy examined each of them carefully, then returned them to their boxes.
And a wide leather collar with a buckle and rings. The first leather he'd ever owned. Or been owned with. Ethan had come home with it, probably stolen, the day after he'd discovered that his friend liked it rough. Giles recalled the feeling of it around his neck, buckled tight. He had worn it through some of the most intense experiences of his life. The leather had softened with age and use, but it was still solid. Heavy. He licked his lips.
Buffy was watching him. "Do you want to wear this?"
"God, yes. Forgive me, that is, if it pleases you."
Buffy smiled at him. "I like knowing you're eager. So long as you're not pushy, that's fine."
She came around behind him and wrapped it around his neck. As he'd hoped, she pulled it snug, so he felt it. He felt her tuck the buckle end through and moaned. She tugged at it again. Giles arched his back in response. She held him firmly, one hand on his collar, one around his chest. She slid her hand down to rest above his navel.
"Are you hard under those jeans?"
"Yes," he whispered.
"You like this, don't you." She pulled at the collar again.
"Yes. Oh, God. So much."
"This will be our sign, then. When you're wearing this, you're mine."
She undid the top button of his jeans and slipped her hand down inside, over his belly. Her fingers brushed down, tantalizing him. She still had a hand on his collar, pulling him back against her. Giles could feel her breasts pressed against his back, her breath on his neck, her knees between his. She was small. Deceptively small. She could hold him in place effortlessly if he decided to struggle.
Giles melted. "Oh, God," he whispered. "Please. Take me. Do what you want with me. Anything. Please." He rocked his hips, trying to coax her into touching him. Those hands, Slayer-hot, on his skin, so close to where he burned.
She pulled her hand away. He whimpered in dismay, but a moment later she had her hand on him, cupping him through the jeans. Squeezing. He groaned and thrust into her hand. Then it was gone again and she was standing, pulling him up with her with that amazing strength. The strength that made him dizzy.
She released him and returned to the armchair. He remained where she'd left him, his arms still folded behind his back. She'd given him no specific orders, but already he knew she liked the little reminders, the little cues in his bearing. He would gladly give them to her, teach her what she might wish to demand from other lovers.
"Jeans off," she said.
Giles unbuttoned his jeans and slid them off. He folded and added them to the little pile of his clothing. His modesty. His reservations. His decorum. The little pile of everything he'd been told about how to behave with his Slayer, how to treat her, how to manage her. As if he'd ever managed Buffy. She'd owned him from the first. They'd raised him to love her, and keep her alive, and serve her, and here he was. Standing before her nearly nude, hands behind his back, head down, the proof of his devotion and service tenting out his boxers.
"The rest of it. Shorts off too."
Giles hid a little smile when he turned to add his underwear to his discarded armor. The first sign of impatience in his Slayer.
He turned back to her and clasped his hands behind his back. Her eyes were on his cock. He hoped she liked what she saw. Most of his lovers had. He was suddenly self-conscious. She'd been with beautiful men-- the sculptured undead Angel, and now the soldier boy with his artificial strength. Young men, or men with the appearance of youth, anyway. Not his all-too-human middle age.
Before his worry could spin into fear, she was speaking again. "Kneel. Spread your legs. Wider."
He obeyed. This, this he loved. Waiting on his knees before his lover. Awaiting her pleasure.
"So beautiful," she said, quietly, as if to herself. She was still looking at his cock. Then, to him she said, "There are some things I want to do with you tonight. I want your consent first."
Giles almost laughed, but fortunately controlled himself. He was naked, on his knees, aching for her hand on him, and she wanted to discuss consent. Jenny had made a big fuss over that as well. Ethan had simply done to him what he'd wanted.
"Buffy. Anything you want. I... What do you desire of me?"
She wanted to put him in bondage. She wanted to whip him, to hurt him, to use all his toys on him. She wanted to take him to bed and give him pleasure. She would ask before she drew blood. Ask before she left permanent marks. Ask before she involved anyone else. Simple things. What he had expected. It had all been done to him before.
Giles inclined his head and consented. He was disinclined to deny his Slayer anything she asked for, even when she demanded the right to leave visible marks on him tonight. Giles consented to that with a shaky voice, more from the thought of what she'd do to him than from the idea of others knowing. Then he thought about how long it had been since he'd flaunted the evidence of a lover. He'd required-- requested, rather-- that Jenny not leave any traces that would excite the interest of the students. Or any school personnel. He had no such restrictions on him now.
Tomorrow, when he went out, everyone would know he had a lover.
"Hmm, you like that idea," Buffy said. She had a wicked grin on her face. "I do too. But I have something serious to take care of tonight. I need to punish you for not coming to me first."
"Oh. Yes. Of course," he whispered.
"I'll let you decide part of your punishment. Which of these do you want me to use on you?" She indicated the whips laid out on his coffee table.
Giles opened his mouth, but was unable to speak for a moment. She wanted him to choose. Not just consent to the pain, but choose how it would be given to him. Jenny had never done this to him. Clever. Buffy would not be satisfied with a minor punishment, a wrist-slap. Not if she was the mistress he wished her to be. He thought fast.
"I don't have a cane. That would be traditional. Six of the best. Absent that... The riding crop, please, Buffy. On my back and thighs. Hard enough that I'll be reminded every time I sit down for days."
"Hard enough to draw blood?"
Giles swallowed. "If, if it pleases you."
She smiled, and this time it was a feral smile. Frightening. "I like your plan. Hard enough so you'll feel it for days. And I'll draw blood with the last stripe. All right?"
Giles consented. His mouth was dry. He'd been in this position before. Jenny had whipped him that much, once. The memory was precious. He hated the suffering while he was in the midst of it, but the rush, the rush would be worth it. The flood of release afterward. He craved it, but could not give himself that sensation. He needed a merciless hand on him. Ethan, Jenny, and now Buffy.
"Let's begin," Buffy said to him, and stood up. Giles squeezed his eyes shut. He heard her leather jacket hit the floor, then her quiet step behind him.
Buffy walked slowly around her Watcher, her new lover. He was completely naked save for the collar. He was on his knees, his thighs well-spread. His arms were folded behind his back. His eyes were closed tight. His chest and face were flushed, and he was breathing hard. No wonder. He was as hard as Buffy had ever seen a man get. His cock was leaking.
Giles looked different out of his clothes. Without the baggy sweaters, or the layers of suit-coat and vest and shirt, he was a man. Not a textbook with arms. A man, with hair on his chest and more on his stomach, and a little bit at the very bottom of his spine. A handsome man. That jaw was magnificent.
Buffy thought it was time to touch him. She rested her hands on his shoulders. He flinched under her, then calmed himself. She ran her hands over those shoulders, feeling the surprising muscle. Down his back, over his glutes. She spread those with her hands and bent to look at his ass. Then around to his front. He met her eyes for a moment, then cast his gaze down. She pinched his nipples, hard, and held on. He gasped and moaned and arched his back. He moved into her hands, not away.
She released him. He held his position, offering his chest to her. She stroked her thumbs over his cheekbones. He closed his eyes again. She slipped two fingers into his mouth and he sucked eagerly. It was everything Buffy had dreamed. A pliant, sensitive submissive, someone she respected deeply, someone whose surrender was valuable. A strong man, willingly going to his knees for her. She had to be worthy of him. Keep her game up.
While Giles sucked on her fingers, she considered her next move. She'd come prepared to wing it and use his belt on him. All this gear was an unexpected bonus. She definitely wanted to hurt him tonight. Punishment was only part of it, she knew. She'd have had to hurt him anyway, to make his new status clear to him, and to give him what he craved. And for her own pleasure, of course. She was hot to see his face and hear him cry out. And see the traces she would leave on his skin.
First, a cock ring. Buffy chose a wide leather ring, and snapped it on tight. Giles whimpered when she touched his cock. It was big, far bigger than Riley or Parker had been. It was like Angel's, who'd been more unusual than she'd realized. It felt nice, hot and smooth, hard below the skin. She played with his foreskin. Riley didn't have one, and she hadn't had the chance to explore Angel's. It was sensitive, apparently. Giles was tense under her hands as she stroked him, trembling and tight and obviously struggling not to move. He was making the most wonderful noises, soft groans and little wordless pleas.
Buffy let go. His hips moved, thrusting into air, then he managed to get himself back under control. It was going to be fun working him to a state where he forgot to do that. Or didn't want to any more.
Next, cuffs for his ankles and wrists. Buffy chose the wrist gauntlets for him. He looked good in them. He'd probably look good in a harness as well. He shook a little as she buckled the cuffs tight. Sensation overload? She paused to stroke his hair, calm him down.
She lifted him to his feet again, since that had made him groan and swear under his breath before. She grabbed a few loops of rope, then led him upstairs to his loft.
Buffy bet that she wouldn't have to improvise here. Giles would probably have a bedroom all prepared for play. And she wasn't disappointed: there were eye bolts at top and bottom of each post of his four-poster, in discreet black. Eyebolts were also spaced along the rail at the foot. Buffy thought for a moment, then bound him spread-eagled to the posts at the foot of the bed, facing in. She pulled the ropes taut, so he had no play at all. She tied the knots so all she need do was pull the tag to release him. He'd taught her those knots.
She grinned, and took a step back to look at him. Magnificent. All stretched out and helpless. The muscles in his back and arms bunched. He was testing his bonds.
"Okay?" she asked him. He nodded, though his legs were spread wide enough that it had to be a little uncomfortable.
She laid the riding crop across the bed, where he could see it, and left him there. She went downstairs and shut up the apartment for the night. She put the whips back into the box, with the exception of the flogger. She tucked that into the waistband of her jeans, in the small of her back. She snagged another bottle of water. Giles was sweating a lot, which meant he'd need water.
When she went upstairs again she found him trembling in his bonds. She pulled off her boots and climbed onto the bed to hold him tight. "You okay, Giles?"
"Yes. God. I just... can't believe it's really happening. Wanted this so much. Can't believe you want it."
"Believe it. You are so amazingly sexy like this. I had no idea. Look at you. So hard. So helpless."
Buffy caressed his face and kissed his mouth for the first time. He returned the kiss eagerly, opening his mouth and allowing her in. He whispered her name and kissed her again. He was a pleasure to kiss. He tasted like the whisky. He smelled like leather and bay leaves and tea. He licked her lips and sighed and kissed along her jaw. God, she could do this all night. Someday soon she would.
Buffy pulled away. "More of that later, mister. Right now we have the matter of your whipping to attend to." She picked up the riding crop and showed it to him. His face changed. Fear and craving at once, she thought.
She put the crop back on the bed and slid down. The guy was so magnificent out of his clothes. She laid a hand on his ass. There ought to be a law against him wearing clothes and covering this up. Buffy grinned to herself. She could make a law like that, maybe, for nights when they were alone.
She gave him one last caress down his back and took the flogger out of her belt. She swished it at the air experimentally a few times, getting the feel of it. The Slayer skills were a big help here: she had absolute confidence in her ability to swing this thing exactly as hard as she wanted to, and hit exactly what she wanted. The question was how much Giles wanted. Her plan was to start slow, build, and watch his reactions. And then take him one notch further than he thought he wanted to go.
She knew his apartment walls were thick. Nobody had ever complained about demon fights going on inside. She wanted to hear him.
On a wicked impulse, she aimed a blow at the bedpost. The flogger tails snapped, and Giles' whole body jumped. He held himself tense, then slowly relaxed. Buffy smacked the bedpost again. He flinched again. Before he could relax this time, she swung again, this time at his ass. A very light stroke.
"What--" he said.
She swung again, a little harder. "I don't need any questions from you right now, Watcher."
She got into a rhythm with it. She wasn't hitting him hard, just enough to get his attention and keep it. Warm him up everywhere she intended to mark him with the riding crop. He'd gone silent and still after her warning, but he was definitely breathing harder. And yes, finally a gasp from him. When his gasps had built into moans, she stopped.
She caressed his ass. It was hot under her hands. Hot and reddened and sensitive, judging by how Giles flinched when she touched him. Perfect. While she was there, she took advantage of the easy access to his cock and balls. She experimented with squeezing to see how he reacted. Beautifully: he was moaning. She paused to run a fingertip around his entrance. He made more sounds; the man was entirely alive and sensitive to everything she did. It would be neat to penetrate him, open him and plug him up. He'd confessed he loved being fucked. Next session, maybe. There was plenty of time, and no reason to give him everything he wanted at once. Maybe she'd make him beg for it.
She went around and climbed onto the bed to check on him.
"Buffy," he said, in a husky voice. His face was dreamy. He was sweating freely. She offered him the water bottle again. He took a sip, then shook his head.
"Doing okay?"
"Oh, God, I..."
"Did you like that?"
Eyes closed for a moment, then a nod. "Yes."
"Good. Because you're about to get more."
"Oh, God."
"You're going to scream for me. Mmm, you look scared. Good. Afterwards I'm going to let you go down on me. Would you like that?"
Giles nodded again, frantically. "Oh, God, please, yes, my Slayer."
Buffy broke it off and got down off the bed. She took the riding crop this time. Time for the main act. She shifted her grip on the handle and considered his ass. She had to be careful now; reading wasn't the same as practical experience here. She didn't want to injure him by accidentally using Slayer strength. She'd save the savagery for the last blow. How many? Ten. Spaced out evenly, to make nice stripes. Then the last right across his butt.
Buffy rubbed the crop against Giles's legs for a moment, then flicked her wrist. The crop whistled, and it made a wonderful smack when it hit his ass. Giles went very still and tense. Buffy examined the welt closely, pressing at it with her fingers. It was dark red. She backed off a little and aimed for just below the first one. Giles jumped and then was still. She did it again, a little harder, and he made a sound. Not hard enough, she guessed. A little harder for the next one. This sort of fine control was trivial for the Slayer: it was a little game to line them up and space them perfectly, while Giles moaned and writhed and pulled at his bonds. She waited for him to come still, then struck again.
After the fifth, she checked on him. He was breathing in gasps and there were tears on his face. She rested her hand against his cheek, and he pushed his face into it.
"Don't fight it," she said to him. "Yield to it."
He took another deep breath.
"Scared?" He nodded. "Trust me. You have to let go and trust me."
"I do," he said. His voice was husky and whispery. He turned his head and kissed her palm. Buffy kissed his mouth again. This time he tasted salty.
Buffy slipped around behind him and caressed his ass again. It was very hot under her hands now. He whimpered a little when she scratched at the welts with her fingernail.
She stepped back, and with no warning landed blow number six across his buttocks, harder than before. He cried out and pulled hard enough at his bonds to make the bed creak. Perfect. She gave him four more just as hard, moving down until the last was across the middle of his thighs. He moaned and writhed with each one. His backside was marked up beautifully.
And now the final blow. Buffy put a little Slayer into that one. Whistle, crack, and that was definitely a choked-back scream, followed by whimpering. She had indeed drawn blood. Buffy was smug. Her first whipping had gone well.
Buffy moved back onto the bed, where she could see his face. More tears. He was flushed, and breathing hard. His chest and sides were dripping with sweat. She pushed his wet hair off his forehead, tenderly. She held the crop to his lips and he kissed it.
Buffy lifted his chin so he met her eyes. "You're mine now. If you need anything, you come to me and ask for it. I'll give it to you. Anything, Watcher. Understood?"
"Understood, my Slayer. Thank you." His voice was strained, and he was sagging against the ropes. Time to let him down. And besides, Buffy as hot as she'd ever been in her life. Hot and wet and open, all wrapped up in her jeans. She knew what she wanted from Giles next.
Buffy released Giles from the ropes. He slumped over the bedrail, then made an effort and stood up straight. He put his hands behind his back again, without being prompted. He'd been excellent all evening, keeping himself in submissive postures and making sweet gestures like kissing her boots, even now when he had just endured a whipping. Buffy felt a wave of affection for him rush over her. Such courage he'd shown, letting her do this to him. Trusting her so much, when she'd been so erratic before.
She slipped an arm around his waist and helped him over to the bed. She arranged him on his side curled around her with his head in her lap. She stroked his hair and face. He looked drained but serene, his eyes heavy-lidded. She fed him water in slow sips. He drank and sighed and wrapped his arms around her legs.
"How you doing? How do you feel?"
His voice was a little slurry when he answered. "Hurts. 'Ll hurt for days. So good, I feel so good. So-- oh, yeah, please, oh.."
She had taken his erection in hand and was caressing him slowly. He closed his eyes and thrust into her hand, almost involuntarily. The control she'd seen him display earlier had been stripped from him, possibly by the pain, possibly by the semi-trance he was in. Endorphin haze. He made little sounds, soft groans, more pleas to her to touch him.
Time for pleasure for him, now. And for her.
"Would you like to come tonight?"
His hand tightened on her knee. "Please, yes, Buffy, please, God, wanna come for you."
"You will, because you have been so good. But not until I tell you you may. Understood?"
"Understood, my Slayer." He kissed her leg where his face rested.
She cupped his balls, gave them a good squeeze, then released him. He whimpered in protest and opened his eyes. "On the floor, please. On your knees."
Giles shook himself and came out of his haze a little. Not fully. He was in a state Buffy had never imagined him in, mind on hold for the demands of his body. He knelt on the floor and spread his knees wide without being asked, but his face was still transformed by pleasure and desire and strain. His cock was red, urgently erect between those spread thighs. Buffy wondered which demand was foremost in his mind: the darkening stripes across his buttocks, or that cock? Or were they all mixed up?
He was fully alert now and watching her. He licked his lips again, a signal to Buffy that something in front of him was desirable. Her. It had to be her. Buffy stood, and removed her shirt. Yes, it was her. He was riveted, mouth a little open, body shifting forward slightly.
Buffy stripped slowly, carefully, methodically. She knew she looked good, and knew that Giles would like her tone, all the muscle that said she was his deadly Slayer. And indeed he watched her eagerly, moaning a little as she revealed his goddess to him. At the last she turned her back on Giles and bent to remove her panties. He groaned behind her and muttered something in that husky voice. She turned to him.
"What was that?"
His gaze moved everywhere on her, returning again and again to her sex. "So beautiful. You said I could--- you said you'd let me-- God, want to so much. Please? Let me taste you?"
Buffy smiled down at him and ran her fingers through his hair. "Yeah, you can. Make me happy. Make me want to let you do this again."
She sat on the edge of his bed, heels on the edge of the frame. She tugged Giles over to kneel before her.
"How should I... may I use my hands?"
"Use your imagination. Do your best. Worship me."
"God, yes, Buffy, I will, I do."
Giles kissed her bare feet, one at a time, on the instep. He slid his hands up her legs, rubbed his face against the inside of her knees. He parted her thighs gently, easing her open. His avid gaze did not move from her sex. Buffy leaned back on her elbows and watched his face. This didn't always work for Buffy. Sometimes she was slow to respond to it. But she'd let him have fun, let him get her all excited.
He kissed the inside of her knee, then brushed his lips over the other knee. He switched from left to right, slowly moving up her thighs to her sex, kissing softly, flickering his tongue on her skin. His breath was hot and damp. Buffy felt herself open for him, and he hadn't even touched her directly. He was breathing over her, brushing his hand over her mons. Was he ever going to lick her?
No! He was kissing up her belly, nuzzling her navel, rubbing his face against her. He stopped just below her breasts. He was leaning against her, his arms around her. His skin was hot against her belly and back. He kissed between her breasts, then looked up at her.
"May I?"
"Yeah," she said, breathless.
He ran his tongue gently up her breast and licked around the aureole before closing his lips around her nipple. He sucked and licked. Buffy felt herself harden under his mouth. He moved his head to the other breast, and kissed it to arousal. Buffy cradled his head in her arms. His hair was damp under her hands. He looked up and met her eyes as he sucked. Buffy had never seen Giles look so happy as at that moment.
She pushed him gently down, and he released her to lick his way downward again, as slowly as he had made his way up. When he finally kissed her sex, she shook in a single hard spasm. Anticipation, shock, a thrill running from her sex out. He teased at her clitoris, tracing delicately from her opening up with a tongue-tip then moving away. Buffy moaned, wondered distantly if she should be that out of control, then decided she didn't care. Because his tongue was tracing around her again, and she knew it wasn't going to be a matter of if, but how many times. She let her head fall back. Let herself make noise for him as he teased her again and again.
He thrust his tongue into her, then withdrew. Buffy moaned in protest, then had to bite it back because he'd slid a finger into her and was sucking her clit gently and flickering his tongue over her, and it was already building in her, already inevitable. The wave broke over her, and she cried out and shuddered around him. He eased off and kissed her soothingly. Then just when the waters had receded, he slid another finger into her and licked hard, once, twice, and she was shuddering again. He would have done it a third time, but she pulled herself together enough to stop him with a hand in his hair.
He leaned his head against her thigh and smiled up at her. His face glistened with moisture, with sweat and her juices. He didn't seem to care. He looked almost smug. Next time she'd tie his hands behind his back, make him work harder. But for now, Buffy was happy she hadn't. He knew what to do with the privilege, how to use those fingers.
"Nice," she told him. Her voice was unsteady.
"Thank you, my Slayer," he said, still with that faintly smug expression.
Her hands were trembling from her orgasms, but she had enough control of her body to lift him to his feet again and push him back onto the bed. He winced when his backside met the bedsheets; no more smug look. She clipped his wrists together, then ran a loop of rope through another one of those convenient eyebolts. Giles' bed was serious. Seriously convenient. Which was the point. He must have done this a whole lot with Miss Calendar, Buffy realized. Okay, not the time to think about that. Instead, think about Giles, all spread out underneath her, legs apart, panting, rocking his hips in an effort to entice her, to brush himself against her.
Or maybe it was just that he was completely out of control now that she'd bound him again. It was amazing. Buffy sat back on her heels and stroked a hand over his thighs and watched him writhe. She shifted to kneel between his thighs and run her hands up his flanks, over his chest, and back down. Slow soothing massage. He settled under her hands.
"Yeah, that's it, sweetie. Relax. I've got you. Yeah, like that."
Buffy took a cue from him, and kissed her way slowly up his legs to where his cock lay along his belly. She hovered there for a moment, not touching him. Giles groaned. He'd lifted his head and was watching her. Next time she'd blindfold him and surprise him.
She licked him from root to tip. Giles bucked, so she did it again. Licked him all over until he was moaning non-stop, and then pulled away. She straddled him and took his cock in her hand, positioned it just so. Let the tip slide inside. Another little shock-shiver of anticipation as it slid in, her body gathering itself for pleasure to come. Giles thrust his hips up, trying to push himself all the way inside. Buffy rose and stayed just beyond him, tantalizing him.
"Hold still," she said. Giles froze in place.
She lowered herself onto him slowly, as slowly as she could. He filled her wonderfully, stretching her just enough. He held himself still, as ordered, but it was a near thing. His eyes were closed and his lips were moving, repeating something under his breath that Buffy couldn't catch.
He was all the way inside now. It was good, so good. Buffy moved over him slowly, until the urgency built and she had to go faster, had to seek the finish. One hand on his chest, pinching his nipple, one hand on herself, circling, Giles's cock moving inside her-- buffy felt the wave rising rising again, cresting, taking her and carrying her.
When she could think again, she looked down at her Watcher. Giles was still hard and thrusting inside her. His face was desperate.
"Please," he said, "God, please, have mercy. I can't--"
"Go ahead, Giles. Come now." She reached down to where their bodies joined and flicked the cock ring open. Giles thrust up under her. She moved down to meet him, and he was coming, bucking and gasping and crying out her name and swearing. His face was everything she'd wanted to see: pained, ecstatic, wild, completely out of control. When he was still again, she stretched herself out on top of him, head on his chest. He softened inside her. He was sweaty and rumpled and flushed all over. About as un-stuffy as a man could be.
Buffy rolled off him and undid his cuffs. Giles flexed his arms and legs and groaned. He sat up and found the water bottle and drank. Buffy reclined on her side and watched him. He splashed some of the water on his face, then drained it dry.
"You okay?"
"Mmm." He wrapped his arms around her and burrowed his face into her shoulder.
"That was what you needed?"
"Perfect, my Slayer. Thank you." His voice was a mumble against her. Buffy realized he was already more than halfway asleep. Well, she couldn't blame him.
That had been good. More work than she'd realized it would be, but it had been satisfying work. Giles' face, his cries, the way he'd writhed under her blows: it had been amazing and exciting. Better than she'd expected. The thrill of having so much power over somebody else, of knowing that somebody else had granted her that power. And then the feeling afterward that she'd done right by him, and taken him where he'd needed to be taken. This was good. This was what she wanted.
Buffy wrapped a hand around her Watcher's collar, and fell asleep.
Giles woke slowly. He was relaxed and at peace. He was aware first of sensation: the weight of someone's body sprawled over his back, a delicious burn across his backside and thighs that he hadn't felt in ages. Then scent, the smell of a woman on his face and hands. He came fully awake, and remembered whose weight it was across him, in whose body he'd been allowed to spend himself, whose hand had granted him those welts. That hand was moving idly across them now, caressing him. She'd left the collar on him all night. Gratifying. He moaned, softly, to let her know he was awake. He spread his legs further, to make himself more accessible to her, but otherwise held himself still. As still as he could, given the urge to move, to rock his hips. To be inside her again.
She'd been glorious.
Her weight left him, and he felt the bed shift as she moved. She settled between his knees. "You look amazing. The whip marks. My marks on you."
Giles turned a little on the bed and looked back at her. "It was a privilege to be marked by you," he said.
Her hand rested on his buttocks. "I broke the skin in two places," Buffy said. "Not very much. Scabbed over already."
Giles shivered. That last blow... he'd already been floating free on waves of pain when she'd landed that. If she'd asked him, he'd have begged her not to. But that was why he didn't leave it up to himself.
"So a cane would have been better, huh?"
"Traditional. And it feels... Well. Good. Leaves beautiful stripes."
"Hmm. I'd like to see that, because these are pretty great. They're really dark where I hit you harder." She pressed at his bruised thighs again. Giles breathed in shakily. It hurt. Not urgently, not unbearably. Enough that he would be constantly aware of it for a couple of days. Constantly aware that he had a mistress now. He shivered again, this time in anticipation.
She tugged gently at his collar. "Turn over."
His backside was not happy to be pressed against anything, not even his smooth sheets. Giles winced. He'd be controlling that wince for days. Exactly what he'd wanted. Buffy was watching him intently, he realized. Best to let her know how good she'd made him feel.
