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“Nothing to report. All is quiet on the Western front. And the Northern and the Eastern, all the fronts. All quiet.”
“Really? Because it sounds rather less than quiet wherever you are.”
“Well, I had to go somewhere with a phone.” Buffy’s voice was saccharine-sweet, such that Giles could tell that she was batting her lashes in an adolescent parody of innocence.
“Somewhere like the Bronze?”
“The Bronze has a phone.”
“Buffy, if you’re not going to take your patrols seriously…”
“Giles, will you take a breath, please? I patrolled. There were zero bad guys. We just had a long week of big, bad, and ugly, maybe they’re all on vacation. But now it is Friday night, Xander and Willow and Angel are here and I would really like to do something normal for a change. Please, can patrol-time be over for tonight?”
Giles softened at the pleading tone in her voice. “Well, I suppose, if you’re sure you were thorough…”
“I was! Extremely thorough! Thorough is my middle name! Well, actually, it’s Anne, but I’m having it changed.”
He couldn’t help but chuckle, though he did it away from the phone so Buffy wouldn’t get the idea that she’d manipulated him. “All right. Have a good time.”
“Yes! Thank you Giles, you are, like, the best mentor on her supernatural powers that a girl could ever have. G’night!”
“Good night. Oh, and Buffy…” but the line was dead. Ah well, he thought, she deserves a night of frivolity. It had been quite a trying week. Rather than seek out the noise of the local club, however, Giles had planned a rather different night for himself. The kettle whined reassuringly from the kitchen. Giles loosened his tie while he poured out his tea. A bit of Darjeeling, and a volume on early Egyptian ritual sacrifice.
He left his tea to steep and was heading toward the bedroom to change his clothes when there was a sudden rapping at the door. Who could that be at this hour? he thought. Hasn’t Buffy just said that everyone is with her at the Bronze? He picked up a small axe from his weapons chest before heading for the front door. He wasn’t worried about a vampire, so he didn’t need a stake. Vampires were easy; all you had to do was not invite them in. It was the things that don’t require an invitation that made him nervous.
He reached the door and peered out through the peep-hole. Jenny Calendar stood on his step, wrapped in a long overcoat and carrying a large handbag, looking lovely as ever.
“Jenny?” he called through the door, more out of surprise than to confirm her identity.
“Hi Rupert, yeah, it’s me.” She smiled and waved to the peephole. “Hello.”
“I’m sorry, I…I wasn’t expecting…” he reached for the doorknob before remembering the axe in his hand. “Just a moment.” He rushed back to his chest to replace the axe. No need to have her thinking I’m any stranger than I’m sure she already does, he thought as he readjusted his tie on the way back to the door. He fumbled awkwardly at the locks a few times before swinging the door open. “Hello! What a pleasant surprise. Please, do come in.”
Jenny said nothing but instead took a long moment looking him over. Is my zipper amiss? he thought as he followed her gaze downward. By the time he looked back up, she had breezed past him into the apartment.
“You’re still in your suit.”
“What? Oh, yes. I, well, I hadn’t gotten around to it yet…” Something was different about her tonight. He turned to find her leaning against his desk, directing a cold, appraising look in his direction. His eyes were drawn to the knee-high, black leather boots visible beneath the hem of her coat.
“I thought maybe that’s why you wouldn’t open the door. Thought I’d caught you with your trousers down. Literally.”
“Oh, no. Yes. That.” He chuckled nervously. Why is she looking at me like that? “No it was nothing like that, actually…”
“Pity.”
“What?”
“Is this a bad time?”
“No, no, no, not at all. I was just…” What had I been doing? “I was making some tea, would you like some tea? A friend from across the pond has just shipped me some lovely Darjeeling…” He started heading towards the kitchen.
“Stop. I don’t want tea. Don’t serve me tea.”
He had never before heard this tone of voice from her, so cold and commanding. It stopped him dead in his tracks, staring back at her in mild shock, but she offered no more clues as to her intentions.
“Jenny, are you…that is, have I done something to anger you? Because I assure you…”
“I’m not angry, Rupert. I just don’t want any tea. Neither do you. I don’t come to a man’s apartment at 10 o’clock on a Friday night for tea.” Her voice was calm again, softer, but still with a steely and assured edge to it.
Why is she here then? He didn’t dare think it was for the reason that he hoped. He didn’t dare think about the hundreds of times he’d fantasized about having her here alone. The trouble was, he’d never met a woman quite like her. She was so confident and a bit aggressive and he always felt he was just a half-step behind her in the conversation, always off his footing. He’d certainly dated before, been involved with a handful of women and even a few men in his time, but he found that all his experience was for naught, that anytime he made an assumption about her he wound up looking foolish. Worse yet, he had the distinct impression that she enjoyed making him look that way, that he was rather the mouse to her cat. He was also finding, despite himself, that he enjoyed being toyed with a bit, that there was something a little exciting in the way she played with him. Right now, for example. The silence was going on a little too long and she was just staring at him like he was a particularly interesting butterfly that she had pinned to a board. Say something, dammit.
“Oh. Well…alright. Would you…can I get you something else?”
Jenny sighed noisily in response, tossing her head back dramatically. The long line of her neck formed an arrow of bare skin with the collar of her overcoat and Giles couldn’t help noticing that there was an awful lot of bare skin to notice. What is she wearing under there? “Aren’t you getting a little tired of this, Rupert?”
“Tired? What?” Did she just catch me looking? “Tired of what?”
“Of this,” she gestured between them, “This thing you and I do. I say something flirty, you stammer something Britishy. Don’t get me wrong; it’s adorable, and the sexual tension is just delicious, but I think it’s leading up to something better. Don’t you?”
How the bloody hell am I supposed to answer that? “Well…”
“Don’t stammer. Answer me.”
