Familiar Surroundings
AU or Canon: AU
Where: Chicago
When: November 2014
Notes: Alternate universe. Post-CL. Disregards epilogues. Different living arrangements.

[continued from last post... contains adult content]

He went, grateful to have her take the lead. The door closed behind them, and he looked at the couch before glancing towards the kitchen. The living room was as usual a jumble of various clutter; Rhiannon's art supplies, some of his books, a few fast-food containers on the coffee table. Ordinary and yet strange to him, as if he'd never seen the place before. One hand lifted, and he rubbed uncertainly at the back of his neck.

"I'm freaking out too," he said, as if it wasn't obvious already. "I don't know if it's just some crazy thing that's happening or if this is going to screw something up, but..."

He stopped talking, looked down at the floor. "Fuck it," he said after a minute. "The straight truth is, I feel like I'm gonna die if I don't get to touch you."

"Can't have that." Gently, she took Connor's hand away from his nape, put it around hers instead. She stepped close, so that their shoes touched. Foot to foot and nose to nose. "Listen, it doesn't screw anything up, okay? It makes it better." Her fingers plucked at his shirt.

Rhiannon thought about adding more. Saying she'd always be his friend, even if this turned into a mess. It was true. But she couldn't say that, because she didn't want to allow the possibility of failure into the moment. She'd had him less than an hour.

He's mine. I wanted him and he's mine.

"Kiss me." Rhiannon bit her lip. "Because... if we split off into separate rooms right now, I'll just end up breaking into yours later anyway. I'm rash that way." She slipped her hand underneath his shirt tail and touched his belly, the flat of her palm and then one finger stroking down.

He leaned down, and his mouth slanted over hers in a kiss that made up for what it lacked in polish with its urgency. He had no fear of hurting her physically, knew she was as tough as he was, it was the emotional side of things that concerned him. Of maybe not being good enough. But she'd showed him nothing but acceptance, and he couldn't stop himself from reaching for more.

The kiss slowed down, and his mouth explored hers more carefully, a sense of wonder stealing over him. He'd dreamed it a hundred times, and now that it was actually happening it had a feeling of unreality to it. But he'd been freed from his restraints, and that made all things possible. "I'm...I'm scared shitless. But in a really good way."

Rhiannon's forehead touched his nose. "Don't be scared of me." She closed her eyes. It was a hypocritical thing to say, considering her knees felt like jelly. It was the way he kissed that unnerved her. He didn't pre-meditate things, or orchestrate them to be seductive. She thought back to the first time she saw him fight. He was quick, devastatingly strong, and he seemed to be everywhere at once. His body was so spare. He moved like nobody she'd ever seen. His face took her breath away, with how clear and blue his eyes were, how vulnerable he looked.

This wasn't a casanova, a person who calculated every gesture or was sure of himself. He was natural. He needed. She had noticed it before, how Connor's energy begged for someone to make him feel... like enough. And all Rhiannon could think, from her vantage point, was how crazy that was, and how far above and beyond he already was.

Looking down, she saw the lump of her hand under his shirt. Rhiannon put them both on his stomach. Palms flat, side by side, she felt his pulse thumping and his warmth flooding her. "I adore you. You can't do anything I haven't already imagined you doing." She lifted her eyes. "And liked." While she looked at him, a tightness began twisting in her chest. Was she the right woman? Did she deserve to put her hands on him?

"It doesn't have to be everything. I'm--" She fumbled. "Tell me what you want, and I'll take us there, if you need me to. Or I'll just hold onto you."

He shook his head, his unruly brown hair falling into his face until he shook it out of his eyes. "Not you. Me." He'd spent so much of his youth begging to be loved, to be needed, and now that he was a man he could feel those old ghosts hovering on the edge of his consciousness. But Rhiannon's warmth seemed determined to banish them, and his hands grasped for her shoulders as if that would help. Wanting so badly to be whatever she needed, not sure if he could manage it.

