When the others had left, Giles and Buffy faced each other in his apartment.

“Are you sure you don't want me to run you straight home?” he asked for the third time, or second if you didn't count prompting Xander to offer her a lift earlier.

“Home will come later,” Buffy told him. “Right now we have to talk about what happened, what Dracula is doing making encore appearances in Sunnydale, and how Ethan got away from the U.S. Military.”

Giles, whose fly was now pinned closed with a safety pin, looked even more battered in the full light, <and even more sexy>, Buffy's misbehaving mind added, shook his head.

“We both need to get cleaned up and changed. We can't stay here. While you were in the kitchen with Willow earlier, I booked a room at the Sunnydale Plaza. This is the first place Ethan, and therefore Dracula, will come looking for us, and I for one want time to find some answers. The others should be safe at their new addresses, and with your mother and Dawn in Los Angeles visiting your father…”

“Dawn's visiting. Mom just drove. I think she just wanted to prove she could. She'll go to her friend Althea's apartment for the weekend, do some visiting of her own and they'll both be back here by Sunday night.”

“Yes, fine, but they're not here, which is all that's important at the moment.

“In that case I'd better come with you,” she declared.

Giles' eyes widened.

“Well I can't stay here and I can't go home, and I'll be damned if I'll be a fifth wheel at Xander's or Willow's. Besides, I've never stayed in the Plaza. Five stars, I hear,” she grinned.

Giles muttered something and headed for the bathroom.

Buffy caught herself wishing she were going with him.

When he opened the door some time later, steam billowed out, followed by Giles who emerged reluctantly with a thick dark blue bath sheet wrapped around his hips and tucked in tightly.

Buffy swallowed. It wasn't fair. She wasn't prepared for that view. Her loins weren't prepared for that view….she wasn't prepared for her loins not to be prepared for that view.

“Um…missing something?” she managed to tease, aware that he'd been flustered earlier and guessing that he had taken a shower without getting clean clothes first.

“Very funny,” he retorted as he passed her and strode towards the stairs, the outline of his ridiculously firm, round glutes moving unbearably provocatively under the towel.

“I can't be doing this,” she muttered to herself, moving uncomfortably and unable to ease her arousal one iota.   It wasn't George Clooney, or even Harrison Ford.

It was Giles, for God's sake...!

Immediately the memory of his scent in the dungeon came back to her and she closed her eyes.

It was Giles…Giles, whom she would never look at the same way again; Giles whom she now wanted so badly she was about ready to fly up the stairs and jump him right there and then.

Several minutes later he came back down stairs with an overnight bag. He was wearing his spare glasses, Buffy's favourite ones, a dark blue collared shirt, dark belt and grey pants. A tie hung, untied, around his neck.

“Lose the tie,” she directed. “We're not going to a council meeting or stocktaking at your store.”

He scowled at her, before drawing the tie off and tossing it on the back of the sofa.

“You look good, Giles,” Buffy told him, unexpectedly.

His eyes flew up and searched hers, then he grinned self-consciously again. “Thank you,” he said. “We'll swing by your home and pick up some things for you, but you must be quick, and preferably unseen. Perhaps entering your room the old way…?”

“Through the window and be quick about it,” she acknowledged and led the way out before he got any redder in the face.

Buffy craned her neck to look at everything in the Plaza lobby, from the honey gold flecked marble-looking floors, walls and fountain, to the glass elevators, luxurious green plants and herbarium, gold coloured spiral staircase, tourists, visitors and porters coming and going. She'd never been in a hotel like it. She knew Angel investigations had moved into one, but a very old one. She wondered if it was anything like this…

When Giles returned with their key, a porter already had their bags on his big trolley. The two smallish overnight bags looked ridiculous on the huge carrier with its arching chrome frame, but she watched him trundle off with them before turning to Giles.

“Like we were going to bust something carrying them ourselves?”

Giles chuckled. “We all have to make a living, Buffy. They'll be waiting for us in our room.”

When they reached the eighth floor room, Giles swiped his door lock with the computer key card and pushed it open.

Buffy's mouth fell open again.

