“I'm glad that's over. Do you think mom is going to handle it?” Buffy called as Giles headed down the hallway to the bathroom and she dumped the hastily packed overnighter on the floor.

“I believe so,” he called back, then halted and turned to face her. “As I said in the car, Dawn has already adapted to the situation, and your mother can see that you are happy. It will take some time, but I think she will come to terms with it. Joyce is an intelligent, rational woman, but she is also your mother. She knows full well the fate of the Slayer, but that doesn't mean she has to embrace it. She also knows that we love each other, but neither does she have to immediately embrace what is, to her, an aberration.”

“Hey, I don't want to be an aberration,” Buffy objected, following when he started to move again. “Vampires and demons are aberrations.” A look of distaste crossed her face. “Parker Abrahms was an aberration. We're…well, we're meant to be…” She turned into the kitchen and heard him grunt as the bathroom door closed. “Well, we are!” she pouted and opened the refrigerator.

She was drinking from his orange juice container when he returned.

“Do I have to ask you ag—?”

She put it down and screwed the cap back on. “Nope, Slayer's prerogative. I've got to do all the fun things and the naughty things while I can,” she pointed out facetiously.

But the smile was wiped from Giles' face.

“I won't let anything happen to you,” he said darkly, his voice haunted, and his words a promise.

Buffy reached up and touched his face. “I know,” she whispered. “I won't let anything happen to you, either.”

He leaned his cheek into her palm in a way that was both vulnerable and weary. “About earlier… I didn't want to go home…to England. I just…I couldn't bear to watch you any longer, with him… and I'm afraid I was feeling somewhat obsolete and rather unnecessary. I feel rather stupid about last year, now. Trying to prove I was still young enough, that I still had a right to…”

“Don't,” she said, stood on tiptoes and caught his lips with hers. The kiss deepened and grew passionate, but tender. “If we're talking stupid, you aren't going to take any prizes away from me,” she reminded him. “And I can think of way better things to do than talking…”

Her fingers slid down to massage his groin provocatively. He made a noise under his breath.

“You are insatiable,” he growled.

“I'm the Slayer. Comes with the territory. Ask Faith,” she growled back, then smiled. “It's okay, lover. I'm just teasing. I know you guys need your recharging time.”

“So you're a tease now, are you?” he drawled, pushing into her still open palm. She still didn't quite realize how easily she could arouse him. “We'll just have to see about that.”

Buffy squealed as he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder.

“Giles…what are you doing?” she growled under her breath as she was carried across to the stairs. “Giles! Oh…at least you're going in the right direction,” she observed brightly, irritation subsiding as each step came into view, then yelped when she received a sharp, but well pulled, rap on the tail.

“Of course I'm going in exactly the right direction,” he agreed, reached the loft and sat on the bed, putting her over his knee.

Buffy's veins coursed with a combination of excitement and anticipation. She didn't know what he was going to do next, didn't know he could be like this. His hands slid around her hips and undid her stud and zipper before working her pants down to her knees.

“What are you going to do, Watcher mine?” she demanded, both nervous and playful as his hand roved over her soft, round buttocks.

“I'm going to do something I should have done a long time ago,” he said with entirely too much satisfaction.

Buffy knew a split second of alarm, until his fingers slid reassuringly between her thighs, finding and caressing the soft heat there, making her shudder before he drew the hand away again.

“Now, your punishment,” he said with a flourish when he felt her relax, and knew he had her trust.

The first slap smarted, but the aftermath brought a surge of desire that made her wriggle in his lap. It also caused her to notice for the first time that he wasn't exactly remaining…impassive…either.

Several more, well timed, well directed smacks made her groan and writhe even more, her centre now pulsing with wild desire. Her cheeks smarted, but he hadn't struck her hard enough to do more than heighten the sensitivity of her nerve-endings and provoke her sense of the erotic with the decadence of what he was doing to her.

“Have you learned your lesson yet?” he asked, rubbing the redness until she moaned with need.

“No, not yet,” she shot back, amazed by the sensuality of it and her sudden desire for more, the fingers of her right hand slipping under her groin to find and lower his own zipper. Once they found their prize, she lifted her body enough to draw him free of both his briefs and his pants.

