Chapter Eleven
Buffy woke up the next morning
to the feel of smooth lips kissing a trail down her back.
“Angel.” She moaned into
her pillow slowly waking up. Angel
smiled; even in her sleep she recognized his touch.
“Baby wake up.” Buffy
smiled into her pillow, her Angel was here waking her up in the most delightful
of ways. Wait…Angel was here…in her
apartment?
She jumped up so quickly that he almost fell off the bed “Whoa,
whoa, relax its ok it’s just me.”
Buffy’s eyes darted to Angel and then around the room “Angel what
are you doing here? How did you get
in?”
Angel chuckled at her confused look “I saw Faith on my way up and
she let me in.”
“Oh. Ok.” She didn’t sound
too sure of herself but she settled back down on the bed. “So…ah…what’s
up? How was your date?” she sneered
that last bit out. Angel looked at her
thoughtfully she sounded a little miffed this morning.
Angel decided to play with her a little bit “Oh yeah my date, well
she was pretty good actually.”
Buffy’ smacked him on the head “PRETTY GOOD! You practically fuck me into the wall then
you sleep with HER!” She was livid how
could he do that? It’s not like she
went home and slept with Riley, far from it, in fact she had pretty much kicked
him out the door the second he took her home.
“Practically? Baby I did fuck you into the wall; I can remind you
if you like?” He moved in to do just
that, but Buffy wouldn’t have it she jumped out of the bed “no there will be no
reminding. I am not senile I remember
perfectly well.”
Angel chuckled; she was feisty this morning “Oh well if you change
your mind…” “No there will be no
changing of my mind, now what are you doing here?”
Angel got up and started to pace in front of her bed, ok time to be
serious. “Buffy I came here today because I wanted to talk to you about us,
about last night.”
“Talk?” She questioned his
motives because it seemed like every time they ‘talked’ it usually involved
bodily fluids.
But Angel held up his hands like he was surrendering “I swear I
just want to talk to you.”
“Ok just let me get changed I’ll meet you in the kitchen.” He nodded his ascent and walked out of the
bedroom.
Buffy quickly ran to get dress because there was no way she was
‘talking’ to Angel in her pajamas.
**
They were sitting at the kitchen table across from each other a
teakettle in between them and their hands wrapped around their perspective
mugs.
Angel not able to stand the silence anymore took the plunge “Buffy
about last night. I want to apologize
if I was too rough with you and I want to explain my actions to you.”
Buffy looked right at him “Its ok Angel you weren’t too rough,
I…ahem” she cleared her throat “ …I liked it.”
“Well regardless of whether or not you enjoyed it I shouldn’t have
done it. I did promise to give you
space and then the second I saw you with someone else I freaked.”
“I understand I mean I didn’t like hearing that you were there
with someone else.” She sheepishly said she reached over and caressed his check
“How’s your jaw by the way?”
He put his hand on top of hers and smiled at her “Sore. You pack a
big punch in that little hand”
“I’m sorry I still can’t believe I did that.”
“It’s ok I deserved it.” “No you didn’t”
He smiled at “Yes I did.”
They smiled at each other
“Listen there was another reason I freaked out when I saw you with
Riley…”
She waited patiently for him to continue.
“He was the one that my wife Darla cheated on me with.”
Buffy gasped “Angel I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.” He held his hand
up.
“It doesn’t matter Buffy the point is that after you said no, when
I asked you out, I was really pissed off. So I asked Eve out because I wanted
to hurt you like you hurt me.”
“Well it wasn’t the most pleasant of feelings to know you were on
a date with someone else.”
Angel kept going like he didn’t even hear her “Then when we got
there and I saw him with you, touching you, I just went nuts. All I saw was red, and the burning need to
stop him from touching what was mine again, just took over.”
“Yours?”
He took a deep breath “Buffy I know that we’ve only known each
other a short time but I am being completely honest when I tell you that I feel
like I’ve known you my whole life. I
wasn’t lying when I said that it was true all of it.”
He peeked up at her to try and gage her reaction; she was just
sitting there looking at him, her mind open to what he was saying.
“I think…I think I’m falling in love with you and the last thing I
want to do is push you away but I want to know you, all of you, I want to know
your past, I want to know what you like or don’t like. I want…I want you.” There he’d said it he half expected her to
run out of the room. But she was such
an amazing woman she did what he never would have expected her to do.