It was a suite. There was in fact, a breakfast area in creams and greens, with a smoked glass table and white furniture, in a recessed window overlooking central Sunnydale, a luxurious sitting area with plush cream carpet and soft blue furnishings, and a door to the bedroom.

While Giles was tipping the porter, who had mysteriously reappeared at just the right time, Buffy peeked into the room.

There was more of the plush carpet, a king-sized bed with a blue coverlet that matched the rest of the furniture, a large glass-fronted closet, and an open door to the bathroom.

Buffy stood in the doorway, her mouth open, looking at the bathroom, which to her looked like a Roman bath house or something similar…more marble looking stuff, white this time, and glass and chrome and huge fluffy cream coloured towels so thick she imagined them almost too good to use…even a telephone on the wall next to the john! In the middle of it was an equally luxurious and large hot tub.

The door of the room clicked shut. Buffy went back to where Giles was picking up their bags.

“So do you always book hotel rooms like this?”

He shook his head, looking a little sheepish. “The council is paying. I'm listing it as an expense,” he admitted, trying not to smile.

Buffy grinned. “Great plan, except there's one problem.”

“Oh?” he asked.

She led him to the bedroom door and bade him absorb the fact that there was only one bed.

“Oh dear. I rather thought there would be twin double beds, or a double and a single, which is the usual configuration,” he admitted. “Else I would have asked for two rooms when we were downstairs. I'll call them now and see if they'll change us to two standard rooms…”

“Standard?” Buffy asked suspiciously.

“Well, yes. The Council might stand the cost of one room like this without question, but I think they would draw the line at two…it is rather…expensive.”

She looked longingly at the furnishings, the view, the bathroom and the complimentary bottle of champagne in ice on the breakfast table…

“One is fine,” she announced, and took her bag. “There's always the couch. I've slept on worse.”

“But…” Giles began, then sighed and gave up, picked up his own bag and took it into the bedroom, to the opposite side of the bed to where Buffy had opened hers.

For some reason their silent unpacking grew more and more tension filled, until they were both done. Buffy came around to lean past Giles, who was stowing his bag in the bottom of the closet, to throw hers in, brushing his chest as she did, and feeling his warm breath on her cheek as she withdrew.

They looked at each other, and each started to talk nervously at the same time. Within moments they found themselves out in the living area again.

Working on her breathing, Buffy went straight to the window. Something was happening to her, something incredible, and she was terrified she was going to embarrass him, or humiliate herself.

A few moments later she heard the champagne bottle pop and turned to see Giles expertly filling two slender tulip glasses.

She raised her eyebrows, not realising how much she was emulating him.

“I thought perhaps, after the day we've had…?” he offered. She loved champagne and it was almost exactly what she needed for her shattered nerves, right then.

Giles held his glass up unexpectedly. “To you…who you are, and who you will become…” he said softly.

Buffy stopped, mesmerized by his voice and his tender green eyes over the crystal glass. Finally, she lifted her own and brought it to her lips without realising that she hadn't taken her eyes off him. Neither did she realise consciously that she was watching his glass press against those sensual lips and the way he drank, as she drank. It also didn't occur to her that he was still watching her. The only thing that did occur to her was that her heart was almost pounding out of her chest.

They finished their glasses in silence, the tension almost palpable, and Giles filled them again, also without speaking. Buffy forced herself to move, and Giles followed her to the window after settling the bottle back into the ice.

It was a clear, beautiful night, without haze. They could even see the mountains in the distance.

“It's beautiful,” Buffy finally said, with just a mouthful left in her glass and her head feeling a little light.

“Very,” Giles agreed, and then wondered why. It was really no more or less attractive than any night vista of any small city, with its myriad of lights and neon signs, distant horizon and even more distant stars struggling against the generated light. He finished the last half of his glass in two sips. The only sign that he was tense was the way his fingers were clamped on the stem of it.

“I…I'll sleep on the couch,” Giles finally managed. “It's quite a decent size.”

Buffy half turned to look up at him. “It's your room, your expense account, and you're way too big to sleep on that couch, anyway. One thing about cheap motels is the couch usually turns into a bed,” she added, annoyed.