The cold command was back in her voice. Why is that so damn alluring? He felt suddenly like a lad back in school being scolded by the headmistress. It had turned him on then, in a youthful, confusing way, and damn if it wasn’t turning him on now, all these years later and no less confusing. How could he answer her? He could hear his own voice in his head, how he was inclined to answer, “Well, I would like… I had rather hoped…that is, if you would be amenable…” Blimey, she’s right; that must be very irritating. While he tried to form a clear, unhesitant answer, she unbuttoned her overcoat and let it fall onto the desk behind her. Giles had to steady himself against the wall as the blood rushed suddenly from his head towards points South. The black sheath of a dress hugged her perfectly, revealing a generous expanse of cleavage and shoulder above and a long stretch of leg below. Beneath the impossibly short hem of the skirt Giles could see the lacy tops of her stockings and the line of a garter, stark black against the pale white of her thighs. He found himself mesmerized by that little bit of visible flesh between the skirt and the stockings and fighting an almost overwhelming urge to drop to his knees and bury his face there.
“Answer me.” Her voice snapped him out of his reverie, softer now but no less commanding.
What was the question? Is this going somewhere better? Whatever his doubts before, they had been chased away by the sight before him. He dragged his eyes away from her body and back up to her face, which still wore a stern and expectant expression, and forced himself to answer concisely.
“Yes.” His own voice sounded unfamiliar. Stripped of his verbal defenses, his answer emerged on a breathy baritone.
A playful smile broke across her face and he found himself inexplicably elated that he had pleased her with his answer, both in form and content. “Do you know what I think, Rupert?”
“I clearly can’t begin to guess.” he answered, before he had time to think too hard about it.
“I think you’re hanging on by your fingernails.” The playfulness was gone as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by a cutting and incisive tone. “Rupert Giles: Watcher of the One True Slayer. Guardian of the Forces of Good in the Battle Against Evil. Always in control because, if you let that control slip for even a moment, people die, people are lost to horrible darkness.” While she spoke she began to close the distance between them, walking slowly, swaying her hips rather more than was strictly necessary. “It’s a ridiculous amount of responsibility. It would break lesser men. I think it’s about to break you. I think you’re wound so tight you can’t even let the words out of your own goddamn mouth without checking them in triplicate.” She was inches from him now, though not touching. He could feel the heat coming off of her, smell her perfume, something musky with a hint of vanilla. He found that he had backed himself up against the wall and still she advanced on him. Her voice was liquid now, warm steel and intention on every syllable. “You work with a bunch of kids. They’re smart, but they haven’t lived long enough. They can’t see it, but I can. I can see that you’re holding yourself together with both hands.” She placed both her palms on his chest and began sliding them up and down his torso in a way that was both soothing and possessive. “Now, how long do you think you can keep that up, Rupert?”
The feeling of her hands on him drove every thought from his mind. “Well, I don’t…that is…”
The slap was hard enough to knock the glasses off his face. He heard them clatter to the ground. He turned back to her, shocked and confused, but she just cocked an eyebrow at him challengingly. Her hands had already returned to their gentle caresses and Giles felt his sanity slip. Did that just happen? Did I imagine it? He had to raise his hand to his cheek and feel the heat of his skin where she had struck him before he was sure.
“Jenny! I don’t…why would you…how…” The other cheek now, just as hard, and as the pain registered, so did a crystalline understanding. You’re stammering, Rupert. Mustn’t stammer. He couldn’t help but notice that she was now thumbing his erect nipples through his sweater-vest and was a little alarmed to think what had brought about that change.
“Answer me, Rupert.” Her voice was still soft, but there was a threat underneath it, almost a dare and he found himself morbidly curious about what she would do if he defied her again. But, more than that, he found that there was a strange, groveling part of him that desperately wanted to please her.
He thought about what she had said. It was true. He never let anyone, certainly not the young people in his charge, see how much he doubted himself every day, every damn minute. If he doubted, they would all doubt, Buffy would doubt and he couldn’t let her go into battle with anything less than total confidence. So he buried his fears and he put up this persona, but it was an incredible strain to keep it all hidden. How had she known? And how much longer could he sustain it?
“I don’t know.” He answered, admitting it for the first time both to himself and to her. Once he said it he realized the truth in her words and he realized that he did, in fact, know. “Not for very much longer.” His answer was barely a whisper, but he forced it out without equivocation.
“I know. I know, that’s why I’m here, I’m going to help you.” She was practically purring now as her hands slipped up past his chest, gliding over his neck and settling behind his head, her thumbs flicking his earlobes while her fingers curled into his hair, lightly scratching his scalp. Giles closed his eyes and shivered at the sensation. When he’d started working with Buffy he had basically sworn off a personal life; it had been a long time since he had been touched like this, gently and pleasurably, a long time since he’d been touched at all, not counting violent encounters with assorted monsters. He found that his senses were starved and this small touch now was exquisite. He was painfully hard beneath this trousers and he wondered if she had noticed. Their lower bodies weren’t touching enough for her to have felt it yet, but she seemed to know so much about him so easily that he couldn’t be sure. He was dimly aware that he was being conditioned – Stammering gets you slapped. Gut-wrenching admissions about your innermost fears get you delicious fingers in your hair. Got it. – but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Jenny’s hands released his hair and moved around to his face, caressing his burning cheeks before brushing over his eyelids in a way that made him open his eyes and look down at her.
“Listen to me now, Rupert. You’re going to let go of that control tonight. You’re going to give it over to me. If you can’t give it up willingly, I’m going to take it from you. I’m going to decide what you feel and when you feel it.” Her hands traveled through his hair again and then back over his face, and Giles understood the subtle reminder that she could give him both pleasure and pain. “It’s your night off, Rupert. You can let it go.” Her voice was sweet now and Giles thought that this must be the voice that the devil uses when he offers temptations to the unsuspecting. “No decisions, no strategies. All you have to do is do what I tell you and take what I give you. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
God help me, it sounds amazing. And terrifying. Before his desire could do battle with his fear, she had fisted her hands in his lapels and he found himself yanked away from the wall and then shoved back into it hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. His face was several inches lower now, level with hers, and when he knew where his limbs were again he found that his legs had ended up bent and spread wide so that he was nearly seated against the wall. Jenny had slipped easily between his legs and now she pressed herself firmly and deliberately into him, grinding her thigh into his erection. He gasped in surprise and pleasure at the rough friction of his clothes shifting around his sensitive flesh. He tried to take hold of her, pull her closer, but her hands found his wrists and pushed them into the wall. She pressed her forehead into his, pushing his head back into the wall and Giles found that his mental imagery from earlier regarding a pinned butterfly had been oddly prescient.
