FIC: Control (Giles/Buffy, FRAO)

[antennapedia]

Because it is a tradition (where tradition is defined as "something that happened at least once before") for me to post fic today, here is some birthday fic! Shameless kinky BG prawn, for those of you who enjoy such things.

Title: Liegeman 6/7: Control
Pairing: Giles/Buffy
Summary: Dinner, home, and then to bed. But not to sleep.
Rating: FRAO
Warnings: Strong BDSM kink.
Word count: 6400
Prompt: 31. Erection
Notes: Continued from "Steel". All Blackmail stories, in order, along with full content indications. Kink levels are rising now, so avoid this chapter if such things are not your cup of tea. Note that there are no new or surprising kinks, just more of what has been depicted thus far.


The restaurant was a quiet place, small and far more Californian in feel than Buffy might have anticipated from Giles. She'd been thinking French, stuffy, formal, but this place was all about the ocean view and the fine locally-grown produce. Giles declined the wine list and ordered mineral water for them both. He also ordered for her, doing all the talking to the waiter and eventually deciding on the fixed menu for both of them. There was no sign in him of the diffidence he often showed with her. He knew what he wanted and was taking it. Buffy enjoyed watching Giles be confident. There was something pleasing about letting him take charge in small things, in the external things, while at the heart they both knew who was in charge. Underneath his clothes, he wore her steel.

She kept her eyes on his face the whole time he was talking to the waiter, watching for the signs that he was as aroused as she knew he was. The napkin on his lap hid everything away. Somebody who knew him as well as she did might be able to tell, from the slight flush on his face, and the way he kept shifting in his seat. Normally Giles was a still and controlled man. Tonight he fidgeted, and that revealed his secret.

Buffy had a secret, too, and that was that she'd been abstinent herself since that night with Riley. If going without for only four days counted as abstinence, which seemed a little silly when she looked at it that way. It was the longest she'd gone since she'd started having sex again, since that night with jerky Parker, which had been depressing but reminded her how good sex felt. She'd let herself have fun any time she wanted since then, either by herself or with a boyfriend. But this week she'd wanted to try out waiting for it, to see for herself what Giles might get out of going without. It was fun to be excited a little bit all the time, to have it flash out in a big way when she thought about sex, or looked at the sweat at Giles's temples and knew why he was restless.

Like right now. She watched him pour himself mineral water. His hands shook, and he spilled a little on the table, and Buffy felt her body respond.

"Distracted?" she said.

Giles looked up at her and flushed. "Ah. Distracted. That's a good word for it."

"Good," Buffy said. He flushed a little deeper, and again, she felt a throb in return. He had a metal plug inside him, and he was as hard as a man could be. All for her. Buffy let herself smile. "What's the most distracting?"

Giles flicked a glance at the table next to them, and said, "Difficult to say. The ring? The metal is... I'm not sure we should have this conversation just now."

Buffy saw he'd gone even redder, and wondered if just saying that had made him harder. "Okay, let's not make our neighbors' ears burn. What should we talk about, Mr Distracted?"

Giles had big gulp of mineral water before he answered. "It's nearly the end of term, isn't it?"

Small talk about college, okay. Buffy could handle that. "Yeah, exams coming up in a week. I have most of them under control already, which let me tell you is a weird feeling for me."

"You seem to have settled in well, then."

"Yeah, I'm having fun. Willow was all excited about the course lists back in August, which I didn't get, but now I am of the getting. I'm already planning out what I'll take next semester."

"Have you chosen your field yet? What do you call it, your major."

"I haven't figured it out yet, but there are some things I like more than I thought I would. Like the psych class. The textbook is way more interesting than the class is."

Giles had his hand over his mouth, but she caught the corner of his smile anyway. He was pleased about something. That she was into college? He'd always told her she could do anything she turned her mind to. Or maybe he was pleased about the dig at Walsh. Buffy decided to pursue that.

"Reading things other than the textbook makes me wonder if the class is biased, sort of. Professor Walsh likes some theories better than others. Like Skinner, she loves him. And she was down on Jung. Said some insulting things about his alchemy fascination."

"Oh, really." Giles's voice was dry.

"I had a hunch that you would say the exact opposite about it."

Giles's smile got broad enough to show his teeth. "Consider it said. Jung was a practicing alchemist, and he's quite useful to anyone interested in a particular sort of magic. I've got some of his esoteric works at home."

"I've already got a list of stuff you have to give me. Starting with the books on Slayer origin myths." She wasn't likely to forget that one. "You got your degree in history, right?"

"Yes, both degrees. They were required by the Council."

"What would you have picked for yourself?"