He kissed her again, and a shudder of pure desire slithered down his back, giving him gooseflesh. He'd always felt whole with her, as if a piece of his soul had accidentally been placed with her at some point and she'd been wandering around with it until they'd finally met. Her hand on his stomach was burning him like a brand. Fingers threaded through her hair, and he rested his forehead against hers, pulling in a noisy breath there in the small space between them. "You already are everything."

She felt his stomach trembling. The idea of causing it intoxicated her. It made her want to find out what else Connor's body would do under her hands. Don't rush it, even if waiting feels like starving. She pushed her palms in circles, up and around, climbing up his torso under the blue shirt. All the places her fists had been, but never her fingertips. She kept her touches firm but in safe territory. Her knee jumped and nudged his.

"You're afraid of hurting me." Rhiannon swallowed and looked up. "Would it hurt more than stopping now?" Yes. Absolutely and unequivocally. It could slice into her sharply and carve him out of the place he occupied inside her ribcage. He wasn't just close to her heart, he was wrapped up in it, intertwining with her veins. She knew it, but since she was aching to kiss him again and it'd only been thirty seconds, it was hard to imagine that.

Her hands stroked down again, until her wrists bumped his buckle.

She touched her nose to his. Tilted. Brushed her mouth as soft as feathers across his. Softer than it seemed possible for Rhiannon to do anything. Up close, if she held her breath, she felt every tiny change in his. Did she want him to know her this way, too? To see how fragile she could be?

The Destroyer made a noise that was perilously close to a whimper, but he didn't pull back. It wasn't weak to show Rhiannon how much he needed her, and no matter how much she might have jabbed, poked and prodded him it had never been in a cruel way. This was...this made him strong. Made them both strong. His hands on her shoulders tightened.

He was pulling her into him without really being conscious of it, feeling her weight come to bear against his body. One hand slipped downwards, tentatively lifted the tail of her shirt. He wanted to touch skin, have the tactile sensation of how warm she was. He was glad his teeth weren't chattering. "I'm sorry I'm so ridiculous."

She smiled on his mouth. "Ridiculous? What do you mean?" As his hand touched the curve of her spine, she tightened and arched a bit, not meaning to do it, but his hand was almost electrically charged. He made it hard to keep her thoughts straight. Between them, pressed against their stomachs, her fingers curled and her nails bit into him. They became little fists that caught hold of his belt and tugged him closer, so they were thigh to thigh.

"I don't know." The sentence sounded taut, his voice squeezing out of his larynx at the touch of her fingers. He let his hand wander up the length of her spine, bunching her shirt up at his wrist. The tip of his tongue slipped past her bottom lip with the next kiss, and he could feel his breath growing short where it escaped from his nostrils. "Is it way too warm in here or is it just me?"

It was Rhiannon's turn to feel new. A tiny squeak of a sound escaped her throat, a confession that his tongue caught her by surprise. She let go of his belt and slipped her hands around his waist. They traveled lower and she delved into his hip pockets. With nothing left between them, she could lean herself fully into him. As slow as she could manage, the Slayer rose on her tiptoes, creating friction between herself and all the planes and rises and dips of his body. Down and up again, with only her toes and her hands in his jeans to propel her. "It's definitely warm," she said.

She kissed his chin. "What's the fix, Connor?"

Connor looked up to give her more room, then back down to drop a fast kiss on her mouth. "To take this off."

Reluctant to put any space between them, he nevertheless managed to take a whole step and a half backwards, then started to unbutton his shirt. He really did feel like he couldn't get enough oxygen; maybe if he removed a layer of clothing, that would help. He balled the garment up in his hands after he'd removed it, held it wrapped around his hands as if it was a bizarre pair of gloves. Body-conscious for the first time in a while.

Now he was shy. Rhiannon felt a smile tugging on her mouth. How many times had he walked out of the bathroom of the apartment in a pair of jeans and a toothbrush in his mouth? Or stripped out of his shirt and stretched his muscles before they sparred? It probably didn't occur to him that she might look during those fleeting seconds when his shirt was around his head. He was long and slim and pale. Her eyes were glued to that hollow where his hips disappeared into the waistband.