“You can’t hide from me, baby. I know what you need. I know where you live.” She pressed her leg more firmly into his cock to emphasize her meaning. Her mouth was mere inches from his, close enough for him to feel her breath, hot on his lips. “All you have to do is say yes, and I’ll give it to you. I’ll give you what you need.”
On some distant level he knew that he could have overpowered her if he’d wanted to; he was certainly larger and stronger and trained in more styles of hand-to-hand combat than she. There was only one problem. She’s right. I need this. I’ve never needed anything more badly. He had never had a name for this unspecified longing within him, but now she had described it, read it in his soul like he was so much cheap fiction, and he could no longer deny that he was aching for it, aching to be treated the way she was treating him now, like an errant child who needs to be put in his place. He had no idea what she would do to him, but he could already feel the death-grip that he kept on instincts relaxing, feel the weight of so much responsibility lifting. God, yes, yes…
“Yes.” He wasn’t entirely sure that he’d spoken out loud until she pulled her face away from his in order to look deeply into his eyes. She looked to him like a dark goddess, demanding sacrifice and offering absolution. A slow smile crept across her lips. That mouth…
“Ask me nicely.” She said, a touch of playfulness back in her voice. Giles found he knew what she wanted without being told.
“Please,” he whispered. He hated the plaintive tone in his voice and he felt himself color at the humiliation of it, even as his cock throbbed against her leg. He felt lost and bewildered at this confusing combination of shame and arousal, but he decided that he would let her sort it out. She was in charge, after all. He let his eyes slip closed and his body slump against the wall in utter surrender. That was when her mouth closed over his.
If ever a kiss was an act of violence, this was that kiss. Her mouth was hot and demanding and her hands abandoned his wrists in order to fist in his hair, holding his head exactly where she wanted it. Her teeth nipped at his lips until he opened his mouth to her probing tongue. His unrestrained hands went instinctively to her hips and she broke the kiss just long enough to slap his face again, even harder this time, and he obediently dropped his hands at his sides with a frustrated groan. He tried to kiss her back, to battle her tongue with his own or suck on her lip, but each time he did, she retreated, taking her mouth just out of reach, leaving him straining to reestablish contact. Finally, he understood that the only thing to do was to allow his mouth to go slack and let her do what she would with it.
It felt so wrong, standing there docilely while she plundered his mouth and teased his cock with her leg. He couldn’t stop thinking that he should be doing something, but it also felt so good to simply sit back and let it happen, let the sensations wash over him without taking any responsibility. I’m being trained. Like a dog. Positive and negative reinforcement, and look how well it’s working. Look how easy it is. And why does it feel so damn good? Giles was fairly trembling with frustration now, his hands balled into tense fists against the desire to grab hold of her again. His lips felt swollen and abused and he thought about reaching for her again if only because another slap across the face would provide a break in this unbearable tension. Before he made up his mind to do so, she took hold of his jaw and turned his face sharply to one side, exposing his ear to her. She nipped at the lobe, then played her tongue over the sensitive shell of his ear in a way that made him writhe with ticklish urgency and pound his fists into the wall behind him to sublimate the urge to push her away.
“If it’s too much, if you need it to stop, just say ‘Morloch.’ Can you remember that?” she whispered to him. He smiled a bit at the reference to the first demon they had fought together.
“Yes, I can.”
“Good.” She twisted his head to the other side and attacked the other ear just as she had the first. “Because, unless I hear that, I’m not stopping for anything. You can scream. You can beg, whatever you like. I want you to feel free to let that all out if you need to. Unless I hear ‘Morloch,’ this doesn’t stop until I say it does. Understand?”
He shivered, both at the threat in her words and her breath on his ear. Beg? Would I ever beg? Am I capable of it? He found that curiosity and desire were stronger than fear. “I understand.”
“Good.” She stepped away from him and Giles found himself scrambling for balance, his head swimming from the sudden loss of contact. When he found his feet again, he looked up to see her holding the handbag she had walked in with, looking at him expectantly. “Which way is the bedroom?” Her lipstick was slightly smudged, but other than that she looked completely nonchalant. The casual observer might never guess that mere moments ago she had been batting his brain about like a hacky sack.
“It’s up the stairs.” He gestured towards the bedroom and then followed her swaying hips as she led the way there. A sudden thought stopped him in his tracks, “Um, I just…” She turned on him suddenly.
“I swear I will beat that stammer out of you tonight.”
“I just need the loo.” He spat out quickly, before she could strike him again. “You go ahead, I’ll be up in a minute. Is that alright?”
She eyed him suspiciously for a moment. “Ok. That’s alright. Just don’t touch the suit.” She tugged on his tie possessively. “I like to unwrap my presents.” With that she turned and began climbing the stairs.
Giles slipped into the bathroom and shut the door before leaning back against it. What on Earth is happening? He had guessed, had fantasized, that she would be somewhat sexually aggressive, but this was several steps beyond what he had ever expected from her. Perhaps there’s another explanation. Has she been possessed? Some kind of sexual demon? A succubus? He palmed his aching cock through his trousers, groaning as the touch entirely failed to take the edge off his arousal. If it is a succubus, blimey, it’s a hell of a way to go. Although I’m sure every man who has ever been taken in by a succubus has had that same thought. Giles shook his head against the idea. If it were a possession, there would be other indications. It’s much more likely that she’s here because she wants to be and everything she’s said tonight is true. Occam’s Razor, Rupert.
He shrugged off his jacket and hung it on the doorknob then started rolling up his left sleeve. He rifled through the medicine cabinet until he found some square adhesive bandages that were large enough to cover his tattoo of the Mark of Eyghon. As much as Jenny knew about demonology, he knew there was a chance of her recognizing it and that was a conversation he wasn’t ready to have with her. He glanced at himself in the mirror. Mustn’t keep a lady waiting. He reset his clothing carefully and made his way up to the bedroom.
Jenny was seated on the edge of his bed, legs crossed, leaning back on her hands. Giles entered the room and found that he didn’t really know what to do next. He started to approach her, but she held up her hand to stop him.