Giles adjusted his glasses and frowned. "I really have no idea at all. It was all decided for me so early on in my schooling that I was never aware of having any sort of choice. I do enjoy it now. And it's family tradition."

The waiter took away their salad plates. Buffy noticed that Giles had eaten almost none of his, just as predicted. She smiled behind her water glass. He was going to be close to explosion when they finally got home. She wouldn't be far behind: it was unbearably exciting for her to think about how excited Giles was. To wonder how close to the edge he was. Buffy decided to give him no hints, but to keep playing it cool.

"You were probably a serious college student, all work and no play," she said.

Giles laughed. "Quite the opposite. I was a lazy student, at least until I started work on the doctorate. Skated by on my memory, never studied, drank too much, that sort of thing."

"Must be some memory."

"Watcher's memory," Giles said, and shrugged. He seemed to mean something specific by it, which Buffy filed away to ask about later. "I settled down, though. After my year away from it, I was playing catch-up. Couldn't afford to look away from my task."

Buffy wondered what that had been like. Probably not fun. She sometimes thought he'd still been playing catch-up right until the moment they'd fired him. She watched the waiter dance around the table, setting their dinners in place and refilling their glasses. He and Giles exchanged some kind of non-verbal signals, and he went away again, leaving them in peace. Buffy studied her plate, which was almost too pretty to mess up by eating. She hadn't bothered to look at the menu, so she had no clue what it was. She nudged at the perfection with a fork. Fish. Very pretty fish scribbled over with colorful sauce, with a leafy vegetable she couldn't identify next to it.

She temporized. "PhD, huh? So you're really Doctor Giles, then."

Giles shook his head. He hadn't even touched his fork yet. "One doesn't use the title."

"Are all of you Watchers serious academics? Like, is Wesley?"

"Pryce? Not sure. He read economics, I thought, London. He was meant for a government post. He said something to me once about it. The field assignment would be de rigueur for him, if he wanted to rise in the Council."

Giles's voice had gone sarcastic. So she'd been nothing but a routine assignment. At first anyway. Buffy had a bite of her fish, which was melt-on-the-tongue good, and thought about Wesley and how things had worked out with him.

"That didn't go so well, huh?"

"No. They sacked him as unceremoniously as they sacked me."

"Poor Wes."

"He landed on his feet, I hear." He cocked an eyebrow at her, and Buffy nodded.

"Yeah. I see him when I'm in LA. And he turns up in Sunnydale every now and then, though I have no clue why." She shrugged. "Wes turned out okay in the end."

"He's a decent man. Unlike his father."

And now Giles was venomous. There was a story there, she guessed, which she'd save for a rainy day, or a boring patrol.

"You should try this," Buffy told him, to change the subject. "It's amazing."

Giles sat up in his chair and looked at his plate. "Right. Suppose I ought." Buffy watched him taste the fish. He tilted his head to the side and made a thoughtful sound. "Not bad at all."

Buffy watched Giles eat for a little bit. He noticed her watching him and blushed, and fumbled with his fork. He was nervous. Buffy supposed that was the right emotion to be feeling, if you knew you were going to be experiencing what Giles was going to. What he had asked for, in that strained voice over the phone. Dinner, whipping, and sex, that's what he'd requested. It was hard to say which of them it was more of a treat for, him or her. Delicious dinner, a handsome man bound and kneeling at her feet, mind-blowing sex. And in the morning Giles would brew her tea and teach her about the art of war. Deception, and the nine kinds of ground, and the ways of a leader. How to use these tools to defeat Maggie Walsh, who was probably their enemy, and who had a well-provisioned squad of soldiers working for her.

What a weird date this was. And now that she thought about it, that was the right word for it. This evening was a lot like a date. They were dressed for a date, and Giles had given her a gift that was the kind of thing you gave someone you were courting. Another strange thought. Courting. A strange word, not something Buffy had ever used to describe her life before, but it seemed like the right word for Giles's behavior tonight. Something warned her not to bring it up to him, though. Riley, looming between them? No, she wasn't going to think about that any more. Tonight was Giles's reward night, which was the same thing as her reward night. Buffy turned her mind back to carnal things.

Food. Sex. In that order.

Dessert was a small and incredibly intense raspberry chocolate thing, and Buffy enjoyed every single tiny bite. She made a dismayed sound when she saw that Giles hadn't touched his. He simply smiled at her, then reached across the table to swap their plates.

"Don't you like chocolate?"

"I do, but-- It's a bit wasted on me tonight, I'm afraid. My mind is, ah, elsewhere."