Buffy had listened to every word he said she watched his emotions
shine so clearly in his eyes and knew that she couldn’t deny it or run away any
more.
She reached across the table and took his hands in hers and spoke
softly to him “Angel…I…I think I’m falling in love with you too.” His eyes sparkled at her words and he seemed
to sit a little straighter in his chair.
“But I don’t know if I am ready to jump into a relationship with
you.”
“Why? Please tell me I
need to know what you’re so scared of.”
Buffy sighed she released his hands got up and walked over to the
counter her back to him.
“When I was 12 my parents divorced and my dad split. I haven’t spoken to him since then. But my
mom she hooked up with the librarian in our town Rupert Giles. I didn’t like that so much it was hard for
me to accept another man in the house.
My mom said that’s when I started hanging out with the bad crowd. You know, bikers, motor-heads. Anyway I did a lot of drugs, drank a lot,
and hung out all night long. Basically
living my own life and doing my own thing.
Then my mom and Giles married and moved out here and I decided to stay
in New York.”
She took a couple of breaths here was the difficult part. She turned around and looked directly in to
his eyes.
“Remember when you asked me what the tattoo on my back meant?”
“I remember. I also
remember you avoided my question like a pro.”
She smiled remembering her seductive play.
But the smile disappeared and she took a deep breath “Angel that
tattoo is a symbol of ownership. Proof
that I belong to The Brotherhood.”
She waited to see his reaction, but the only expression on his
face was one of confusion.
“Buffy what are you talking about, what’s the Brotherhood and what
do you mean proof of ownership?” His
voice had risen because he didn’t like the idea that she belonged to someone
else and not him.
“Angel, please just listen, ok?”
She waited for him to calm down and then finished her tale.
“The Brotherhood is a motorcycle club that I joined when I was
sixteen.”
“You mean a gang, like the Hells Angels?”
She shook her head and turned back around not looking at him. “Yeah…sort of. I was at this party and I met
Parker Abrams he was the brother of the Chapter president. I thought I loved him so we got a place
together and started a life together.”
She waited for that to sink in and snuck a look over her shoulder
at him. He was sitting there watching
her, his eyes full of love and understanding, and it gave her the strength to
continue her story.
“Well things were going good for awhile but then he changed. He
got real insecure he became very controlling and possessive. He controlled everything in my life; who I
hung out with, what I wore. He constantly badgered me saying that I was
cheating on him. I couldn’t go anywhere without him, he basically appointed
himself my jailor. He always said
hurtful things then followed it up with I love you, it’s not your fault it’s
mine, I’ll change.” Her voice changed has she mimicked Parker’s words
“But he never did and I became a shell of what I once was. I
wasn’t happy I was miserable. Before him, I looked at life with passion and
optimism but after everything I couldn’t, I lost that…I lost me.”
Angel listened to her voice listened to the way it changed from
sadness to anger. He wanted to go and
comfort her but he knew he had to let her get it all out.
“But I stayed and I kept telling him I would never leave. The worst part was the sex; I hated having
him touch me. I hated the way it felt,
like he never belonged. And I HATED
having to say I love you after every time.”
Angel could here the self-loathing in her voice and he got up and
started to walk to wards her. She heard
the scrap of the chair and lifted her hands for him to stop.
“No please just stay there.”
He stopped.
“I stayed with him for seven years. For seven years I kept letting him fuck me and I kept lying and
saying that I loved him when I didn’t.
Why? Why would a person do
that? What the fuck was wrong with
me? I wasn’t happy! I didn’t love him and I sure as hell didn’t
want to have sex with him! But I did
over and over and over again.“ She was punching the counter with her fist so disgusted
with herself.
Angel ran over to her and encased her in his loving arms. He held
her tight as she cried all over his silk shirt. With tears in his eyes he tried to comfort “Shhh baby its ok I’ve
got you, shhh shhhh”
Buffy tried to pull away “NO don’t you see? I’m nothing but a whore, a whore that didn’t
even get paid for her services!”
Angel roughly grabbed her shoulders “YOU ARE NOT A WHORE! You were young, scared, and alone; you
didn’t know what else to do!”
She was shaking her head back and forth “No I knew what I was
doing. I knew that I should have left
him. I knew I KNEW...but I didn’t I’m
nothing but a disgusting whore!”
He slapped her across the face and she looked at him tears
streaming down her face, her hand went up to her check. She looked at him and
saw the anger in his eyes.