"Thank you," he said, putting all of himself into the words. Her face lit up.
"When would you like to do this again?" she said.
"That extreme? I, ah--"
"That was a special occasion. I mean, lighter play." She ran two fingers around his nipples, as if to demonstrate what she meant by lighter.
"Buffy, any time. I am yours now. Your Watcher, your lover, any time you need me in either role."
"For more vanilla stuff, too?" She sounded more tentative.
Giles smiled up at her. "It would be a pleasure."
She hadn't mentioned whether she was still with Riley or not. Giles assumed he would find out. Exclusivity did not matter to him, at least not sexually. It was far more important to him that she not train with the Initiative. And he would use his new rights as her Watcher to demand that, later. When they talked about what he wanted from her.
She unbuckled his collar and set it on the nightstand. Giles rubbed at his neck.
"You miss it?"
"Mmm."
"Here," she said. "A present." She kissed his neck, over the carotid, where a vampire would feed. Over his pulse. Then she shocked him by biting. He cried out and dug his fists into the sheets, struggling to keep himself motionless under her. His cock hardened; so predictable it was. When she released him he was frozen for a moment, wondering from the sting if she'd drawn blood. Then he snarled and lunged up. Caught her by surprise and pinned her down. She laughed in delight and let him hold her down, let him penetrate her, let him drive hard. Wrapped her legs around him and drew him in deep.
Giles rode her hard and fast, chasing his release single-mindedly. He felt her shudder around him once, twice, before he found what he sought. He cried out again and lost himself in her. He fell back beside her afterward, breathless and laughing.
"I should punish you for that," Buffy said, but he could hear that she was laughing as well.
"It will have been worth it," Giles said. He tugged her closer, and she snuggled into his shoulder. He felt wonderful. Relaxed, alive. Happy.
"You're giggly," Buffy said. "Never seen you giggly. Or so happy."
He petted her hair. "M'always like this afterward."
"I like it. Nice not to be all grim and Depeche Mode about it."
"Pardon?"
"Never mind. Anyway. I don't want you hiding that hickey, mister. No turtlenecks today."
Giles touched the place on his neck gingerly. She hadn't quite drawn blood, but he'd have an obvious bite mark. A woman's bite. He shivered a third time. Marked, publicly and privately.
"As you wish. What do you want me to say when someone asks where I got it?"
"Be evasive. For now. Let's keep this secret for a couple of days."
Giles sat up, lifting Buffy with him. "Secret?"
"For a little. Riley, um--" She faltered.
Giles made a thoughtful sound. She was probably making this decision emotionally, not rationally. "We'll talk about that today. Purely in tactical terms. When secrecy is useful. When it's a liability. Come along, then. Shower, breakfast, and then we'll start making you the Slayer again."
She took his hand and allowed him to lead her from his bed. Their bed. Giles grinned, and shivered again. Anticipation was sweet.
Giles could not turn away from her, could not look anywhere else. His Slayer was glorious in the nude. She probably worried that she was too muscled to be attractive, too obviously powerful. But Giles was drawn to that power, those muscles. He loved the sight of the hot water from the shower running down her lats and deltoids, the suds from his cocoa-vanilla soap melting away. He lathered her back again and set the soap on the dish. He ran his thumbs up along her spine. Buffy relaxed under him, with a soft exhalation of breath.
"Don't stop," she said.
"Mmm. You're very tight. And you've lost definition. Have you been training at all?"
"I do my step aerobics. And I've been doing some boxing with Riley and his buddies."
Giles grunted and worked his thumbs across her shoulders, using his full strength. Buffy was more than up to it. "You'll train with me, and only with me. We'll discuss exceptions for specialty skills as needed. I'll give you a workout plan."
"You mean, no more doing stuff with the Initiative?"
"No. Nothing. I don't want you so much as sparring with them."
"Why not? Riley likes it--"
"Because you will learn bad habits fighting humans. Because I doubt very much they use the weapons you'll need for demons. And because I forbid it, and you agreed to submit to my authority as your Watcher."
"Aha. The Watcher makes his demands."
"Just so. Trust me, Buffy."
"I do. I'll break the news to Riley. God, I missed this. You're so good at it."
He'd missed this too, this gentle contact with his Slayer. He used to massage her routinely after workouts, and sometimes when she felt more stressed than usual. But she'd been avoiding his touch entirely since he'd been fired. Since that thrice-damned Cruciamentum, and his ritual betrayal. No more. His loyalties were clear. He felt a little thrill of arousal shivering through him.
Giles reached for the shampoo and lathered up her hair. He massaged her scalp gently. She turned to rinse, throwing her head back under the spray. Her throat was magnificent; she was magnificent; she was his mistress; she was his Slayer again. He braced a hand on the wall of the shower, suddenly overcome with emotion.
He went to his knees before her, a trifle awkwardly in the little tub, and soaped her feet. He worked his way up to her knees, then paused. "May I touch you, my Slayer?" he said, looking up.
Buffy smiled down at him. "Go ahead."
Giles washed his way up her body, taking care not to touch her sex without invitation. They hadn't discussed that sort of submission, but he enjoyed it. And she seemed to appreciate it. So he would indulge himself, and not take liberties. Then she lifted a foot and rested it on the edge of the tub, giving him a clear view of her sex. And access. She meant it as an invitation, so he leaned in to worship her with his mouth again. He tasted soap and water and musk, the taste of her arousal slowly gaining ascendance as he licked and sucked. Her fingers gripped his hair, and he felt her shudder against him.
"You're good at that, too," she said, with an unsteady voice.
Giles smiled, and kissed her thighs. She tugged at his hair and pulled him to his feet.
"My turn," she said, and took the soap. "Turn around."
Giles braced himself against the wall and spread his legs as far as he could in the tub. She washed his backside and thighs. He felt her fingers moving on his welts again, pressing. He was sore, more sore than he'd realized earlier. Then her fingers moved to his arse. She'd played with him there only a little last night. Giles arched his back, hoping to entice her into playing more. And she gratified his wish immediately, sliding a soapy finger into him. She moved it slowly, exploring him. He sighed.
"You like this."
"Very much."
"You like being plugged?"
"Yes, mmm."
"Being taken by other men?"
Giles shook his head. "Not so much. For me... for me it's submission. And other men submit to me."
"I'd like to see that."
Giles opened his mouth to answer, but she chose that moment to push a second finger into him and he was unable.
"When's the last time someone took you this way?"
Her fingers found what she'd been seeking, and Giles gasped. "Oh. I-- Jenny. Two years now. God."
"When's the last time you were with another man?"
He could barely think, with her fingers caressing him like that. "Y-years. Before I came to the States. Six years? Longer. God, that feels so good, Buffy, please--"
"Hold still. Don't come unless I tell you you may."
A third finger, opening him further than he'd been opened in years. Giles leaned his head against his arms, angling himself so that his cock could not brush against the wall. Despite Buffy's warning he was in no danger of coming, not so soon after coming earlier, but he could enjoy it. And enjoy it he would. He gave himself over to the feeling of her fingers inside him, sliding in and out, claiming him. She had a hand on his hip, bracing herself.
"What's the most intense thing Jenny did to your ass?"
Giles shook himself and attempted to put his attention on her question instead of on those fingers. "She, ah. Oh, right. Made me wear a plug and the metal cock ring and sent me to school. I couldn't think about anything else all day. Had a raging erection. Had to hide in my office. You, ah, you told me I looked like I was coming down with something and should go home."
Buffy giggled. "Did you guys do that often?"
"I wore the cock ring many times, but not the plug. That night I requested that she not, because it interfered with training you. Then she, um, she whipped me for reminding her that she wasn't first in my life."
She'd understood, Jenny had, and yielded to necessity, but she'd also hated it. There had been a piece of Rupert Giles that had always faced away from her, pointing unerringly toward the true north of his life. And it hadn't been much later that he'd been forced to make it clear to everyone who had his loyalty.
"Poor baby. Fortunately, no conflicts of interest with your new mistress."
Her fingers were gone, and then she slapped him, hard, twice. He gasped from surprise, then groaned as the pain flooded through him a moment later. He held himself as still as he could, waiting for more. But apparently that was all she wanted, because next he felt the soap bar gliding over his bruised thighs. She washed his backside thoroughly, then turned him around to wash his front. She paid careful attention to his entire body. Inspecting him, satisfying her curiosity, he didn't know what. He was entirely hers now. She'd always owned his heart and mind, and now she owned his body as well. His loyalties and desires were at last one.
When she had satisfied herself, she wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned against him. Giles held his pole star tight.
Buffy brushed out her hair. Giles did not own a hair dryer. She'd forgotten that. It had been ages since she'd spent a night here and showered with Giles' funky soap. Funky soap, which had at least smelled chocolatey, and worse shampoo. And no conditioner. She'd have to bring some of her papaya stuff over, something that she could be sure wasn't making her split ends worse. And some clothes. She'd stashed some clean panties in her messenger bag, but it would be nice to have a fresh shirt. Something Saturday-morning perky.
She wandered out to the flat's main room, brushing thoughtfully. A drawer. She should take over one of his dresser drawers.
The front door rattled. Then somebody hammered on it. Giles leaned over the pass-through and looked at the door, then at Buffy. "May I ask you to answer that, Buffy?"
"No prob." Buffy slid the bolt open and twisted open the lock on the doorknob. She pulled the door back. Sunlight and an anxious Xander poured through.
"You okay? Giles okay? Never seen that door locked before. What?"
Buffy made a tilty-headed dumb-blonde expression at Xander. "Sorry, Xan. Didn't realize you were in the habit of walking in here."
Xander shrugged, and grinned, and his anxiety vanished. "See, I'd like to be. It smells nice in here. Like breakfast. I am digging that."
Giles' voice floated in from the kitchen. "Ah. I see. Should I be making more French toast, then?"
"Wouldn't say no," Xander said cheerfully. "You make good French toast."
Xander and Buffy installed themselves on the stools at Giles' kitchen counter. Giles handed a plate of French toast to Buffy, along with a fork. Xander watched the plate move from hand to hand closely. Butter and a shaker full of cinnamon and sugar were already set out. Buffy slathered both on. She ate a chunk of cinnamon-y egg-y bread. Seriously good stuff. Xander watched her with the air of a man who regretted every bite that wasn't going in his own mouth.
"Xan. Gilesy breakfast is a good reason to be here, I admit, but your urgency level seemed high for mere breakfast. Even for you."
"Oh, right! There was a reason. Yeah. Willow called, looking for you. Because Riley pounded on the dorm door at two AM wanting to know where you were."
Buffy rolled her eyes.
"Funny, that's exactly what Willow said to him, only much more politely and at much greater length with actual words, 'cause she's Willow. But he appeared again this morning still in a lather, so she called me. So here I am, about to eat Giles's delicious French toasties."
Xander took the plate Giles handed over. Giles turned back to the stove. Buffy watched him dip more bread into batter. It was so unreal, to look at him now, in baggy corduroy pants and one of those oversized shirts he was always wearing, and remember what he looked like naked and hard and dripping with sweat. What he looked like coming underneath her.
Giles turned and stuck another two pieces of toast on Xander's plate, then carried his own plate out of the kitchen to his desk. He caught her eye and held it while he sat. His face didn't change, but Buffy knew he was feeling every one of those ten stripes. She'd taken a good look at them earlier, and they were deep bruises. Buffy felt herself get a little excited, just thinking about what they looked like. How Giles had writhed. How thrilling it was to think that under his clothes, he had marks she'd given him.
Buffy gave him a tiny grin, then ate her last piece of French toast. Giles bent to his breakfast.
Xander kicked her. Buffy looked over at him. Xander pointed to his neck, then pointed over at Giles. The hickey was completely obvious over the loose neck of Giles's shirt. Xander made a wide-eyed comic face, then an impressed hand gesture. Then he stuffed more toast in. Buffy giggled. He'd make an even funnier face when he found out who'd bitten Giles.
The front door opened. Buffy was so going to get into the habit of bolting that thing. "Hey! Smells good in here."
Willow came in, followed by Tara. Tara ducked her head apologetically and shut the door behind them.
Giles waved his fork, then swallowed. "No more," he said.
"That's okay, we ate."
"Willow had a coupon for wheatgrass juice at the co-op, so we went there for something healthy. I think it was healthy. It tasted healthy. You know."
"Terrible," said Xander, with his mouth full.
"Exactly," said Tara. Buffy decided right then that she liked Tara about fifty times more than she'd expected to. There was something about the way the mischief was visible at the corners of her eyes.
"Anyway, we're here because Riley said there was a demon and he was worried about you. We weren't worried, but we thought you ought to know about this demon. It was standing--"
"The HST was standing in the intersection of MLK and Avenida de las Pulgas downtown," said somebody at the door. Buffy snapped around, on alert. Sunshine in the doorway, however, and the voice was Riley's. He took a step inside and shut the door behind him. "It was swinging this weird metal thing on a chain. Smoke everywhere. Smelled like church, only weirder. Dunno what it was."
"Thurible," said Giles, promptly. "Interesting. What did it look like?"
"Metal, silvery, chain less than one meter in length--"
"No, the demon, juggins." Giles stood and carried his plate to the kitchen, collecting Buffy's and Xander's along the way.
"Oh. Our report said two meters tall, a single back-swept horn and a tail."
"Hoofed feet?" said Giles, voice raised over dish clatter.
"Yeah, why?"
Giles came back from the kitchen. "Single horn, hoofs. The species was undoubtedly a Chuffer. Though what it was doing censing an intersection, I don't know. What time?"
"First report just past midnight."
"Oh ho!" said Willow.
"Was it asking to learn to play the guitar?" Xander said.
"Beg pardon?"
"Never mind," Buffy told Riley.
Giles was already burrowing in the shelves, pulling out books. This made Buffy nervous. She went over to him. "Scoop?"
"It's quite easy to kill. Use wood. A stake, a wooden knife. I have a couple you can use, in the weapons chest. You should have no trouble."
"So why the research?"
"Crossroads at midnight are mystically powerful. Might be up to something. Something more menacing than learning to play a musical instrument."
Giles handed Buffy a standard demonology and requested that she look up the Chuffer. He gave Xander the encyclopedia of demon religions that Buffy hated to look through, because it didn't have an index and was in order by some weird religion classification scheme the author had invented that was not alphabetical. Buffy flopped onto the couch with the book.
Riley sat next to her. "So where were you last night?"
Dammit. She and Giles hadn't had time for that talk on tactics he'd told her he wanted. He'd seemed to think there was something she wasn't thinking through with Riley. That was interesting. Giles, in saying that she needed to think tactically about her dealings with Riley, was implying that Riley was an enemy. Why?
Buffy considered Riley. He was smiling at her. A typical concerned boyfriend. "Why?" she said.
"I was worried when I couldn't find you," he said.
"I was here all night," Buffy said, which was the absolute truth. Something about what Riley had said irritated her. What? He didn't seem angry or annoyed. Just concerned.
"I didn't think to look for you here," Riley said, still the picture of the earnest boyfriend.
Buffy opened her demonology to the index. "Probably should get used to it."
"I'm sorry?"
"Giles and I had a long talk last night," Buffy said. She saw Giles color slightly and look down at the book in his lap. "We agreed some stuff needed to change. I need to start training again. So we made it official. He's my Watcher again."
"Cool," said Xander.
"That's really good news," Willow said.
"I'm very happy for both of you," Tara said. Buffy looked at her for a second, wondering if Tara had figured it out. She had the fewest preconceived notions about them, Buffy guessed.
"Wow. I'm really surprised."
Riley's voice was polite, and his face was carefully bland. Buffy kept her voice just as calm.
"Why?"
"We didn't discuss it," Riley said.
"Why would I discuss that with you?"
"Because I'm your boyfriend. I help you make decisions like that."
"No, you don't," said Buffy. "That's Watcher-Slayer business. I don't consult with you about this any more than you consulted with me about going for that parachute certification."
"But the Army is my job--" Riley seemed to realize what he'd said, because he stopped.
"Got it in one. You jump out of planes with guns for a living, and I Slay." Buffy gave him her perkiest smile. Then she didn't want to be sitting next to him any more. She picked up her book and carried it over to Giles' desk.
Giles had stood when she did, and was waiting beside his chair, which he pulled out to offer to her. He inclined his head to her, just enough for her to notice. He'd always been polite, with doors and chairs and so on, but this was a step further. This wasn't a game to him, she realized. He was demonstrating his respect, which was sincere and heartfelt and deep. She sat, and touched his hand in thanks. Giles went over to the kitchen pass-through with his book to stand and read.
Buffy held her hand over her mouth. She'd just figured something out.
She set it aside for now and opened the demonology. Time for work. For looking up this Chuffer thing, which had a name so silly that she was stumped trying to find a funny way to mispronounce it. That ought to be against the rules, as far as Buffy was concerned. She paged to the right section and started reading.
Five minutes later, Willow squeaked. "Ew! And yay me. I just found out what it's doing. It's trying to open a portal to Chufferland. So it can send back the dogs it collected. Which it eats. Last time it showed up in 1956 in New Jersey, it ate every single pet dog in town. Starting with the ones in the pound."
"I second your ew," said Buffy.
"Thirded," said Tara.
"Motion carried," said Xander.
Giles closed his book. "Well, then. Kill it and have done."
"How are you going to do that? Our bullets bounced right off."
"Oh, Giles already told me how to kill it."
Buffy didn't bother telling Riley how. He wouldn't believe her anyway. He was still not sure he bought that the Slayer wasn't a myth, even though Buffy had killed vamps right in front of his nose. He usually scoffed at the research stuff Giles did, and supplied his own reasons for why the tactics worked anyway. He said they were the rational ones, he and Professor Walsh and the Initiative. But didn't being rational mean taking in all the available information and reasoning about it? Okay, now he was sulking, and that was not what Buffy wanted. He was a nice guy, Riley was, maybe clueless sometimes, but he meant well. And he liked her. There was no point in hurting him.
Even if he didn't respect her calling and that meant the relationship was toast, eventually.
Think tactically. Buffy thought. Then she went over to Riley and popped up on her toes to kiss him.
"Don't fuss. The Slayer is on the job. We'll save the cute puppies."
She went over to Giles' weapons chest, where he kept the good stuff, and burrowed around until she came up with a wooden knife. She held it up to show Giles, and he nodded. She stuck it into her messenger bag.
"Hey, guys, I gotta hit the dorm soon. I have a paper to write for my lit class."
"Ooh, yeah, I have to work on my second draft for that one," Willow said. "Library time?"
"Yeah, think so," said Buffy. "Giles, I'll call ya when I've killed the Hufflepuff demon, okay?"
He smiled at her, just a brief flash, but for once refrained from correcting her. "I'll expect you tomorrow morning for our first session, Buffy. I'll give you a workout plan then. And some other material."
The gang packed up to head out together, the students back to campus and Xander to some place where he could watch Saturday morning cartoons in color. Or so he said. Buffy suspect him of heading off to find Anya for a session of whatever it was they did that left Xander looking so happy these days.
Giles saw them all off at his front door. Buffy watched the others head up the stairs to the street, then stepped close to Giles in the doorway.
"Hey. Giles. Watcher."
Giles inclined his head to her. "Yes, my Slayer?"
"I'm gonna come by after patrol. Not sure when. Maybe midnight or so. I want to find you naked except for the collar. In bed. And I want you to have your favorite plug ready."
She watched his throat work as he swallowed. Then he smiled at her, just a little quirk of his lips. "As you wish."
Beautiful. He was going to spend all day anticipating it.
Think tactically.
The gang headed up the sidewalk, away from Giles' flat. It was a January day, so cool and cloudy, but not rainy or windy: a good day for walking the two miles from Giles' place to campus. Buffy wished she could jog it. She was feeling good post Giles-massage, and wanting to stretch her legs. Though he'd told her in no uncertain terms that she wouldn't be slacking off on her workouts any more. And he'd given her a book to read on meditation.
Buffy liked that he was being pushy. It felt different now that she knew where it came from inside him, this urge to prepare her. To make her the best possible Slayer. She might have to rethink everything about her relationship with Giles. No, that was not a "might". That was a "definitely". You couldn't have sex like that with somebody and go on thinking of them as repressed. That had been seriously hot sex. Last night, and this morning when he'd--
"--hey! Earth to Buffy."
"What? Huh? Sorry, Xan, I was thinking about my paper. What was the question?"
Xander walked backwards in front of her for a second. "Can you believe the hickey Giles had?"
"It was kinda obvious," said Willow. "Is Olivia back?"
Xander said, thoughtfully, "No. He said she'd broken up for good. Couldn't cope with the creepies. He was kinda down about it."
Buffy said nothing. She hadn't asked Giles about Olivia. She hadn't known that her Watcher had been dumped. Xander knew more about what was going on with him. Or at least he had. Buffy set her jaw. She was going to make it up to her Watcher in a big way.
Xander continued. "Guess he's seeing somebody new, now. And having wild monkey sex with her."
"That would be the conclusion of nine out of ten people who saw him," Buffy said, drily.
"That thing was recent, too. He got his neck gnawed on in the last day."
Willow said, "How do you know that? Second thought, don't tell me. I already know too much."
Xander's face was red. "Can I help it if Anya likes, well, everything? At least to try it once."
Buffy laughed, but it was a cheerful laugh. "She likes a lot of stuff. It's refreshing. You know, to have somebody come right out and admit they like the things that everybody else likes but we're all too shy to say."
Now Tara was blushing, and Buffy hadn't quite figured out why. Something there.
"I like that idea," Xander was saying. "I feel liberated by it. I'm going to come out of the closet and say that I like oral sex. Sunnydale, I like oral sex!"
Buffy and Xander started giggling hard. Willow punched Xander in the shoulder, then gave in and laughed too. They staggered across the big street onto the campus grounds, laughing until Buffy's stomach hurt.
Riley wasn't laughing. He looked a little grim. It wasn't that he didn't like oral sex, as Buffy knew well. It was that he didn't think it was cool to talk about this stuff. Not even with her in private. Which was strange from a psychology grad student. Or maybe not: Freud had been pretty screwy.
She had a sudden idea, maybe a little bit wicked. She smacked Xander. "How much stuff do you guys try, anyway? How far do you go?"
Xander turned red again. "Well, uh, Anya is not particularly interested in, aware of, or at all concerned by convention. She has never met convention, and I think if she did she would ask it why it bothered. So, in answer to your question, Buff, I'd say, all the way. At least once in each direction."
Tara spoke up for the first time. "That's good. Exploration is, is, is important. In my opinion. You can't predict, sometimes."
Now Willow was blushing, but again, Buffy didn't know why. Maybe she'd done some kinky stuff with Oz?
Xander nodded. "Yeah. You can't know until you try it whether you're going to like the whipped cream."
"Or the corset," said Willow.
"Or the girl on top," Buffy said, watching Riley to see if he winced. He didn't.
"Tame!" said Xander. "Doggy style, sixty-nine, cross-legged bare-naked in a field in Breaker's Woods."
Tara giggled. "Ooh, a nature-lover."
"Or all tied up! Or with a bunch of people at once," Buffy said, again watching Riley. This time he reacted.
"You've never done that."
"No, but maybe I want to try it."
"You shouldn't want to."
"Exploration is healthy," Willow said, in one of those voices that meant she was about to launch into a lecture that demonstrated she'd read not just this year's text but the one for next year as well. Which was fine with Buffy if she was going to show up Riley. But she didn't get a chance, because Riley was now in full swing himself.
"Exploration is not about corsets and bondage and exhibitionism in Breaker's Woods."
Buffy muttered, "So says mister doesn't want the girl on top." Only it came out a little louder than she'd planned.
"Hoo boy." Riley had flushed red. Now Buffy felt guilty. Dirty laundry, aired in public. Not cool.
"I am sensing conflict," said Willow. "I am sensing the Buffy wanting things the Riley doesn't like."
"And now you all know," Riley said, half under his breath.
Xander, ever the peacemaker, stepped in and stuck his arm around Riley's shoulders. "Lemme give you some advice, confidentially, just from one guy to another. If she says she wants to try something different, say yes. If it doesn't work out, you can get your favorite thing from her later to make up. And if it does, hey! Maybe a new favorite thing!"
"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind, Harris." Riley's ears were still glowing.
"And with that parting shot, I say to you all, in a spirit of open and proud sharing, that it is my turn to pick up the porn vid today. Anya and I will be enjoying the experiences of some bi-curious co-eds, and I hope you all have as fine a day as I am planning on having. Ciao!"
And with that Xander was off, ambling toward downtown from the campus. Willow and Tara made their stumbling excuses and took off to Tara's dorm building. Buffy walked alongside Riley for a minute silently. She felt schmucky and grumpy at the same time.
"Sorry I said that in front of them," she said, eventually.
"Apology accepted."
They'd reached the front entrance of her dorm. Buffy perched up on the back of the bench, booted feet on the seat part. She scanned the traffic, one part of her always keeping watch. Riley stood with his head down. He was looking at her engineer boots.
"You look different today," he said, eventually.
"You mean the boots and jeans look?"
"No, I mean... something else. More confident? I don't know. Maybe it is just those boots. They're not very feminine."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Buffy said, eyebrow quirked. She'd defy anybody to call her anything other than feminine. Or cute. Or dressed with perfect taste.
"They're just... not."
"They're practical. I've got a stake in one and a knife in the other. And two more stakes and a bottle of holy water in my bag in my makeup kit. I keep the axe in my dorm closet, though. I tied a pink ribbon around the handle once. Does that help?"
Riley was standing in what Buffy had learned to recognize as an "at ease" stance, relaxed. He rocked back on his heels, then forward again. "That is, wow. You never stop, do you? No vacations."
"Slaying. It's not just a job, it's a lifetime." There was less bitterness in that than there might have been a couple of years ago. The Slaying had compensations.
"So. Were you serious? About wanting, you know?"
Buffy teetered on the edge right then. Tell him or not? She took too long deciding, because Riley sighed and went on with, "Paraphilias aren't healthy, Buffy."
Annoyance won, and Buffy tumbled into an attack. "I don't think it's exactly a para-whatsit to want to try a different position now and then."