Giles's smile at her was almost shy, so Buffy restrained herself from making any of the jokes that came to mind about it. She ate his dessert with pleasure.

Giles paid the bill with cash, and vanished into the rest room for a minute on the way out. Buffy stood on the restaurant porch and watched the cold Pacific surf obliterate itself on the rocks below her, and wondered how he managed with that ring on him. She let her Slayer senses wake up and idly reached out in search of evil. No predators nearby. Maybe she'd be allowed a quiet night in bed with her guy. Well, not quiet, exactly.

Giles rejoined her on the porch and said, "What are you smiling about?"

"What's going to happen next."

He rubbed at the back of his head. "Ah. Quite. Shall we, then?"

Buffy stopped him when they reached the car, and held out her hand for his keys. "I'm driving." He stared at her blankly, but made no move to hand them to her. "I have a permit. I'm in charge. And you'll get one extra stripe for every second you make me wait."

"Promises, promises," Giles murmured. But he bowed over the keys as he handed them over. He held the driver's side door for her with good grace, and got into the passenger seat without any further resistance.

"Put your hands on your knees, palms up. Like that. Good. Keep them there. Spread your legs further."

Giles obeyed her without hesitation. Buffy reached between his legs and caressed him as a reward, until he closed his eyes and moaned under his breath. Joy welled up inside her, but she kept it secret for now. She let go of him, and started the car.

She was nervous about driving Giles's antique, which wallowed more than it maneuvered, but she managed to do well enough that she had begun to relax by the time they reached his street. She pulled into the curb space in front of Giles's apartment building, and was secretly grateful that she didn't have to do any fancy parallel parking. She turned off the ignition and set the keys in his upturned palm. His hand was trembling under hers.

She said, "As of now, you're not in charge of anything. You make no decisions. You just feel whatever it is I give you to feel."

Giles breathed in once, deliberately, and then out again slowly.

"You're not in control any more. If you come, it's because I want you to. So don't try to stop yourself any more."

Another deep breath, in and out, and some tension left his shoulders. "Understood."

"When we get in the house, I want you to take off your jacket and tie. Shoes and socks too, but nothing more than that."

"Yes, my Slayer," he said.

He got out of the car and held her door for her, as before, and carried her overnight bag. He ducked ahead of her to open his front door, and stood aside with inclined head to let her enter before him. Old-fashioned courtesy, deference, the sort of gestures that annoyed her when other men made them. Buffy watched him bolt the front door behind them. He paused there with his hand on the lock, back turned toward her, and she saw him take another one of those long, deep breaths. Preparing himself.

Buffy left him to undress and carried her bag up to the loft. She stepped out of her pumps and set them under the bed, out of the way, but that was as far as she undressed; she wanted him naked long before she took anything off. On his nightstand she saw he'd laid out his collar and one of his riding crops. Not the one she'd used on him their first night together. She picked it up and flexed it in her hands. It was long and thin and had something stiff at its core. A quiet plea for harsher treatment from her, perhaps. Buffy decided that she'd indulge him and give him what he wanted but couldn't ask for directly.

She left the whip where it was. The collar was enough to get them started. No, wait. She slid his nightstand drawers open and rummaged until she found the nipple clamps.

Buffy padded downstairs on silent bare feet again to see if Giles had obeyed her. And of course he had. There he was, her handsome man kneeling at her feet, in shirt and trousers, feet bare. She circled him slowly, admiring him. His eyes were half-closed, his mouth open. His head was bent and his wrists were behind his back, crossed. His erection was obvious in his trousers now that his jacket and tie weren't there to distract from it. She came to a halt before him and let her hand rest on his head. He flinched under her hand, though all she did was stroke his hair.

"Unbutton your shirt," she said, and watched as he obeyed. He seemed to have calmed down a little, because his hands were steadier than they'd been in the car.

Shirt opened, tugged out of his trouser waistband. He put his hands behind his back again, and looked at up at her through his lashes. He was so masculine like this, half dressed, on his knees. She liked his bare chest, liked the hair scattered across his pecs. Broad shoulders, broad chest, rising and falling as he breathed. She ran her hands all over that chest, around and up his back. She ended by stroking his hair. It had grown a little long, longer than Giles usually let it, and curled over the back of his collar and his ears. Soft hair, with gray sparking at his temples. A middle-aged man, an academic man, a reserved man, a shy man, a man she would never have met if it hadn't been for her destiny. And his destiny. Her Watcher. The one person in the world whom she'd trust with her life.