After a moment's silence, Giles cleared his throat and Buffy realised she was staring at the golden brown hairs visible in the vee of his shirt. Before he could argue about the bed, or question exactly where her gaze had been directed, she went back and retrieved the magnum from the bucket and filled both their glasses again.

“Um…you haven't eaten all day,” Giles warned her.

She took another long sip of the expensive champagne. “I finished that yoghurt in your refrigerator …and your last two apples, while you were getting changed.”

“Not nearly enough,” he said. “You'll be on your ear shortly.”

“Wanna bet?” she retorted, not sure why it annoyed her, only that she was feeling no worse than she had after the first glass. Rightly or wrongly she'd been drinking socially since her nineteenth birthday, figuring that since she wasn't going to have the next fifty years after she came of age to enjoy it, she was entitled to a little early fun. “And what about you?” she demanded.

He snorted. “Buffy I've been a drinker, more or less, for thirty years. It will take considerably more than a shared glass or two of champagne to…”

“When did you last eat?”

“Pardon? Oh…er…this morning. Tea and…and…well, I was going to make toast,” he sighed and almost finished his glass. “There, you see. I'm fine. It's you I'm worried about.”

Buffy finished her drink and refilled both their glasses. “I'm fine, too,” she told him, tore her eyes from the same small area of chest, damp now where condensation had dripped onto it from the base of his glass, and took a long sip of her drink.

“Buffy, alcohol is not a game,” Giles said quietly and tried to take the bottle, unsuccessfully.

“Killing yourself with, I dunno, forty seven shots of whisky or tequila or bourbon in a macho pissing contest, is stupid,” she retorted. “This is just champagne and it's just us.”

“Marvellous rationale,” Giles muttered and sipped his drink thoughtfully. “Perhaps I should order some dinner from room service?”

Buffy stared at him, her eyes lighting up. “Room service? Where's the menu?” She finished her glass quickly, blinked at the bubbles, then hurried over to the breakfast table with the hospitality folder still laying on it.

Within minutes room service had been given an order that was going set the Council's accounts department sizzling.

Buffy put the folder down, turned too fast and stumbled a little over her own feet, putting out a hand which came to rest on Giles' chest. His hands caught and held her elbows.

For a moment they both froze, then she straightened and looked up slowly, surprising a smouldering look in his eyes that she'd never seen there before. She swallowed and moved closer instead of moving away, letting her soft curves just brush his torso as she spoke.

“Sorry,” she said huskily. “But it's not the champagne,” she added as an afterthought.

He cleared his throat again. “No h-harm done,” he said. “I caught you before you toppled.”

“You always catch me,” she whispered, a great deal of underlying inference in the words.

He smiled a little, and she watched it change his face, wondering why she'd never noticed before how wonderful he looked when he really smiled.

Giles jumped a little, then stayed very still as Buffy reached up and removed his glasses.

Her eyes told him what she was thinking, and took his breath…almost as much as the softness of her body, pressing even more against his own, had been doing for the last minute or so.

“Buffy…” he said softly, then was silenced as her fingers slipped around his nape and drew his unresisting head down to hers.

A tiny part of Giles still believed what he was doing was wrong, but the overwhelming rest of him knew that it was what he wanted…what he wanted more than anything in the world…and now, apparently, also what Buffy wanted…

When he finally covered her lips, his body went from rigid defensiveness to electric shock in a split second. Her mouth was soft and sensuous and moulded itself to his as they were both swiftly lost in the new world of their desire. His arms slid around her waist, hers loosely around his neck.

Buffy's body was now crushed against his, her mouth seeking and finding egress to his, making a bolt of electricity shoot up his spine and his hips move involuntarily towards her as her lips also parted, and their relationship forever shifted to the realm of passion and intimacy…

Neither one of them attempted, even half-heartedly, to pull back from the commitment they'd just made. In fact neither one even breathed until, finally, the kiss ended by itself, and each lifted their head, blinking at the other, flushed and aroused and slightly overwhelmed.

“M-more champagne?” Giles asked numbly.

Buffy blinked. “Champagne?” Her fingers played with his chest hair. “I was kind of thinking more along the lines of seeing what you look like in those black pajamas I watched you unpack earlier.”