“Don’t say that don’t ever say that! You are not a whore. He
was an asshole who couldn’t see that he was destroying an impressionable young
girl. It was his fault for treating you
so callously and not treating you the way you deserve, with respect and love.”
She fell to her knees holding her head crying her heart out. He
followed her to the floor holding her tight, rocking back and forth trying
desperately to make her see that it was not her fault, that she was not bad.
He gently picked her up and cradled her shaking form in his arms
as he walked them into the bedroom. He
laid her down on the bed and she pulled him down next to her.
Feeling safe in his arms she calmed down. Her shaking subsided and
the tears fell less “I’m so ashamed of myself. “ She sniffled. “Seven
years. Seven years of my life I lived
like that and didn’t do anything about it.
If Parker hadn’t died I’d still be there.”
He hugged her tighter “Shhh.
Buffy you have nothing to be ashamed of. You did what you thought was the right thing to do.”
She didn’t tell him that she couldn’t leave. She didn’t tell him that you don’t leave The
Brotherhood. Once you are in you’re
always the property of them. You can
never run from The Brotherhood. That was the real reason she had always stayed
with Parker. She had no choice. But when Parker died that was her ticket
out. Faith understood that but she
didn’t think that Angel would. So she
felt safe in not telling him because that life was behind her now. She hadn’t run from them she didn’t have to,
but if she had she would surely be died somewhere laying in a ditch.
But maybe he was right.
Maybe it wasn’t her fault. She
was just young and stupid and did what she thought she had to do. At the time was there really any other
course of action for her to take? No,
there wasn’t. There was nothing she could
do until the moment arrived. Thank god
it did.
It was funny she thought, now that she got it all out in the open,
things didn’t seem so bleak. Maybe she wasn’t a lost cause after all.
“After that I came here and I promised myself that I would never
become someone’s property again. And
that’s why I ran from you because I could feel you in my heart, in my soul and
I was scared.”
Angel just hugged her more and tried to calm the rage that he had
inside for this Parker asshole. If the
guy weren’t already dead Angel would have gone out and ripped him to shreds
just like he ripped his Buffy’s heart to shreds.
He gently touched her chin so she would look at him and know that
his words were true “Baby you have to believe me when I tell you that I have
nothing but the utmost respect for you.
I would never trample on your heart that way. I just want to hold it to mine forever, protect it and keep it
safe.”
His sweet words just made her cry again. And as she laid in his arms crying her heart out to him, the wall
around her heart came crashing down.
She felt free. And her soul sang with the joy that this man so easily bestowed
in her.
She looked up into his eyes and caressed his check “You are a
wonderful, sweet man Angelus O’Rourke.”
He smiled and kissed her palm “Don’t let that get out I have a
reputation to protect.” She laughed and
the sound was music to his ears.
He made love to her so tenderly after that like he had all the
time in the world. He kissed and
caressed every inch of her body, she felt worshipped, she felt loved and she
felt free, free to love again.
**
Laying in bed basking in the afterglow of their love making, Angel
was pondering whether or not he should ask her the question he’d been dying to
ask.
“Buffy?”
“Mmm”
“Where do you want to go from here?”
Buffy opened her eyes and continued to play with his belly
button. She had been dreading this
question but she knew it was coming and unfortunately she knew how she had to
answer him.
“Angel, I was offered to do a photo shoot for The Swimsuit
Edition. It’s in Hawaii. And I’m going to do it.”
Angel thought okay not what I wanted to hear but that’s not so
bad. “How long will you be gone?”
She sat up and looked at him.
“It’s for three weeks maybe more.
I’ll finally be able to buy my bar with the money I make on this job.”
She felt the tension in his body the second the words spilled out
of her mouth. But she had to go, now
more than ever. She had to know that he
would be ok with her still doing her own thing.
Angel looked at her and saw a whirlwind of emotions playing across
her beautiful face; the anxiety of waiting to hear his answer, the joy of
having her dream finally come true, and most importantly he saw the love she
felt for him. He knew that he had to
answer very carefully.
He didn’t like the idea of her being away from him for even a day
let alone three weeks but he also knew that if he reacted negatively all would
be lost. Besides he did have to go out of town for business and he didn’t know
yet how to tell her.
He smiled at her and drew her back down on his chest “Ok baby you
go and do your thing. I’ll be waiting
for you when you get back.”
Buffy was so happy that she jumped on top of him and proceeded to
show him how much his answer meant to her.