She wrapped the collar around his neck and buckled it tight. He closed his eyes and sighed. He'd been wearing this longer than she'd been alive, judging by the grooves worn into it and the place where the buckle tongue had rubbed. Did he ever wear it when he was alone? Or only for a lover? Buffy tucked the end of the collar through, then slipped two fingers into the ring at the front. She tugged Giles gently, and he swayed on his knees.

"Some day I'm going to take you out in public with this on. Somewhere where people can see you."

Giles swore under his breath, and she knew she'd struck home. He bent and pressed his lips to her foot. As he rose again, Buffy reached down to him and gripped a fistful of his shirt and pulled him up to his knees. Slayer strength, the kind of display he loved so much, a reminder that she was the warrior he worshipped. It was easy to be a warrior in jeans and a leather jacket. It always blew Buffy's mind when she did it in a little black dress. And apparently it blew Giles's mind, too, because he surged up and flung his arms around her waist. He pressed his cheek against her stomach and held her tight.

He was murmuring her name, over and over, and shaking. Buffy braced a hand on his back and pressed him closer. "Ssh. It's okay."

"Sorry, sorry," he said.

"Do we need to stop now to talk?"

"No. I'm just.. I'm fine."

"You don't seem fine. Am I going too fast?"

"More complicated than that. I-- Buffy."

"What do you need?"

He tightened his arms around her, but didn't answer immediately. When he did, his voice was under control again. "You. I need you."

"You're sure?"

"Yes. Please, my Slayer. Do what you wish with me."

She didn't let go of him but held him close for a little longer, until she felt him relax in her arms. She straightened up. He released her and returned to his waiting position, wrists crossed behind his back. His face was calm again, so Buffy pulled her shoulders back and let herself snap into command mode. Slayer mode.

"I think the first thing I wish is to see you naked. Undress yourself, Watcher."

His shirt fluttered to the floor behind himself. Then his anxious hands were on his belt, tugging at it until he'd managed to fumble open his trousers. He pushed them down his hips, trousers and boxers at once. His erection came free of his shorts, and Buffy wondered that he could think about anything at all. He stood and shoved his pants down to his ankles, then dropped back down to his knees, as if he needed to be there again. He folded his clothes neatly and piled them up on a corner of the carpet. Buffy knew someone had taught him to do that, had told him it was the proper behavior. She had a strange flash run through her, because it was something she wouldn't have thought of on her own. Then she realized it was jealousy. Again. Why?

She shook herself and turned her attention to the here and now. To the handsome man kneeling nude at her feet. And he was handsome. Why had she never seen it? That strong jaw, the odd angular face. With the glasses off, with his clothes off, she could see him properly now. And she liked what she saw. Everything. His body. The gray in his hair. His penis. The steel ring at its base.

It looked good on him, the cock ring did. Gleaming metal all the way around him, solid and thick. Heavy. Buffy reached down to touch it and move it, tug it up against his body more firmly. Giles drew in a sharp breath, then let it out slowly. It showed him off beautifully, the way it held everything away from his body, his balls, his penis. Buffy cupped his balls. Fuzzed with hair, heavy in her hand, warm and a little damp with sweat. She'd played with them only a little bit so far, and wasn't sure what he liked, but he did seem to be enjoying what she was doing now, stroking and squeezing just a little bit. His eyes were closed.

The metal looked so good on him. Time for some more. She found the nipple clamps where she'd laid them on his coffee table. She held them up to him to see what he'd do. His eyes darkened, and he arched his back to present his chest to her. Buffy had another moment of jealousy, then, thinking about whoever it was who'd taught him to react like that. Ethan Rayne? Jenny Calendar? She hadn't been the first. She could never have been the first. He hadn't been her first, either. But here they were now, together, and she was the one with the clamps in her hand and it was her eyes he was looking into with such desire.

"Please" was what he said when she put the first one on, and "God yes" for the second. She adjusted them until they were snug enough to stay on when she tugged casually, then turned the screw just a little further than that.

Giles was breathing harder now. The sweat dripped from his temples. She watched his chest rise and fall, the chain between his nipples moving with each breath. His pupils were wide. He was wearing her steel now, inside and out. It was hard to hold herself back, seeing him like that, on his knees by choice, just for her. She wanted to whip him right away, until there were lash marks all over that chest, all over his thighs. But Buffy dug for every scrap of patience she had and held herself still. Watched him breathe, watched his throat work as he swallowed.

"Time to go upstairs," she said.

He rose to his feet gracefully, hands still behind his back, all the while watching her face. She pointed toward the stairs and he bowed to her slightly and went. She watched him walk upstairs, wrists crossed behind his back, head down, moving slowly, carefully, with that erection preceding him.

She turned the lights out and followed him up silently. If his hands were steady no, hers weren't. She was starting to feel almost too excited.