"You far enough away?" Deciding to tease him a little, Rhiannon took two steps backwards. She took hold of the hem of her tank top and lifted it above her belly button. She paused at her bra, then raised her arms and pulled the shirt over her head. It dangled from her fingertips and made a soft noise on the carpet.

Light from the streetlamp outside was coming through the window behind Rhiannon, and it silvered her bare shoulders as the shirt came off. Connor wound his own shirt tighter around his knuckles for a moment, then let the garment drop to the floor. "I was feeling a little like I couldn't breathe," he said with a half-smile, then added, "Not that that's a bad thing, but it was kind of difficult to take the shirt off and keep my hands where they were."

He could feel her eyes on him, and his fingers went to where his jeans were still fastened, and he fiddled with the button for a second before undoing it, then starting on the zipper. The white of his briefs was stark even against his untanned legs. His stomach threatened to hollow out, and he fought the sensation off. If there was one thing he trusted the Slayer not to do, it was humiliate him.

In the quiet apartment, the sound of his belt and zipper seemed amplified. She watched his fingers nudge his pants past narrow hips until they dropped to the carpet. Already, she wanted touch him, to run her hands along the hair on his calf muscles and thighs and fit her thumb into his navel.

Rhiannon breathed out.

One foot at a time, she unzipped her boots and pulled them off, and she was a little shorter when her bare feet touched the floor. Then she straightened and unfastened her belt and her fly, shimmying to work the tight pants down her thighs. Her clothes made a messy pile by the couch where the two of them sat to watch movies and play video games and eat food from the cartons.

As she stood in her lingerie, she got a taste of the self-conscious way he felt. Rhiannon understood why he held onto his shirt: it gave him a way to occupy his hands. She kept hers loose at her sides. What would he think of her now? Stripped down past the tomboyish clothes to a bra and panties, she was pale and freckled, except for the tiny tattoos inside her wrists and curving down her back.

Connor kicked off his shoes, discarded them so he could take his jeans off, and he dropped them in a careless fashion close to his shirt. It was chilly in the apartment, but the goose bumps on his skin had nothing to do with the temperature. Unsure of what to do next, he took a step towards her, leaving his clothes behind. One hand brushed against her shoulder, the touch of flesh on flesh electric. He could see the way her muscles worked beneath her skin, the dark ink of tattoos against the whiteness. His throat felt tight.

"You're so beautiful." His arms went around her, and the new warmth made him moan softly. He kissed the side of her neck, brushing his mouth against her collarbone. "Love you..."

A slender arm curled around his neck, fingers stroking into his hair and massaging his scalp. Rhiannon put her mouth to his earlobe. "I love you, too... so much." At the coming together of their torsos, she found it difficult to draw air or to think. Her mouth opened and a sweet ache flared deep inside her. There was a need to keep moving, to know all of him. All of Connor. Her other hand swept along his shoulder and bicep, squeezing there, and then explored his back, a soft but insistent touch making circles. Lower, her knee stroked up and down the outside of his leg, where the hair tickled her thigh.

"You're gorgeous. I feel--" As if the leg she stood on might wobble and drop her in a heap at his feet. If the warm and wet press of his mouth on her collarbone didn't cause it, the little noises he made would. "Lucky."

Just being touched was enough to knock the breath right out of him, and his mouth opened wider as he explored her neck, applying gentle suction when the feeling of her leg against his became too much. One finger slid down her spine, trailing an invisible line over the thin skin protecting her vertebrae. He passed the elastic band of her underwear with scarcely a pause, then spread his hand across the cotton fabric, his fingertips making indentations in the Slayer's left buttock as he pulled her into him. Nothing between them now but the thinnest of cloth, and he was suffocating in the best way possible.

"Feels like drowning, doesn't it?" Not that he was complaining, and it showed. "I'm not sure how much longer my knees can hold me up."