Giles closed his eyes, trying not to think about what her fingers were doing, and even harder not to remember the nightwear he'd seen Buffy unpack earlier.

“We-we have to talk about Ethan and D-Dracula,” he breathed as her fingers slipped inside the shirt and continued to toy with the soft hairs.

“We have to talk about your chest and your body and why I can't stop thinking about it,” Buffy told him.

“It's the champagne,” he ventured.

She carefully popped his first button. “Was it the champagne back in the dungeon?”

“I-In the dungeon?”

“When you were all nekkid except for those horny looking little boxers.”

“Buffy, I definitely think the champagne…” Giles stammered.

“Is still cold,” she finished and refilled his glass. “If you're going to use that as an excuse you can keep going and I'll stop. Tell me when you catch up,” she said brightly, obviously mildly influenced by the champagne, but far from drunk.

Giles looked at the drink she put in his hand and then at her and back at the drink, shifting slightly to try and make certain other things he was resolutely trying not thinking about, more comfortable. He started to sip the drink as Buffy undid another button, and then another, then swallowed the whole lot when she started kissing her way from his sternum down to his belt.

“B-Buffy…”

“Giles!” she groaned as he gently brought her to her feet again.

He was about to explain when there was a rap on their door.

Their dinner smelled unbelievably good. And while the tension subsided only marginally, the realisation of just how hungry they were, and the quality of the meals, provided a distraction that allowed them to relax just a little.

Giles made short work of his carpetbag steak, baked potato, and spring vegetables, while Buffy left no doubt as to how she felt about her fillet mignon and salad.

“God, I was starving,” she said, sitting back when she'd finished the last of the hot rolls, one oyster and several pieces of steamed courgette from Giles' plate.

“I noticed,” he said gruffly, finishing the last bite of his own roll. “But it was excellent.”

“Sure was. Where's dessert?”

“What? Oh yes, you ordered sweets, didn't you? Underneath the cart, I daresay. I assume part of it is refrigerated, or at least keeps things cold.”

Buffy rose and went to explore. She found their desserts, and she also found extras, obviously backups for unhappy patrons. There were sauces and mustards and other condiments, a jar of olives and another of maraschino cherries, a bowl of fresh fruit and best of all, a can of whipped dairy cream. Cold. She brought the desserts back to the table.

Giles eyed his for a moment, before deciding that Buffy had actually ordered something he'd like, and digging in.

“Sure you wouldn't like some whipped cream on that?” she asked a moment later, as the first mouthful of exquisite rich-crust, deep-dish apple pie began to melt in his mouth. Before he could swallow to say no, or cover his plate with his hand, she was squirting fluffy cream from the newly shaken tin onto his pie, and unfortunately, onto his fingertips.

He swallowed and was about to say something cutting, when Buffy lifted his fingers to her lips and started to lick the cream off, one long, lazy stroke of the tongue at a time. He was too stunned…and too aroused…to say a word.

When she was done and they were completely clean, she grinned. “Sorry about that,” she said, and started on her own dessert.

Giles, still in no condition to hold a conversation, studied the calorie-laden confection instead. Something called a 'Chocolate Avalanche…'

As far as he could make out it contained a large wedge of some kind of layered continental chocolate cake, chocolate ice-cream, large flakes of Belgian chocolate, both regular and white, and chocolate fudge sauce. His stomach groaned as the whipped cream piled up.

Aware that she was being watched, Buffy put the can aside and stuck two fingers in the cream, assuring herself that his eyes were following them before she brought them to her mouth and slowly licked and sucked off every morsel until they were clean again.

“I…I think you're meant to use a fork,” Giles croaked.

“But it's so nice like this,” she said, swiped another wad of cream from the top of the whorl, and brought her fingers to his lips.

For a long moment there was only silence, and air electric enough to start a small forest fire. Then Buffy slowly caressed his bottom lip with her index finger, getting just a little cream on it.

Instinctively his tongue came out and swiped the cream away.

Buffy forgot to breathe. She moved to do it again, but before she could, Giles' incredibly warm, soft mouth closed around her fingertips, his tongue and lips gathering all of the whipped cream from them, the strokes and caresses making Buffy struggle not to squirm in her seat, though she couldn't disguise the desire in her eyes, or flaming of her cheeks.