Riley surprised her again, by not fighting back. "No, it isn't. You're right. I'm just being, I don't know, nervous. The guys in my squad talk about girls like... Never mind how. They're just such animals. I want to treat you better than that."
He shrugged, and looked ashamed, of all things. Why? Buffy was full of questions about her friends today. They were all acting hinky about sex. She was really starting to appreciate Anya and Xander. No hink, all kink. But she was still annoyed.
"I don't get why me wanting something turns you into an animal."
Riley opened his mouth, shut it again, then shuffled. "This is way too soon. And I'm not pushing. But I was thinking longer-term. With you. You're the sort of girl I'd like to take home to meet my parents, you know? Things with you are not just about fun."
"Woah."
"Like I said, too soon. But I just wanted to let know how I'm thinking. You're not just somebody I'm sleeping with."
Buffy leaned forward on the bench. Riley took a step closer. "Riley. That's sweet. Really. But I gotta say, just 'cause you're serious doesn't mean we can't also have fun. You're the first nice person I've ever slept with, you know? I kinda want to find out. Explore. Try stuff. Maybe not quite as methodically as Xander and Anya, but--"
That was a lie, though, and she knew it as she said it. Everything she'd just said, sort of true but mostly a lie.
"Yeah. Okay. I can do that." Riley smiled at her, and Buffy remembered all the reasons why she liked him.
"So what do you want? What's your most secret wish, the thing you've never asked a girlfriend to do that you've always wanted?"
Riley was bright red again. He looked around to make sure nobody was walking nearby before he answered. "Talk about it right here?"
"Naw. Think about it, and tell me next time we're in bed. Then we'll do it." Buffy tried to make herself sound enthusiastic. But Riley didn't need that, apparently, because he'd already worked himself up.
"Oh, man, I'm going to spend all day-- Oh, jeez. Tonight? Dinner and then my place?"
"Can't tonight. I have too much work. Need to catch up on some studying." She did have work. Really she did. It was more an omission than a lie. "Tomorrow?"
Riley bit his lip. "I have special training all day. Something new Professor Walsh wants to show me. Tuesday?"
"Yeah, okay, I'll pencil you in. Joke!" Buffy stood up on the bench and pulled Riley over for a kiss.
In her dorm room, finally alone, Buffy kicked off her boots and flopped back onto her bed. For a few minutes she didn't think about anything. She just breathed, and let her muscles relax. It was a training exercise she'd learned from Giles. Centering and calming. Any activity could follow from that centered place. Honing, meditating, studying. She hadn't done it in ages. She did it now, and then tried to think about what she wanted.
She wondered what Riley's secret fantasy was. She suspected it would be sort of charming. Ward and June Cleaver get kinky. The height of exotica for Iowa. Or he could surprise her. But she was not betting on it.
Then there was the guy whose fantasies she already knew. Later tonight, after she'd killed a demon with a piece of wood, Buffy was going to go over to her Watcher's apartment and tie him up, which would probably make him wild all by itself. Then she was going to fuck him, and he was going to moan and beg and go even more wild. He wasn't going to try to protect her from anything, and would probably glare at anyone who suggested that was a good idea.
There was no contest which one of them turned her on more. Which one of them she wanted at her back. Which one she was going to spend primo Saturday night time with.
So why hadn't she broken up with Riley?
No clue. And she was starting to feel exhausted by the introspection.
Buffy sat up and pulled her lit notebook out of her bag. She had a metric ton of work to do, starting with that lit paper. And she was not going to think about how Giles had moaned while she whipped him. Not. Not even a little. He was the one who was supposed to spend the day in a frenzy, not her. She was going to read Ethan "Whiner" Frome and not fantasize. At all.
At midnight, she was waiting at the intersection with Giles' wooden knife in her hand, thinking that the sooner she got this over with, the sooner she could get into bed with her Watcher.
The Chuffer didn't live long enough to know what hit it. Buffy walked to Oakpark Street with six happy dogs dancing around her feet.
Giles spent his day alone, but content to be so for once. He wrote up a workout plan for Buffy, one that involved some distance running and weight work, as well as martial arts training with him. He did housework. He went to the shops for his week's groceries, aware of the bite on his neck every moment that he was out in public. He baked bread for the week. He wrote in his journal. After a moment of hesitation, he recorded last night's events fully. He'd written about Jenny in his private journal as well. Future generations of Watchers would be entertained, perhaps even scandalized. Or more likely indifferent; he could not flatter himself. Assuming he let the bastards have his materials.
Always, as he moved around his flat, he was aware that she had laid a heavy hand on him. He avoided sitting down unless he must.
He was floating. Happy. It was absurd, but he was not going to stop to analyze it. Drink deep of the pleasure when it was offered to him.
Giles prepared for bed at eleven. He took another shower and washed himself thoroughly, taking care that Buffy would find nothing unpleasant when she used his body. He shaved again. He didn't bother to dress afterward. He walked around the house with a towel around his waist, shutting everything up for the night. He left the door unlocked and two lights on, to ease Buffy's way from door to bed.
In the bedroom, he shed the towel. Best to prepare the rest of the way nude, to help himself get into the right state of mind. Not that he needed much help. He'd spent the day in a frenzy like a teenaged boy, wondering what she'd choose to do to him. Anticipating. Speculating.
Giles set out candles, in case she wished to light them. He changed the sheets. Why not use the satin sheets? Indulgent, sensual. Buffy would love them.
He emptied the toy box onto the bed and considered what to do with everything. Buffy would want them ready to hand, he thought. Prepared and organized, as he prepared and organized her swords and crossbows. The smaller items he put into the nightstand drawer. Condoms, cockrings, clamps. The plugs he left on the bed for the moment, so he could choose. The whips... he considered carefully before hanging them up on the inside of his closet door. Neckties next to floggers. He slowly hardened while he worked, from anticipation. Wondering which she would choose to use on him first. When he healed and was ready for more marks, which whip would she prefer?
Finally, he put the collar on. He'd never done it himself before. Always his lover had done it for him. He pulled the buckle tight around his own neck.
God.
Giles slid to his knees next to his bed, alone in his flat.
"My clever Slayer," he whispered. "You own me. Utterly." She'd coaxed him into putting himself in chains, binding himself and handing himself over.
It was almost too much for him. Twenty-four hours before, he'd been sulking, convinced he'd never be able to taste release again, that fantasy was all that was left to him. And now he was offered everything. Everything he'd dreamed.
He rolled his shoulders and stretched, deliberately calming himself and slowing his breath. When he had control of himself again, he pushed himself to his feet to obey the second of her commands. He turned his attention to the toys ranged across his bed. He had to choose his favorite plug.
He had several. A couple of them were functional silicone things. They served to open him up and keep him open. There was a metal plug that could be worn for long periods, the one Jenny had made him wear to school that once. But Buffy had asked for his favorite. And that had to be the glass plug Jenny had bought for him, on a stolen weekend in San Francisco. He remembered flushing bright red when she'd paraded him around the shop, asking out loud if he'd like this item or the other used on him. It had been all very cheerful and friendly and brightly-lit, the shop, but he'd never get used to the idea of talking about these desires openly. Jenny had made it worth his while that night in their hotel room, at least. Giles sighed, and stroked his fingers over the glass. Poor Jenny. It wouldn't have lasted, even if she had lived, not with his Slayer in his life.
But she'd taught him many things, in their few months together, and one of them was that he liked feeling this inside him. It was heavy, and wide enough that he felt himself opened when his lover slid it into him, but narrow near the base, so it could be worn for as long as he liked. Or as long as his mistress liked him to. The heavy bulb rested in just the right place to drive him mad. And it was lovely to to look at, all those purple swirls deep inside the glass.
He set it out on its velvet bag, along with a bottle of lubricant, and tucked the others away in the nightstand.
Giles stretched himself out on the soft blankets, nude save for his collar as his Slayer had commanded. He waited. He had a mystery novel to read, but he couldn't settle. Too excited and nervous about what Buffy would want to do when she arrived. He shifted uneasily on the bed, unable to make himself comfortable. He turned to lie on his stomach, to give his sore thighs and backside a rest.
She wanted to penetrate him tonight. Open him. It had been a long time.
Giles remembered other times he'd waited like this, face down, for a lover to take him. Rarely, since Ethan. Most often it had been the other way around. At least with men.
But with Ethan, he'd given himself over. Bound face-down on the bed, trembling, unsure whether Ethan would strike him or stroke him. Then feeling Ethan settle himself between his thighs, and slide his oil-slick cock in the furrow of Giles' buttocks. How innocent they'd been! No condoms, just sweet almond oil, for massage and magic ritual. And for sex, for their explorations, slowly growing more expert with each other.
Ethan's fingers, teasing him, moving inside him, just enough to set Giles whimpering. Then the sweet burn of Ethan entering him. Total surrender of himself to Ethan's body and Ethan's will. Complete submission. When Giles had been penetrated, he had trouble concentrating on anything else, any sensation other than the demand of the penis inside him. It was his master.
Giles had once asked Jenny what it felt like to her, to have another person's body inside hers. She'd tilted her head, then answered that it depended on context: who it was, and how it was done. It was like being completed, she'd said, like welcoming her lover home. And for her, it hadn't been submissive at all. She'd owned Giles every time he'd penetrated her, whether she'd been on top or not.
Not the same, then, for men and for women. Though there was no way to know what the other sex felt, truly. Or what any other human being felt inside. What did Buffy feel when she struck the crop across his legs? What had Ethan felt, when he'd brought the flogger down on Giles' back even as he thrust inside him? Giles knew what he'd felt: a sort of wild joy, freedom, all the burdens of his mind rolled away. He was so grateful that he'd found someone willing to grant him that gift.
Giles had never struck another human being save in anger. Never used a whip with love in his heart. When he beat Ethan, as so often happened when he saw the bastard these days, it was with fists and feet in anger and fear. Fear that Ethan would hurt the ones Giles loved, as he had in the past. Ethan's betrayal, the moment he had turned to the demon and shown where his loyalty was: that moment Giles could not forget.
But it had once been sweet, between them. Ethan had been his best friend, his closest mate, the man to whom Giles gave himself. Completely. Nothing held back, when he was stretched out on the bed, face down, with Ethan hard and insistent inside him. Ethan, striking and stroking him at once, the first lover who'd shown him how far he could be taken, how much he could feel, how free he could float. How much he could hurt, for good and for ill. Crying out from pain, crying out from pleasure, both building until he could no longer tell the difference and had completely lost himself to sensation.
Would Buffy take him that far?
The door handle rattled, and the door opened. His Slayer had arrived.
Giles tensed. He was immediately fully awake and alert, nerves on edge. He didn't get up, however. She had told him to wait in bed for her, so he would remain there. Should he kneel up and wait that way, hands clasped behind his neck? Perhaps she would like that. He remained where he was, listening. She was doing something just outside the door, however, snapping out orders to somebody. Or something. Finally the door closed.
"Giles?"
"Up here."
"Good."
Giles lay back and rested his hands at his sides. He attempted to relax. It was difficult. His breath was coming short. The sound of her footsteps moved below, into his kitchen for a moment; she was wearing boots. Then the lightswitch snapping, the flat sinking into deeper darkness, and the creak of the steps. She appeared, rising from the staircase. She wore a red tank top under her leather jacket, jeans, and yes, the boots. She was carrying a bag, which she slung down next to his dresser. She looked pleased with herself for some reason.
"I killed the Huffer thing. Piece of cake--" Then she stopped and took stock of the room. She turned a brilliant smile on him, and Giles grinned in relief.
"This is sweet! My Watcher is a closet romantic. Ooh! Satin! Black satin. Sexy." She ran her hands over a pillow.
"Oh! Shiny! Pretty."
She'd found the plug, and was turning it over and over. He passed along warnings about glass in a few words, and then shifted himself on the bed in anticipation, spreading his legs further. But she put the plug down, and looked under his bed.
"Where's the box?"
"Unpacked. Nightstand drawers. And the, uh, the whips are, um, inside the closet door."
"Good thinking."
She sat on the bed next to him. He pushed himself up onto an elbow and reached for her, but she casually pressed him back down with a hand flat on his chest.
"Stay where you are. Eyes up on the ceiling." She craned around and looked up at his ceiling. "Okay, it's boring up there, but I'll give you plenty to think about in a minute."
"I-I'm sure," Giles said. He swallowed. Fear trickled down the small of his back. It was odd. He sought this out so eagerly, begged for it, but it still made him shake. And in the moments before it began, whatever it was, he fought urges to flee.
She bent over him and kissed him. He'd no sooner opened his mouth to welcome her when she was gone again, standing and moving to his closet. He listened, attempting in desperation to guess what she was doing. Had she taken anything down? He had a blindfold. Surely she could use it on him and take choice away from him. Now the dresser drawer opening, the rattle of metal as she rummaged inside. Something heavy and metallic was set down on his dresser. The flare of matches, and the light in the room changed. Shadows danced on the ceiling from candle flame. The bedside light went out. Then her slight weight rested on his bed again, shifting the mattress. Boots hit the floor, one, two. He was shaking, hands trembling against the slick sheets.
Then she was on top of him, sitting on his chest, knees tucked against his ribs. She caressed his face. He turned his head just enough to kiss her palm. She slipped two fingers into his mouth. He sucked obediently. It calmed him, which was probably why she'd done it. Buffy had insight into people when she paid attention to them, when she could drag her attention away from self-pity. Giles thought perhaps this experience would be good for more than just the sex, for her. No time for self-pity while she was watching him writhe. Giles shivered.
Buffy took her fingers away and hooked them into the ring at the front of his collar. She tugged it. He'd buckled it tight around his neck, the way he liked it. Snug enough to feel her grip on his throat even when her hands were busy elsewhere.
"Do you have any requests?"
Giles cleared his throat. "The plug, I was hoping--"
"If you're very good, and bear what happens first well, you'll get that. And something even nicer. I've been planning this all day."
"I... Lord, Buffy."
"Do you want to know what's going to happen tonight?"
Giles weighed one sweet terror against another, then shook his head. "Anything. Please. Just... just so you're happy."
Buffy leaned over him and looked into his eyes. "I will tell you one thing. I've decided that every time we get together like this, every time you wear this--" she pulled at the collar, lifting his head from the bed and holding him up-- "I'm going to hurt you at least a little. You want that, I think."
Giles' mouth had gone dry. "God, I-- yes."
She let him drop back. "Ask me for it."
"Please, my Slayer. Please."
"Please what?"
For a moment he couldn't speak, then it poured out of him. "Hurt me. Whip me. Make me scream. Please. Take me there. Take me out of myself. Please please please. Oh, God--"
He trailed off, afraid he'd said too much, but she had leaned down to drape herself over his chest. She kissed him and this time lingered. Giles kept his hands by his sides and kissed her in return with all the intensity he could gather. His wonderful Slayer, who tasted like lip gloss and mochas and honey. Then he could not contain himself. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight. She allowed him for a moment, then sat up again.
"Enough. Hands at your sides."
Giles obeyed instantly. "Forgive me."
"S'okay. I'm not going to tie you up tonight. You're going to keep yourself in place."
Giles nodded. She likely did not know how difficult this was for him, holding himself in place, every moment having to make the choice to stay still, to experience whatever it was his mistress was doing to him. He clenched his hands into the sheets, then made himself let go.
"God, you look amazing like that. That hickey is fantastic."
With no warning, she had leaned forward and was biting his neck again, but more gently than before, more kiss than bite. As in the morning, he tilted his head to bare his throat for her, to make his submission obvious. He dug his fingers into the sheets. Then she had moved away again. Her weight came off his stomach for a moment as she reached over to the nightstand for something. He stopped himself from looking over just in time. Then she resettled herself on him, one hand on his chest, one hand holding a knife against his throat, just over the collar. Giles froze, afraid to breathe, to twitch lest the blade slip.
Then it was gone and her fingers were tugging at his collar again. She held the blade in front of his face. It was her folding knife, German steel, his own gift to her on her eighteenth birthday. Giles lifted his head to kiss the blade, and she smiled. A frightening smile, a smile he'd seen on other faces in his life. The smile of a mistress who was about to do something new to him.
Giles closed his eyes.
The tip of the blade grazed his lips. He opened his mouth and felt it slide inside, brushing his tongue. He went very still and tense. The blade was withdrawn, and her weight moved away from him again. She was between his knees, moving them further apart.
Her hand stroked down his chest, and the flat of the blade followed in its path. Sweat trickled down his ribs.
Buffy knew what to do with a knife. He'd taught her himself. How to throw it. How to fight with it in close quarters. How to defend against it when your opponent had one and you did not. How to keep it sharp. She was demonstrating to him now how well she'd learned that lesson, flicking away the hair on his belly, just above where his erection rested.
He was beyond aroused. He was out of his mind with lust and fear and craving, hands digging into the sheets to keep himself still underneath her. She slid the flat of the blade up his stomach, sharp edge trailing, up to his chest. More delicate scraping around his nipples, soft scratching, the edge barely grazing his skin, then away.
He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He opened his eyes and met hers, dark with excitement, entirely focused on him.
What was she to him? She was everything. He'd been dedicated to her service before she'd even been born; raised and trained and prepared and sent here thousands of miles from his home for no one but her. And she deserved it. Who killed that demon tonight? Not the soldiers with their guns and sensors, their armor and radios.
Buffy, alone, with his knife in her hand. Buffy, alone, with the fate of the world in her hand. Buffy, with his life in her hand.
"Yes, oh yes," he said. "I'm yours."
Giles let go of the sheets and turned his palms up, and let himself melt.
The knife moved everywhere over him. Down his arms and over his upturned palms. Along his sides. Along his thighs, down and up. Between his legs, the blunt edge scraping over sensitized skin. Then sliding over his erection, cold against heat, while he groaned. A strange massage over his entire body, trailing sparks over his skin. His breathing slowed and deepened. He was sliding down into trance, breathing with her, breathing with each slow sweep of the blade across flesh. He was floating free, mind silenced.
She ended where she began, with the blade at his throat, the sharp edge resting against the leather of his collar. The fear was gone. In its place was surrender.
Buffy held the knife to his lips for one last kiss, then it was gone. Giles heard it snick closed, then the heavy metallic sound of it returning to the nightstand. Her weight lifted from his waist. More sounds from the side of the bed; he couldn't determine what. He remained where he was, still far gone in trance state, eyes half-closed.
Giles felt Buffy's hand under his back, urging him to roll over. He pulled himself together enough to cooperate. She had pillows ready to slip under his hips, raising his arse for her convenience. He settled himself and spread his legs wide for her. He was a puddle, completely relaxed and pliant under her hands. Whatever she would do to him, he would accept.
She knelt between his legs again.
"Mmm. You look so good like this. All marked up. Fantastic." Her hands stroked over his sore thighs, pressing on the welts she'd granted him. "Don't move."
More sounds. A plastic cap snicking open. The sound of a bottle being squeezed. Giles sighed and let himself relax further against the satin sheets. At last she was going to take him. The glass nudged at his body, stroking over the skin. A sensitive place, the anus. The first time he'd been touched there he'd nearly jumped out of bed, so surprised he'd been. The first time he'd been licked. The first time he'd been penetrated. The first time he'd slid fingers into another man's body and caressed. All these touches were good. This had always felt good to Giles, the push and slide and stroke. Sweet invasion. Surrender. The gift of his body to his possessor.
He strove to let himself open for her. She was moving slowly, demanding patience from him. He wanted to writhe under her, to thrust back and impale himself, to entice her into going faster. But he held still out of fear of what she would do to him if he disobeyed and moved.
But why disobey? Obedience was sweet. He was her toy, her willing servant, the instrument of her will. He had a vision of Buffy standing on a dais, in shining mail, armed with sword and shield. He knelt at her right hand, her most trusted advisor, her liegeman, wearing her livery, all silks and satins. Her collar around his neck, steel links welded together that he could never remove. And secretly, under the bright silk, her steel cock inside him, thick and hard and demanding. Everyone knew he was hers, everyone knew his condition, and he was the envy of them all. She was the Slayer, and he was her cherished Watcher.
Giles moaned aloud, and let the fantasy spin a while longer, while she held the head of the plug inside him at its widest point, stretching him.
She spoke. "This looks amazing. To see this inside you, opening you wide. The glass is gorgeous. I can see everything."
Giles could only groan in response.
"We're going to get more toys like this."
"As, as you wish."
She let the glass slide all the way in and settle. He clenched and felt it move inside him. It drove him mad, just as it always used to. The head was perfectly placed. He let himself writhe and gasp. She laughed above him, then laid a hand on his back and pressed him flat.
"Stay very still."
He opened his mouth to tell her that of course he would, but instead her hand came down on him hard and he cried out. She slapped him once on each buttock. The pain grew and spread, then settled into heat. He knew from experience how exquisitely sensitive his welted backside was. She slapped him again, on each thigh this time, not pulling her blows. Then respite, while he trembled beneath her and let the burn wash over him.
Don't fight the pain, he reminded himself. Welcome the pain. Flow with it. Let it take him far away. The pain was her gift to him.
He lay on his belly and awaited his mistress's pleasure.
The sound of a plastic cap again, and liquid, and this time something pooled warm in the small of his back. Her hands smoothed it over his skin, and he caught the scent: sandalwood and musk. His massage oil. She seemed to know what she was doing, to his surprise. Her fingers found all the knotted places in his shoulders and back.
She spread the oil over his buttocks and thighs as well, and dug deep into his muscles there while he moaned. Pain and pleasure at once, her fingers on the base of the plug moving it inside him, her hands on sore skin.
Then she slapped him again, no warning, just the sudden explosion of sound and pain. He struggled for a moment and found himself pinned flat by Slayer strength while she spanked him harder. He begged her forgiveness and let himself go limp under her hand, let himself cry out and sob.
Then the plug thrusting inside him again, building the pleasure while the pain eased. Then her hands gliding up his back, across his shoulders, her slight weight leaning on him.
She worked him for some time like that, refusing to settle into a rhythm with him, not letting him relax. Sometimes a slap on his backside or thighs, sometimes a caress, sometimes her hands stroking up and down his back, sometimes her fingers moving the plug inside him. Every touch sent him further into his body, soothed his ever-restless mind into quiet. A fusillade of blows brought him to tears that she then soothed away with oiled fingers kneading his shoulders and neck. She gradually eased down into steady massage, up and down his back, firm hands on his burning buttocks, his abused thighs. Fingers teasing at his balls.
Then her touches slowed, softened, and stopped. A towel, rough on his back. She turned him over again and propped him up half-sitting against the pillow. The slick sheets smooth and soothing to his heated flesh. He let her arrange his body as she willed. The wire-tight tension that had him trembling under the knife earlier in the evening was entirely gone. Only one part of him remained tense, straining, and eager. Perhaps she would allow him release. He was nearly at the end of what he could bear, overloaded with sensation and emotion and strain.
She was between his legs again, which promised well. She rested her hands on his thighs. "Watch. Make noise. Talk. I want to hear you. But don't move. And don't come until I say you can."
"Yes, my Slayer. Oh, God, please, yes."
She hovered over his cock, intent, blowing breath over him, thumbs stroking the soft skin inside his thighs. Then touch: the tip of her tongue circling the head of his cock, inside the foreskin, across the slit. Giles begged her for more, begged her to finish him. Wet, messy licks, kisses up and down his cock. He watched her, so focused, so solemn. Concentrating on him, on his cock.
"Suck me," he said. "Please. Take me. Do it."
She smiled. Her hand on his balls, gripping almost to the point of pain but riding the edge. Her fingers moving the plug inside him, sending shivers through him.
Giles watched her mouth stretch around him, watched himself slide in. She closed her lips around him and sucked. He shouted and drove his hips up. She pinned him with a hand gripping his hip, hard enough to leave bruises. It was so difficult not to buck up, not to drive himself into that hot mouth.
She wrapped a hand around him and let him thrust through it, into her mouth. Let him do the work. He could feel it starting inside, the tightening. He faltered, and gasped and begged her to stop, he couldn't take it. Buffy had mercy on him and pulled away. She sat up and stroked him everywhere but his cock, petting him down, until his breathing slowed and the strain on his face eased.
She stretched herself over his chest and kissed him. Giles kissed her eagerly in return. He hadn't kissed her nearly enough. Hadn't done nearly enough of anything. She pulled back and rubbed his nose with hers.
"What would you say if I bound you and left you like this all night?"
Giles closed his eyes for a moment. God, to spend all night with this thing hard inside him. It would take ages for his erection to subside enough to let him sleep. How long had he been aroused this evening? How much would he ache? His voice was husky when he answered at last.
"I would thank my mistress for her gracious attention."
She closed her hand around his collar and shook him gently. "What would you really say?"
He managed a smile. "I would swear at you, probably, then hold my wrists out for you to bind."
He followed word with deed. She gripped his wrists hard. Her hands weren't large enough to circle his wrists, but her strength awed him as always. Not that he fought her. He let her stretch his arms up over his head. She pinned him there, against the wall above the headboard.
"Why?"
"Why what, my Slayer?"
"Why would you let me do that to you?"
"Because you are my mistress," he said, puzzled. "I suffer for your pleasure."
She smiled at him and kissed him again, insistent, her tongue forcing itself inside. He submitted gracefully. And then she had released him, had slid down between his legs again.
"Come when you're ready to," she said.
Her mouth was on him again, hot and wet and soft and slick and so sweet, so sweet, her lips wrapped around him, her hands taking what her lips and tongue could not. Giles would not, could not, hold back any longer.
It rose in him, spreading and breaking outward, inevitable, huge. The image of her armed and shining again, this time on her knees before him, worshipping him-- he was bound and naked and penetrated and splayed out before her, but she knelt and took him in her mouth-- Giles cried out and thrust deep and came and gave her what he was, his life and service and blood and sweat and semen, everything in long pulsing waves.
Giles lay almost insensate, completely limp. He felt her slide the plug from his body, and moaned in protest. She shushed him, and he let his head loll back. When he could see again, think again, however weakly, she was sprawled over his chest, peering intently at his face. She reached up and wiped sweat from his forehead.
"Buffy... I... Lord. That was..."
Buffy grinned at him, one of the purest expressions of happiness he'd seen on her face in the entire time he'd known her. "You deserved it. My amazing Watcher."
She kissed him again and he opened his mouth eagerly. The taste of his own semen in her mouth was marvelous. He thrust his tongue deep, seeking more of it. It had been too long since he'd tasted any man but himself. Perhaps she would let him-- a thought for another day. Giles was beyond exhausted.