When he pressed Rhiannon close, a hoarse noise left her throat. She raised her knee outside his hip, keeping the angle wide enough to accommodate him. "God, you feel so good already." She was not shy and didn't mind what he could tell about her through the material. It was okay for him to know he drove her up the wall and he'd barely touched her. She wondered if she should hold back and not come on so strong, but convincing her lower body to hold still was a difficult matter. A rhythm had been built into her, as natural as a pulse, and it tried to insert itself now. She lightly bit his earlobe and gave his hair an insistent tug.

"Your room or mine?" There was always the neutral and nearby territory of the couch, but it came with mobility issues, which would be interesting to work around. Rhiannon pulled back and found his eyes in the dark living room.

"Mine." He could just barely say it, and it was another effort to let go of her so he could start in that direction. He'd changed the sheets that morning, for which he was profoundly grateful. His feet made soft noises on the thin carpeting, and he paused in the doorway before finally settling his weight on the edge of the bed. He felt overheated. Gorgeous. She'd called him gorgeous. He held his arms out for her, welcoming her with everything he had.

She stopped at the threshold, too, fingers toying with the doorjamb. It was too subtle to see in the dim room, but her legs were trembling. The bedroom smelled of Connor's soap and clothes. It was cold in there without him holding her. A window must be open in the kitchen or her bedroom, because she felt a draft on the backs of her flushed knees. Rhiannon looked at his feet on the carpet and the white glow of his briefs where he sat. His outstretched hands.

The callouses on them made her feel drunk when he stroked her spine.

She went to the edge of the bed. It was so quiet that she heard air racing out of their lungs, nervous swallows in their throats. She laced her fingers into Connor's and mounted his lap. Leaning down so that her hair curtained them in a dark cocoon, she gathered the courage to say, "I want you."

He stroked his hands down the width of her back as if that would soothe her, but it was just as much for him as it was for her. His mouth was on her neck again, the ends of her hair tickling his forehead and cheeks, and he eased her more fully against him as he inched back on the mattress. The threads of his restraint were fraying at both ends. She was warm and solid and right. "Couldn't stop now if I wanted to. Which...which I don't."

Going with the pull, she reached for the mattress on either side of him. "Are you sure?" It was important to be certain. Once that last layer of clothes came off, they'd be at the point of no return. They weren't drunk, they weren't high on adrenaline after a fight, and neither of them was hurting because of somebody else, so if they did this, it was them, completely and honestly. As much as her body ached in all the right places, she didn't want him ever to look at her and wish for before. That jab-and-dodge they always did.

"It's okay. You can tell me anything." She barely managed English with him sucking on her throat. Rhiannon retreated and made him look at her.

He whined with soft frustration, but the part of him that was always thinking nodded with approval. Better to think this through at least a little before anything got hopelessly fucked up. He rested his weight on one forearm, brushed the hair off of his face with the other hand so he could see her in the dimness.

"Nothing changes." He had never not loved her, it seemed, and the promise he made to her there in the dark was one he intended to keep. "I'm not...I'm not going anywhere. Okay? Wouldn't."

Rhiannon bit her cheek and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. Was she sure of him? Yes. Of the previous loves in her life, many were questionable for one reason or another... unwise, unlikely, even unexciting to the girl she'd been. It was all in a quest to complete herself or find a safe corner of her life. And there Connor was, standing next to her, making so much sense. She only had to see him, and know he saw it, too, because she didn't know how to give only part of herself. To anything, really.

"Okay." She smiled. "I think it just suddenly seemed too good to be true. I had to ask myself if I twisted your arms behind your back and assaulted you out of your pants."

She put a palm on his chest and encouraged him to lay back. Then she straightened above him. Keeping her eyes on his, she reached behind her back to unclasp her bra. Once loosened, the black straps draped against her arms. She let it fall onto his stomach.

He watched her, and his eyes darkened even further as his shoulders touched the mattress. "Like you could," he said, a shade of the teasing quality that always hung between them tingeing his voice. "There's a reason I let you get away with always poking at me."

His hands slid upwards, past her belly and over her breasts to her shoulders, then back down. He knew every twitch of every muscle, the way her body worked. One finger hooked through the strap of her bra, and it made a whispery noise as he dropped it on the floor. "So beautiful," he said through a shaky smile.