“Stay there,” she said, simply. Giles obeyed. She’ll have me rolling over and playing dead next. He stood several feet in front of her, waiting for the next instruction, while she simply looked at him. He watched her eyes travel up and down his body and he burned with self-consciousness. His erection had flagged a bit, but it was still enough to tent his trousers and he crossed his hands in front of himself to cover the display.
“No. Don’t do that.” He dropped his hands at his sides, but found he could no longer look at her. He could feel the color rise in his face as he knew that the command in her voice had brought his cock back to full arousal, making the problem he had been trying to conceal so much worse. He stood there feeling like a stranger in his own bedroom, his eyes focused on the carpet, wishing she would just do something already.
“Are you embarrassed to be hard in front of me?” Her voice was so casual, she might have been asking the time. Giles glanced at her eyes, all open inquisitiveness, and then looked away again quickly.
“Yes.” He wanted to qualify the statement, add subtleties and shades to it, but he knew he couldn’t do it without stammering.
“Why?”
“It’s…rude.”
“It’s not rude. I came in here dressed like this. I said suggestive things to you. I touched you, rubbed up against you, kissed you. Don’t you think I was trying to make your cock hard?”
He shifted uncomfortably at the ruthless nakedness of her description.
“Well, it’s undignified, then. It’s ungentlemanly.” He dared to look up for a moment to see if this response met her approval. She just sighed and tossed her head back again.
“Oh, Rupert, Rupert, Rupert.” She rose and walked over to him. Her hands slid up his chest and she fingered his lapel again. “You can’t always be dignified. You can’t always be a gentleman.” She began to circle him, letting one hand graze over him as she moved. “You’re a man, like any other man. You’re an animal, like everyone else.” She was behind him now and he felt his jacket slide off his shoulders in one easy movement.
He shuddered at her words. She doesn’t know how right she is. He had been that animal once. Even then he had worn it like an ill-fitting garment. A big show of rebellion, a persona named Ripper, poor little rich boy’s walk on the wild side. The others had smelled it on him, the boy scout’s heart under all that borrowed filth, and they never let him forget it. And the consequences had been so very dire. He hadn’t thought about Randall in a very long time, but the guilt was still there, right where he’d left it, no less sharp for being old. He had buried that part of himself under so many layers of shame and propriety to ensure that his baser nature would never get the better of him again.
She stepped back around to face him. Her eyes found his while her fingers found the buttons to his vest. “Do you know why I hate it when you stammer?”
Giles came out of his reverie and searched for an explanation, but found that there was not a single thing about this evening that didn’t leave him utterly bewildered. “No.”
She finished with the vest and pushed it off his shoulders before starting on his tie. “It’s another way you hide yourself. It’s like all these layers of tweed and wool and cotton,” the tie whispered through his collar as she pulled it free and then began on his shirt buttons, “You start a sentence four or five times before you say it. So, instead of what you mean, you end up saying the diplomatic thing, the ‘correct’ thing. I want to hear what you really want to say. The ungarnished, naked truth.” She pulled his shirt free from his trousers and stepped back a bit to lift each wrist in turn and unbutton the cuffs.
It has to be that way. I have to stay in control or someone might get hurt. He knew he couldn’t explain it to her, though, so he simply stayed silent and let her continue. It felt so strange to be stripped like this, like a mannequin. He had certainly been undressed by a lover before, but he was used to participating a bit more, not just standing there pliant and allowing it to happen. He wanted to reach for her, to find the zipper on that dress and slide it down, but he knew she wouldn’t allow it. She pushed the shirt off of him and then slid her hands beneath his undershirt, finally finding bare skin, and he raised his arms and allowed her to pull off the final layer.
He watched her face as she took in his bare chest. She seemed pleased with what she saw and reached to touch him again, starting at his neck and then sliding her hands over his chest and down his arms. Her fingers found the bandage and she raised an inquisitive eyebrow to him.
“Training with Buffy. Pointed weapons. It’s just a scratch.” He didn’t know why it was so easy to lie to her about this when she had dragged the truth out of him about so many other things. Perhaps it was because he had been lying about that tattoo for years to anyone who happened to see it, which mainly meant people with whom he slept. He usually made up something about it being the ancient Mandarin symbol for “He Who Reads Many Scrolls,” or some such nonsense. He would tell her the truth eventually, but tonight was not the time.
Jenny nodded her understanding and held his eyes as she dropped to her knees, her hands gliding from his arms to his belt and then down his legs, carefully avoiding the area where he most craved her touch. Whatever his dark thoughts had been, her touch along his thighs chased them away and brought him back to this moment and his desire back to its full flame. She guided him out of his shoes and socks before running her hands back up his legs to his belt. She tugged on it a bit, making his hips sway, bringing the bulge in his trousers tantalizingly close to her wicked, parted lips, before starting in on the buckle. The idea of her mouth on him sent a fresh shock of arousal through him and, as she leaned in and took his zipper-pull between her teeth and dragged it down, he found he had to close his eyes against the sight in order to do battle with the urge to grab her by the hair and pull her in. “You’re an animal, like everyone else…” Her words echoed in his mind, but he resisted them, needing to be more, to hold on to his dignity, if nothing else. He could feel her breath through his clothes, hot against his already overheated skin, yet she still would not touch him where he needed it.
When his flies were undone she took hold of his trousers and shorts at once and pulled them both down, guiding the waistband over his erection which, freed from its confines, finally stretched to its full length. She left his clothes bunched around his shins and he felt her hands slide back up his legs to grip his naked hips. When he opened his eyes to see her intentions, she immediately caught his gaze and, without ever breaking eye-contact, pursed her lips and blew a little stream of cool air over his burning cock. He groaned and his hips bucked forward of their own accord, but she held him firmly and he wasn’t able to make contact with her teasing mouth. She gave a sultry little chuckle, pleased with his reaction, and waited until he had recovered his senses before releasing his hips and guiding him to lift each leg in turn so that she could remove what remained of his suit.