She released him and he fell backwards onto the pillows. He was dimly aware of her moving around his flat, of water running downstairs. He was on the edge of sleep when she returned. He blinked himself to wakefulness and watched her move around the bedroom. Blowing night's candles out, filling the room with the scent of smoke and hot wax. Unbuckling his collar. Undressing herself at last. She made him move and slide under the sheets, then slipped in next to him. Bare skin, Slayer-hot. He moved close to her and rested his head on her shoulder. She stroked his hair.
"May I do something for you?" he said.
"Nah. I'm good. This was all about you tonight. Making up for all the badness of the last two years."
"You have nothing to make up for."
"Oh yes, I do," she said.
"Nonsense. Be my Slayer. Be my magnificent warrior. That's all I want."
"Show me how."
"As you wish," he said, into her neck. He mumbled a kiss against her, and was asleep.
Stretches. Just stretches, Giles had said. Buffy had thought it would be a piece of cake, and it had started out that way. He'd taken her through conventional stretches for ten minutes, then muttered something grumpy under his breath. She needed to challenge her body, he said, give the muscles something to do besides burst and punch and kick. She was showing dangerous signs of losing flexibility.
It had been two hours of what he called "remedial yoga" since that grumpy fit.
For the first hour he'd been on the floor with her, demonstrating, holding positions, moving slowly into postures he called cow and dog and tree, making her giggle. Until she'd found how much they kicked her ass. She'd stopped giggling and started concentrating. Then he'd been next to her, hands on her body, guiding. He smelled like clean sweat, like the massage oil she'd used on him last night, like the strong tea that had been all the breakfast he'd allowed either of them. She'd been hyper-aware of his hands until the demands of the poses distracted her. Now she was aware only of her breathing, of the muscles contracting and stretching in ways she'd never asked them to do before. Of the ways she was flexible, and the ways she was not.
She'd always thought of yoga as a hippie-dippie thing, a suburban housewives thing, that went with crystals in the windows and unicorn stickers on the SUV. But obviously she'd been wrong. Giles wasn't into things that didn't work. He had some kind of black belt in some martial art she'd forgotten the name of. If he chose to teach her to stand like a tree instead of punch like a horse, he must have a reason.
He was pushing her harder than he'd ever pushed her in training. Before, back in high school, he'd always seemed half-intimidated by her, befuddled by her willfulness and her flareups of rebellion. There was no caution in his manner now, no doubt. He paced around her casually, confidently, and commanded her to hold the pose for five breaths longer than she wanted to, longer than she thought she could. She obeyed him without thinking to question.
They had a bargain. More than a bargain: they'd linked hands and sworn to each other. He'd abided by his half of the oath. Now it was up to Buffy to hold to her half. To trust him, to throw herself on his strength and let him have control.
She was in something he called the Bridge pose. Giles lounged against the wall, a fresh cup of tea in hand, while she sweated on the floor at his bare feet. He counted, then she relaxed. Then he made her do it all over again.
"This is killing me. I am so flabby."
"I'm out of shape as well," he said. "Too much whisky, not enough jogging."
"Going to come running with me?"
He finished his tea and set the cup on the mantel. "If you like. But I want you doing serious distance. None of this sprinting for fifteen minutes then stopping. You're granted the explosive strength, but endurance you have to build the way the rest of us do."
"Painfully."
"Exactly. Now. Come down slowly. Slowly. Good. That's it. We'll finish with the corpse pose. Like this."
He knelt at her side and eased her limbs into the right positions. Then he lay next to her and crooned to her. That was the only word for it. His voice was soft and breathy and gentle, like his hands in her hair. She was the center, he told her, and there was a place inside her that was perfect peace. His voice soothed her and settled her and relaxed her muscle by muscle, until the carpet was a soft bed of fronds at the bottom of the ocean, until she was rocking gently with the waves and might never move a muscle again, caressed by that voice. Then it shifted and he rose with her, ascending through green water and shifting light and flickering silver fish to breech the surface with a sigh and a deep breath.
Buffy sat up slowly. She was tired and sore, but she felt amazing. And that last experience had been like nothing they'd done before. "What was that you did at the end?"
"Ah. That was hypnosis."
"Wow. I feel good."
"I suggested that you would feel good after this. You chose to accept my suggestion."
"'Cause it was sensible. Mm. They teach you weird stuff at those Watcher schools."
Buffy redid her pony tail. Giles drank some water, then lifted the edge of his t-shirt to scrub his face. Buffy got a good look at his stomach while he did it. Not that there were any mysteries left about his body; she just liked looking at it. He didn't have the washboard abs thing that Riley and his squadmates all had, from hours of crunches and pushups and hoo-hah-ing. He had a real body, and it had lived and gone places and fought demons and picked up a few scars.
He dropped the t-shirt back into place and drank more water. Buffy hopped over and took the bottle from him, stuck it on the floor. She leapt up into his arms, locked her legs around his waist, and grinned. "You're sweaty," she said.
"So are you."
"No. I'm glowing. You're sweaty. Your chest is all damp." And the edges of his hair, and his neck, and all down the back of his t-shirt. Rumpled, disordered, not a single hair in place.
He turned around and pushed her back against the wall.
"What's this about?"
"Leverage," he said.
Then he was kissing her, and she had to shut up. His lips were damp against hers, his tongue cold from the water. His eyes were open, and he seemed almost curious. Slow kisses, intense, demanding but not hard or fierce. Buffy had no choice but to focus on them, on him, on his mouth on hers, her hands locked around the back of his neck, his sweaty hair. It was comforting, being wedged between Giles and the wall. Warm male body against her, hips pushing up against hers. He was slowly hardening as he rocked against her. Felt nice to have somebody between her and the world, to have a few minutes of feeling protected. If real danger appeared, she'd step up and protect the both of them without hesitation, but sheltering in his arms for a while was a relief. He had the control.
His mouth was on her neck now. He was nibbling. It almost tickled. Buffy giggled, and tilted her head. He switched to licking, and that did tickle.
"Taste good?"
"Mmm. Like sweaty Slayer. Salty. Too salty. You need water." He backed away from the wall and carried her over to the sofa, where he unceremoniously dropped her. Buffy let herself sprawl over the couch. He tossed his water bottle at her. "Drink that."
Buffy didn't, but sat holding it and spacing out a bit, getting used to her body again. She felt muscles in places she normally never felt muscles. Her back, her stomach, her triceps.
From the kitchen came sounds of Giles rummaging in the refrigerator. He came back in with a bottle of mixed fruit juice, the sort with protein added that you found in health food stores, and places that catered to body builders. He handed it to Buffy.
"This has a zillion calories in it."
Giles glared at her. "Drink it. You need the protein. I suspect your nutrition has been just as dreadful as your exercise habits have been. You've ignored everything I've ever told you, haven't you."
Buffy shrugged, which was tantamount to admitting that Giles was completely right. She'd been a slacking Slayer. She ripped the cap off and tasted it. It was weird, but good. Then she drank about half in three swallows. Thirstier than she'd thought, not to mention completely sans breakfast. "What's in this?"
He took the bottle from her and had a gulp. "I'd say banana."
"No, I mean-- Never mind." He handed it back. Buffy upended it and finished it off. "What's with you? You never used to be so casual."
"Wasn't sleeping with you before."
He quirked a little smile at her and exchanged the empty container for his half-empty bottle of water. He took the empty back to the kitchen. Buffy perched on a stool and sipped water. Giles rinsed out the empty bottle and set it on his dishrack. Neatnik, even about the recycling. A neatnik with his hair standing on end and a big damp triangle down the front of his t-shirt and an erection like a heat-seeking missile launching from his sweatpants. He seemed to be ignoring it, which was in direct contravention of every Law of Malekind that Riley had ever told her. A hard-on was DefCon 2, all troops mobilized to deal with the emergency.
It was absurd and sexy at once, to see him moving around his kitchen with that preceding him. She liked knowing she affected her Watcher this way. She'd been affecting him this way for a long time, it seemed, longer than he was comfortable admitting. And he'd hidden it away, given her no clue, no reason to fear or distrust him. He might never have given her a clue, but for that little blackmail problem. Noble dork, her Watcher.
He came around to her side of the pass-through and sat on the other stool.
"Don't you need to do something about that?"
"Want? Yes. Need? No."
"Doesn't it drive you nuts?"
Giles smiled, in an odd way. "Quite the reverse."
Buffy stared. Sometimes she didn't understand how sex worked for him.
"There are more important things to do right now," he said, and shrugged.
"Yeah? Like what?" Buffy leaned over and licked his neck over where she'd given him the hickey.
"I, ah, mmm. Seem to have forgotten. Ah. Shower. Breakfast."
She let go of him and climbed onto his lap for more of those slow intense kisses. He slipped a cool hand inside her racerback and braced it flat against her back, fingers spread. It felt good. Buffy let herself enjoy the taste of her Watcher again, tea and now banana.
"Sure you don't need something?"
Buffy sucked at his earlobe. Giles shivered.
"You're persuasive."
"It could be the next phase of Slayer training."
"You don't need much. Seem to know exactly what you're doing."
"Don't be so sure," she said, mumbling into his neck.
"Oh?"
"I'm not all that experienced."
"You're quite good at what you've done with me."
"That's just paying attention. And being brave and trying things I've read about."
Giles shook his head. "Paying attention is the essence of making love. All this talk about technique is rot. S'all about doing what your partner likes. Try things. If they feel good, do them some more."
"That's just it. I haven't tried all that much."
Giles was silent for a while. Buffy kept herself busy kissing him. She had done a lot of that in her life, and felt confident about it. Giles kissed her back hungrily. Then he pulled back and rubbed his nose against hers.
"Is there something you've always wanted to try? Tell me, and we'll do it."
"Anything? What if--"
"You know my limits. Tell me." He nuzzled her again.
"No, I mean, what if it's boring?"
Giles answered with the gentlest of voices. "Nothing's boring when it's you, my Slayer. Tell me."
"Just... new positions. Like you behind me. Basic stuff like that."
He didn't laugh, but nodded solemnly. "Of course."
"And talk to me," she blurted, before she could stop herself. Riley had ignored her when she'd tried to coax him into talking to her while they were in bed. When she'd asked him a second time he'd said it was distracting.
Giles considered her for a moment, then nodded. "It'll be my pleasure. Dirty or sensual?"
"Oh, I, um, hadn't thought about that."
He nodded again, exactly as if she'd given him a real answer. "Hold tight."
Giles put his hands under her butt and stood. Buffy locked her arms and legs around him. He carried her over to the center of his living room, to the space he'd cleared for their workout, and gently set her down on the mats. He stripped himself and tossed his clothing at the hallway. Buffy made as if to pull off her top, but he raised a hand to stop her.
"Allow me."
He knelt behind her and moved close. Warm arms around her, warm hands sliding up and lifting away her top, warm skin against her bared back. Her shorts were next, slid down by hands gliding down her thighs. He eased her down onto the mat. He snugged himself close behind her and wound his arm around her waist.
"No more athletics this morning," he said, in her ear. "This is more relaxing. Now. If you'll allow me, I'll show you another use for hypnosis."
Buffy shivered and let herself settle into his arms.
Giles talked. His voice was the same it had been when they'd done that last yoga pose together, all low and breathy and soothing, leading her step by step toward something. Something good. Hypnosis again. She filed the thought away and let that voice carry her where he wanted.
Where he wanted to go was a sweet place.
He told her how lovely she was to him, how her strength excited him, how her grace moved him. How wonderful she'd made him feel over the last two days, how her bravery had awed him. He told her how good she would feel, when at last he touched her. He told her how good she tasted, how much he longed to taste her again, to worship her with his kisses again. To touch her in her most secret places. To hear her cry out in pleasure and joy.
His hands were warm on her shoulder and stomach. He hadn't caressed her at all, not really, just a moment or two of his hand on her breasts. But she was panting for him exactly as if he had.
"Please--" she said.
"Are you open? If I touched you, would I find you ready for me?"
"I am."
"Tell me."
"I'm so... Don't have words. I've never been so turned on. I can almost feel you. Imagining you. Please. Touch me."
"Do you want me inside?"
"Yes."
"Bend your knee, yes, just like that. Rest your foot there. Perfect. Mmm. So strong, so supple, so soft and hard and sexy."
On the last words he slipped his leg between hers and entered her. Buffy sighed in satisfaction. Having him inside felt good. Was nice to have him do all the work this time, too, to have him take over and say all those wonderful things her. He was rocking himself inside her, maddeningly deliberate and slow, and whispering again.
"You feel so good. So good. Hot and wet and so slick. Squeeze me. When I push in, tighten around me. Oh Lord, yes, just like that. Again. Perfect. I adore making love like this. S'easy to reach around and touch you."
His hand slid down her leg and came to rest on her mons, fingers almost but not quite touching her sex. Buffy shivered.
"Patience. My Slayer has shown me patience, kept me on the edge and trembling for her. Now I'll be patient for her. Tease her. Tease you, my sweet Buffy."
The lightest of strokes, around and over, just brushing against her. A tease, as he said. Buffy gasped anyway. Gasped again as he touched her again, each time closer than the last, until his fingers rested over her. He held himself perfectly still.
"Yes?" he whispered.
"Yes."
Fingers moving against her, his body hard inside hers, his lips against the back of her neck. Buffy moved with him. It was so easy with Giles, so easy to find the path to release. Everything unified, everything pointing in the same direction, needle pointing north. Giles, pointing the way...
Buffy's breath came faster. She tipped her head back against him.
Voices, loud outside Giles' front door. Xander and Willow and somebody else. Buffy froze. The doorknob rattled, and she had a moment of panic. Had she remembered to-- The door didn't open, and the next sound was knocking.
"Man, that's two mornings in a row," said Xander.
"Four. No, five. There are five here." Willow's voice. "Ooh! They're so cute."
Giles was still moving inside her, still caressing her. Buffy put her hand down over his.
"Hush. Stay with me. They can't see you," Giles said.
"Six. You missed the large one sleeping over there." Anya.
"What are they doing here?" Buffy said. She knew she was whining, but she'd been so close.
He did not cease moving his fingers against her. His voice stayed soft. "They come by often. At least Xander does." He shifted his hand.
"Oh, that feels--"
He laughed softly into her ear. "I'm sure it does. Would you like to come? Right now, while they're just outside? While you have to be quiet so they can't hear?"
The voices outside the door continued.
"Knock louder, Xander. His car is here, so he must be."
Buffy shook her head. "No, please. Not near them."
"We'll scare them off, then."
"How--"
Giles slowly, slowly withdrew until he was almost all the way out, then just as slowly slid himself back inside. Buffy stifled a moan. He pulled out again and thrust himself in and bit her neck. Buffy cried out in shock and pleasure. That had nearly sent her over. The voices outside stopped. Giles thrust and bit again, not hard, but in exactly the spot that drove her mad. This time Buffy was braced for it, but he wrested a gasp from her anyway. Then he made noise himself, a sort of strangled yeah sound, much louder than any sound she'd heard him make normally.
Xander spoke outside the door. "Right. Um."
Willow's voice. "Let's go. We'll call later."
"Much later."
"They'll finish soon--"
"Don't say it, Ahn." Xander's voice dwindled as they walked away.
Buffy felt him shaking against her back. He was laughing, and a moment later she was too, giggling helplessly.
"Feels wonderful around me when you laugh. Lord." He pulled back and held still. He blew out an unsteady breath against her neck. "Did you like that?"
"Yeah. Do it again."
Giles nipped at her neck again, sucking and licking at the place where he'd bitten, and Buffy felt it rising in her again, hard and fast and inescapable. She reached back to him, seeking an anchor.
"Oh, Buffy. You're ready. It's starting. You can feel it. That's right. It's going to be big. It's going to be wonderful. It's happening. Now."
Despite what she'd feared, Buffy made no noise. It was too big. It surrounded her and closed in on her and consumed her. She shuddered and shattered and went somewhere else for a few seconds. Giles' voice brought her back down, his lips against her ear, telling her how marvelous she was, soothing her.
"Now is when I envy women. Because you're going to come again when I touch you. You're ready, right on the edge. Now. Come."
His fingers on her again, almost more than she could bear, triggering another explosion and shudder, then easing away just when the touch would have become painful. A few moments to let her recover, then again. And again, his body hard and moving inside hers, his voice soft in her ear, urging her on, telling her she deserved every moment of pleasure he could give her, and more.
Then he eased off, and simply held her close against his chest. Buffy trembled in his arms, coming down slowly.
"God, you're marvelous. Have you had your fill, my Slayer?"
"Yeah." No eloquence from Buffy right now. A mumble was all she could manage after that. "How 'bout you?"
"Mm. I'd like to finish, if I may."
Buffy sigh happily. "'Course. Can't believe you held out through all that. How many times? Oh man."
"I wasn't certain I would be able to come again this week after last night," he said. "I wouldn't have survived five seconds if we'd done this two days ago. Here."
He withdrew and eased her onto her back. He lifted her legs to rest on his shoulders and pushed in deep, far deeper than he'd been before. He groaned, this time in earnest, and thrust hard, still moving more slowly than she might have expected, more slowly than any of her other lovers ever had. It felt good, but Buffy felt no need to come again, or do anything other than squeeze him, cradle him and help him feel good too.
"Oh, God, Buffy. You're so beautiful. So sexy."
He was looking down, at the place where their bodies were joined. He looked thrilled.
"Do you like that? Looking at yourself inside me?"
He groaned again. "Yes. Lord, yes. The idea... It's primal. I'm inside you. I'm taking you. You're mine. I'm gonna, gonna come inside you. Again. Bloody hell."
"Why's that exciting?"
He shifted her legs down and let his weight rest on her. He wrapped his arms around her. Buffy tucked her heels behind his knees. He was moving hard and fast now.
"Pure biology. Come inside you, oh fuck, Buffy. So close. I need to--"
"Ssh. Go for it, sweetie."
No more words from him, just harsh breaths and half-choked moans in her ear, his hands clutching her back tighter, his hips pushing hard against hers, not thrusting any more but stilled, and then he was gasping out her name. He stayed inside her, a solid warm weight on top of her, breathing slower as he recovered, brushing kisses against her neck, until he softened and slipped out. Then he rolled off and onto his back.
Buffy sat up on one elbow and looked at him. Sprawled out, sweaty again, face and chest flushed, eyes shut. He looked wrecked.
"You okay?"
He opened his eyes. "Bloody brilliant. I'll die a happy man. Right here. Never moving again."
Buffy smiled and leaned down to kiss his forehead. He'd closed his eyes again. That had been a lot of exercise on top of the workout, she supposed. She'd have to give him a break for a couple of days. She had to, anyway. She had a ton of coursework piling up, and another paper to write. College never stopped. She pouted to herself, but she didn't mean it. College was good. This was good. So many things in her life right now were good, balancing out the nightly drag of Slaying and trying to save people.
She snugged herself up against Giles' side. Warm, heartbeat, chest rising and falling with breath. This man, right next to her, was one of the good things. What had kept her away from him for so long? She'd been foolish. She'd treated him as the enemy, sulked at him as if he'd been the one who'd made her the Slayer, and as if he hadn't been trapped by destiny just as much as she had.
This man stood for everything that kept her alive every night. This man was her ally. A compass pointing north, a knife in her boot, a guard at her door, an ally at her back. Her Watcher.
"I get it," she said, into his shoulder.
"Pardon?"
"You're on my side. Like, in everything."
Giles didn't budge, or open his eyes. "'Course I am."
"Why?"
"Sent here for you, wasn't I."
Buffy shifted so she could see his face. His eyes were still closed. "Are you okay with that?"
"Complicated. There were times... But now, yes. I'm your man." He sighed.
"Isn't it hard sometimes?" She knew, as she said it, that this was a stupid thing to ask. Dead friends, shattered relationships, scars on once-broken fingers.
"There are compensations." Now he opened his eyes. He seemed as if he were about to ask a question, but Buffy sat up and interrupted him.
"I'm sticking to this mat. Shower time now?"
Giles lifted his head just enough to glare at her. "Thought we established this. I'm never moving again." He let his head thump back down.
"How about if I lure you with tea?"
He made a show of putting his hands behind his head. "I'll take a cup here. Wake me when it's ready."
"Sorry, ally-guy, you need a shower now. You are stinky."
Buffy popped up, seized the mat, and dragged her giggling Watcher down the hall.
Giles rocked back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head. He yawned. It was late, pushing midnight, and he ought to put away his books and get some sleep. He'd arranged to meet Buffy in the morning for a run, before her first class, and he would need to be awake. He'd lost himself in his reading, though, as preparation for the weekend's training with Buffy turned into pleasure: he'd been reviewing his great-grandfather's hand-written notes on The art of war. Giles had a more modern translation in his collection as well, but he preferred the elegance of that first translation. Not to mention the advantage his reading received from the nuances discussed in the translator's own commentary, written in unfaded india ink and a clear hand on the pages in front of him.
The front door opened. Giles's head snapped around: Buffy came through the doorway, fast. He stood, half in respect, half in anxiety, but she appeared well. She turned her back to him and turned the key in the bolt.
"You really should lock this thing."
"It's always unlocked if you're not here. Buffy. Do you need anything? Are you hurt?"
She came close to him but seemed distracted. "No. Just... kind of a hard patrol tonight."
She said no more. He deduced that she meant it was one of those nights when she saw the consequences of vampire predation. Why one slays vampires: because they kill humans for food and for sport. Buffy had come to him before in this mood. He'd usually made tea for her and sat with her quietly. It hadn't happened recently, not since that cursed birthday torment he'd visited upon her. Giles repeated his familiar mental oath, then allowed himself a moment of thrill. Whatever it was that had driven her away, they'd moved past. They were a team again.
"Tea?" he said.
"Yeah, please."
When he returned from the kitchen, he found her seated at his desk, bent over his grandfather's manuscript.
"This guy says all war is based on deception. Is he right?"
"Yes," he said, mildly. He set her mug down on the desk at her elbow, safely away from the papers. She picked it up and sipped absently, continuing to read the translation.
"When capable, seem incapable. When active, seem inactive. When near, appear far away."
"The feint," Giles said. "When your opponent's information is bad, he makes bad decisions. This leads to opportunity for you."
Buffy nodded. Giles cast about for larger examples. Her knowledge of the history of warfare was spotty, but she'd studied the second world war, at least. He explained Operation Fortitude, and the importance of the Allied deceit. The Germans believed the main invasion would be at the Pas de Calais, so they were slow to move their troops to the real site of invasion.
"Giles, I'm not going to be commanding troops."
"No. The Slayer's battles are most often one on one. But the principle is important, whether you're leading a thousand men or just one."
Buffy tapped the manuscript page, laid flat on the desk. She frowned, and seemed not to see the page. Giles was gratified to have her close attention. Perhaps college had taught her the importance of abstract knowledge. Even a year ago, he'd had difficulty maintaining her interest through a discussion like this..
She straightened on the stool. "I get it. So. If I'm deceiving them, they're going to be deceiving me. Or trying to."
"Yes."
Her forefinger tapped the page again, over his great-grandfather's orderly writing. "Angel did it once. The night he captured you. I fell for it like a big moron."
Giles did not offer her comfort or denial. She had to learn from her mistakes, because when the Slayer made mistakes, humans died. Sometimes the Slayer herself died-- a thought Giles had to force himself to form. But he formed it, to keep himself alert. "Yes. How did he succeed?"
"Emotion," Buffy said, with a harsh note in her voice that was unfamiliar to him. "He fooled me because he had me upset. But I'm not in the mood for this now."
"It can wait until our next session. Sunday morning, yes? You caught me in the middle of my preparation."
Giles took the tea things away and washed up in the kitchen. They brushed their teeth in the bathroom together, closed up the flat together, went up to his bed together, like a normal couple. That was where the resemblance ended, for when he pulled his pajamas from under his pillow, she stopped him.
"No pjs. You sleep nude from now on."
He inclined his head to her. "Of course," he murmured. She'd shifted her mood, and now the Slayer was in charge. He felt himself twitch and awaken in his loose trousers. He rose further when he'd bared himself and was moving around the room nude, folding his clothing for the hamper. The stripes on his backside were still visible, and his mistress was pleased to see them. She didn't undress fully, but left on her tank top and knickers. Satin. They were slick under his fingers when she joined him under the covers and suffered him to hold her close, suffered him to kiss her. Long, slow, and deep, kisses with more tenderness than passion. The kisses were enough for him. His body was sated and weary from the effort of satisfying her over the weekend.
She pulled back from him and laid her fingers across his lips. "What are you doing tomorrow night? Had an idea."
"Tomorrow's my weekly dinner with Xander. I'll cancel with him if you'd like."
"No, no, do your thing with Xander. I just remembered I have a thing with Riley tomorrow, and some Initiative thing on Wednesday." She made a little sound of frustration. "Busy week. Can't get away until Saturday."
Giles kissed her again. "Saturday's fine."
"Do you mind that I'm going out with Riley tomorrow tonight?"
He shook his head. "Better to ask if he'd mind what's happening now."
Buffy sighed, but did not move away from him. "I know he would. I know. If I'm not careful it's going to end messy. He'll get hurt. He's gonna get hurt any way it works out." He could hear her regret, but also resignation. It puzzled him.
"Why not end it now, if I may ask?"
Though as Giles said the words, he worried that she might take it as instruction from him. Here he did not wish to interfere; there was a corner of him that found pleasure in the knowledge that his mistress was free to be with other men while he was constrained. But Buffy shook her head against him.
"Can't. Have to stay on good terms with him. Only way to get in good with the Initiative. The guys can only relate to me as his girlfriend." Buffy's voice was dry, and Giles could imagine her exasperation.
"Why do you-- Ah. You distrust the Initiative."
"There's something up. I don't know what yet. "
"Their goals would seem to be aligned with ours."
"I repeat tonight's homily to you."
"Ah." Giles pondered that. He wasn't sure she was right, but then he didn't have all the information she did. He'd need to quiz her further. Perhaps in the morning. There seemed to be no rush. But: "Buffy? Be sure you're at war."
"Good point. I need to think more."
