The stinging stopped, and now that he was deeper inside I suddenly felt something else, a pull inside me, a really deep tingle like little exploding stars, and I gasped. He was kissing my mouth very softly with small kisses, sipping at my lips. He took a tiny bit of my upper lip in his mouth, the part just below my nose, and sucked on it delicately. Goose bumps went up all over me. He slid into me just a little more and stopped again, kissing the tip of my nose and then up the bridge of my nose, very slowly and calmly, and I gasped again but it was a high, desperate sound. My body was opening for him and I felt this overwhelming softness all over. I was melting around the hardness of him. I was in awe, I just let the waves of it wash through me. He was kissing my eyelids and then he looked at me, watching the look on my face. He slid a little deeper, agonizingly slow, he was igniting every nerve inside me. He stopped and I panted onto his face. He moved his thumbs over my cheeks.

"Do you know how long I've wanted to tell you I love you?" he said. His eyes were brimming.

I took a breath and it came out as a cry so I took another one, and I managed, "No,"

He swallowed. "Since I first saw you," he said, and it could have been corny. It could have, but a tear ran over his cheek and fell on mine, cool as a drop of rain in the winter, and I sobbed.

He pressed his forehead against mine and started slowly moving deeper into me. "I love you," he whispered, "I love you," and I wanted to answer him but my body was clinging to every inch of him and throbbing, the motion of it was rippling through me and he was watching me with so much wonder and affection that I know what it feels like to be worshipped. It wasn't something he was doing TO me, it was something he was doing FOR me, and what he was doing was giving me himself.

I was so slippery that he glided into me and it was luxurious, it was perfect, to have all of him inside me. A long whine came out of me, I could feel the full length of him. He pushed his legs out and wrapped his arms closer around me, lowering himself so that his body was right against mine.

He stayed still so I could just feel him, somehow he knew I wanted that. I was taking long, deep breaths and moaning a little. After a while he started rocking, a very small motion, but the way he was moving inside me was the most wonderful thing I've ever felt, to be so full of him. I was proud, too, that I could hold all of him. My hands were on his back and in his hair and tracing his mouth, I was amazed by it, just amazed by how beautiful he was and that I could be filled with him. It was such a pure thing, this thing thateverybody says is dirty. I've never felt cleaner in my life, it made me feel like I was flying through the sky or like I WAS the sky, a clean blue sky, or like a night sky that's full of stars, an absolutely pure thing. Me and what I wanted and him and what he wanted, and we wanted exactly the same thing.

We just wanted each other. Then it started, that feeling like a tidal wave was coming, something huge that would swallow me and then it did, I was yelling and writhing against him, it was so good that there wasn't room in me to hold all of how good it was, the feeling was spilling out of my pores and my voice, I was drenched with it. He pressed his cheek against mine and rocked into me, he was making a deep sound that was almost like a purr. I hung on to him until I started to calm down again, and he stopped.

He looked at me and his eyes were so adoring, so warm. We gazed at each other and it was like all other times when we just look at each other and have conversations without words. It was so completely real that I felt drunk, I was drunk on him. We laid like that for a long time, just soaking each other in. He was as amazed as I was, I KNOW it, because the distance between us was completely gone. I could read his heart, I know what he was feeling.

He slipped one arm under my hips, tilting me up, and then he slowly pulled almost all the way out of me, he was just a little way inside me, and he started moving in very shallow, gentle thrusts, so carefully. He started kissing my throat. I don't know why but he was hitting a really important spot suddenly and I could hear my voice getting higher and higher. It was almost unbearable. The way I loved it was almost...violent. Up until that point I had pretty much let him drive but now I couldn't help it any more, I gripped his back and rose up against him. He was twisting his hips in a very small motion. It was exactly what I wanted and I moved with him, we were making little spirals together. My entire body felt the way I felt inside, so sensitive that I was almost raw, but slick and needy. I was clenching my teeth. He stopped and slid his arm under my back.

"Angel-Angel," I was pawing at him, because I wanted him deeper. His hand slid all the way up, under the back of my neck, and his thumb stroked my cheek. He kissed me over and over, slow, wet kisses, sliding his tongue between my lips. He moved into me smoothly and gradually, it was such a graceful movement. He withdrew a little and then slid deeper and I shouted because I was hanging on the edge, I was really trembling now. He gave me another shallow stroke and then slid in all the way, harder this time, and my body gripped him. I was starting to lose parts of myself, I didn't know my fingers from my toes, but I didn't need to. My whole body existed for the sole purpose of being wrapped around him.

He did it again, a little stroke just inside me and then a deeper one, and he was watching me like I've never been watched before, his eyes probing but so loving at the same time. Just that look would have made me lose it. He stroked deeper then, slow and deep, over and over, and I grabbed on to his back and thrust my hips up. I brought my knees up as far as I could, which was almost to my ears, and I leaned my head back and begged because I wanted him so much faster and so much harder.

"Please, Angel please, please-" and he gradually started going faster because I was moving up to him faster, his eyes were darting back and forth into mine. He was starting to look desperate. There was a dew on his upper lip like on mine, our bodies were slippery now. He tilted his chin down and his expression became suddenly really intense, almost like when he fights, and he started driving into me, harder, then even harder. It was like he was pushing me up higher and higher and soon I was listening to myself screaming his name over and over and I had no idea where the ceiling or floor was, I wouldn't even have known my own name, except he was chanting it. He was growing even bigger and getting even harder. He touched his forehead to mine and his eyes went right through me.

It was as if everything that I am, my mind and heart and soul and body, all narrowed into one incredibly bright pinprick of light, or into one key on a piano, and the sound it played was absolute joy, pure joy, and he was striking that key every time he touched me inside, and all I wanted was him inside me again and again, filling me with it. Our eyes were hooked together, it was like being two people at once, he knew exactly what I was feeling and I knew exactly what he was feeling and we were telling each other everything, every sensation, without speaking. He drew his arms from under me and braced himself on his elbows. He took my hands in his, palm to palm, and we pushed against each other like dancers, balancing.

His voice sounded like he was begging, he kept saying, "Buffy, Buffy," I started moving against him again. I wanted him to split me in two, shatter me. We were driving against each other then, hard. It didn't hurt at all anymore but it was scary in a completely different way, because he had put me so far out of the world I didn't know if I'd ever make it back. He started saying my name through his teeth and then things went black for a second, I was gasping and shouting so hard that my throat hurt, and when I could open my eyes he was squeezing his shut, he was pounding into me so hard that he was knocking little puffs of breath out of me, and then he shouted and his whole body went taut and I felt it deep inside me, the most wonderful thing in the world, little jets of coolness.

I was crooning and my hands were all over him, he was gripping me in his arms, his face was buried in my neck. We laid like that for a long time. I was still sobbing and tremors were going through me, my body was still reacting.

He rolled over and pulled me up on his chest, holding me. He cradled my cheek in his hand and tilted my head up. I looked at him. I've never seen him smile like that. He was lit up. He looked as if all of that dark he carries around, the sadness and the guilt and the shame and all the things he did, it was as if he got to take them off for a minute and I could see him without them. He looked different...strong and healthy like always, but happy suddenly and...human, he looked human, the way he must have looked before he was changed. He glowed. His eyes were warm and full, and the smile covered his face. He looked alive.

"I'll make you happy," he whispered.

"You do make me happy," I said.

"No. Not like I want to. I'm going to make you happy, Buffy,"

I knew what he meant. He meant us having a life. He meant a future. We both knew there would be some interesting problems with it, and we both knew none of them mattered. The only thing that mattered was us.

I fell asleep right there on his chest. But then I woke up and he was gone.

And now I'm crying again.