She stood and took a step back to look him over. Giles clenched his fists against the urge to cover himself again. He felt his face color anew and he lowered his eyes while her gaze raked over him. He knew he looked good for his age, training with Buffy and an active lifestyle of demon-hunting saw to that. He had nothing to be ashamed of per se, if previous partners were to be believed. There was just something so humiliating about standing there with his cock jutting out, completely naked while she remained fully, if provocatively, clothed. She walked a slow circle around him. He felt her hands on his back, sliding down his spine before cupping and squeezing his arse and he finally put a finger on it. I’m being objectified. She’s unwrapped her present and now she’s going to play with it. His brain screamed that it was so, so wrong, but his cock twitched in silent approval. Her voice in his ear caught him off guard.
“Do you know how gorgeous you are, Rupert?”
For a moment, surprise overtook all his other emotions and he looked up to see if she was joking. She crossed back to the bed and resumed her earlier position, meeting his questioning gaze with nothing but sincerity.
“I’m not…”
“You are. I should know; I look at you all the time.” She leaned over her crossed knees and her tone got low and confidential. “I come by the library sometimes, between classes. I peek through those windows in your door. Do you know what I hope for?”
“What?” Giles had forgotten his self-consciousness for the moment, overcome by the idea that she had made detours to spy on him.
“I hope that you’re working on something and that you’ve got your sleeves rolled up. I love your forearms, they’re gorgeous. More than that, though, I love getting a glimpse under the armor. You’re so buttoned-up all the time, so fucking proper, it just makes me want to…unbutton you.”
Giles lowered his eyes again, taking in the praise. My forearms? Really? He looked down at them and was reminded of his current state of dress.
“Well, you’ve certainly got more than a glimpse now…”
“Do you know you have an oral fixation?” she interrupted.
“I do not!” He looked up at her again, slightly offended at the idea.
“Oh, but you do. You’re constantly chewing on something; the end of your glasses, pencils, pens. It’s another thing I hope for when I come by. Draws my attention to your mouth, and I can’t help thinking, ‘I can put that mouth to such better use.’” She leaned back again and uncrossed her legs, leaving a little gap between her thighs. From his vantage point standing above her, the skirt still covered her, but just barely. “What about you, Rupert? Can you think of some better use for your mouth?”
Her casual tone had dropped away, replaced by that devil-sweet voice again. His mouth actually watered at the idea of what she was proposing and he found he had to swallow hard before he could answer. He didn’t trust himself to say anything more than, “Yes.”
Her dark eyes met his and, for one horrible moment, he thought that she would laugh at him. Instead she just smiled a mischievous smile. “Get on your knees.” He dropped like he’d been shot, grateful beyond words that his interrogation was over. “Crawl to me.” He was starting to get used to this new sensation; his face burning with shame while his cock throbbed with interest. He lowered his hands to the ground and obeyed, focusing on the prize he might get when he reached her. He stopped when his face was nearly touching her knees and looked ahead. Her skirt still cast a shadow, but a glimpse of pink skin told him that she wore nothing but the garter underneath. The warm, thick scent of her was like a physical force, drawing him in. His hands moved unconsciously to her knees to guide them apart. He was stopped by her hand under his chin, pulling his face up to meet hers.
“Ask me.”
He bit back a sob of frustration at being denied again. Desire was twisting into desperation and he had a sudden urge to simply push her back on the bed and take her by force. “…an animal, like everyone else…” He swallowed hard and regained his control. “I don’t understand.”
“You said you had an idea. Something to do with your mouth.” Her voice dripped with mock-innocence and he was reminded for a brief moment of his conversation with Buffy earlier. “The Bronze has a phone.” Her hands were cupping his face and she ran her thumb across his lower lip, sending a shiver through him. “Tell me your idea. Tell me what you want to do. If you ask me nicely, I might let you do it.”
Good lord, she can’t expect me to say it. It was one thing to perform the act, it was another thing entirely to name it. His mind swam with words, lick…suck…eat… but it was all so vulgar he couldn’t bring himself to say any of them. And that’s just the verbs. The nouns are even worse.
She was leaning down over him now, planting little kisses on his face and lips, murmuring to him, “Come on, baby, just say the words. You’ve got all those books, all those words. Just give me these, baby, you can do it.”
He wanted to, so badly, he was aching to touch her, to taste her, and it was such small price to pay, but the words stuck in his throat and he couldn’t force them out.
“I can’t,” he whispered, hating himself for his weakness and silently pleading for clemency. She sat up a bit and looked down at him fondly.
“You can, baby, and you will. You just have to be properly motivated, that’s all. Don’t worry,” she patted his cheek in a way that entirely failed to be reassuring, “I’m going to take care of it. I’m going to hear those dulcet Oxford tones wrapped around every obscenity in the English language tonight. Maybe a few other languages too, if you feel like showing off. Hey, how do you say, ‘I want to fuck you’ in Sumerian?”
“Sumerian is a dead language. The pronunciation is the subject of a great deal of debate,” he answered reflexively.
She tossed her head back in genuine laughter and it took Giles’s lust-addled brain a few moments to understand the joke. She kissed his cheek again and whispered in his ear, “I love it when you talk nerdy to me. C’mere.”
She guided him until he was lying on his back in the center of the bed and stretched out alongside him. She started kissing him again, slow, searing-hot kisses that seemed to go on for ages. He remembered his instruction from earlier and struggled to keep himself still, but it was so much harder this time, in every imaginable way. His whole body felt like a raw nerve, jumpy and oversensitive. She had one leg draped over his and he could feel the leather, silk, and lace of her stocking and boot. The warm weight of one breast rested against his ribcage, taunting him. Her hand roamed over him, pinching a nipple, scratching through the hairs on his thighs, but carefully avoiding his aching cock.
He started twisting underneath her, desperate to make contact with her hand, with anything, but she just moved her hands up and started guiding his arms to stretch above his head. He didn’t know what was happening until he heard a familiar metallic click. He looked up at the cuffs encircling his wrists and tried to bring his hands down to his face, but found he could not. He saw a bit of rope looped around the center of the cuffs’ chain and leading somewhere out of sight behind the mattress.
“It’s tied to the bed frame. I did it while you were in the bathroom,” Jenny supplied, helpfully. She rose and walked to the foot of the bed. “You really should consider a headboard with some anchor points. Some slats or a bit of classic ironwork.” She pulled up more ropes, which were apparently tied to the feet of the bed and proceeded to bind each of Giles’s ankles to a different corner. He tried to struggle, but she had all the leverage. “Don’t get me wrong, I like the solid oak thing, it’s very you, but this would have been so much easier on a four-poster.”