He felt granite-hard and hot in her hand, and his groan told her that he was not going to need any down time after all. She pulled her hand free and repositioned herself so that her heat was pushing against him.

Giles shuddered and moved his hips a little to feel the hot velvet slide against him before describing a gentle arc with his palm to connect again with a soft, tender buttock, the stroke making her moan vividly as she pushed against him at the same time. He could feel the sudden wetness of her as he did it again.

“Are you going to behave?” he growled, continuing the game.

“No,” Buffy breathed, opening her legs a little wider and whimpering as his roaming fingers dipped into her again.

“No?” he repeated, smiling to himself. She was enjoying it entirely too much. The next slap was harder. Not much, but enough to make a much sharper contact noise and to draw a small gasp of surprise from her.

She waited for the smarting to subside as her core pulsed, then ground her exponentially more aroused self impatiently against his impressive erection, moisture making them both slippery now. She didn't know how much longer she could wait, but he didn't seem to have any intention of letting her off easily.

This time when his fingers dipped into her, she pushed back against them, groaning and breathing fast.

A few moments later, Giles peeled her jeans off her legs completely, and realised for the first time that she had not been wearing underwear at all. She'd already dropped her shoes somewhere along the line. As soon as her legs were free, Buffy moved. He found himself flat on his back on the bed, his engorged member sliding into the ravenous heat of his ladylove, who grinned down at him, flushed and sparkling with wanton desire.

“You're not playing properly,” he said grumpily, but Buffy saw right through him.

“Okay,” she acquiesced entirely too quickly, Giles clasping her hips as she moved to dismount his.

“Never mind,” he moaned as she slid down again, hard, and began to ride him.

“God, Rupert, you're so…” Buffy moved her hips up and down, feeling the swelling of him inside her, stretching her, forcing his way deep into her, touching her cervix with his rigid tip as she took him. She spread her legs even more, drawing him deeper, until he was rapping against it and she was gasping with pleasure with each stroke.

Giles slid his hands up to her bobbing breasts, trying to take his mind off the sensations within her, the pleasure that was coursing through him, pulsing in his groin. He stroked and caressed them as Buffy's cries and whimpers of pleasure grew louder and her pace more frenetic. She'd leaned forward a little and, he was fairly certain, had shifted the angle enough for him to be striking her g-spot over and over. He bit his lip as she started to yell, his own orgasm not far away.

“God, oh God, oh God! Giles, Gi-i-iles!” she screamed as she plunged frantically on the ramrod shaft he was now thrusting back up into her.

He let go and followed her, crying out, himself, as his previously repressed orgasm broke free and almost turned him inside out with the intensity of the explosion. His breathing came in short rasping gasps as she continued to ride him until they were both sated.

They lay together in jubilant but peaceful silence for some time, before gravity brought its own discomforts and Buffy slowly rolled to the side with a grumpy sigh. Without being asked, Giles opened a side drawer, where he kept a box of tissues, handy both for nose-blowing at inconvenient hours and for cleaning glasses when he was reading in bed, drew out several and handed them to her.

“This is getting scary,” she said softly, lying back after disposing of the tissues.

“Scary?”

“Mm. I'm not used to a batting average like this. It's scary, being this good. What if we can't keep—?”

Giles put a finger on her lips. “Stop worrying,” he said softly. “Whatever it is, I don't want it to stop, either. I've never loved anyone the way I love you, Buffy. If I'm behaving like an eighteen year old—”

“An eighteen year old stevedore,” Buffy amended cheekily, and at his raised eyebrow: “I looked it up… and put two and two together.”

Giles looked dazed for split second then chuckled good-naturedly. “Yes, well, I may have always had something of a talent in the area, but I'm most definitely not eighteen any more and there is no magic involved… just sheer and utter passion and desire for the most lovely creature in the world,” he teased.

She giggled. “I could say the same for you, except I think you'd prefer the description 'most gorgeous and studly creature in the world.' Somehow I don't picture you as a 'lovely young thing.'

Giles smirked. “I played Frank-n-futer in a workshop production, for a few months, when I was at Oxford,” he said smugly. “I've already been a 'lovely young thing,' according to at least one village newspaper review.”