Now that he'd started, Giles didn't want to stop. He finally slipped the fingers from his mouth to take some cream from her plate and put it on her palm. Then he slowly kissed it off, aware of the small, almost inaudible groans and whimpering noises Buffy was trying to strangle.

When he was done, he released her hand and they stared at each other for a long moment.

Then Buffy picked up the can and sprayed cream across the curves of her tender bosom above the line of the low cut top.

Giles stared mesmerically at it and then into her blue-grey eyes when she lifted them to his.

A current flowed between them that grew stronger and stronger, drawing him in until he rose from his chair, moved around the table as she stood and closed his strong hands around her waist to lift her easily so that he could reach without bending.

And when she groaned and slid her legs around his own body, his hands moved to cup her firm, curvaceous rear. His lips followed the sweet curve of her breast, pushing the fabric aside to reach further and further down to the soft, sensitive flesh beneath, aroused and inspired by her soft moans and entreaties long after the cream was gone.

When he lifted his head he was breathing hard. Buffy moaned a little and moved, prompting him to let go enough for her to do what she wanted, exhaling in a half moan, half shudder, when she allowed herself to slide just far enough to let her heat settle over the pronounced bulge in his pants.

"Buffy…” he said helplessly, any half-formed protest already lost as her top came off, revealing perfect, full, round breasts, their shell-pink peaks straining towards him.

“Giles,” she whispered back, an invitation, a demand…and a whimpered plea rolled into one.

In spite of himself, he closed his mouth over a soft peak and tasted her, responding to the feel her body shuddering and hearing her unfettered groan of pleasure at his touch.

Buffy groaned again as Giles' warm, moist lips and soft tongue teased, caressed and massaged, and moved herself against his granite arousal with wanton abandon.

Giles groaned loudly in spite of himself and pushed back, lifting his face at the touch of her fingers on his cheeks and capturing the sweet soft lips that came down on his, devouring them with an urgency matched by her own.

“Dear God, Buffy,” he groaned, barely lifting his mouth from hers.

“Giles,” she whimpered, and ground even harder against him.

In seconds they were in the bedroom, on the big bed, their mouths again locked in a frenzy of passion, their hips rising to each other as he pushed rhythmically against her wanton grinding, unable to stop…not wanting to…

Then her hands were reaching between them, pulling at the stud on his pants.

He pulled back just long enough to kick off his shoes and socks and throw the pants aside, stopping only when his eyes fell on her beautiful form.

Her hair was everywhere, loose and spread across the quilt, her breasts rising and falling with her laboured, impassioned breaths, and her hands were moving from her throat, over her breasts to the obviously aroused mound beneath her tight jeans, and back again.

Just as swiftly, he undid her button and slid her zipper down, stopping to look at her and to hold her lust filled gaze as his fingers slipped inside the opening of her pants and over the damp silky fabric beneath.

Buffy's lips parted, and as she groaned, her eyes closed, her hips moving against his touch as he gently stroked the fabric, allowing his fingertips to provoke and explore until her small, pleading whimpers became too much and he pulled off her shoes, discarded the jeans, and bent to taste the silken warmth and the sweet, musky scent of it.

Buffy shuddered and bucked, her cry almost a scream of pleasure, and then another and another. She had never felt anything like it. The feel of his hot mouth, tongue, lips through the sheer nylon… The torture of the thin film between her arousal and his touch was driving her to new heights of desire.

When he finally relented and hooked the fabric aside with a finger, she felt the first touch of hot flesh against hot flesh. His tongue trailed over her sensitive and swollen folds, stroking, pushing into them, exploring them until her groans turned to cries and her hips arched. Then his tongue shifted to massage the hard evidence of her desire until the demand was torn from her.

“Please!” she begged.

Slowing, but not stopping his torture, he removed his briefs and hers, lifting his head just long enough to draw them down.

Buffy was mad with need, her head moving from side to side, her groans almost pants, and more desperate as he slowed his teasing to a snail's pace until they were free.

And then he was moving over her, and she to him.