She stepped back and watched as Giles took in his predicament; Naked, painfully aroused, and tied down in a Y formation to his bed. He tested his bonds a bit, but Jenny clearly knew her way around a knot. He could twist his upper body from side to side a bit but, beyond that, he had almost no range of motion. As he struggled to come to terms his new situation, he was aware of her retrieving something from her bag and returning to the foot of the bed.
“Jenny, please…I really don’t think…That is, I…What are you doing?” Jenny had taken two thick rubber-bands from her bag and was placing one around each of his feet so that it rested loosely between the heel and toes. She looked up at him and matter-of-factly as she pulled one back and let it go so that it snapped painfully against the sole of his foot.
“Bloody hell!”
“Now we’re getting somewhere! That was for stammering.” She repeated the process on the other foot and Giles let out a groan from behind clenched teeth. “And that was just because I felt like it. Is this what it takes to get a visceral reaction from you, Rupert? You need a little pain?” She pulled both bands back and let them go and Giles couldn’t stop himself from crying out. He was already desperate and confused and the pain shortened his temper. He glared up at her.
“Is that the reaction you want?”
She snapped one band and then the other and he hissed through his teeth but didn’t make another sound, wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “Well, you aren’t stammering, so that’s a start.” Snap. “Anyway, this isn’t so bad.” Snap. “You take worse than this every time you train with Buffy and you do it with a smile.” Snap. Snap. “You know, I’ve always wondered about that. Does it ever turn you on?”
Pain, arousal, and helplessness were clouding his brain. Giles now felt that he was quite a few steps behind in the conversation. “Does what turn me on?”
“Training with Buffy.” She stopped snapping the rubber bands in favor of running her nails along his arches in a way that was just barely on the pleasurable side of ticklish.. “When she hits you? Pins you? Tosses you around? Cuts you? That tight, strong, little teenage body controlling you, manipulating you. Both of you sweating and panting. I have to say, I’ve only watched it and it seems pretty hot to me. Does it ever get you hot? Did you ever have to switch to projectiles because the hand-to-hand was giving you a hard-on?”
They stared at each other for a long moment. Not that, never that, that doesn’t belong to you. There were things he could never admit, even to himself; moments, flashes of heat, images that came unbidden to his mind during the rushes of danger he experienced almost weekly with his young charge. He disowned these things, wrote them off as the overactive children of adrenaline and frustration.
“No.” He said it calmly, with a stony expression. Jenny took him in for a moment. He could see her assessing the honesty of his answer. Her hands were sending little shockwaves of pleasure directly up his legs to his groin, the sensations heightened by the recent pain.
“Ok.” She said with a shrug, visibly making a decision to drop the subject. “I was just curious.” She snapped the rubber bands again, as if to clear the air. The pain in his feet was becoming unbearable and his legs flinched with every impact. “So, England, tell me something,” Snap. “You’re Shakespeare’s countryman.” Snap. “How’s your Hamlet?”
Shakespeare? What? “Passable, I suppose.”
“Act three, scene two has one of my favorite quotes.” She started crawling up the bed and Giles noticed that there was something closed in her hand, something she must have gotten from her bag earlier. “The melancholy prince is visiting with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and he tells them that Denmark is a prison. And they say ‘No, sir, you’re wrong, we don’t think it’s a prison.’ Or words to that effect, that’s not the good part. Do you know what Hamlet says to them?” She had resumed her earlier position, draped over his side, and now she lowered her mouth to his nipple and started swirling her tongue around it, hardening it. He arched into her mouth and gasped at the delicious feeling of it.
“I’m having trouble...oh god, I’m having trouble recalling just at the moment.”
She laughed against his skin and the puff of her breath was like a caress over his sensitive flesh. “He says, ‘There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.’” She opened her hand to reveal a set of clamps on a silver chain, one of which she deftly attached to the nipple she had just teased into hardness. “Isn’t that just a beautiful turn of phrase?”
Giles couldn’t suppress a shout as the sharp, pinching pain registered in his chest. His cuffs rattled as he reflexively tried to lower his arms to defend himself, but of course it was no use. He had one moment of lucid thought; She’s attaching nipple clamps while quoting Shakespeare. This evening has taken a bizarre turn.
“You don’t think so? That’s ok, I’ll tell you why I like it.” Her hand had moved on to his other nipple, twisting and circling it with her nails. “Everything is in our minds. An experience can be good or bad, it all depends on your outlook.” She attached the other clamp and he cried out again, twisting futilely away from her. “Pain and pleasure, it’s all just sensation. You decide which it is. Thinking makes it so.”
She lowered her mouth to his nipple again. The compression of the clamp made the sensitive tissue exponentially more so. She flicked her tongue against him and it was like an electric current straight to his cock. The pleasure and the pain swam together in his mind until he no longer knew which was which, only that he wanted more. He cried out again, but he couldn’t for all the world have said if it was protest or encouragement.
“Jenny, please, oh god, please...”
“Please what, Rupert? Are you ready to tell me what you want?” She moved to the other nipple and he lost another long moment to dizzying sensation as she repeated her ministrations..
“I want, oh god, I want...” Anything, anything, an end to this suspense, can’t take anymore, “I want to make love to you, Jenny, please.”
She let out a laugh and smirked down at him. If I had my hands I’d wipe that smirk off her face. The thought startled him. He could feel his control slipping away.
“You want to make love to me, Rupert? You gonna lay down rose petals and whisper sweet nothings in my ear about how gentle you’ll be? No, I don’t buy that. That’s not what you want.”
She lowered her mouth to his ear, nipping at the lobe while her hands tugged teasingly on the chain connecting the clamps. His mind flashed with violent images, the things he’d like to do, Jenny twisting and screaming beneath him. He clenched his teeth, clinging to the last shred of his restraint.