"It's because you liked my hands." She gave him a smile that teased right back, though her eyes lost focus when he touched her that way. The challenge was always there, winding a silvery thread of exhilaration around her spine. Rhiannon would never admit he could beat her, even if, watching him fight sometimes, her mouth opened on a quiet note of awe. But here, in this context?

"So maybe I can't force you." She took hold of his wrists and gently put them on the mattress above his head. Slowly, a bit feline, she stretched herself along his body so that her breasts touched his ribs and her mouth moistened his throat. "I bet I can make you say please." The tip of her tongue stroked his pulse under the salty taste of his skin. Her teeth found and scratched at the sensitive nook between his throat and shoulder. In case he didn't take her seriously, Rhiannon adjusted her grip so that hand one held both his wrists. The other tickled in a straight line down his forearm to his side to the waistband of his briefs. She gave them a little tug.

He made a sound, and his heels dug into the mattress as he tried to lift his hips. Her weight against him was delicious, and he angled his head to give her mouth more room as her bite threatened to short-circuit his brain. "Y-y-you sure about that?"

His wrists flexed in her grasp, and he turned his head to find a spot close to her ear. This was the kind of dare he liked. Warm breath fanned through the Slayer's hair, drifted over her earlobe. "You're really sure?"

Gooseflesh dotted her arms and legs. If he kept moving that way underneath her, Rhiannon thought, she might end up pleading. Still, she nodded and bit the roundness of his shoulder. "Trust me." The weight of her lower body disappeared, but only for a moment, and the reason for it became clear when, one-handed, she dragged his briefs down one side at a time. She left them around his knees.

The bed creaked underneath Rhiannon as she settled alongside him. Her reach wasn't long enough to take his briefs all the way off, but she took care of that. She curled a leg up and hooked her toes into the cotton, then dragged them down to Connor's ankles. At his shoulder, she stopped biting long enough to murmur, "Don't give up too fast." Her hand slipped between his legs and began to stroke its way upward.

"Who said I was giving up?" He was almost holding his breath at the touch of her hand, and he made himself focus on her expression, knowing his face was already flushed. His wrists flexed again, because he felt like he'd explode if he didn't get to touch her back. He brushed his mouth against her jawline, almost got one hand free. The feeling of skin on skin was driving him out of his mind. It seemed like they couldn't stop prodding at each other no matter how intimate the situation.

"Just an early prediction..." The temperature of his skin increased as her hand crept higher between his thighs. She watched his face, wanting to drink in any reactions he gave up. To know him and use it to provoke more. When she found him, she let the back of a finger ease up his length. Her breath gave her away. It shook, as surely as her legs did curled next to his. "I can't believe I get to do this to you." She wrapped her fingers around him and set a slow pace to begin, open to learning how he responded to her. Her legs wound tightly around one of Connor's. It felt like she'd die if she didn't have that pressure.

Connor made another noise, a rush of breath that ended in a gasp, and his pelvis bucked upwards before he could stop himself. His left hand got free, and it wandered over her torso and then down until one finger slipped beneath the elastic waistband of her underwear. He cupped her buttock, pressing her even more firmly against his leg before touching her underneath the scant fabric. It was all he could do to keep the plea clamped behind his teeth. "Maybe all you had to do was ask."

The air rushed out of her. "I asked you when we fought. You just didn't hear me." She stroked him faster, and it was so difficult to form words, but now that she could say anything, she wanted to tell him everything. Her hips turned in a circle against his leg and it set that bud of sensitive nerve endings on fire. She felt his muscles, the power he kept in check, even in his hand just inside her panties. Rhiannon's mouth hovered over his. "Take them off."

His fingers snagged elastic, and he tugged, exposing the Slayer's backside to the cool air in the room. He had stopped being conscious of anything except how she felt against him.The somewhat clumsy grasp pulled again, and the underwear slipped down Rhiannon's leg in a tiny bundle of cotton. Had he known, really known, how strong her legs were before?