He ached for her, so hard he had to guide himself to her waiting entrance. And when he was finally about to touch the sweet, silky folds with his own granite heat, he paused, trembling with the intensity of his need, his desire…his lust…for her. How many times in the last year had he dreamed of just this moment…and of holding her in his arms and telling her how much he loved her…?

“Giles…please!” she whimpered again, and half gasped, half groaned as they touched for the first time and she was able to feel his own rock-hard need…to covet it, crave it, strain to it as he began to push into her.

“Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!” she gasped almost in one breath as she stretched around him, and he slowly took her, inch by inch, until his flesh was buried inside her and they were both gasping for breath. When he stopped she could feel him twitching inside her, feel him still stretching her, challenging her. Most of all she could her own desire pulsing against him, until she couldn't stand it anymore…

“Now!” she whispered hoarsely, “Now, Giles. Please!”

Her sultry plea galvanized him into action, taking her, meeting her demands with all the power, all the urgency they both felt, his own passion flamed by the grip of her vice-like channel, her demanding cries and moans of pleasure as he continued to bury himself in her, over and over, faster and faster, for long minutes, until his body exploded and he could hear himself gasping out a startled cry at the power of it and the sudden, incredible clamping as Buffy screamed and twisted and gasped, forcing him to continue as both of them convulsed in what seemed like an endless avalanche of pleasure.

By the time it was over they were both exhausted, but Giles continued to prop himself up on his elbows, as though still, somehow, unsure…until Buffy's fingertips slid into his soft hair, stroking it, his temple, his brow.

“I love you so much,” she whispered. “Hold me…?”

He shuddered, partly with relief, partly at her touch, and took her in his arms, rolling to his side and cradling her to his chest.

Buffy snuggled into his warmth, closing her own arm around his waist and staying there, silently, her lips occasionally grazing his sternum, as if to tell him how much she loved him, tell him what words could not.

Giles closed his eyes and sighed heavily. He felt exhilarated, alive and he loved the woman in his arms more than he believed anyone was capable of loving anyone or anything. So much so, that a part of him was afraid…because everything he had ever loved or wanted had been taken from him…all either lost, or destroyed…or walked away…but in the end, still gone…

He didn't think he could survive losing her too… The single most precious thing ever to come into his life…

For a long while after he slipped out of her, they lay curled up together on the bed, content, sleepy and not ready to let go of each other yet. They might have even slipped into a peaceful slumber if the phone hadn't shrilled and disturbed them both.

With a muttered oath Giles stretched a long arm to the side table and picked it up, muttered something into the receiver and slammed it down with feeling.

“Bloody Housekeeping wants to know if we've finished with dinner yet.”

Buffy wrinkled her nose. “How rude of them,” she teased.

Giles grunted.

Buffy propped herself on one elbow. “Have you looked in the bathroom yet?”

He turned a little so that they facing each other, and began tracing the outline of one bosom as he spoke.

“Not yet. Why? Something wrong?”

She giggled. “No, silly. Something right. C'mon.”

As they settled into the hot water, among far too much foam and bubbles, thanks to Buffy's enthusiasm, Giles struggled to remember why they were there and the circumstances that brought the two of them to this wondrous moment.

Buffy wriggled across to snuggle into Giles' side, parting the froth to make a place high under his chin to rest her cheek, where neither water or nor bubbles could go up her nose.

He closed a possessive arm around her body and held her there, kissing her damp hair and resting his chin against it as he mused, and then, inevitably, dozed.

It was a very long time before either of them stirred.

“Mmmm,” Buffy purred, stretching. “Tubby naps. I could get used to this.”

He squeezed her a little and chuckled. “Perhaps if the store continues to do well, I could consider a little remodelling in the apartment…”

Buffy turned onto her stomach and caught his lips with hers. “Or a whole new place. You've been in that apartment an awfully long time.”

“And it has an awful lot of fond memories,” he pointed out softly, then frowned. “And not a few unpleasant ones, I suppose.”

Buffy traced his jaw. “I guess, but things change all the time. Look at me…I've never had 'a place'. Even mom's house is the last in a line of them, none with years of warm cosy memories abounding,” she added sadly.