“Here, I’ll show you how it’s done.” Her sultry whisper wrung another shudder from him. “I want to ride you like an unruly stallion until I come all over your cock. I want to take pleasure from your body even while you suffer for me. I want to use you like a toy and leave you aching.” He tossed his head away from her, as if physical distance could relieve the searing heat of the image her words had just planted in his mind. She grabbed him by the jaw and forced him to face her again claiming his mouth again in an brutal, intoxicating kiss.
Then she was gone. It took Giles a few moments to find his senses again, but he looked up in time to see Jenny standing next to the bed sliding her dress down off her shoulders and letting it drop to the floor. She was nude underneath, the long, sinuous line of her broken only by the black lace of her garter belt and stockings. Giles heard his cuffs rattle again as he unconsciously reached for her, his hands actually itching at the sight of her pert, round breasts, glowing softly in the lamplight with a light sheen of perspiration. His eyes traveled down to linger on the closely cropped thatch of dark hair that didn't quite conceal the pink folds underneath. He wasn't aware of how much he was twisting towards her, every nerve in his body desperate to touch, to taste, to hold her. He was so distracted he didn't notice her hand reaching towards him until it closed around his cock. He let out a stuttering cry and his body bucked upwards of its own accord as she gathered the copious pre-come that had gathered at the tip and used it to slick him up, her touch just hard enough to tease, not hard enough to satisfy.
Then she was on the bed again, swinging one leg over his hips, using the hand that wasn't on him to part her glistening folds. He could see now that she was dripping wet, that she was almost as affected by the evening's activities as he was. She teased herself with the tip of his length drawing another groan from him before sinking, unbearably slowly onto his cock, sheathing him in tight, wet, perfect heat. She circled her hips once, grinding against him and they both moaned this time. Giles tried to buck up into her, sure that if she didn't start moving soon he would quite simply go mad, but she kept her hips locked against his, denying him the friction he craved.
"Nu-uh, England. You had your chance. This is my show now." Now? When was this not her show? "All you had to do was ask and you could have been calling the shots right now." She started to rock her body on him, fucking herself maddeningly slowly. "You could have had your hands on me..." As if to demonstrate, she started touching herself, one hand settling on each breast to roll and pinch her hard, dark pink nipples and she interrupted her own speech to throw her head back on a moan. "...but you wanted to be a gentleman. So, now you're going to lie there and take it while I get what I want.” Her eyes were dark now, pupils blown out with lust and he could hear the pleasure in her voice, a breathy, fucked-out quality that belied the coldness of her words. She sat back on his hips, riding him upright just like she’d said she would, rising and falling rhythmically, but so slowly and it was so good but it wasn’t enough.
He tried a few more times to thrust up into her, trying to get her to increase her pace, but when he did she simply rose up on her knees, withdrawing from him until he was straining just to maintain contact. Finally he surrendered, collapsing back on the bed with a frustrated sob, completely broken, and accepted the fact that she would do as she wished with his body and he had no control. She saw the change and beamed down at him.
“Good boy.” He sobbed a second time, humiliation curling in his stomach because part of him loved the praise, wanted to be good for her, even as she used and demeaned him. He looked up at her, rocking herself against him, her head thrown back and her hands still on her gorgeous breasts. One hand slipped down, sliding over the flat of her stomach and settling on her clit, teasing and stroking it, and Giles was sure it was the single most erotic thing he’d ever seen. He watched that hand carefully, memorizing how she liked to be touched in the hope that he might put that knowledge to use someday. She was moaning steadily now, long throaty sounds and he knew she had to be close. He was getting pretty close himself and he hoped that she would be distracted enough by her own pleasure to allow him to get swept up in its wake. His hopes were dashed, however, as she turned a wicked grin down on him. Her hand left her breast and reached for the chain stretched between his nipples. Just as her cries reached a crescendo, she yanked hard on the chain, tearing the clamps from his body. Giles couldn’t hold back a scream at the shocking pain spiking through his chest and he was only dimly aware of Jenny moaning deeply and spasming around him as she came. The prospect of his own climax had been stolen away by the pain and now Jenny’s movements were slowing and she laid her body against his, gently stroking and soothing his tortured flesh.
Giles shifted restlessly under Jenny’s languid form, trying to spur her into movement again. He’d lost the wave of pleasure and was left aching and desperate, just as she’d promised he would be. She lifted her head to stare down at him from behind heavy eyelids, a satisfied smirk on her face and he was shocked by the wave of lust and anger that coursed through him at the sight of her enjoying his predicament.
“Are you ready, Rupert?” She clenched her muscles once, squeezing his cock, still buried inside her, and the sensation made him buck upward with renewed need. Her sultry laugh was one of the most infuriating sounds he’s ever heard. “Ready to tell me what you want?”
She kissed her way down his jaw and for some reason, that was absolutely it, that was all he could take. Her ear was right in his line of vision and it only took one quick reach to close his teeth around the lobe. He heard her gasp and found that he hoped it was as much pain as surprise. He twisted his head, dragging hers down until he could pin it between his chin and shoulder. He knew as soon as he released his mouthful she would be able to pull away quite easily, but he wagered that he had her attention now.
“You want to know what I want? I want to fuck that smirk right off your face. I want to hold you down and take you apart. You think you know what’s underneath the mild-mannered-librarian facade? You think you know me? You’ve no idea what I’m capable of, you presumptuous little slut.” There was a tiny voice in the back of his brain screaming its disbelief that he was saying these things out loud but it was drowned out by the furious lust consuming the rest of his mind and body. “Take these cuffs off and I’ll show you. I’ll make you scream.”
Jenny pulled her head away and looked down at him, her eyes dark. She sat back on his hips and for a moment Giles thought she might continue to tease him and he wondered how much strength it would take to simply break whatever part of his bed he was tied to, but instead she reached back and, with one flick, released the ropes around each of his ankles. She grabbed the handcuff key from the bedside table and leaned over him to unlock the cuffs, her face inches from his.
“Show me,” she said, a challenge in her voice.
As soon as he felt one cuff slide open he sprung into action, flipping her onto her back. He took one moment to loom over her, grabbing the handcuff key and releasing the other cuff before throwing both items clanging to the floor. Now that he was free he found he wanted to take his time and make good on his words. She stretched out beneath him, her hands fisting the pillow, her legs spread, the wet, swollen center of her framed by the black garters, and Giles decided that was as good a place to start as any.