"I love you, Rhiannon." His teeth closed in a gentle bite near her collarbone, and this time he managed to pull the last barrier between them completely off.

She savored the way he said her name. It sounded like another language in this context. As if all the gasps and tiny moans and words they strung together created music. The nibble at her collarbone made it painful to pull away. However, as much as she ached for Connor to bite and touch her, Rhiannon wanted to win the bet more. She sat up and straddled him. Using a palm on his stomach, just between the hipbones, she pinned him firmly in place. "Anything else you wanted to say?"

Being slow and deliberate, she widened the angle of her thighs and lowered herself onto him. There was no deep connection, just an electrifying hint of it, as the Slayer's bare body made warm, silken contact with his. She gasped but kept hold of his stomach and wrists, trying to prevent him from pushing upwards.

The muscles in his thighs quivered beneath the flesh, and a trickle of sweat ran down the side of his neck despite the fact that the room was not overly warm. Just a little more freedom, that was all he needed. She was killing him here. His wrists twisted in her grasp, but he couldn't get enough leverage to break free this time.

"Nothing comes to mind." He managed to push upwards an inch or two more, his narrow hips lifting off of the bed. "Is there something in particular you wanted to hear?"

A sharp intake of breath. Her thighs squeezed his hips, trying to reduce the damage he could do. But God, she loved him for the ground she lost, because he felt like heaven and she was drunk on the idea of having all of him. Drunk, too, because he could make her compromise. Rhiannon's teeth nearly tore her bottom lip. "Please," she whispered. "Please say please." I'm lost and I don't even care.

He grinned at her, his teeth flashing in the moonlight coming through the window, and he knew it was a concession, one she might not have made otherwise. His thighs relaxed a notch, lowering his body back to the mattress. "Please, Rhiannon." Crooning it almost, his hands aching to touch, hold, caress. "With sugar on top. Just for me..."

"I'd do anything for you." Because he asked -- but mostly because she couldn't wait any longer -- Rhiannon closed her eyes and eased herself onto him, as slowly as she could take it. "God..." Only when they were flush against one another did she open her eyes. Time ground to a halt. Every muscle in her body tightened, until she thought she might snap. Relief mingled with a keen ache in her loins, and the fit of him took her breath away. She let go of his wrists and braced her palms on his pillow for support. "I could kill you for that," she whispered.

The Destroyer was breathing through his nose by the time she was finished, tiny puffs of air escaping from his nostrils as their bodies melded together. His heels pressed hard into the mattress, and his hands fisted into the sheet, bunching it between his fingers. "I think I'm already dead," he said shakily, and his right hand found the small of her back to see if he couldn't pull her further against him. If he was going to die this way, he might as well make the most of it.

"If you stop, I think I might kill you."

Rhiannon shook her head. "Not if the world depended on it."

The rocking was gentle at first, as if she couldn't bear to relinquish an inch. Sweet and exploratory and fluid. But then she dared more and more, taking it right to the edge, so that each retraction nearly disconnected them, and each downward thrust was faster, more forceful than the last. They had never been easy on one another, and she couldn't be easy now, or patient, or pretend that doing this to him didn't thrill her. She sat up and arched her spine. Her fingertips reached behind her back and scratched his thighs.

He had almost forgotten how this part went -- it had been that long -- but it only took him a few minutes to remember the way bodies could move together. His hands settled on her hips to help her with the rhythm, and he lifted his weight into a sitting position to find that spot on the Slayer's neck again. His half-open mouth latched on as she rocked against him, and he groaned aloud at the sheer delight of being with his her this way. His heart and soul were equally as bound as his body by now.

"It...it's been you for a long time." He bucked upwards into her in sharp counterpoint to the way she was moving. She was going to have bruises from the grip of his hands tomorrow. If he ended up with marks himself, he'd count them as badges of honor. Of his love. "A really long time."