He felt that thrill again, the excitement and almost trembling awe that she was accepting his tutelage again. The Slayer wanted him, wanted his advice, wanted his skills. He flashed again on that moment of surprising fantasy from their last session: her as warrior, he on his knees at her side, stamped as her man publicly and privately. He set it aside with an effort; it was not the time for fantasy, given the hour.
"Let's get some sleep," he said. "We have an early start."
She reached down and took his half-awake sex in her hand. He tried not to moan, but failed. He wakened fully in the space of three breaths. She stroked a light finger over the tip and he moaned again. "Something doesn't want to go to sleep yet," she said.
"It wants more than is good for it," he said, unsteadily.
"Sure you don't want to play?"
"Buffy, I can't-- my body isn't up to it every night. It wasn't even when I was twenty. Not the sort of things I crave, at least. I- I- I prefer to, er, play, ah, less often, and more intensely."
She released her grasp on him and rested her hands on his chest. He took them in his and laced his fingers through hers.
"You crave intensity, huh? You mean being whipped?"
"Being, ah, being whipped, yes." His voice was far too husky for his own comfort. Every word out of his mouth betrayed how much the idea moved him. Dangerous.
She tugged him close. "What else?"
He swallowed. It was easier to talk in the dark, with his face nuzzled into her shoulder, her hands tight in his, her lips on his forehead. She made him feel safe, made him feel he could say these things, confess these desires. They'd never brought him anything but misery and shame before, but now Giles thought it was safe. With her it would be. But when he answered, it was with a voice even rougher with emotion.
"Pain, pleasure, whatever you want. Submitting. Being yours. Anything that proves it to you. Being at your mercy. Handing myself over. Waiting on my knees, oh God, yes, that. Aroused and waiting on your whims. Being brought to the edge and held there. "
"Those things are good. I like those things too."
Her approval made him bold. "What else do you like, my Slayer?"
Buffy sighed, and didn't answer him right away. "The way you touch me. The way your face looks when I hurt you, or when I make you feel good. Making you feel things-- it's amazing. What I feel inside when I realize you trust me so completely. What I feel when I think that you're mine. Watching you wait on your knees for me. The way you swear under your breath when I use my strength on you."
If he hadn't had his eyes open, if he hadn't been watching her intently, half in fear, half in desire, he might have missed it. A flicker across her face, of worry and uncertainty. She wanted to please him. She was afraid she didn't.
"Buffy. My Slayer. Please hear me. Anything you choose to do to me pleases me. I'm your man. Do you understand what that means?"
Buffy nodded, but then said, "No. Sort of. I'm starting to figure out it's complicated."
"In this it's simple. Do what you wish with me. Take what you want from me. I will enjoy it, because it's proof I'm yours. So long as you're here with me. So long as you show up on Sunday to train with me. Do you understand?"
"Yeah. Think so."
"So tell me what you demand of me, my Slayer. Shall I fetch a flogger for you to use on me?" He didn't know which emotion was strongest in him: fear that she'd take up his challenge, or longing for it.
She took a deep breath, another. Then she unlaced her fingers from his and gripped his wrists. "No, you were right before. You need your space. You have your breaking point too."
"Yes, I do." He kept his gaze upon her steady, but she didn't flinch away. Instead she grasped him hard enough to hurt, and he was the one who flinched.
"Stupid to injure you or push you too far. Also, wrong to give you exactly what you want. You're not going to sleep yet, Watcher."
Giles saw Buffy smiling in the dark. That intent smile, again, focused inwardly and not so much on him: she was anticipating something. He shivered against her and his treacherous cock hardened and betrayed him further.
"Yeah, that's it," she said. "Mind games work, don't they. And I know what else does."
She moved, Slayer-fast, and had him on his back, wrists pinned together over his head. She held him down while he gasped. He could fight her, if he wanted. She was stronger but he had four stone on her, at least, and more experience. But he didn't want to. He lay under her and panted.
"Like that, Watcher?"
"Yes, yes, you know it, I do."
"I like it too." Then her teeth were in his neck, where she'd bitten him before. Giles froze, then arched up into her but she'd pulled back again already. His neck burned. Once again he wondered if she'd drawn blood. Slayers and vampires, teeth in his neck, God, what was he that he craved this?
"I tell you what else. I like sex."
He breathed out an unsteady laugh. "Who doesn't?"
Buffy smiled at him again, and brushed a kiss over his lips. So strange, such a gentle caress after the ferocity. He had no idea what she would do next.
"How much do you like it? Do you masturbate?"
"What?"
"You heard me."
Giles blinked, but could not answer for a moment. She tightened her grasp on his wrists, where they were crossed over his head, until he gasped out his answer. "Yes."
"Not any more you don't. Not without permission. Yeah. Swearing under your breath-- you like that."
"Yes, I do." Taking command of him, making his submission just a little deeper. Giles was unsure whether it would be difficult or not. If she used him as frequently as she had so far, he'd be more than sated enough to comply. If she made him wait for it, however, he'd be in trouble.
"I might want to watch you do it, or I might want you to go for a while without coming at all. Either way, you don't come without my express permission." She grinned. "Maybe I'll ride you and leave you tied up all night wanting it."
Giles groaned. She knew. She'd make it hard on him.
"In fact... Yeah. This is what I want. You're going to play with yourself every night until Saturday, but you're not going to let yourself come. You're going to work yourself up into a lather and then stop. If you don't, I'll know."
She would, too. He'd be unable to keep it a secret from her. He'd confess it the moment she fixed her gaze upon him.
"Yes, my Slayer." His voice-- he could barely speak.
"Don't get any cute ideas about thinking I want you to disobey so I can get harsh with you. I want you to be in a frenzy."
"I will be anyway," he whispered.
"Obey and we'll act out a fantasy for you. You pick."
"Yes, my Slayer."
"Good. Now you get to go to sleep, all hard and hot and bothered."
She released him and shifted herself away from him. Giles turned to face her. He rubbed his wrists where her fingers had dug into them. He might have bruises. What was he, that the thought of those bruises excited him further? What would he ask her to do? Renew them? He looked into her eyes and saw that she was just as aroused as he was, her breath coming just as short as his. He wondered what she would do if he simply took her now, pushed her back and covered her and satisfied them both. His erection rested against her thigh. He shifted himself and rubbed against her, just for a moment. Her skin was hot. The craving was strong in him, even more because she'd forbidden it. Touch himself, stroke and squeeze, come on her, mark her as his own.
Giles closed his eyes and leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers. Buffy turned away from him and nestled back against his chest. What was he? He was hers. He'd hunger until Saturday night and enjoy every moment of it.
Sunnydale had exactly one "authentic" English pub. It was notable for an inauthentic but eatable fish and chips; dart boards with good darts for hire at the bar; a couple of tables unfortunately built for pool instead of snooker; Bass, Harp, and Newcastle in bottles; and the ubiquitous Guinness on tap. It also had a projection television that ran football broadcasts from satellite and consequently it was crowded at odd hours of the day. During the World Cup it was intolerable. Giles had attended one such broadcast during his early homesickness period, but none since. He preferred a quieter dinner and pint followed by a solitary bit of practice with darts or a pool cue. Rarely, when his life was at its most stressful, he'd take his glass out to the back garden, sit at the sun-bleached picnic tables, and have a quiet smoke.
When he'd first taken Xander to the pub, his most shameful secret had been discovered: he'd taken to drinking a local microbrewery's ale instead of anything imported. Xander had ribbed him mercilessly. Giles had revolted and threatened Xander with going macrobiotic for their next weekly night out. Giles was entirely happy to eat brown rice and tofu, especially if Xander would suffer. He'd yielded in the face of miso and sprouts, and agreed never to mention Giles's penchant for colonial beer again.
Tonight, Xander drank Coca Cola and Giles his usual Razorback Brown Ale, and they both crunched into fried cod slathered in tartar sauce. Giles found his appetite was patchy; his mind was more on how his evening would end than on the food or his companion. He shook himself out of it and let himself enjoy his meal. Each pleasure had its time.
Xander dunked a chip into the mess of ketchup and black pepper he'd made in a corner of his plate, held it up, and contemplated it for a moment before biting off the ketchup-coated end.
"So! Giles. Can't help but notice you're dating again."
"Oh. I mean, er, I am?"
Xander ate the second half of his chip then pointed at his neck. "The hickey suggests neck biting. The lack of puncture marks suggests human not vamp. And finally, the rosy glow of happiness and the utterly goofy grin you'd had on your face all night clinches it. It's a case of the smoochies."
Giles smiled into his pint glass. "Compelling evidence indeed, Holmes."
"You know my methods. Though I also had the evidence of my own ears when we stopped by your place Sunday morning. There was some definite Giles-happies being given."
Giles flushed. Well, he'd asked for that, and it was justice that Xander was teasing him now for that stunt. "Your reasoning is sound. I'm, er, seeing someone new."
"So, who is she? When do I get to meet her?"
"Not just yet."
"Is this a big secret then or what's the deal? 'Cause it's not like I don't know."
Giles arrested his glass on the way back down to the table. Xander's voice had been unusually intent on those last words, almost angry. Not quite. Tense, perhaps. Giles collected himself, but didn't lift his gaze to meet Xander's. He shrugged, very carefully.
"Xan, if it were, were up to me, I'd tell you. But I have been asked, by my, my new partner, to be, ah, discreet. She has, ah, some unfinished business."
Xander shook his head, and Giles was reminded that Xander's relationship with Buffy had been uneasy at times. The tension was there because Xander was feeling protective. Giles was almost touched, but hid it by rummaging for the vinegar.
Xander ate the last of his chips before he answered.
"She should finish up that business. Anya hasn't figured it out yet, and neither has Willow, I'm pretty sure. But they will. And so will other people. Uniformed people, if you catch me. I am not one to throw stones here, because of past history that I'm pretty sure you know all about. This stuff gets out."
"I know. And it's painful when it does. I admit it. But can't be helped at the moment."
Xander cocked his head, then seemed to accept that. He lounged back against the back of the booth, his own glass in hand. "On a completely unrelated topic, where's our friend the Buffster tonight?"
Giles blinked. "I believe she's on a date with Riley."
Xander's face cleared. "Oh. So she'll do it tonight. Okay."
"Do what?"
"Break up."
"I doubt it."
"Aren't you-- I mean, what?"
Giles sighed. It would be impossible to explain the dynamics to Xander without explaining the exact nature of his relationship with Buffy, and he had no intention of doing that. He looked at Xander, and shrugged, hoping it would get across what he needed. "She has her reasons. To do with the Slaying."
Giles looked up to see Xander gazing at him. The expression on his face was solemn. It was an odd thing to see on Xander, as foreign to him as anger was. And then it vanished, fleeting as all intense emotion was on that sunny man Xander, and he was snatching a chip from Giles's plate.
"Gonna eat those? Hurry up. I wanna get my ass handed to me on the pool table again."
Giles stabbed at Xander's hand with a fork and glared, because it was expected. Then he handed over the plate and let Xander consume the lot. Time to give his diet an overhaul, now that he was in training again. The jog with Buffy in the morning had been a rude awakening. He'd be on salads for some time, salads and lean meats and water instead of single malt. Perhaps that macrobiotic restaurant would be no idle threat.
Giles split the bill with Xander, then paid for a couple of hours with a set of pool balls. Giles was only middling among his peers at snooker, but found himself a dab hand at the easier game of pool. He enjoyed complaining about the wrong-sized balls, and mocking the Americans who needed to make snooker easier the same way they made rugger easier on themselves. Xander took it all in good part, and cheerfully exploited Giles's skills to improve his own game. He was a menace with darts, though, and Giles had refused to let him touch them after one go.
Xander broke and failed to sink anything. Giles surveyed the table.
"Solids. Three in the side pocket."
He leaned a hand on the side of the table and craned down to take a second look at his rather cocky called shot. Xander's hand grasped his arm, and Giles froze. Xander pushed his sleeve further up. Clearly visible on Giles's wrist were bruises from where Buffy had grasped him so hard last night. Her fingerprints, purple and blue on his arm. Giles flushed, and felt a wave of that familiar shame wash over him. The thought of those bruises had been so arousing to him at the time, but now-- Now they were still exciting. He was surprised to learn it. Proofs of her dominance over him, visible proofs. She'd gripped him and told him he couldn't come, and anyone who looked at him could see it.
Nonetheless he was afraid of what he'd see in Xander's face. He made himself look anyway. Sympathy. Guileless sympathy. It was almost more painful than revulsion would have been.
"Anything you need to tell me?" Xander's voice was careful.
"I'm fine, thanks."
Xander stood steady however, eyebrows still raised. "I've had bruises like that, and I wasn't fine, no matter what I said. You told me so yourself when you gave me the keys to the library."
Giles flushed deeply red, right out to the tips of his ears. "Xander. It's, ah, consensual."
Now it was Xander's turn to flush. "Oh. That kind of bruise. Right."
Xander made a big production with the chalk on the end of his cue. He put too much on then rubbed it off on his sleeve.
"Have done that sorta thing with Anya. And let me tell ya, she likes wearing the handcuffs a lot. So do I. I mean, like it when she wears them. Hated it when I wore 'em. And I totally am not talking about bondage with you."
Giles breathed out a silent laugh. "I'm content to drop the subject if you are."
"Dropping it now. So long as you're okay."
"Yes, yes, thanks. Am I now allowed to get on with it?" Giles gestured to the table.
"Be my guest. Five in the corner?"
"Three in the side." Giles shook out his shoulders to relax himself and shot. He gloomily watched the ball carom off the corner of the pocket.
"Ought to have gone for the five," Xander said, cheerfully. Giles glowered at him. Xander made the shot himself, then muffed his next through sheer over-ambition and over-confidence. Giles settled in and set himself to the task of clearing the table.
"Giles."
"What?"
"Can't keep my mouth shut."
"And here I was wondering if the sun had risen in the east this morning."
"Snarkmonger. You need to know that if things go smasharooni I'm still your bud. No matter what Buffy does."
"Xander, she's not going to--"
"She might. She's flakey about guys. Don't look at me like that! I am not the Slayer of you, and you can't glare me into shutting up. Okay, you can. Just not about this. You're my friend, Giles. I get to worry about you. This could end in a world of hurt."
Giles sighed and turned back to the table. "Nine in the corner. Bearing in mind that officially I have no idea what you're talking about-- I... yes. But the alternative was... worse."
"Alternative?"
"Her going on without a Watcher, without training, without help. She's been training with those ruddy soldiers. Watchers have been working with Slayers for millennia, literally millennia, Xander. Building a training program that works with who they truly are. I've spent my entire life learning how to keep a Slayer alive and effective. Without me, she--"
"You can be her Watcher without going to bed with her."
Giles shook his head. She'd awakened in time. Sexual jealousy, he suspected, the same emotion that had sent her spinning away from him when she'd walked in on his morning with Olivia. This time it had moved her, finally, to lay claim to him. He stretched out over the table and made a bank shot. The cue was in good shape for his next shot. This was the aspect of the game that gave Xander the most fits: the planning. Not that snooker was chess. Giles could play it with only half his mind on it. He moved around to line up the next shot.
He said, "Fourteen. It was her requirement. An exchange. She wanted this in exchange for my service as her Watcher. We both wanted it, truthfully."
Xander made a thoughtful noise. "Does this happen a lot? I mean, Watchers and Slayers getting their nookie on."
"Better to ask how many have not. It's discouraged nowadays, but in earlier times it was, ah. Simply expected. The inevitable result of the pair being so isolated from everyone else, from ordinary lives. Hunting demons until their deaths. Twelve."
"Deaths? Plural?"
Giles muffed a perfectly easy straight shot. "It's an intense partnership. Or it was."
"And you're old-fashioned." Xander was silent. "Well. That's why we like you. Hey, look! You didn't beat me without me getting a shot this time."
Xander went to work on the table and demonstrated how far he'd come since their first evening playing together. But that was Xander: a workman's competence. He'd never be flash, never strut, but Giles trusted him. He rested his cue on his foot and watched. Buffy had chosen her friends well.
Xander revisited the topic one last time, as Giles pulled the car up to the curb in front of his parents' house.
"I think once I would have hated you. You know. For having what I couldn't."
"Now?"
Xander grinned. "I've got Anya. We make each other happy, and she wears the handcuffs. See ya next week, if not before."
He slammed the passenger door and rapped a goodbye on the window. Giles watched him disappear around the back of his house, then drove himself home. Home where, he would enact in the dark proof of his devotion to his Slayer. Xander wouldn't have wanted what Buffy wanted: Buffy wanted her men in the handcuffs, to be the ones with the bruises.
And yes, the thought was unbearably exciting. Marks. Secrets under his clothing.
His excitement heightened further when his front door clicked shut behind him. Home, alone, with Buffy's instructions in his mind. He left the door unlocked, as always, in fear and hope, and got himself ready for bed, but not for rest.
No pajamas. He'd laundered them and put them away in the bottom drawer. He only ever slept nude when he had company in his bed, a warm body next to him. California nights were surprisingly chilly, even in summer, here on the Pacific. But she required him to sleep nude, and obeying her in this was easy. It was strangely erotic to be in his bedroom alone and nude, thinking about what he would be doing in the next minutes. He leaned his bare chest against a post at the foot of the bed and stroked his hands over it. He reached up and touched on of the rings embedded high up, imagined himself bound to it, stretched on his toes, waiting. He could ask for that this weekend if he wanted, if he did as she required now.
Self-indulgence, then self-denial.
He loved to be told when he could come and when he could not. This was no secret. Every one of his lovers had discovered this about him, even the more conventional ones. Jenny had been the most implacable about it, had gone so far as to train him to improve his control, but even she had never told him he couldn't masturbate. He'd rarely wanted to with her, though. She'd kept him busy just as Buffy did, worn out. He wouldn't even consider touching himself tonight without Buffy's instructions to do so.
How would he approach this? He could use a cock ring. It would slow him down, give him better control. But he thought she might not approve of artificial aids. This was a test of his self-control and his obedience. So Giles knelt on his bed, facing the headboard, and spread his thighs wide. He sometimes masturbated this way, fantasizing that he was on his knees to someone, sometimes women he'd known, sometimes Ethan, more rarely one of his other male lovers. Even more rarely, he would imagine himself dominating one of those lovers, imagine himself wielding the whip instead of writhing under it, though he'd never done so outside of fantasy.
Tonight there was only one lover in his mind: Buffy. Buffy in boots and jeans and that red tank top, nipples erect beneath it, and a riding crop in her hand. She'd begin by striping his backside. Bent over his desk, yes, cheek pressed flat against a book he'd left there, trousers down around his ankles. She'd bring him to tears then kiss him, ask him if he needed more, and he'd beg for more, more, please and she wouldn't spare him, she'd give him what he needed. His bold Slayer.
Where was she tonight? Was she with her soldier boy now? Was he making her come? Something in Giles snarled at the thought. If she was to take pleasure from someone else, he wanted it to be someone he could respect, someone worthy of her. But who was worthy of his Buffy? Who would he want to watch her with?
For a wild moment he imagined himself caught between Ethan and Buffy, suffering for both as they struggled with each other for the right to his attention, to out-do each other. Ethan behind him, Buffy before him, his whole body on fire-- He hadn't known this fantasy had been lurking inside him. It alarmed him, and he turned his mind away from it to memory instead. To Buffy seated on his bed, thighs spread for him, the scent of her arousal and how it had tasted, the burn across his thighs, how hard he'd been. Her moans as he teased her, breaking into cries as he built her up and up toward climax. Her body shuddering around his fingers, shuddering around his cock when she rode him the first time, when she fucked him. Would he ask her to do that again on Saturday? Yes: bind him and straddle him and make him come when he was bound tight, come when he had something to fight against. At her command.
Giles was seeing himself spend now, on her belly, in her mouth, against the headboard. His body shifted and his breathing changed. His hand wanted to move hard and sure on himself, and his hips thrust forward.
He flung himself onto his side, hands curled up against his chest. He gripped one with the other to help himself resist the temptation to touch himself again, to finish it. So close. Too close. He rolled onto his back and breathed, told himself to think about anything else. Sharpening stakes in the library, Xander asleep on the study table. Shelving books. Weeding the card catalog. He'd done as she asked, and God, how he wanted her. He imagined her somewhere across the town, in bed with solid Riley, groaning in pleasure even as he did without.
Giles fell asleep sprawled on his back across the blankets, his right hand wrapped around his left wrist.
Riley was always on time for their dates, unless some Initiative operation interfered, but tonight he was better than on time. He was half an hour early, and Buffy hadn't really finished getting ready. She was dressed, new red skirt and a little black halter top to match, but hadn't done her makeup yet when he knocked on her dorm room door.
She let Riley in, then sat down to do her eyes. Something unsubtle tonight, for Riley's benefit. Figured he'd showed up early. She had been wondering what to do, if what she'd told Giles last night about needing to stay with Riley was correct. Giles was okay with it, but Riley would so very much not be.
In the mirror she could see him bouncing around the little dorm room. She brushed mascara onto one eye carefully, and said, "Hey, what's up?"
"Tonight's the night."
"And?"
"I was thinking and thinking about this. I had a few ideas, then I woke up this morning and I knew what I wanted."
Buffy did the other eye and waited him out. Was it going to be a maid outfit? Whipped cream? It took him a while to work himself up to say it, and Buffy had moved on to the final touches on her eyes.
"I wanna have sex with you, in, um, in public."
Buffy put her mascara down and turned to look at him full on. He'd come still way over on the other side of the dorm room, with his back against the door. "Like, with people watching?"
Riley shook his head. "Not, like, on purpose in front of people, but in secret. In the Bronze, tonight, in a corner."
"Won't we get in trouble of the not fun kind?"
"I don't want to get caught. I just want to think, you know, that it's possible."
"Oh! I get it. Thrills and chills. Kinky," said Buffy, though really what she was thinking was that she'd just had a narrow escape.
What if his fantasy had gone further? What if he'd wanted his buddies to watch? She'd promised him in a fit of arrogance, almost, trusting it would not be all that extreme. She'd have had to go through with it, because she kept that kind of promise. But this, this semi-public thrill thing, this would be okay.
"You'll do it?"
"Yeah. I think it'll be exciting. Fun."
Riley slumped back against the door and fiddled with the lock. He wasn't looking at her. "One more thing."
"Yeah?"
"You wear no panties," he said. "Nothing underneath. Nothing to get in the way."
Riley's face had flamed out red. Buffy smiled as she stood up, because that was exciting for real. Shoes unstrapped and off for the moment, nylons off, sexy pink lacy panties off. Riley watched the underwear come off with eager eyes. He liked her in frilly underthings, and Buffy liked wearing them, so that worked out. Buffy put her shoes back on and turned to Riley with her panties hooked over her thumb. She held them up to him in proof, then tossed them into her laundry bag.
"Lift your skirt up," Riley said. His voice was harsh. Buffy did it. "Turn around. Oh, wow. You are so hot. Totally gorgeous. Oh, Buffy. You make me feel funny all over, like I'm buzzing."
He reached down and adjusted himself in his pants, then looked embarrassed. Buffy went over to him and put her arms around his waist. It was sweet and more than a little exciting to see what a charge this was giving him. It was power of a different kind.
"We're really going to do this," he said. He looked stunned.
Buffy smiled at him. She liked him sometimes. "Yeah, we're going to do it. C'mon. The Bronze is waiting."
At the Bronze, Riley insisted on paying the cover charge. He also bought the first round of Cokes. Buffy followed him with the drinks up the balcony stairs. They found a low table in the back, in the darkest corner. Riley sprawled himself down onto the battered love seat behind it. He tugged Buffy down onto his lap. He was still hard and Buffy bet that wouldn't be fading any time soon. Buffy wriggled against him a little bit, to torture him. Well, tease him, anyway. She kissed him, and he responded by sliding his hand up her skirt and teasing her in return. Buffy wasn't as turned on as he was, but she was definitely starting to simmer with his big hand on her inner thigh. It was the expression on Riley's face that was doing it more than anything else, his pure pleasure in lifting her skirt and finding her naked already for him.
Riley's finger slipped just inside her.
"I was thinking," he said. "About what you said the other day. About other positions being, you know, not something to get hung up about."
"Yeah?"
"Let's do it right now. Like this. You on top." He gave her that brilliant smile, all farm boy teeth and dimple, and Buffy couldn't help but grin back.
Riley took a quick look around the balcony. Then he lifted her skirt and bunched it up around her waist and held it there. She was as good as naked, in public. In a dark corner of the balcony at the Bronze, okay, and nobody was looking, but it was public. Riley took himself out of his camo pants and rolled a condom onto his penis. He always used them, even though she was on the Pill. He held himself in place and looked at her expectantly. Buffy shifted herself in his lap and eased herself onto him. Nice to have the quads that made this easy, holding herself over him, with the tip of his penis just inside. Riley's eyes were looking down, at his penis. Riley was like Giles in this fascination with looking at himself inside her. Guy thing? Buffy wasn't sure.
Buffy eased herself down until Riley was all the way inside and gave him a little squeeze. Giles had taught her to do that. Riley groaned. Buffy started to move. Riley pushed up to meet her, then grasped her hips to coax her into moving faster. Buffy smiled to herself and kept the pace slow. Tease him. Draw it out. It was his fantasy night, after all.
She imagined doing this to Giles. Mister Stuffy, in public, inside her, struggling to keep it off his face when he was close to coming, when he was coming. Giles, coming in public, shuddering underneath her, or maybe in her hand. She thought about how much power she'd have over him, at that moment, how he'd never choose to do it himself, but he'd fall all over himself to make her happy by doing it.
Riley's head was tipped back and his eyes were closed. "Yeah, God, so good. Can't believe this. All those people downstairs."
Buffy's eyes were open, so she could watch his face and the balcony stairs both. She moved a little faster and squeezed him a little tighter, and watched for what she wanted to see. The moment coming was inevitable, and the moment it started. Riley was a noisy guy by nature, but he was choking it down now. His face contorted and his jaw clenched, and there it was. Orgasm. His body tensed under her. Wow, this guy was built. Iron quads, amazing pecs, pumped biceps. Seriously sexy. Except-- buffy imagined him with nipple clamps on, with a thick plug in his ass, flexing like this under her. How hot would that be? And she would never get to experience it for real. Because he would never like that stuff. Put anything up his butt? No matter how good it felt, he wouldn't let it happen.