Buffy giggled even more loudly. “You're kidding? You in a college production about a transvestite mad scientist?”

“It was a village workshop for the local youth…in a small community theatre. Oxford isn't exactly one of your American colleges.”

She stopped giggling, her eyes wide with curiosity. “And you liked it?”

His smiled widened and he nodded. “Why so surprised? I have always craved new experiences, new challenges. It's what got me into so much trouble with Ethan, when it comes right down to it. Rebellion against my destiny and my lot in general, might have triggered it, but insatiable curiosity and a need to experience risk were the real cause.”

The blue-grey eyes widened even more and her lips parted. “You would have had to wear…”

He nodded.

“But didn't you…wasn't it embarrassing?”

“Dreadfully, on the first night,” he agreed, grinning at the memory. “But I discovered that once I was on stage and in character, the costume was, in fact, incredibly liberating. I remember throwing the wig into the audience at the end of the Sweet Transvestite number and I never wore it again. It became my trademark.”

“So did you…did you wear it all?”

He chuckled again. “Fishnet tights, black lace teddy…with, um…tight black bikini briefs underneath to…um… keep things in, um…order…if you know what I mean, a black corset to distract the eye from my rather masculine size, and two inch heels.”

“Wigging here,” Buffy teased, not willing to acknowledge the stirring in her loins at the vision he was creating. She didn't understand it, and didn't really want to, except that she loved him so much everything about him turned her on. It did, however, remind her of something else. “I'd like to hear you sing,” she said softly.

Giles' grin faltered a little, and his eyes grew pleased and bright.

Buffy watched him turn and stretch down to open the drawer of his bedside table and pull out an old, battered, English chocolate tin, a rectangular one.

“Not really hungry,” she offered contentedly.

He prised the lid off.

It was full of photographs, Buffy noted with some surprise. Lots of photographs, some coloured, some old and black and white, some quite obviously out of booths. He picked through them and finally handed her coloured shot.

It was a slender young man, wide shouldered and sparkling eyed, with legs that went on forever, encased in artfully torn fishnets, his slim waist equally encased in teddy and corset. He was in full voice, his mouth open a little, his face lit with the pleasure of what he was doing.

“You look so happy,” she said very softly.

Giles stared at her for a moment, then allowed his features to soften into a smile.

“Yes.”

She looked up. “Could you ever be this happy again? Without… you know?”

His smiled widened. “I already am.”

Buffy looked at the picture again, then up at his beaming face, the eyes shining in it, for her, and grinned back at him, her own face glowing with emotion.

“Is this the only picture you have?”

“Of that particular role,” he confirmed. “Though there are some clippings somewhere from the local paper. My mother used to save them.”

Buffy looked up at him swiftly. It was the first time, outside the discussion about what he wanted to be when he grew up, that Giles had mentioned his life before Eyghon.

“What was her name?”

The green eyes met hers, held them. “Sophie,” he said very softly. “I loved her dearly.”

A shadow crossed Buffy's face. “Is she…?”

He shook his head. “Had she lived I might never have run away from Oxford or fallen in with Ethan and the others…”

“I'm sorry,” Buffy whispered.

“Don't be,” he told her, smiling a little and stroking her cheek with a forefinger. “You would have loved her.

Buffy's eyes caught his and she nodded. “She was your mother,” she said simply, then frowned. “I wonder what she would have thought of you and me. If she was anything like my mom…”

Giles thought for a moment then shook his head slowly. “The British, as a rule, are far less judgemental about these things. My mother would have taken me aside and made absolutely certain I was doing this…us, I mean… for exactly the right reasons… and then she would have loved you as much as I do.”

“I think I would have really liked her,” she said softly. “I mean, above and beyond the fact that she had you. Why haven't we ever talked about her… or your family before?”

“Actually, it isn't as though the subject ever came up,” he pointed out, until she rolled her eyes. He sighed. “I'm not proud of my past, nor of much of my family's history, particularly where it involves the council. It's easier not to talk about them.”

“A-are you alone, now?” Buffy asked, as though the possibility had only just struck her.

His eyes grew very bright as their gaze enveloped her in his love.

“Not any more.”