“But there were some, at each,” he pointed out as her hand slid back into the water.

“True,” she agreed, but not like there's one place above all places that makes me nostalgic or full of warm fuzzies. That's more about family, and people…bits and pieces all over the place. Like the first Ice Show my dad took me to, the first time I got my seven times tables right all the way through and mom fussed like I'd just got elected president or something…” She looked up. “The first time I saw you and knew that I loved you.”

Giles grew very still and searched her face. “Yesterday,” he said almost wistfully.

She shook her head. “I said 'loved you.' After everything that could go wrong did, I walked onto that dance floor and there you were, waiting for me, making everything all right without saying a word…like you always do. And I loved you for it. Yesterday I fell in love. Yesterday I woke up for the first time,” she added, surprise flickering in her eyes. “I did, you know. It's like all this time a part of me has been asleep while the rest of me needed you, wanted you to be there for me, but never knew the reason why…”

This time their kiss was slow and gentle, filled with love and tenderness, lingering for a long time before either of them was ready to relinquish the other.

Buffy lifted her hand from the water to touch his face again and saw how wrinkled her fingers were.

“Um…time to get out?” she asked, turning her palm towards him.

Giles' eyebrows rose, only half seriously. “I suppose we better, before you shrivel into an old crone,” he told her, chuckling, dodging and spluttering when she tried to slap his chest and sprayed water everywhere.

“You're horrible,” she said, and stood up. Giles watched her turn and bend to put her hands on the side of the step-less bath so that she could climb out and felt himself stir at the sight of her smooth, round, bottom and the tender womanhood peeking out between her slender legs. He watched her dry herself with growing desire, envying the plush towel's every stroke, until she asked him why he hadn't moved yet.

“Um…” he said and started to lift himself out of the water, Buffy still watching.

“Oh,” she said, amused, when she saw the state of his arousal, bobbing as he moved.

Amused, and impressed.

“Bring that with you and I'll meet you in the bedroom,” she told him huskily, already stirring at the sight of his apparently abundant appreciation of her womanly assets.

When he arrived in the bedroom, he found Buffy sprawled on the bed wearing his black silk pajama top and nothing else except the prescription sunglasses from the side pocket of his overnight bag, where they resided with the spare spectacles, headache tablets and other assorted travelling paraphernalia he more or less permanently kept there. They were of the reflective glass, 'Top Gun' variety, with silver frames. She looked both sexy and adorable at the same time, now kneeling on the bed and messing about with them in the open top, looking at herself in the glass doors of the closet.

“Very nice,” he growled suggestively as she leaned towards the glass, as though pretending to be a model, her impossibly firm buttocks poking out from under the black satin.

Buffy giggled and stood up on the bed. “Thanks, but I bet they'd look sexier on you.” She put them on his face and stood back. “Oh, God yes,” she confirmed playfully. “I don't know why you don't wear them more often. You look like you should be telling guys to go mount up…er…you know, like, their jet planes…scramble…go…kill bogies…whatever…” she finished sheepishly.

Giles tilted his head down enough to look at her over the top of the dark lenses in a way that told her exactly what he thought of the idea of telling men to mount anything.

Buffy grinned again. “God, you look sexy in nothing but sunnies,” she growled, and, before he could object, started kissing his chest all the way down to his slightly flagging member. When her warm mouth closed around it, he forgot that he'd ever thought of objecting. By the time she had brought it to aching attention again, he could barely stand.

Buffy turned him around and pushed him backwards onto the bed, climbing over his hips and easing herself easily onto his straining length, guiding him deep inside her, until she growled with pleasure and started move.

Through the dark glasses, Giles watched her throw her head back and close her eyes, the black pajama top open to show her bobbing breasts and lithe body. He ran his hands over it, massaging the soft mounds with the sensuous fabric, even playing with her nipples through it, making her moan loudly as she continued to ride him. Finally, the sensation took over everything and she stopped to let him massage her entire body with the slippery silk.

When the impromptu massage finally ended, Buffy sighed with pleasure and slid off him, to lie on her side for a moment. “You know what I've never done?” she growled huskily, turning over so that her tail was poking up in the air again. “Have you?”