Riley was the wrong guy. Buffy knew this for a certainty even while she watched him come underneath her, even while she knew she'd enjoy all the sex they'd have that night, even while she knew she would need to beg his forgiveness when it was all over and she told him about Giles.
Riley finished and slumped under her. "Oh, wow," he said.
Buffy tightened her grip around his neck, and snapped out an order. "Put my skirt down. Now."
Riley obeyed without thinking, then bridled. "What?"
"Forrest and Graham."
He smoothed down the skirt even further, but there was no chance to get disentangled. Buffy grinned at the look on his face. He was still inside her, still half-hard, and Forrest had just punched him in the shoulder.
"Hey. You're early," Riley said.
"We thought we'd let you know that we accomplished our little mission just now."
"Good, good. Can you give us a minute, fellas? Get me a beer."
Graham laughed, and Buffy was certain he knew what they were up to. "No, we're off beer, remember? It interferes. Vanilla Coke for us."
"Yeah yeah, whatever," Riley said. "Go get me one of whatever you're having, soldiers."
They grumbled, but turned around and headed back downstairs. They hadn't said hello to her or acknowledged her presence in the slightest. And that was weird, because usually they were at least friendly. Maybe it was because of what she and Riley were up to. Maybe that knocked her down from the level of peer to the level of... something Buffy needed to talk about with Giles.
Buffy knelt up and let Riley get himself cleaned up. Condom off, wrapped in a tissue, and tucked away into one of his pockets. Riley was all zipped back up, back in control. He looked pleased with himself. Buffy shifted so she was sideways on his lap. She mooched his Coke and drank until he protested and snagged it back. He finished it off then drank hers in revenge.
Buffy smiled down on him. "Was that close enough to getting caught to make you happy?"
"Yeah. Sheesh. Yeah."
Buffy kissed the end of his nose and fussed with his hair. It was just long enough to look mussed by what they'd done. That meant he was overdue for a haircut.
Riley rubbed her back. "Sorry I didn't make you come just then."
"It's okay. We were interrupted. So long as you make it up to me later."
Buffy gave Riley a mock pout and he looked relieved. He tugged her head down so he could reach her mouth and gave her a long kiss, with extra tongue.
"Thanks," he said, really quietly, and kissed her again.
They made out like that for a while. Riley's buddies appeared, with more Cokes instead of beer, as promised, and sat with them. They said hello to Buffy at last, and things felt normal, though Riley's hand was higher up on her thigh than it usually was in public. And she could feel him getting hard again underneath her.
The Bronze's annoying MC blared something, and the opening act lurched into a bad cover of AC/DC. The guys left them to go down and dance. Or mosh, rather, since dancing was something they only did when they had girlfriends. Buffy watched them disappear down the balcony stairs.
"Let's get out of here," Riley said. "Go home. Where we can take care of you the right way."
"Sounds like a plan."
Buffy insisted on a visit to the ladies room first, to make sure her clothes were straight. When she came out again, Riley was pacing back and forth, rubbing his hand in his hair. The bulge in his pants had gone from yellow alert to DefCon 2. He looked embarrassed.
"Hey, um, Buffy. Is the fantasy thing over? Or do I get to ask you again?"
"Offer open all night. It's your fantasy night."
Riley took her by the hand and led her back into the jumble of stage props in the Bronze storage area, near the closed-up manager's office. Buffy'd hunted many vampires back here and accidentally interrupted people having sex back here. Traditional location for it, back in the smashed-up drum kits and the busted stage lights. Riley stopped her under a bare lightbulb and pushed her back against the wall. His eyes had gone dark. All pupil. No embarrassment any more, just lust.
"Raise your skirt again for me. Yeah." His voice was strange again, the way it had been in her dorm room. He backed away a few steps and didn't stop looking at her. His gaze was locked below her waist. "Anybody could see you. Oh, man. Anybody could come right by and look at you."
Buffy was feeling uneasy about that, because it was true. She couldn't hear anything over the thud of the metal band playing. Anybody might be hiding in the back office. But she stayed where she was, skirt up, because she wasn't going to fink out on Riley. Not when she was already feeling guilty about cheating on him.
Riley was unzipping his pants and taking himself out. Another condom. He dropped the wrapper on the floor, which was completely unlike him.
"You are so incredibly hot," he said. He lifted her up and pushed himself into her without even asking if he could. Buffy wrapped her legs around his waist and held on while he slammed into her, shoving her into wall hard. Harder than he'd ever done before. He came faster than he usually did, too. He let go of her and she slid back down to the floor. Then his knees collapsed and he tumbled onto the floor next to her, in complete stunned monkey mode. Post-sex dizzies, she guessed.
"Wow," he said again. He closed his eyes and let his head thump back against the wall.
Footsteps behind them, coming from the darkness where the office was. Buffy spun around. There was a guy there, mid-thirties, kinda well-dressed. His gaze flickered from Buffy's breasts down to her crotch and stayed there.
"Hey, gorgeous," the man said. He licked his lips. "That was quite a show."
Buffy covered her eyes with a hand for a second. How uber-humiliating. They'd been caught for real. Her skin crawled. The guy loomed over her and planted his hands on either side of her head. He leaned close and Buffy saw his eyes flash yellow. Well, well.
"Couldn't help but notice that Mister Square didn't have the stamina to satisfy you. A girl as hot as you deserves better. Why don't you come back to my place? I've been told my oral technique is inhuman."
His tongue flickered in his mouth and Buffy crinkled up her face in disgust.
"Sorry," she said. "You've seen what no vamp can see and live."
She kicked him across the room and into a spare drum kit. While he struggled to disentangle himself from the wreckage of the bass drum, she pulled the stake out of her purse. He was back up. Buffy took two running steps over to him and jammed the stake up and into his heart. The vamp death-scream, really loud in her ears, and then the shower of dust. Dust, everywhere. Buffy hated vamp dust. She said so to Riley while she shook out her hair and clothes. Riley shoved himself back to his feet and apologized for not helping.
"S'okay. It's my job."
"My job too."
Buffy turned away from Riley and did not say what was on her mind, because it would only end in a breakup sooner than she needed it to happen. "Let's get out of here for real," she said instead. "This place has now pegged the wig meter."
Out of the Bronze, across downtown, then back north toward the campus. They walked, because it wasn't far, maybe a mile to the campus edge, and the both of them were in seriously good shape.
Riley was bouncing around, jogging in place, bursting into a run every now and then. Buffy kept up with him easily enough, even in heels, but it was seriously puzzling. He was way antsier than he ever was normally. All the caffeine, she guessed. He'd had at least three Cokes back in the Bronze. He leapt up and grabbed tree branches to do impromptu pull-ups. He stopped at a park bench to do a few pushups with his toes on the bench and his hands on the ground. Buffy watched him and admired. She could do those too, of course. That morning Giles had had her doing them with her feet up on a giant inflated ball to improve her balance. He'd groused about her performance, though. And he probably wouldn't like Riley's form right now, despite all the raw muscle on display.
Though it was yummy raw muscle.
Riley grunted and shoved himself back to his feet. He sat on the bench, sprawled with his legs spread.
"Once we caught a pair of guys out here. Thought they were HSTs, but they were just, you know. One of my men wanted to beat them up, but I made him do pushups until he couldn't move his arms any more." Riley looked contemplative. "Sometimes I think there's something to this Jungian shadow concept. Professor Walsh is much more of a behaviorist, but I think--"
"What?"
"Never mind. Hey. Um. That vampire was wrong, you know."
"Huh what?"
"I do have the stamina for you. C'mere."
Buffy shook her head. The game had turned creepy when the vampire had showed up and put her off public sex for life. She was still all worked up and unsatisfied, but she could wait for privacy.
"Aw, c'mon. Nobody's around here. This place is dead quiet."
Buffy relented, because of that nagging guilt in her gut. Riley's eagerness was almost cute, except that he was so worked up already that it wasn't really cute. He made Buffy kneel on the bench and lift her skirt up for him again. The sight made him rub his hands all over his face. Displacement behavior, Buffy thought, with the back of her mind. Like a cat grooming itself when it's upset. Then he made her turn around with her knees wide apart. Buffy thought of Giles, kneeling spread out like this, wire-tight and trembling in anticipation. On display. Waiting for her hand on him. But that was more for Giles than for her, and being on display was doing exactly nothing for her now.
She jumped when Riley touched her back. His hands were hot. He moved up close enough to slide his penis between her cheeks. Buffy wondered for a second if he was going to try something really surprising, but no. He penetrated into her belly for the third time that evening. He pushed himself in as deeply as he could and bent over her back. His hand snuck around and found her clit. Buffy made an encouraging sound. Riley started pumping.
"Wanna give you what you need, Buffy. How's this? Is this kinky enough for you?"
No, not really, but Buffy didn't say so. Instead she concentrated on his fingers on her clit. He was as good with his fingers as he was lame with his tongue, and she'd been excited for long enough that she could set aside her nerves if she concentrated. She managed to come twice before Riley finished. This time they didn't make out in the afterglow or talk or anything. Instead Riley zipped himself up and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. They walked the rest of the way to his dorm snuggled up like that and silent. Something was off. Riley was not his usual self.
It felt better when they were in his room and Riley was watching her undress for bed. He was sheepish.
"Sorry I was so crazy while we were out. That was, just wow. I had no idea that fantasies could be so amazing in reality. We read all these case studies of people being disappointed--"
"Still feel like dismissing fetishes?"
She knelt up on Riley's bed, showing her body off a little bit for him, like she had earlier. It was still his fantasy night after all, and it felt way better now that he'd locked his door. Riley ran his hand down her back, then reached around to cup a breast in his big hand.
"Not sure. The whole thing was just amazingly good. But I feel okay it's over now. Much better to be here in private with you."
"Not something you'd do again?"
Riley shrugged and shook his head. He let go of her and bent down to unlace his shoes. "I don't really want anybody watching us. Getting caught by that vamp wasn't fun. I've seen other guys doing it. You try not to watch, but when they have the girls right there... I think they want to show off, you know, to other men."
"So what do you think about it? Watching, I mean."
Riley pulled his shirt over his head. "Can't help getting turned on by it. But mostly I think they aren't enjoying it. The girls, that is. They're just putting up with it. Not like you. You enjoy it for real."
"Yup. I do."
"Speaking of which, hey. Wanna enjoy it again?"
Riley waggled his eyebrows at her and Buffy burst into giggles. Riley finished undressing fast and dumped his clothes into a corner for once, instead of folding them. He rolled onto his back on the bed and put a condom on. Then he lay waiting for her. Wow. He wanted her on top again. Buffy wasted no time straddling him. She wanted it hard and fast herself this time. She didn't bother waiting for him to touch her, but took care of matters herself. It was a pretty good orgasm, and it sent Riley over too.
The cuddling afterward was nice. Riley was all soft and gooey after sex sometimes. Buffy fussed over him, stroking his face and hair, and tried not to think about what a horrible jerk she was being. Maybe she should just tell him now, quit with the subterfuge. She did like him, even if she didn't love him. If this thing with Giles hadn't happened, she might have been content with Riley. And hey, maybe Riley wouldn't mind that she had a thing with Giles going. If it could be just sex for them, Buffy wouldn't mind. His body was fantastic. His arms and shoulders were so hard. And as for his chest-- buffy stroked across his chest, then stopped.
There was an injury on his collarbone she hadn't seen before, two inches long with stitch marks and a bump. When had she last seen him with his shirt off? A week and a half ago, maybe. And he'd been unmarked then. She poked at it, and Riley flinched a little bit.
"Sorry. Just don't remember this."
"It's new. They put it in a week ago."
"It?"
"Yeah, they have us on this experimental program. Nutrition, special exercises, that stuff. Need to monitor us, so they chipped us, sort of. Telemetry data, on our heart rates. That's the bump."
"Heart rates?" Buffy raised an eyebrow. "So they can guess what you're up to?"
"They correlate data with the logs. We have to fill 'em out daily. Sorry. I don't have to say who it's with."
"Yeah, okay," Buffy said.
Riley turned off the light and pulled up the covers. He tugged her down until her head was on his shoulder.
It wasn't okay. It was one thing to have your friends know it happened, because you ended up more or less knowing what nights were date nights and what nights were sleep-over nights. But it was another thing to think about Professor Walsh knowing. About a roomful of file clerks knowing. And it was bunk to think that they didn't know who it was with. Professor Walsh was seriously interested in the fact that Buffy was the Slayer, and Riley had dropped hints she was happy the two of them were dating.
The other thing she was thinking was that Spike had a chip, too, only his was in his brain. And that one did other things, interesting things, things that Buffy hadn't thought science was up to yet. Mind control stuff. She pulled and tugged at this in her head, pushing around puzzle pieces that weren't fitting together yet.
Four times Riley's heart rate had spiked that night. Four entries in the log. Or maybe he'd just say it once: Had hot date with the Slayer. Kept up with the Slayer. Four times in four hours. That was some serious stamina; the vitamins they had him on must be as high-tech advanced as the chip.
She lay in the dark in Riley's room, listening to him breathe. Slayers could see in the dark. Electronics could, too. How else was Riley monitored? How far did Professor Walsh's curiosity about the Slayer go? The hair on the back of her neck stood up.
She'd made the right decision.
Giles spent the next days occupied with the tasks of a Watcher: shelving more books rescued from his ruined library; improving his topical index to ease future research tasks; writing up notes for the next few tactics lessons with Buffy; working out to move his own physical conditioning closer to what it had once been. He took a disturbing phone call from Buffy Wednesday evening. She described implants she'd observed on Riley and his squadmates, and her nerves about Walsh. Giles had suggested she think twice before spending the night in Riley's room again, and Buffy had agreed. She'd seemed upset about something. Possibly she'd been fonder of the boy than she'd realized.
The problem of the Initiative occupied his mind throughout the day on Thursday. In the evening he methodically set out what they knew in his Watcher's journal and was dismayed to see how little they had to work with. He would have to find Spike, wherever he'd got to, and coax more information out of him. If Spike could be relied upon.
He was contemplating the poverty of his information sources when the phone rang. He moved quickly to it, for it could only be Buffy, or an emergency. It was Buffy, saying a cheerful hello to him. His shoulders relaxed; that tone of voice meant all was well.
"Hey," she said. "Willow's gone out for the night, no clue where, and so I thought I'd call you."
Giles tucked the phone between ear and shoulder and capped his fountain pen. "I'm happy you did."
"What are you up to?"
"Been updating my diary, catching up with the last few days. I was just about to head upstairs for bed." Giles shut the diary in question and slid it into the side drawer of his writing desk. The pen went into the tray in the main drawer. No glass of whisky to accompany his writing tonight; he'd restricted himself to mineral water.
"You Watchers and your diaries." Then Buffy's voice shifted, from casual to intent. "Get into bed now. I'll wait until you're in bed and naked."
"Of course," murmured Giles. That voice: one command from her and his body was wakened. He turned off his desk lamp and made his way up to his loft. He put the phone down to shed his clothing and turn the lights out. He stretched himself out across his bed. Naked on his back, on clean sheets, mere cotton this time, but soft, cool under his backside. His erection lay heavy on his belly.
"Right," he said, into the handset. "I'm in bed now."
"Are you hard?"
"Quite."
"Have you been driving yourself crazy every night?"
"Yes, I have. Bloody frustrating though it's been. Been waking up from erotic dreams every night, always too soon."
"Poor baby."
Giles laughed. Though if he were truly honest with her, he'd admit that it hadn't been all that difficult to hold off the first few days. Tonight it would be more trying, because her voice excited him so. "Your sympathy is false, and I know it. You enjoy it when I suffer like this."
Buffy laughed. "I'll make it worth your while."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Whatever you want. Have you decided what your reward is, by the way?"
"Ah. Yes. If you agree, I'd like to take you out to dinner. Somewhere decent."
"Little black dress decent?"
Giles closed his eyes for a moment and let himself imagine Buffy in a black dress, her shoulders bare, hair loose. He liked her in jeans and boots, when she looked like a warrior, but she could also carry off elegance. And he liked that too. "Mmmm, yes," he said.
"I have the perfect dress. Need to figure out shoes, though."
"Don't wear scent. I have something for you."
"How sweet! This all sounds wonderful, Giles. But not very kinky."
"Ah. But it will be, because I'll be wearing my steel cock ring and the metal plug while we're out. I'll be aching for you."
"In public? With other people seeing you all horny and panting and bulgy?" Buffy sounded uncertain. Because she didn't like the idea of a fuss in public? Giles didn't either.
"They'll not be able to tell. It'll be our secret. Nobody else will know, but I'll be hard and filled. It'll be all I can think about. Won't be able to eat, or sit still, I'll be so aroused for you."
"And I'll see it on your face, and know what it means, and nobody else will have a clue." Buffy sounded pleased now. "Then what?"
If he were lucky, very lucky, he'd be able to watch Buffy fight while they were out. It didn't matter what she did, stake a vampire, behead a demon. Just so he saw her being what she was. But he wouldn't ask her to fight any more often than Fate itself did.
"I'll take you home again. Here. And strip naked for you. You'll put the collar on me and make me go to my knees and stay there. Deep submission."
"And then?"
"Put me in tight bondage. Immobilize me. And--"
"And what, Giles?"
He swallowed. "Make me suffer."
Buffy made a sound that he thought might be a groan, but wasn't sure. "Any particular way?"
"Something that leaves marks again, please. The ones from last week are nearly faded and I miss them."
How easy it was to ask for this, when one was so removed from the reality of enduring it. He'd feel differently when she came to him holding the whip, he was sure. By then it would be too late. His willful cock knew what it wanted, though. As ever. He let his fingers brush against it. Teasing himself, as she wanted.
"Do you want to come?"
Giles groaned into the receiver. He wanted it rather desperately, but he retained his manners. "If it is your pleasure, yes, I do. I'd like to come more than once."
"You think you deserve that?"
"I hope to prove it to you."
"By suffering." It was almost a question.
"That's the usual means of proving one's submission to one's mistress. Another is what you're having me do now. Do without." He moaned in half-hearted protest, and she laughed.
"Would have you masturbated this week if I hadn't told you you couldn't?"
Giles put his hand behind his head, safely away from his erection and from temptation. He looked up at his ceiling and trying to imagine how his week might have gone. "Hmm. Doubtful. I'd have been quite satisfied by the weekend, in the normal way of things."
"How often do you masturbate?"
"It varies," he said. "When I'm exhausted from our training, or injured, not at all. If I'm in good condition, I might do it every day. There are times when it doesn't come to mind, though. Might run to a fortnight without."
"That's a long time," she said, and he wondered how often she indulged herself. She was at the age when one wanted to almost constantly, if he could extrapolate from his own experiences and those of his university friends. He imagined her touching herself, a hand between her legs, another on her breast, what her face might look like, and his cock twitched against his belly.
She said, "Do you use any of your toys?"
"I might use one of the plugs from time to time, but usually not. Just my hand and a bit of slick." He didn't need the slick just now, it seemed. He dared not touch himself with anything more than fingertips, he was so worked up. Then, daring, "And you? Have you ever used toys?"
"I kinda don't own any."
"You surprise me."
"All this stuff was just fantasy for me until two weeks ago, remember. I've never even been in a porn shop. Adult bookstore. Or whatever the word is for places where you get all the stuff you have."
"So how did you learn you liked this kind of sex? Being dominant?"
"Well, um, sort of it was a party one of the high school football players threw, back when I was in LA. When I look back on it, it really upsets me that they did it and that I went. But back then, I had to do all this skeevy stuff to stay cool and popular."
Giles heard the ironic twist in her voice. He wasn't entirely sure she'd moved on from that need, but she'd at least learned to be suspicious of it.
"What happened at the party?" he said.
"They showed about seven pornos on different TVs all over the house. Most of them were awful, you know? Just people sticking things into each other for no reason at all and then pretending they liked it. No emotion at all. But then this guy played one that was leather stuff. And that one, woah. It was so real. So intense. Couldn't stop watching it. Got more turned on than I'd ever been in my life."
Giles had had a similar moment of awakening, though his own had been while reading a book he'd found in his father's library. Histoire d'O, which he'd picked up by chance, innocently, because he'd wanted practice with his French. He could imagine the expression on Buffy's face, her lower lip caught between her teeth, her pupils wide as she watched and learned what she desired.
Buffy was continuing with her story. "Some of the kids in the room were laughing at it, you know, the way people do when they're nervous. And there were two other people who were watching it the way I was."
"Did you talk to them?"
"No way. Uh huh. Way too confused and embarrassed. I hadn't gotten further than first base with my boyfriend. No way I was going to tell anybody I had all these urges to tie him up."
Giles made a sympathetic noise.
"The most I did about it until you was read books. And here's where I admit I read lots of them. There's a bookstore in LA that had a whole section for them. Written by anonymous. Or by people with pseudonyms so obvious they're cringe-worthy."
"Dreadful yet exciting," Giles said. He knew the sort. Plain covers, or arty black and white photography. Or perhaps a drawing of a single rose, with prominent thorns. And inside, a story that one judged solely by how often it mentioned the things one wanted to have happen to one. He'd read many in his university days. One-handed, half-ashamed, driven by something he wasn't sure he understood. It was odd to think of Buffy doing the same, years later.
"Yeah. I read the good ones so many times they're falling apart. Been reading more this week. Different kind of book, though. This is the, I don't know what the word is, the technical kind. How-to books. The Pocket Guide to Hot Wax. Whipping for Dummies. You know."
Giles giggled, though it was half nerves. If she were learning more, she would be doing more, and he would be the grateful subject of her experimentation. Grateful afterwards, though. While he was enduring it he would say something different.
"But the books are sort of... missing the point? They're all about the gadgets. Sometimes it's like reading Cosmo. Secrets of the professional dominatrices. Ten ways to make your sub scream! But it's not about that. It's about emotions. The way you feel about what's happening. What I feel."
"Yes. That's insightful. It's how we feel about each other." Giles rubbed his jaw, worried he'd strayed too close to saying it to her.
"It's strange how much better I know you now, after two weeks of this, than after three years of hanging out with you."
"Sex is intimate to start with. And this sort even more so."
Buffy had, he wagered, paid more attention to him during that first night together than in the entire three years previous. It wasn't an equal relationship, that of the Watcher to his Slayer. He'd spent the those years giving all to her without expectation of anything returned. And why should he expect anything more from a girl who'd end by sacrificing her life for the sake of humanity? She owed him nothing.
Liar. He'd sulked when he'd felt she'd abandoned him these past months. Sulked and misbehaved and been caught at it. Such a strange thing, a man in his mid-forties, in thrall to a girl just up at university. Not strange at all in another way: he was a Watcher in thrall to his Slayer, exactly as they'd raised him to be. Field Watchers were never cold-blooded. Merrick hadn't been. Even that odd bird Wyndam-Pryce had been been attached, once he'd settled into the role. Giles simply made his worship more literal than most. Though now he wondered how many men had taken this route with their Slayers. He'd meant what he'd told Xander about the intensity of the partnership.
Buffy sighed. "I never... Did we ever touch before this? I know we did, but it feels like I never touched you once before that night. Not in any way that counted."
"We weren't close that way."
"You're so standoffish with everybody."
"Reserved."
"Stuffy."
"Dignified."
"Repressed."
"It's simple good manners."
"Well, whatever it is, it's over. No more stuffiness."
"No," he said, and he smiled. Indeed, there was no hope of concealing himself when she had him bound and gasping under her hands. He would yield all his secrets to her. Had already, save for the one about how he felt for her, lest it frighten her away.
"So, Mister Not So Stuffy, tell me a secret. Tell me why the cock ring for Saturday night."
"Oh! That's no secret. Rings feel bloody good to begin with, and then when one adds the weight of metal to it-- It's rather wonderful. Hard to describe. Intensifies the sensations. It's insistent. Inescapable. My mistress is constantly present when I wear it for her. For you."
"I can hear how much you want it. In your voice."
"I do want it. So very much. That ring is in all my fantasies. I had one of you the other night that featured it."
"Tell me."
The sure command in her voice went straight to his cock. His throat closed up and he struggled for the words.
"I'm kneeling at your side, fully clothed. But underneath, underneath I'm wearing the metal ring. And I'm penetrated by something, not sure what, but it's metal and heavy as well. Almost brutal. All underneath my clothes, so it's hidden away, but I can't think about anything else. I'm wearing your collar, too. Everyone looking at me knows I'm your man, your liegeman, because of your collar, but it's not shameful in the least. They're envious and I'm proud of myself."
The memory of the fantasy was sweet, and Giles sighed. His hand strayed down to his cock again, for a brief tantalizing touch.
"I get it. You're going to live that out Saturday night."
"A less intense version of it, yes."
"What about that collar?"
"Ah. Yes. I confess the collar is a bit of a fetish. More for emotional associations with that particular object than for the idea of collars. Ethan gave it me, and I learnt to suffer for him wearing it. For me it, ah, it's the outward proof of my submission. I'm owned when I'm wearing it. Most, um, satisfying." Giles cleared his throat. He'd blushed talking about that, as he hadn't when talking about the cock ring.
"So Ethan was into owning you."
"Not precisely. Ethan was pure sadist. He had no interest in dominance, not for himself. He liked seeing me in pain. And I needed pain. For a time it worked."
"Did you love him?"
"Deeply."
Buffy was silent for a time, and so was he. Ethan, oh Ethan. Giles missed him, longed for him, with a tiny corner of his heart. But it was impossible. They'd grown apart even while they'd been together, and the final betrayal had been too much for even someone as besotted as he to forgive. Too many years of bitterness. And he loved someone else now. He wondered if he'd ever dare tell her. Surely she knew? Surely she would guess, after that confession about Ethan?
But when she spoke again, she'd moved on to another topic.
"You said you weren't with lots of men. And never again as a bottom."
"No."
"Why not?"
Giles shifted and turned onto his side in bed. His erection had softened a little. He took himself in hand again and thought about how to explain it to her. "I'm fussier about men than about women. Sounds a bit silly now I say it, because I've not much been a Lothario with women. But men need to have something that wakens that urge in me."
The need to strut, to tomcat about, to sink his teeth into their necks, rather than to have his neck bitten. He'd found himself impatient with shallow men who were interested only in his muscles and the size of his prick. He liked difficult men, he'd found, men who frustrated him a bit.
"No guys recently?"