He took hold of the top of one stocking in each fist and yanked down hard, ripping them from the garters and feeling the lace tear satisfyingly in his hands. She gasped at the rough treatment and arched towards him. She wants an animal, she’ll get one. He was running on instinct now, and the scent of her reminded him of what he’d been denied earlier. He planted a hand on each of her thighs and lowered his mouth to her, immediately plunging his tongue inside and sucking hard on her clit. She cried out and bucked against him, still sensitive from her recent climax, but he moved easily with her, keeping her pinned and assaulting her pussy with his mouth until she started to shudder and sob with overstimulation. Her hands fisted in his hair and she tried to pull him away. He grabbed one of her wrists in each hand and forced them down to the mattress at her sides, putting his weight down on them so he could continue his attack uninterrupted. He fucked his tongue into her, lapped at her clit, scraped his teeth over her most sensitive places while she thrashed futilely around him. Presently, though, he felt a shift in her. Instead of shrinking away, she was starting to reach towards him with her body and her pained cries were giving way to breathy little moans of pleasure. He lifted his eyes to see her with her head thrown back, her lower lip clenched between her teeth. That won’t do. I should be biting that lip.
“You like that, do you? Being held down?” She lowered hooded eyes to him and nodded her assent. He started to crawl his way up her body, covering her with his own. “You know, you need only have asked.” He stopped as his face reached the level of her breasts, finding that he couldn’t resist lowering his mouth to one hardened peak.
“It’s more, oh god, it’s more fun this way. Oh god, Rupert!” He had closed his teeth around her nipple and was lifting his head away from her, tugging on the sensitive flesh, taking his revenge for the earlier pain from the clamps. She whined beneath him and he felt her nails dig into his back, but she didn’t try to force him back down, merely held on until he was done tormenting her. By the time he released his mouthful she was panting and wild-eyed, but her body remained arched towards him, subtly offering up the other nipple for him to abuse. He took her up on it, worrying the other nub between his teeth until he felt her legs wrap around his hips, trying to pull him down and into her. Time to finish this. Past time.
He released her nipple and continued crawling into position over, licking and nipping at her collarbone and neck until his mouth found the shell of her ear. When he spoke, even he was surprised at the menace in his voice, but he was long past the point of reigning himself in.
“You think it’s fun? Toying with a man like that?” One arm snaked down to wrap around her leg and haul it up over his shoulder, spreading her wide and robbing her of almost all mobility in one smooth motion. “Teasing him into wildness?” Balancing his weight against her haunch, his other hand slipped under her shoulder and up to grab a fistful of her hair from the back of her head. He yanked down on it, forcing her head back and exposing the long line of her neck. She cried out and struggled a bit, but soon realized that she could barely move at all in her current position, Giles’s superior weight and strength holding her easily in place. “You should be careful what you wish for, Jenny Calendar.”
He thrust into her with one swift movement, hard enough to force a guttural moan from both their bodies. He quickly established a brutal pace, slamming into her with all his strength and yanking down on his fistful of hair to force her to meet his thrusts. It kept her face turned away from him, but exposed the pale stretch of her throat and the urge to leave his mark on that unblemished skin was irresistible. He sank his teeth into her pulse-point, not hard enough to break skin, but enough that the pitch of her cries became more urgent. In between moans she was babbling, a steady stream of encouragements and expletives and pleas to an absent god.
“Fuck, baby, so good, so fucking good, oh god, god, fuck me, Rupert, godfuckingdamn, so good, god, fuck, yes!”
He knew he wasn’t going to last long, not after so much build-up, but it sounded as though she wasn’t either. On one particularly hard thrust he ground his hips into hers and that was all it took. He felt her clench around him, the tight grip of her body dragging his own climax from him. He cried out into the curve of her shoulder, his voice blending with hers as they peaked together. After so much tension, the release was overwhelming. Pleasure and heat seemed to start at his toes and rip through his whole body as his hips stuttered into hers. He was dimly aware of her nails digging into his shoulders as her body shuddered around him, her inner muscles milking him, prolonging his climax. The last thing he heard before he blacked out was his own name whispered on a sated sigh.
When he came to, Jenny was coming up the stairs. She had shed the stockings and garters in favor of the shirt he’d been wearing earlier and she was carrying a glass of juice and a bottle of water from his fridge.
“Oh, good, you’re awake. Here, drink this. I was a little hard on you, we don’t want your blood-sugar to dip.” She offered up the juice and he sat up and took it gratefully.
“How long was I out?” He asked, after draining most of the glass.
“It was just a few minutes.”
“That’s a little embarrassing.”
“I’m taking it as a compliment.”
“As well you should.”
He finished the juice and she traded it for the water. While he unscrewed the cap, he took a moment to look her over. She was still standing by the bed, wearing his shirt.
“You’re not leaving, are you?”
“Do you want me to?”
“No, of course not. Why would you think that?”
She gave a little shrug and Giles had a moment of cognitive dissonance trying to reconcile this demure woman with the one who had been knocking him around for the last hour. She sat down on the edge of the bed and seemed to gather her thoughts.
“I hope I didn’t scare you. I’m not crazy dominatrix-lady. Not all the time. I mean, it’s a part of me, and I busted it out tonight because I thought we needed a little push to get over the first hurdle. But, most of the time, I’m just…me.”
“Thank goodness for that. I don’t think I could keep up.” She smiled weakly at him and he could tell she was still feeling unsure. “I’m glad you gave us a push. I won’t pretend you didn’t surprise me tonight. But I wouldn’t have trusted you so much if I didn’t know you were more than that. I’m not scared, Jenny.”
She looked up at him, hopefully. “No?”
“You may have noticed, it takes quite a bit to scare me.” She let out a laugh at that and the tension seemed to ease out of her. “Now, come back to bed.”
She shed his shirt and climbed under the covers and into his arms. They kissed softly now, exploring each other, and Giles took the opportunity to glut those senses she had earlier starved, touching and tasting her everywhere. Not a succubus, then, some helpful part of his brain supplied as they drifted off to sleep. He chuckled softly to himself at the wild notions that had passed through his mind earlier. The simplest answers really were the best.