Giles felt his erection turn from solid rock, to burning steel, as though it had no intention of ever going down again. He cleared his throat, opting for honesty. “Um…once or twice,” he admitted, stretching out a hand to rub the firm, ripe globes and make her purr like a cat. He even let his fingers trail down into her moist centre a time or two and smiled when she moaned loudly.

When she spread her legs a little further and made a whimpering noise, he threw the sunglasses away and moved behind her

Before he could do anything more, however, the phone rang. He reached out for it, while still caressing her with one hand.

“I'll tell you when we're ready. Now sod off!” he snapped and hung up again, before focusing again on the task at hand, a task nothing could entirely distract him from…

“Who?” Buffy asked as his both his hands ran over her waiting rump again, pushing the silk up her back as he brought himself to her.

“Bloody Housekeeping again,” he growled, letting his fingers slide into her heat and gently tease and caress the soft folds until she was making those small whimpering noises again and pushing back towards him demandingly.

Barely able to contain his desire, and in peril of not being able to maintain control, Giles pushed against the now wet, burning entrance.

Buffy shuddered, her exclamation part moan, part gasp. “Yes!” she growled, low in her throat. “More!”

Giles, himself, groaned aloud as he slid home.

“Giles, I can't…Oh, God, this is so…do it to me… Harder!” Buffy's senses were going into overload, the combination of openness and deep penetration like nothing she'd ever experienced before.

He allowed her to control the entire exercise, well aware of the danger of penetrating to deeply, enjoying her frantic pushing and gyrating against him as he stroked rhythmically.

Buffy's breaths were coming in short pants as their coupling grew more and more frantic, Giles taking over more and more as she relaxed. In a few more strokes he was riding her hard, Buffy being driven into a pleasure frenzy both by the pistoning of his rigid erection and the slapping of his scrotum against her swollen heat.

“Oh…ohhhhh!” her voice rose in exclamation and ended in a half-scream, half gasping howl of ecstasy, followed in just moments by Giles, pushed from the edge he'd been teetering on forever, into the same abyss of bliss by the frantic bucking and clenching of her beautiful body, not to mention the glorious view of it, coupled with her erotic vocalisations.

When they both came down, Giles moved away to find a clean handkerchief. Buffy growled again like a satisfied cat when he returned and cleaned away the evidence of their pleasure, then rolled over when he was done, to grin up at him.

“I'd give that one an A plus,” she told him contentedly. “And I'd give you an A to the hundredth power,” she added tenderly.

“Buffy you can't mix math and the alphabet quite that way,” he said tolerantly and grinned. “But I appreciate the compliment.”

She curled up in the crook of his arm when he settled next to her. “What are we going to do tomorrow? Do we involve the others? Do we go back to the castle? Do I get Xand to find me a bazooka from somewhere?”

Giles squeezed her a little, reassuringly. “We ask Willow to get onto the net and use her indomitable talents for getting into places she's not supposed to be able to get into, to find out how Ethan escaped. Then we ask Tara to organize the ingredients and paraphernalia so that the two of them can perform the most powerful warding spell on us that they can find. Then we will consider returning to the castle to deal with Ethan Rayne. I rather think Dracula is going to be an entirely different proposition.”

“He wants me to be his. He wants me to come to him and worship at his feet like some fawning, mindless dracu-bimbette,” she complained, then turned in his arms, so that she was looking at him, her expression serious. “He says my power comes from darkness and that I belong with him.”

Giles felt her shiver and drew her close. “You and I both know that's not going to happen, and regardless where your power came from, only you can choose whether you control it, or it controls you. You've already proved that, many times, love. You're not Faith…and you never will be.”

“Not while I have you, anyway,” she said, love in her eyes and her voice as slid back down and turned her face into his shoulder. “If I lost you I think going postal would be a mild way to put it…”

“And that's not going to happen either,” he added gruffly and kissed her hair softly. “Go to sleep. “I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a long day.”

“Bossy,” she muttered, already drowsing.

Giles closed his eyes and smiled a smile of perfect contentment. A few minutes later they were both snoring very softly, in a deep, peaceful slumber.