"I've not met any I was attracted to in more than passing. No opportunity here in Sunnydale."
"How about Wes? Was he cute?"
"He was a bit of all right," Giles said, thinking how much Pryce would have hated being described that way. He'd certainly been maddening enough, though too much of a rival for Buffy's favor to awaken Giles's desire.
"He pinged my gaydar pretty hard, but when Cordy went for him I thought I had to be wrong. She's reliable. Do you know what Wes is?"
"We didn't share confidences. Bisexual, perhaps?"
"What, are all you Englishmen bi?"
"Alas, no. We are less all-fired insecure about it than you Americans. So touchy about your masculinity."
Buffy laughed. "Was thinking exactly that the other day. How sexy Riley would be with a plug in his ass, and how far and fast he'd run if I held one up and said, hey baby. Not like you. You love it. I love watching you move when I'm teasing you with it."
Giles's cock made its wishes most emphatically known again. "Mmm."
"Yeah?"
"Thinking about you playing with my arse. About what you'll do Saturday. Can't bear the wait."
"But you'll have to."
"Sweet cruelty."
Buffy laughed. "I love how happy you sound when you say that. You're frustrated but you're loving every second of it."
"Is that strange to you?"
"Yes and no. I don't really get how sex works for you yet, but liking being teased isn't weird. The only thing you do that is weird is the paying for it thing. That sort of freaks me out. You gave somebody money to do it to you."
Giles let go of himself and shifted onto his back again. He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut.
"I, um, this is difficult to confess, but I've been to, ah, professionals more than once. It's different in England to here. It's not illegal, for one thing. One is safer. Both sides are safer."
"But why do it at all?"
Giles sighed. Now they were in territory he found genuinely shameful. "I was desperate. Sometimes the need builds in me until I just can't bear it any more. It's all I can think about. It's worst when I'm most lonely. If there's someone in my life, I'm better balanced. Even if she doesn't wish to indulge me."
"Did you and Olivia do this stuff?"
"Olivia was what you call vanilla."
"So you hadn't done it since Jenny."
"No. I was starved for it. Jenny spoiled me, rather, with how experienced she was. By far the most experienced lover I've had. She took me much further than I'd been before. Gave me a taste for more extreme play."
"What was the most extreme thing she did to you?"
"Ah. Remember I told you I once did something that reminded her you came first?"
"Jenny punished you, you said."
"Harshly. It was quite the most extreme thing we did together. She used the flogger with the metal tips."
"Extreme is the word. That's a heavy flogger. I'm kinda shocked, actually."
"The incident shocked us as well."
"By how far you went?"
"No, not exactly. More by how much we both craved going that far. And how satisfied we both were. She told me the next day, when we talked it over, that she'd been searching for an excuse to punish me that harshly. I think I knew it, and handed her one."
In fact, he was certain that was how it had gone. She'd bought the flogger, showed it to him as a curiosity, and put it away. Two weeks later, he'd given her the excuse, and when she'd taken it out again, he'd felt a strange satisfaction. There were portions of the evening Giles could not remember clearly, though he remembered the prelude and the aftermath vividly. The memory of pain faded, as he had learned from other, less pleasant experiences. The memory of the emotions did not, and his emotions that evening had been intense.
"But you needed the excuse? You couldn't just do it?"
"It wants ritual. Ceremony. A reason."
"Right, I get it," Buffy said. She was silent for a moment, then said, "Ritual provides a context, and sets it aside from regular life. Makes it a special event. You know how to act during it, and you know when it's over."
"Buffy, you continually surprise and delight me. Where have you learned this?"
"The psych textbook. Been reading ahead. And I was reading this book about myths. It's pretty interesting. More interesting than class. Though there's one I can take next year about it that looks sort of cool."
Giles smiled in pure joy, halfway across town from his clever Slayer. University had caught her at last. He said nothing, lest teasing dissuade her.
"So you did your harsh punishment ritual."
"Indeed. I spent the weekend laid up in bed in her flat."
"Wow. Face down, I bet."
"Yes, rather. She fussed over me ridiculously. Fed me, indulged me, dressed me in soft clothes. Not that she let me come. I had to wait days before she allowed me."
Buffy made a thoughtful sound. "You liked that," she said. It was not a question; he'd managed to make that aspect of his sexuality clear to her.
"Not so much the going without entirely, as that she took control of it, if you take my meaning."
"You really like that. I mean, really deeply."
"Yes. This week has been, um, profound. I think about you constantly. Constantly aware that I've pledged to obey you. That I've submitted to you."
"Do you like that more or less than being whipped?"
Giles shifted himself on the bed. Just the sound of Buffy saying that word make him burn with longing and fear. "Difficult. They're both ways I prove myself to you. But I think-- oh, Lord, confessing this." His voice dropped to a whisper and his breath came fast. "I need the whipping more. Ethan had me right."
"Tell me," she said. Her voice was as quiet as his was. "What's the difference?"
Giles sought for the words. How to make her understand something he only half-understood himself?
"This is frustrating, but sweet. Arousal is sweet. Thinking about you is sweet. The other is-- God. Terrifying." Giles's hand on the phone receiver was wet with sweat. He was terrified already, by the idea of handing himself over to her for it, of begging her for it. And then enduring it. As he would Saturday night. "I need it. So much."
"Complicated."
Giles rubbed his face and smiled ruefully, though she couldn't see him. "Yes, it's all a bit of a tangle inside my head, I'm afraid. Never managed to sort it out."
"Yeah, I'm getting that. Less complicated for me, I guess."
"Likely just as complex, in different ways. You've yet to explore your own sexuality as much as I have. I've had more time."
"I'm still getting over the shock that there's somebody who wants the things I want. For so long I've fantasized about this. I wanted to do it to guys. Tie them up and whip them. I was afraid nobody would ever want to do it in real life. And now I've found you."
"Folie a deux," Giles murmured.
"Matched set."
"Indeed we are. Watcher and Slayer."
Buffy giggled, then was silent for a time. Giles listened to her breathe and was content. He turned on his side and pulled a blanket over his legs. When had she been with him last? Monday evening. And in two nights she'd be with him again. He stretched his legs then curled himself around a pillow, with the blanket pulled a bit higher. He wanted her there, in his bed, cradled against his chest, rather more than he wanted any of the things they'd talked about. Sex was not everything.
"Hey," Buffy said.
"Hey yourself."
"What are you thinking?"
"I wish you were here. I feel better when I know you're safe."
She was silent for a moment, and he was afraid she'd pull away, but then she said, "Yeah. Me too. But I can't be. I need to do this thing with Riley. The Initiative is going to be a problem."
"I agree. Do what you must. I'll tug on some contacts I have and see what I can learn."
"'Kay. I should get some sleep. Nine am class, and somebody has ordered me to run five miles tomorrow morning."
Giles smiled. "Right, then. Call me when you get in from patrol? It doesn't matter what time."
"I'm not going out again tonight, don't worry."
"I meant--"
"I know what you meant. Night, Giles."
"Goodnight." He swallowed the endearment he'd wanted to use.
"Sleep tight."
He waited until he heard the click of her ringing off before he turned off his phone.
The knock came at Buffy's dorm door exactly on time, with the campus clock still chiming the hour. Buffy called out that it was open, and snapped her compact closed. Too late to fuss with it any more.
Giles stepped inside her door silently and closed it. He stood with his back against the door, hands in his trouser pockets, head ducked. He was smiling faintly. He looked marvelous in his dark jacket and striped tie-- buffy had almost forgotten what he looked like dressed like that, he'd been wearing the sloppy sweaters so often. Buffy herself had gone for casually dressy, not formally dressy. A night out in LA, not New York, light on the jewelry, heavy on the natural.
"You look lovely," Giles said. He cleared his throat. His eyes were on her body, moving from her discreet cleavage down to her high heels. "Is, er, Willow, er?" Giles trailed off.
"She's out. Date, I think, not studying. She put on makeup before she left."
Giles flashed his teeth in a broad smile. "Oh, good for her."
He stepped toward her. Buffy met him halfway. She wrapped her fist around his tie, just below the knot. "Have you been obedient?"
"Yes."
Buffy could see from his face that he had been. He was smiling and he looked eager, proud of himself. She tugged hard on the tie and pulled him down so she could kiss him. When he tried to take control of the kiss she pushed him back playfully, but hard enough that he staggered backward. He was still smiling.
"Did you bring your toys?"
"Indeed."
He reached into his jacket pocket and took out three items, which he laid on her desk: a thick rounded metal ring, a plug about the size of her palm, and a tiny bottle of lubricant. Then he put his hands behind his back and bent his head to her. His ears were red, as if he were embarrassed by his toys, or maybe it was just that he was excited. Buffy was feeling that way herself. She'd been waiting all week for this.
Time to peek at her own toy.
She undid his belt and unzipped his pants. Giles widened his stance slightly, but held himself still otherwise. Buffy pushed his trousers all the way down to his ankles. He was wearing stretch boxers in black. She wondered if she should tell him to go without underwear next time. She pushed the boxers down all the way to his ankles as well, then stood up. His legs were pale to the knees, then faintly tanned below, from jogging. He didn't have Riley's sculpted quads or glutes. He did have other virtues. The brains. The swordsmanship. The submission, expressed now in that head, bent to her, and in those wrists, held crossed behind his back. But he was looking up through his lashes, watching her. Waiting, still with a faint smile.
Buffy picked up the cock ring and turned it over in her hands. It was plain polished steel, surprisingly heavy. Giles had mentioned the weight as something he enjoyed. Buffy slipped it over his balls, then tucked his soft penis through, gave it a tug to settle it in place. Giles breathed out when she did that. His eyes were closed, and his face was rapt. He was hardening already, though she wasn't touching him. Buffy watched his penis thicken and rise, and felt herself open a little in response. She might stay as excited as he was all night, just from knowing he was that aroused.
"Bend over the back of my chair, please."
Giles shuffled around awkwardly with his pants around his ankles. He bent and grasped the back of her chair as instructed.
Buffy opened the bottle of lubricant and squeezed out a big blob onto her fingers. She touched him lightly with her slippery fingers. He shivered. Ethan, he'd told her, had been the first person to take him there. Buffy had a flash of jealousy, which surprised her. It had been so long ago, and she couldn't ever have been the first to own him. But she would be the one to own him most completely, she told herself. And on that thought, she pushed her middle finger inside him, all the way up to the knuckle. He breathed in and went tense, and she felt him move around her. Strange feeling, being inside somebody. Soft and warm. What did it feel like to have a penis and have it inside somebody else? She'd never know. That was okay; Buffy liked what she did have. Her Slayer's body, her breasts, her vagina. She had a butt too. Would she like having someone touch her the way she was touching Giles now? She hadn't thought about that before, but she thought about it now, as she pushed two fingers inside him and listened to him gasp. Giles really liked this. He wanted more, he'd said. Wanted to be fucked. By her? Nobody else was going to. He belonged to her now.
Buffy withdrew herself from him and picked up the plug. This was also heavier than she'd expected, though it wasn't large. Like the cock ring, then, all about the sensation of weight. She teased him with it and was gratified to hear his breathing speed up. She slid it into him until it was at its widest point. He made another one of those soft sounds of pleasure and pushed back against her a little bit. She let the plug slide all the way in and settled the base snug against his butt. His glutes flexed, and then Giles let out a long sigh.
Buffy washed her hands in the dorm sink. Giles remained in place without needing to be told. He was breathing hard, eyes closed. She laid a hand on his rump and he flinched. Braced for something to happen, then. Buffy grinned, behind him where he couldn't see it. His penis was fully erect now. She liked Giles's penis. She liked that it was uncircumcised. It was a good size, not ridiculously big, but wide enough to feel good when he was inside her, long enough that going down deep on him took skill. Buffy grinned to herself, thinking about how that had felt, how he'd moaned. How he would moan later on when she did that for him again, as a reward. But it was so tempting right now, hanging down like that, with his balls held away from his body by the steel ring. So delicate, so sensitive. So vulnerable.
Buffy took his balls in her hand and squeezed, cautiously, with all the careful control of her strength she'd ever learned, and every bit of tender cruelty she had. When Giles gasped, she stopped, and released him. There was a faint beading of sweat on his forehead, and he had flushed.
"Stand up and dress yourself."
Giles obeyed. She watched him zip himself up carefully, with his penis held upright inside his briefs. He buckled his belt, then looked up at her. His face was red, but he was otherwise composed and controlled. He adjusted his tie and gave her that shy smile again. He cleared his throat, then stuck his hand into his jacket pocket and inclined his head slightly.
"I have a present for you."
Buffy grinned at him. "You mean besides you?"
"I promised you scent. I know you usually wear florals, but, ah, I thought this might suit. I had it blended specially."
He handed her a small black velvet bag. It held a small glass bottle with a cork stopper in the neck; the bottle was full of a thick red oil. Perfume. Buffy pulled the cork stopper out and sniffed cautiously at the oil. Spicy oranges, and something dark and velvety underneath. With a bite lurking behind it. Her nostrils flared, and she inhaled again, more deeply.
"Made for me?"
"At the occult shop downtown. It has a number of interesting qualities."
He took the bottle back from her, held his index finger over the neck and upended it. He reached out and stroked his finger behind her ear and trailed it down along her neck. Buffy shivered. He wet his finger again, then capped the bottle. He moved around behind her and stroked behind her ears. He trailed his fingers down the back of her neck.
"What qualities?" she said, unsteadily.
"It repels demons," he whispered into her ear.
"Oh, really."
Giles nuzzled against her neck. "Mmm, yes. And it has one other important characteristic."
"What's that?"
"It is an aphrodisiac for Watchers."
He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her up onto her toes and kissed her neck, passionately. She could feel his erection pressed against her back. He released her just as suddenly and begged her pardon gravely. Buffy turned and laid her hands on his chest. He bent to her again and kissed her, more gently this time. Buffy pressed herself close against him and let him kiss her. Soft kisses, tender kisses. His eyes were closed, so she closed hers and let him have his way with her.
At length he sighed and pulled away from her. "We should leave now to make our reservation. Ready?"
"Give me a sec." Buffy straightened her dress and checked her face in the mirror. The advantage of going light on the makeup tonight was that there wasn't much for Giles to mess up by kissing. She snagged her overnight bag from the end of the bed and said, "Ready."
"May I carry that for you? My car's in the public lot."
He held doors for her with that same courtesy on their way out of the dorm and walked one step behind her and to her left. That was sound tactics and not mere courtesy: they covered each other's weak sides that way. Though it was still twilight, and vampires were not going to be in motion yet. Buffy practiced scanning for them anyway, just to keep herself on her toes. Here she was, dressed for a nice night out, and she couldn't stop thinking like a Slayer. She sighed.
"What is it?"
"Nothing. Hey. Professor Walsh at 2 o'clock. With her research assistant Beaker."
Buffy thought Walsh was headed the other way, but Angleman spotted them and pointed her out to Walsh. They changed direction and headed straight toward Buffy and Giles. Giles cocked his head at her, and Buffy shrugged. She had no idea what Walsh wanted. She wondered if Walsh could tell what she was up to with Giles, dressed up like this, if Walsh would know somehow that she was cheating on Riley. She squared her shoulders; no time to worry about that now.
"Hey, Professor Walsh. What are you doing on campus on a Saturday?"
"Didn't Lieutenant Finn contact you? We have a training exercise tonight. Doctor Angleman has a test he'd like to perform on you as well."
Buffy opened her mouth to explain, then shut it again because she wasn't sure what to say. Giles's hand closed on her elbow, roughly enough to startle her, and he tugged her back a step. He let go and caught her eye for a second. There was something in his face that made Buffy wake up and go on the alert. Then he straightened and said to Walsh, "Miss Summers is otherwise occupied tonight."
"I don't believe we've met."
"Rupert Giles."
"Maggie Walsh."
Giles held out a hand, and Walsh shook it for what seemed to Buffy to be the minimum polite time.
"Oh, yes, Rupert Giles. Lieutenant Finn mentioned you once. You were the librarian at the town high school."
Buffy opened her mouth to protest that Giles had been much more than that, but Giles touched her elbow again and she shut her mouth. He had a plan, she could see that much. She'd let him spool it out.
"I think you know better than that," Giles said, politely. "We needn't pretend."
Walsh laughed. "It's true. Finn has given us a full report on Buffy's colorful past."
"I see."
"But Buffy, there's still time for you to join the team if you head back and change now. If you're going to join up, you need to start taking these appointments seriously."
Once again Giles answered for her. "Miss Summers has a prior engagement. We have our own training exercise tonight."
"Really." Walsh took a step back and frowned at Angleman, who shrugged slightly. "I was told that your relationship was in the past."
"It seems you were misinformed."
"Apparently so." And that was interesting. Riley hadn't told Walsh everything, not recently, anyway. Walsh sighed. "Pity. I expected tonight to be informative."
"Oh? About what?"
"We are curious what gives Buffy the reflexes she has. She does appear to have physical abilities quite similar to those of some of the hostiles we've studied."
"Yes, it is a puzzle, isn't it," Giles said.
"She's quite a handful. Strong appetite. Fast metabolism. She's been disruptive in our training exercises, not through any intention to cause problems, I suspect. No one has taught her discipline."
Buffy's hand curled into a fist around her purse strap, but she kept her mouth shut. Giles smiled at Professor Walsh, and it was the strangest, creepiest smile Buffy had ever seen on him. Walsh didn't seem to even notice, because if she had, she'd have stepped back from him. A second later, Giles's smile was back to normal, and he had his hands shoved deep into his trouser pockets, in typical Giles-mode.
"Sounds as if she's not cut out for the military," he said.
"Military discipline and structure is exactly what this young woman needs, in my judgement."
"I find that, ah, the Slayer requires a more traditional sort of discipline. One more suited to her nature."
"And just what is that nature?"
"Slayers," he said, in his driest voice, "have more than a little in common with the demons they're made to slaughter. They're hot-blooded and need a strong hand."
"And you're the man to provide it."
Giles shrugged. "It's a matter of experience."
"I find that fascinating, Mr Giles. I'm facing a new set of challenges with my soldiers where your knowledge might be just what I need." Walsh glanced back at Angleman, who was looking over at the sciences building instead of at her. "You've had trouble filling your time this year, Finn tells me."
Giles's head jerked back, and his lips pressed together. Professor Walsh raised an eyebrow at him, and the hair on Buffy's neck rose again. These two people didn't like each other, she realized, not even a single little bit, and this whole conversation had been fencing with sharp steel. And Walsh had just scored a touch.
"You know, Mr Giles, if you were seeking a change of pace, I can offer you a marvelous opportunity. One I'm certain would be to your tastes. I'd enjoy having a man like you under me."
"Oh?"
"Think about it."
"I'll consider it," was all Giles said.
"So what are you up to this evening? It looks more like you're heading to dinner than to primitive weapons training."
Walsh addressed her question to Buffy, but again Giles touched her on the elbow and Buffy let him answer.
"We're having her tea leaves read," he said.
"The Initiative doesn't waste time on superstition," Professor Walsh said.
"Neither do I. And speaking of the time-- we must be off. Have a good evening."
Giles took her elbow again and drew her away down the sidewalk. Once they'd put Walsh and Angleman a good way behind themselves, Giles let go of her. Buffy breathed out a long sigh. That had been some routine he'd pulled just now, but she was pretty sure she knew what he'd been trying to do. Let Walsh think he was bossing her around, the way the Council was supposed to work. Probably that would make Walsh decide she was weak, and underestimate her. She hoped.
"That was a mood-killer," she said.
"Outright disturbing, I'd have said."
There was something in his voice that made Buffy turn and stare sharply up into his face. He was more flustered than she'd seen him in a long time, to the point where he was polishing his glasses as they walked.
"Giles, calm down. That was just Maggie being Maggie, I thought."
"Oh?"
"Riley says she can be a hard-ass. Focused on the problem in front of her, not so good with the social skills."
"That was not my reading. But it doesn't matter."
Riley'd said more, once, when he'd been angry about something, about one of his squad being reassigned by Walsh without consulting with him. But that was just him grousing about work, the way she'd complain about vampires. Mostly Riley seemed to like Walsh. Was she serious about that job offer? Buffy didn't like the idea, especially because it would mean she would definitely end up joining the Initiative. The idea of investigating it from the inside, of getting her own special implants and monitors, was giving her the creeps. She pondered this until they reached the public parking lot, where Giles's battered car was.
Giles dug for his keys in his pocket and opened the passenger door for her.
"I do think we learned something worthwhile," he said.
"What?" Buffy said. Giles's brows came together, and she held up a hand to keep him silent while she thought it through herself. "She's interested in what makes me the Slayer."
"Yes."
Buffy got in the car. Giles closed the door on her, then trotted around to climb in on the driver's side. He made no move to start the engine but instead drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.
An idea occurred to Buffy. "I think she wants to make her own. Is already trying to. Riley and his special diet."
"Hmm, perhaps. You said they had a doctor look at you, when you spent the day with the team. Did they take samples?"
"They drew blood, yeah. The other night they had me on a treadmill running with a breathing thingie hooked up."
"Measuring oxygen uptake." Giles tapped two fingers against his lips. "Don't let them take samples again."
"All warfare is based on deception."
"Precisely."
"And if they have more of my blood, they'll figure it out. Did you mean what you said about Slayers being part demon? Or was that more deception?"
Giles didn't answer her right away, and Buffy felt a flash of anger. "Giles. Answer me."
"Not entirely. I repeated something I was told once, by someone I despised."
"So what did make the Slayers?"
Giles sighed. "No one knows, though there are legends, each one contradicting the next. The divine agent theory is at least as prevalent as the demon blood one. I've got a book that compiles them all in one of the boxes from the library. I'll find it for you tomorrow."
Buffy thought about this. Blood. It was always about blood. It was where vampires and the demons that walked the earth came from, Giles had said, when the blood of greater demons mixed with the blood of humans. Blood was how vampires lived and how they infected new hosts. Was her power in her blood? That was how Giles had taken it away from her, when the Council had made him poison her. Speaking of which.
"The Council has no idea where I came from, really? I don't believe that."
Giles shook his head. "If they know, they haven't told me. They keep their secrets. And I am no longer privy to even the least of them." His voice was harsh on those last words, and his face had an expression on it Buffy didn't see often. She remembered the look on his face when the Council had fired him, when Travers had threatened him. Defiant, jaw thrust out, under the black eye. She was glad he wasn't working for them any more.
"Are you seriously considering working for Professor Walsh?"
"If it would serve our goals, yes."
The thought of Giles working for Walsh made her chest tighten up. A flood of something strange came over her, the feeling she'd had when she'd seen Olivia in Giles's shirt. When she'd seen the photographs of Giles with the professional dominatrix. She hadn't called it jealousy then, but she knew it for what it was now. Maybe it was a bad thing. She'd worry about that later.
She reached out and grabbed a fistful of his shirt and shook him, less gently than she'd meant to. Giles grasped her wrist, but didn't try to pull free.
"No. You work for me now. Not for anybody else. Not Maggie, not the Council. You're mine now."
Giles closed his hand over hers and disentangled her grasp from his shirt. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. "Of course," he murmured against her fingers. "Never doubt me."
"Never. But that's a tactic I don't want to use. I don't want you wearing their uniform. I need you the way you are."
"I understand," he said, and he stroked her hand.
Maybe he even did understand. He hadn't been boasting when he'd told Walsh he knew what Slayers needed. Slayers needed Watchers, or something just like them. Somebody safe, reliable, a place to return to when she needed a refuge and time to think. Advice, analysis, A friend she could trust to support her interests completely. Everybody wanted that, maybe, but for the Slayer it was urgent. Though she felt she'd just been ridiculous and clingy. Wasn't she supposed to be meeting all her own emotional needs? That's what the psych text said, what Maggie Walsh had said in a lecture.
She said, "I'm sorry. Was that another mood-killer?"
"Not in the least." There was that shy smile again, peeking out. "You told me what I most long to hear."
Buffy felt her face flush at that, though she couldn't understand why. Giles kissed her knuckles one last time, then laid her hand on his knee. He reached for the key in the ignition. Buffy slid her hand up his thigh and squeezed his leg gently. Giles turned over the engine, and they puttered into motion. Toward dinner and the rest of their evening.
The restaurant was a quiet place, small and far more Californian in feel than Buffy might have anticipated from Giles. She'd been thinking French, stuffy, formal, but this place was all about the ocean view and the fine locally-grown produce. Giles declined the wine list and ordered mineral water for them both. He also ordered for her, doing all the talking to the waiter and eventually deciding on the fixed menu for both of them. There was no sign in him of the diffidence he often showed with her. He knew what he wanted and was taking it. Buffy enjoyed watching Giles be confident. There was something pleasing about letting him take charge in small things, in the external things, while at the heart they both knew who was in charge. Underneath his clothes, he wore her steel.
She kept her eyes on his face the whole time he was talking to the waiter, watching for the signs that he was as aroused as she knew he was. The napkin on his lap hid everything away. Somebody who knew him as well as she did might be able to tell, from the slight flush on his face, and the way he kept shifting in his seat. Normally Giles was a still and controlled man. Tonight he fidgeted, and that revealed his secret.
Buffy had a secret, too, and that was that she'd been abstinent herself since that night with Riley. If going without for only four days counted as abstinence, which seemed a little silly when she looked at it that way. It was the longest she'd gone since she'd started having sex again, since that night with jerky Parker, which had been depressing but reminded her how good sex felt. She'd let herself have fun any time she wanted since then, either by herself or with a boyfriend. But this week she'd wanted to try out waiting for it, to see for herself what Giles might get out of going without. It was fun to be excited a little bit all the time, to have it flash out in a big way when she thought about sex, or looked at the sweat at Giles's temples and knew why he was restless.
Like right now. She watched him pour himself mineral water. His hands shook, and he spilled a little on the table, and Buffy felt her body respond.
"Distracted?" she said.
Giles looked up at her and flushed. "Ah. Distracted. That's a good word for it."
"Good," Buffy said. He flushed a little deeper, and again, she felt a throb in return. He had a metal plug inside him, and he was as hard as a man could be. All for her. Buffy let herself smile. "What's the most distracting?"
Giles flicked a glance at the table next to them, and said, "Difficult to say. The ring? The metal is... I'm not sure we should have this conversation just now."