She clutched at Connor's hair and the muscles of his back. They were desperate grabs, searching for the right place to hold on, because she was suddenly afraid of flying apart at the seams. Every little roll and jerk sent pulses of pleasure into her, and she rode his hips as if the moment might slip through her fingers. Rhiannon smothered her cries in his shoulder. How long had it been Connor? She couldn't say when and shouldn't try. She reached down and squeezed his wrist, where he held her. "You can't hurt me." She kissed his ear. "Try anyway."

He rolled his hips with such force that he had her halfway on her back before she finished the sentence, and as he pressed her down into the bed her covered her neck and shoulders with kisses, feeling as if she were his last lifeline even as being this close to her threatened to smother him. Their stomachs pressed together hard before he retreated, and his fingers closed in a pinch that tightened incrementally with each movement.

It was all skin now, his brain turning off, and his hands touched everything they could reach, his mouth taking up the slack. The steady motion of his body never let up even as he whispered and moaned his devotion. He sounded like he might have been praying. Consecration? Why not? He bit her again, near her shoulder, not as gently this time.

While he prayed, she begged, an endless and breathless string of pleas not to stop. Rhiannon's legs latched around his waist and her heels dug into his buttocks. There was pain, too. The sharp poke of his hips on her soft thighs. The grinding pressure of their pubic bones. Teeth. None of it mattered. She had wanted him on top when climax came and it closed in with every ratcheting movement of his body. That hot, tingling throb increased in potency until she almost couldn't stand it. "Connor..." She reached for his face and urged him to look at her. "I'm close."

Underneath him, she stiffened until she couldn't meet his thrusts anymore. Maybe she was dying; nothing obeyed her anymore and her grip on consciousness was tenuous. Her arms and legs shook first, and then her walls contracted. Orgasm was an explosion of pleasure that kept coming and coming. She tipped her head back and struggled for air, each gasp shallow and helpless.

He watched her in those last moments, the sight of her pleasure overwhelming him even as he teetered towards his own release. He made a sound that was partly her name and partly just a moan as his toes dug into the bed beneath them. The noise ended in a sharp cry when he finished, and his forehead pressed into her shoulder so hard that that was bound to leave a mark as well. For a long time, he lay gasping on top of her, his muscles turning to rubber as he spent himself.

"Love you." It was almost incoherent, but he managed to say it anyway. There was a ring of teeth marks on the Slayer's flesh. He kissed it, drew a circle around it with the tip of his tongue. Couldn't move much more than that, though.

Any movement on his part coaxed another quiver out of her, little aftershocks. She buried her face in his hair and became aware of the cool air on her skin. Perspiration stung in places she couldn't remember injuring, so he must have done it. She combed her fingers through his tangles and wondered if his body felt as loose and sore and wonderful. When she tried to draw a deep breath, her lungs hitched.

"And I love you." She should unwrap her arms and legs. Any moment now.

He probably would have gone to sleep right there, but he managed to roll onto his side, taking her with him. Still wrapped in her embrace, he lay there gazing at her in mute fascination. Feelings long denied had finally announced themselves. Tomorrow would take care of itself, the way it always did.

With Rhiannon pressed against him this closely, all things seemed possible.

She looked at him, too, and smiled. "You are so handsome." A finger traced the shape of his face. There were other words for him, silly things that sprang into her mind when she watched him over dinner or sketched him. She had often thought his features poetic, but refrained from telling him so. Now a new set of descriptors came to mind, many of them dirtier in all the good ways.

She gathered one of Connor's hands between their chests and laced their fingers together. "I think you broke me." She closed her eyes and scooted closer.

He ducked his head and kissed her knuckles where their hands were linked. "Well, then we can be broken together. I'm surprised I'm not missing a few parts. You're vicious." His teeth showed in the smile he gave her, and his other arm tucked her against his side. She loved him. He couldn't barely believe it, but she loved him.

"Sleep now, then IHOP in the morning, 'kay?"

Rhiannon smiled again. Whether she was thinking of being vicious or blueberry pancakes, it was hard to say. She reached blindly for a sheet, untangled it as best she could, and pulled it over them.

"Okay."