Buffy saw he'd gone even redder, and wondered if just saying that had made him harder. "Okay, let's not make our neighbors' ears burn. What should we talk about, Mr Distracted?"
Giles had big gulp of mineral water before he answered. "It's nearly the end of term, isn't it?"
Small talk about college, okay. Buffy could handle that. "Yeah, exams coming up in a week. I have most of them under control already, which let me tell you is a weird feeling for me."
"You seem to have settled in well, then."
"Yeah, I'm having fun. Willow was all excited about the course lists back in August, which I didn't get, but now I am of the getting. I'm already planning out what I'll take next semester."
"Have you chosen your field yet? What do you call it, your major."
"I haven't figured it out yet, but there are some things I like more than I thought I would. Like the psych class. The textbook is way more interesting than the class is."
Giles had his hand over his mouth, but she caught the corner of his smile anyway. He was pleased about something. That she was into college? He'd always told her she could do anything she turned her mind to. Or maybe he was pleased about the dig at Walsh. Buffy decided to pursue that.
"Reading things other than the textbook makes me wonder if the class is biased, sort of. Professor Walsh likes some theories better than others. Like Skinner, she loves him. And she was down on Jung. Said some insulting things about his alchemy fascination."
"Oh, really." Giles's voice was dry.
"I had a hunch that you would say the exact opposite about it."
Giles's smile got broad enough to show his teeth. "Consider it said. Jung was a practicing alchemist, and he's quite useful to anyone interested in a particular sort of magic. I've got some of his esoteric works at home."
"I've already got a list of stuff you have to give me. Starting with the books on Slayer origin myths." She wasn't likely to forget that one. "You got your degree in history, right?"
"Yes, both degrees. They were required by the Council."
"What would you have picked for yourself?"
Giles adjusted his glasses and frowned. "I really have no idea at all. It was all decided for me so early on in my schooling that I was never aware of having any sort of choice. I do enjoy it now. And it's family tradition."
The waiter took away their salad plates. Buffy noticed that Giles had eaten almost none of his, just as predicted. She smiled behind her water glass. He was going to be close to explosion when they finally got home. She wouldn't be far behind: it was unbearably exciting for her to think about how excited Giles was. To wonder how close to the edge he was. Buffy decided to give him no hints, but to keep playing it cool.
"You were probably a serious college student, all work and no play," she said.
Giles laughed. "Quite the opposite. I was a lazy student, at least until I started work on the doctorate. Skated by on my memory, never studied, drank too much, that sort of thing."
"Must be some memory."
"Watcher's memory," Giles said, and shrugged. He seemed to mean something specific by it, which Buffy filed away to ask about later. "I settled down, though. After my year away from it, I was playing catch-up. Couldn't afford to look away from my task."
Buffy wondered what that had been like. Probably not fun. She sometimes thought he'd still been playing catch-up right until the moment they'd fired him. She watched the waiter dance around the table, setting their dinners in place and refilling their glasses. He and Giles exchanged some kind of non-verbal signals, and he went away again, leaving them in peace. Buffy studied her plate, which was almost too pretty to mess up by eating. She hadn't bothered to look at the menu, so she had no clue what it was. She nudged at the perfection with a fork. Fish. Very pretty fish scribbled over with colorful sauce, with a leafy vegetable she couldn't identify next to it.
She temporized. "PhD, huh? So you're really Doctor Giles, then."
Giles shook his head. He hadn't even touched his fork yet. "One doesn't use the title."
"Are all of you Watchers serious academics? Like, is Wesley?"
"Pryce? Not sure. He read economics, I thought, London. He was meant for a government post. He said something to me once about it. The field assignment would be de rigueur for him, if he wanted to rise in the Council."
Giles's voice had gone sarcastic. So she'd been nothing but a routine assignment. At first anyway. Buffy had a bite of her fish, which was melt-on-the-tongue good, and thought about Wesley and how things had worked out with him.
"That didn't go so well, huh?"
"No. They sacked him as unceremoniously as they sacked me."
"Poor Wes."
"He landed on his feet, I hear." He cocked an eyebrow at her, and Buffy nodded.
"Yeah. I see him when I'm in LA. And he turns up in Sunnydale every now and then, though I have no clue why." She shrugged. "Wes turned out okay in the end."
"He's a decent man. Unlike his father."
And now Giles was venomous. There was a story there, she guessed, which she'd save for a rainy day, or a boring patrol.
"You should try this," Buffy told him, to change the subject. "It's amazing."
Giles sat up in his chair and looked at his plate. "Right. Suppose I ought." Buffy watched him taste the fish. He tilted his head to the side and made a thoughtful sound. "Not bad at all."
Buffy watched Giles eat for a little bit. He noticed her watching him and blushed, and fumbled with his fork. He was nervous. Buffy supposed that was the right emotion to be feeling, if you knew you were going to be experiencing what Giles was going to. What he had asked for, in that strained voice over the phone. Dinner, whipping, and sex, that's what he'd requested. It was hard to say which of them it was more of a treat for, him or her. Delicious dinner, a handsome man bound and kneeling at her feet, mind-blowing sex. And in the morning Giles would brew her tea and teach her about the art of war. Deception, and the nine kinds of ground, and the ways of a leader. How to use these tools to defeat Maggie Walsh, who was probably their enemy, and who had a well-provisioned squad of soldiers working for her.
What a weird date this was. And now that she thought about it, that was the right word for it. This evening was a lot like a date. They were dressed for a date, and Giles had given her a gift that was the kind of thing you gave someone you were courting. Another strange thought. Courting. A strange word, not something Buffy had ever used to describe her life before, but it seemed like the right word for Giles's behavior tonight. Something warned her not to bring it up to him, though. Riley, looming between them? No, she wasn't going to think about that any more. Tonight was Giles's reward night, which was the same thing as her reward night. Buffy turned her mind back to carnal things.
Food. Sex. In that order.
Dessert was a small and incredibly intense raspberry chocolate thing, and Buffy enjoyed every single tiny bite. She made a dismayed sound when she saw that Giles hadn't touched his. He simply smiled at her, then reached across the table to swap their plates.
"Don't you like chocolate?"
"I do, but-- It's a bit wasted on me tonight, I'm afraid. My mind is, ah, elsewhere."
Giles's smile at her was almost shy, so Buffy restrained herself from making any of the jokes that came to mind about it. She ate his dessert with pleasure.
Giles paid the bill with cash, and vanished into the rest room for a minute on the way out. Buffy stood on the restaurant porch and watched the cold Pacific surf obliterate itself on the rocks below her, and wondered how he managed with that ring on him. She let her Slayer senses wake up and idly reached out in search of evil. No predators nearby. Maybe she'd be allowed a quiet night in bed with her guy. Well, not quiet, exactly.
Giles rejoined her on the porch and said, "What are you smiling about?"
"What's going to happen next."
He rubbed at the back of his head. "Ah. Quite. Shall we, then?"
Buffy stopped him when they reached the car, and held out her hand for his keys. "I'm driving." He stared at her blankly, but made no move to hand them to her. "I have a permit. I'm in charge. And you'll get one extra stripe for every second you make me wait."
"Promises, promises," Giles murmured. But he bowed over the keys as he handed them over. He held the driver's side door for her with good grace, and got into the passenger seat without any further resistance.
"Put your hands on your knees, palms up. Like that. Good. Keep them there. Spread your legs further."
Giles obeyed her without hesitation. Buffy reached between his legs and caressed him as a reward, until he closed his eyes and moaned under his breath. Joy welled up inside her, but she kept it secret for now. She let go of him, and started the car.
She was nervous about driving Giles's antique, which wallowed more than it maneuvered, but she managed to do well enough that she had begun to relax by the time they reached his street. She pulled into the curb space in front of Giles's apartment building, and was secretly grateful that she didn't have to do any fancy parallel parking. She turned off the ignition and set the keys in his upturned palm. His hand was trembling under hers.
She said, "As of now, you're not in charge of anything. You make no decisions. You just feel whatever it is I give you to feel."
Giles breathed in once, deliberately, and then out again slowly.
"You're not in control any more. If you come, it's because I want you to. So don't try to stop yourself any more."
Another deep breath, in and out, and some tension left his shoulders. "Understood."
"When we get in the house, I want you to take off your jacket and tie. Shoes and socks too, but nothing more than that."
"Yes, my Slayer," he said.
He got out of the car and held her door for her, as before, and carried her overnight bag. He ducked ahead of her to open his front door, and stood aside with inclined head to let her enter before him. Old-fashioned courtesy, deference, the sort of gestures that annoyed her when other men made them. Buffy watched him bolt the front door behind them. He paused there with his hand on the lock, back turned toward her, and she saw him take another one of those long, deep breaths. Preparing himself.
Buffy left him to undress and carried her bag up to the loft. She stepped out of her pumps and set them under the bed, out of the way, but that was as far as she undressed; she wanted him naked long before she took anything off. On his nightstand she saw he'd laid out his collar and one of his riding crops. Not the one she'd used on him their first night together. She picked it up and flexed it in her hands. It was long and thin and had something stiff at its core. A quiet plea for harsher treatment from her, perhaps. Buffy decided that she'd indulge him and give him what he wanted but couldn't ask for directly.
She left the whip where it was. The collar was enough to get them started. No, wait. She slid his nightstand drawers open and rummaged until she found the nipple clamps.
Buffy padded downstairs on silent bare feet again to see if Giles had obeyed her. And of course he had. There he was, her handsome man kneeling at her feet, in shirt and trousers, feet bare. She circled him slowly, admiring him. His eyes were half-closed, his mouth open. His head was bent and his wrists were behind his back, crossed. His erection was obvious in his trousers now that his jacket and tie weren't there to distract from it. She came to a halt before him and let her hand rest on his head. He flinched under her hand, though all she did was stroke his hair.
"Unbutton your shirt," she said, and watched as he obeyed. He seemed to have calmed down a little, because his hands were steadier than they'd been in the car.
Shirt opened, tugged out of his trouser waistband. He put his hands behind his back again, and looked at up at her through his lashes. He was so masculine like this, half dressed, on his knees. She liked his bare chest, liked the hair scattered across his pecs. Broad shoulders, broad chest, rising and falling as he breathed. She ran her hands all over that chest, around and up his back. She ended by stroking his hair. It had grown a little long, longer than Giles usually let it, and curled over the back of his collar and his ears. Soft hair, with gray sparking at his temples. A middle-aged man, an academic man, a reserved man, a shy man, a man she would never have met if it hadn't been for her destiny. And his destiny. Her Watcher. The one person in the world whom she'd trust with her life.
She wrapped the collar around his neck and buckled it tight. He closed his eyes and sighed. He'd been wearing this longer than she'd been alive, judging by the grooves worn into it and the place where the buckle tongue had rubbed. Did he ever wear it when he was alone? Or only for a lover? Buffy tucked the end of the collar through, then slipped two fingers into the ring at the front. She tugged Giles gently, and he swayed on his knees.
"Some day I'm going to take you out in public with this on. Somewhere where people can see you."
Giles swore under his breath, and she knew she'd struck home. He bent and pressed his lips to her foot. As he rose again, Buffy reached down to him and gripped a fistful of his shirt and pulled him up to his knees. Slayer strength, the kind of display he loved so much, a reminder that she was the warrior he worshipped. It was easy to be a warrior in jeans and a leather jacket. It always blew Buffy's mind when she did it in a little black dress. And apparently it blew Giles's mind, too, because he surged up and flung his arms around her waist. He pressed his cheek against her stomach and held her tight.
He was murmuring her name, over and over, and shaking. Buffy braced a hand on his back and pressed him closer. "Ssh. It's okay."
"Sorry, sorry," he said.
"Do we need to stop now to talk?"
"No. I'm just.. I'm fine."
"You don't seem fine. Am I going too fast?"
"More complicated than that. I-- buffy."
"What do you need?"
He tightened his arms around her, but didn't answer immediately. When he did, his voice was under control again. "You. I need you."
"You're sure?"
"Yes. Please, my Slayer. Do what you wish with me."
She didn't let go of him but held him close for a little longer, until she felt him relax in her arms. She straightened up. He released her and returned to his waiting position, wrists crossed behind his back. His face was calm again, so Buffy pulled her shoulders back and let herself snap into command mode. Slayer mode.
"I think the first thing I wish is to see you naked. Undress yourself, Watcher."
His shirt fluttered to the floor behind himself. Then his anxious hands were on his belt, tugging at it until he'd managed to fumble open his trousers. He pushed them down his hips, trousers and boxers at once. His erection came free of his shorts, and Buffy wondered that he could think about anything at all. He stood and shoved his pants down to his ankles, then dropped back down to his knees, as if he needed to be there again. He folded his clothes neatly and piled them up on a corner of the carpet. Buffy knew someone had taught him to do that, had told him it was the proper behavior. She had a strange flash run through her, because it was something she wouldn't have thought of on her own. Then she realized it was jealousy. Again. Why?
She shook herself and turned her attention to the here and now. To the handsome man kneeling nude at her feet. And he was handsome. Why had she never seen it? That strong jaw, the odd angular face. With the glasses off, with his clothes off, she could see him properly now. And she liked what she saw. Everything. His body. The gray in his hair. His penis. The steel ring at its base.
It looked good on him, the cock ring did. Gleaming metal all the way around him, solid and thick. Heavy. Buffy reached down to touch it and move it, tug it up against his body more firmly. Giles drew in a sharp breath, then let it out slowly. It showed him off beautifully, the way it held everything away from his body, his balls, his penis. Buffy cupped his balls. Fuzzed with hair, heavy in her hand, warm and a little damp with sweat. She'd played with them only a little bit so far, and wasn't sure what he liked, but he did seem to be enjoying what she was doing now, stroking and squeezing just a little bit. His eyes were closed.
The metal looked so good on him. Time for some more. She found the nipple clamps where she'd laid them on his coffee table. She held them up to him to see what he'd do. His eyes darkened, and he arched his back to present his chest to her. Buffy had another moment of jealousy, then, thinking about whoever it was who'd taught him to react like that. Ethan Rayne? Jenny Calendar? She hadn't been the first. She could never have been the first. He hadn't been her first, either. But here they were now, together, and she was the one with the clamps in her hand and it was her eyes he was looking into with such desire.
"Please" was what he said when she put the first one on, and "God yes" for the second. She adjusted them until they were snug enough to stay on when she tugged casually, then turned the screw just a little further than that.
Giles was breathing harder now. The sweat dripped from his temples. She watched his chest rise and fall, the chain between his nipples moving with each breath. His pupils were wide. He was wearing her steel now, inside and out. It was hard to hold herself back, seeing him like that, on his knees by choice, just for her. She wanted to whip him right away, until there were lash marks all over that chest, all over his thighs. But Buffy dug for every scrap of patience she had and held herself still. Watched him breathe, watched his throat work as he swallowed.
"Time to go upstairs," she said.
He rose to his feet gracefully, hands still behind his back, all the while watching her face. She pointed toward the stairs and he bowed to her slightly and went. She watched him walk upstairs, wrists crossed behind his back, head down, moving slowly, carefully, with that erection preceding him.
She turned the lights out and followed him up silently. If his hands were steady now, hers weren't. She was starting to feel almost too excited.
Now it was time to put him in bondage and keep him that way for the rest of the night, to buckle the cuffs snug around his ankles and wrists. Buffy climbed onto the bed. Sometimes being short was a major pain. Giles wasn't a small guy, either; he could pick her up and carry her easily, no supernatural strength needed. But he was cooperating now, despite the fear on his face, raising his wrists up for her to chain to one of those convenient eyebolts on his bedpost. Buffy hopped down and contemplated him. He wasn't quite helpless enough. She clipped his ankles together then fastened the carabiner to the ring at the base of the bedpost. He was stretched out against the bedpost, his whipping post. What a lovely thought.
He was tugging at his bonds, straining himself against them, writhing though she wasn't even touching him. He hadn't truly let go of himself until she'd bound him. She wondered if he even could, if the lifetime spend subduing himself, his urges, his wishes for himself, kept him reined in even when he was told he could let go. Poor guy. Lucky bastard, to have her. To have everything he dreamed about. And God, it was the most amazing thing, to see Rupert Giles unglued.
Up onto the bed again, where she was taller than he was, and could bend over him and grab his collar and pull him up to be kissed. He kissed her eagerly, open-mouthed, and tried to slip her his tongue. Pushy, pushy. But he was bound. All she had to do to reassert herself was step away and watch him strain to reach her, fruitlessly. It was unbelievably sexy. She had everything she'd dreamed about. Fantasy was one thing, the reality even better. She was more turned on than she'd ever been in her life, and that included the time Giles had nearly brought her to orgasm just by talking to her. This was a real man bound in front of her, stretched out against his own bedpost, a real person whom she cared about, sweating and trembling and waiting for her to give him what he desperately needed.
Buffy turned her back to Giles and unzipped her dress. One smooth practiced motion, and the dress slipped neatly free of her shoulders and to the bed at her bare feet. She stepped out of it and turned to look at her captive lover. Giles was watching her, she saw, staring rapt at her body. That was fine. She'd blindfold him if she didn't want him watching. She unhooked her bra and let it drop away to the floor. Her panties followed it.
Being nude felt better than wearing the dress had felt, which was strange, because Buffy loved that dress. What was it? She stood in front of Giles, poised and centered, and let herself consider the question. Freedom of motion. Of her body. She wasn't in some kind of mistress role any more. She was herself. Slayer, woman, Buffy. Giles seemed to like it, anyway. His eyes were all pupil. He licked his lips, and Buffy heard the chains squeak as he tugged.
What was he looking at? Her face, her breasts, her bare stomach.
"You like my breasts?"
"Yes. Want to kiss them."
Buffy took the chain between his nipple clamps in hand. "You do?" she said, and tugged hard before he could answer. She'd always wondered if there was something wrong with her, that the thought of hurting somebody else turned her on so much. But here was somebody who was just as turned on. She hurt him, and his reaction was a triumphant "yes" and a plea to her to do it again. And that was so unbearably sexy Buffy thought she was going to come right then, without even touching herself. She wanted to come. With Giles watching, struggling to touch her, hard and wanting.
Buffy touched herself. God, she really was close, so and wet and open. She'd been aroused all night, just like Giles had. Just her forefinger resting on her clit was almost enough to do it. She felt herself start to tremble and she leaned close to Giles, let her weight rest on him. Giles bit at her mouth and said her name. The chain squeaked again.
Not yet.
She held her slick fingers out to him. He licked them clean, eagerly, and pressed a kiss to her palm.
"You want to taste that for real tonight?"
"Please. Let me. I want to go down on you."
"Maybe later. If you're good."
"Want to now. Want to kiss you. Fuck you. Make you come. That's my job."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah, mine. I make you come. Nobody else does. Just me."
"That's not how it works. I come when I want to, with whoever I want. You only come when I say so. Only with me."
"Fuck," Giles said, and he was breathing harder than before. "Yes. God, yes, that's how it is."
"I'm in charge."
"You're in charge," he said, but he was tugging hard at the bonds that held him to the bedpost, straining toward her. "But I earned it. By obeying you."
"You asked for something else first. As your reward."
"God, yes," Giles said, and she heard the hunger.
"What did you ask for?"
"To suffer for you."
"Are you ready to suffer for me now?"
"Yes. What are you going to do to me?"
"I'm going to whip you."
"Please," he said, in a whisper, and his face was still hungry.
Buffy hopped down from the bed and picked up the whip.
The sound was what she liked best, the whistle in the air then the smack as the crop hit, Giles's gasp. Then the sound of the chain squeaking as he flinched, too late to do himself any good. Again, and again, sometimes just a flick with the tip of the crop, sometimes a sharp stinging bite across his back. Nothing very hard yet. He wanted suffering, he wanted marks, but Buffy wanted to listen to these sounds for a while before she got serious with him. Heat him up, redden his skin, bring him into the state he needed to be in, the one he'd described to her on their first night together. Trance state, endorphins flowing, emotions at the surface, his control over himself stripped.
Buffy listened to him, and when he began to plead with her to show mercy she knew it was time to turn serious. To strike him hard enough to bruise, hard enough to shock him to silence, to wrest from him with the next a single word. Yes. Yes, he said, and Buffy took it as license. Licence to strike again. To give them both what they both wanted. To stand back and wait and watch him writhe and come still again. And then grant him another stripe. Just three, but they would stay with him.
She wrapped her arms around his waist, lifted him, and turned him herself. He groaned when she did that, turned on as he always was when she used her strength on him. She set him back on his feet. He struggled to find his balance but had a hard time, so she held him until he steadied himself. There were tears on his face, but when she wiped them from his face he said, "More?"
"Yes. Because you've been good."
Three more, across the front of his thighs this time, lower down to avoid any chance she'd hit anything she didn't want to. This time Giles cried out on each stroke. She hadn't held back. He had his marks now, the ones he'd asked for as part of his fantasy. Buffy touched the stripes she'd left across his legs. They were hot to the touch. He have deep bruises, and if he went running he'd have to wear sweats or everyone would know his secret. Buffy thought that maybe Giles wanted people to know, almost, wanted someone to look at him and know he was her man. If he didn't think that way, then maybe she did. Maybe she wanted someone to see how she'd claimed him.
"They're gorgeous. Your new whip-marks."
"Yes."
"Thank me for them."
"Thank you," he said, and his voice was strange again like it had been the first time.
"I like the idea of always having some fresh marks on you. What do you think?"
"Please. Always."
Time for a break, then, to let him rest on his knees and recover. Buffy unchained his wrists from the bedpost and eased him down to the floor. Slayer strength, so wonderfully handy at the strangest times. She didn't give him any respite from bondage, however. Chain on the collar, to one of those eyebolts on the bed. Then carabiners to clip his right wrist to right ankle, left to left. She checked the clips. Solid. Then she knelt down with him, between his legs, and snuggled up close to him. One hand behind his head, pulling him down so she could kiss him.
"You need some water?"
He shook his head, then said, "Maybe." He was definitely far into some altered state, then.
Buffy drank first, because the water was hers. Then she held the bottle for him and fed him a few swallows. She wiped his chin for him afterward, and kissed him again. This time he didn't try to take command of the kiss but opened his mouth for her obediently.
Buffy played with the chain that hung between his nipples. Giles made a soft sound that she couldn't decide meant pain or pleasure.
"Does this feel good?" she said, and did it again.
"So good. So bloody good."
"Does it hurt?"
"Yes. Everything hurts. It's good."
"What feels the best?"
"Nipples," he said, and his voice was husky. "Ring. Can't tell. Need to come."
"You deserve to come. Because you did as I told you."
"I did. I waited the way you wanted me to."
"And that means you can come now. As many times as you like tonight."
"God, please. I want to come."
"How would you like to?"
"Inside you. Anywhere. Your mouth. God, yes, your mouth."
"In my mouth. Because you deserve it."
Buffy liked giving head. She had this vague idea that she wasn't supposed to, that it was something women were supposed to be degraded by or something confusing like that. But she liked oral sex. It was a gift, from her to her partner, just like anything else they might do for each other. And it was something they'd all loved. Even jerky Parker, who'd been the first guy she'd given it to, at the same time she'd received it for the first time. Parker had liked it. Riley liked it. They'd all liked giving it as much as getting it.
And Giles, he was loving it. A gentle kiss to the head to start, and he was already moaning. Licking the shaft, getting it wet so she could slide her hand over what she couldn't take into her mouth. And there was a lot of that, because Giles was a big guy. Buffy took her time with this part and listened to him make those amazing sounds. Just as good as the sounds he made when he was being whipped, just as exciting, in a totally different way.
Buffy flickered her tongue against the head of his cock and felt him tighten in her hand. He'd been hard for so long, and unsatisfied for so much longer than that, that it wasn't going to take much for him. Even with the ring slowing him down. Time to give him release. She shifted and took him into her mouth, let his cock slide over her tongue. His hips shifted. She reached between his legs and found the base of the plug and moved it inside him. He swore and thrust his hips harder. His cock found the back of her throat. Buffy let him in deep, all the way in, using every bit of experience she had.
"Gonna come in your mouth," Giles was muttering. "God, can't bear it, gonna come."
Then he was coming, pulsing in her mouth and crying out her name. It was a long orgasm, long and slow and sweet. Buffy let her mouth fill with his come. Not the first time she'd tasted it, but this time she held it without swallowing, waiting for him to finish. When it was finally over and he'd fallen silent, Buffy stood and bent over him. She gripped Giles by the hair and pulled him into a kiss, open-mouthed, letting it all slide into his mouth from hers. He groaned and sucked at her tongue eagerly, and swallowed his own come. She let him lick her lips until it was all gone and he'd calmed.
Buffy released her grip on his hair and studied his face. He looked okay. More than okay. The expression on his face was that strange thing Buffy had seen on him only when they were together like this: serenity. Peace. His face was salty from tears, and he was completely at peace.
"Thank you, my Slayer," he said.
"You're welcome." Buffy kissed him again, deeply, but his body was trembling against hers differently now. He was exhausted, and she needed to give his strained body some relief. Now came the mundane things: taking the plug out and setting it aside with the steel ring. Untying him so he could stretch. And taking off the nipple clamps.
"Brace yourself, sweetie," she said. Giles closed his eyes and nodded. His jaw was clenched, but still he cried out when she released the clamps from his nipples.
She helped Giles onto the bed and spread the blanket over him. His wrists were locked together again, and he'd clasped his hands and rested them under his cheek. Buffy knelt on the bed next to him and ran her fingers through his sweat-damp hair. All sorts of strange emotions were running through her. She still hadn't come yet, and it almost didn't matter. Stroking Giles's face was more important right now. It was normal, probably, maybe, to feel tenderness for the partner she'd just whipped. Normal to feel all melting inside at the expression on his face. Normal to want to fuss over him. This man, her Watcher, her mentor, her sworn companion, who wasn't her boyfriend exactly, because that word seemed ridiculous for him, and for this relationship, whatever it was. Some time soon she was going to have to figure it out.
"You feeling okay?" she said, though her head was full of a thousand things she wanted to say instead.
"Wonderful," Giles said, still with that slurry voice. "Quite-- quite wonderful. Been wanting it so long."
"Yeah. Me too."
"We'll do it again?" He gazed up at her with hope on his face.
"It's not over yet. I'm not finished with you tonight," Buffy said.
Her Watcher smiled and closed his eyes.