Now it was time to put him in bondage and keep him that way for the rest of the night, to buckle the cuffs snug around his ankles and wrists. Buffy climbed onto the bed. Sometimes being short was a major pain. Giles wasn't a small guy, either; he could pick her up and carry her easily, no supernatural strength needed. But he was cooperating now, despite the fear on his face, raising his wrists up for her to chain to one of those convenient eyebolts on his bedpost. Buffy hopped down and contemplated him. He wasn't quite helpless enough. She clipped his ankles together then fastened the carabiner to the ring at the base of the bedpost. He was stretched out against the bedpost, his whipping post. What a lovely thought.

He was tugging at his bonds, straining himself against them, writhing though she wasn't even touching him. He hadn't truly let go of himself until she'd bound him. She wondered if he even could, if the lifetime spend subduing himself, his urges, his wishes for himself, kept him reined in even when he was told he could let go. Poor guy. Lucky bastard, to have her. To have everything he dreamed about. And God, it was the most amazing thing, to see Rupert Giles unglued.

Up onto the bed again, where she was taller than he was, and could bend over him and grab his collar and pull him up to be kissed. He kissed her eagerly, open-mouthed, and tried to slip her his tongue. Pushy, pushy. But he was bound. All she had to do to reassert herself was step away and watch him strain to reach her, fruitlessly. It was unbelievably sexy. She had everything she'd dreamed about. Fantasy was one thing, the reality even better. She was more turned on than she'd ever been in her life, and that included the time Giles had nearly brought her to orgasm just by talking to her. This was a real man bound in front of her, stretched out against his own bedpost, a real person whom she cared about, sweating and trembling and waiting for her to give him what he desperately needed.

Buffy turned her back to Giles and unzipped her dress. One smooth practiced motion, and the dress slipped neatly free of her shoulders and to the bed at her bare feet. She stepped out of it and turned to look at her captive lover. Giles was watching her, she saw, staring rapt at her body. That was fine. She'd blindfold him if she didn't want him watching. She unhooked her bra and let it drop away to the floor. Her panties followed it.

Being nude felt better than wearing the dress had felt, which was strange, because Buffy loved that dress. What was it? She stood in front of Giles, poised and centered, and let herself consider the question. Freedom of motion. Of her body. She wasn't in some kind of mistress role any more. She was herself. Slayer, woman, Buffy. Giles seemed to like it, anyway. His eyes were all pupil. He licked his lips, and Buffy heard the chains squeak as he tugged.

What was he looking at? Her face, her breasts, her bare stomach.

"You like my breasts?"

"Yes. Want to kiss them."

Buffy took the chain between his nipple clamps in hand. "You do?" she said, and tugged hard before he could answer. She'd always wondered if there was something wrong with her, that the thought of hurting somebody else turned her on so much. But here was somebody who was just as turned on. She hurt him, and his reaction was a triumphant "yes" and a plea to her to do it again. And that was so unbearably sexy Buffy thought she was going to come right then, without even touching herself. She wanted to come. With Giles watching, struggling to touch her, hard and wanting.

Buffy touched herself. God, she really was close, so and wet and open. She'd been aroused all night, just like Giles had. Just her forefinger resting on her clit was almost enough to do it. She felt herself start to tremble and she leaned close to Giles, let her weight rest on him. Giles bit at her mouth and said her name. The chain squeaked again.

Not yet.

She held her slick fingers out to him. He licked them clean, eagerly, and pressed a kiss to her palm.

"You want to taste that for real tonight?"

"Please. Let me. I want to go down on you."

"Maybe later. If you're good."

"Want to now. Want to kiss you. Fuck you. Make you come. That's my job."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah, mine. I make you come. Nobody else does. Just me."

"That's not how it works. I come when I want to, with whoever I want. You only come when I say so. Only with me."

"Fuck," Giles said, and he was breathing harder than before. "Yes. God, yes, that's how it is."

"I'm in charge."

"You're in charge," he said, but he was tugging hard at the bonds that held him to the bedpost, straining toward her. "But I earned it. By obeying you."

"You asked for something else first. As your reward."

"God, yes," Giles said, and she heard the hunger.

"What did you ask for?"

"To suffer for you."

"Are you ready to suffer for me now?"

"Yes. What are you going to do to me?"

"I'm going to whip you."

"Please," he said, in a whisper, and his face was still hungry.

Buffy hopped down from the bed and picked up the whip.

The sound was what she liked best, the whistle in the air then the smack as the crop hit, Giles's gasp. Then the sound of the chain squeaking as he flinched, too late to do himself any good. Again, and again, sometimes just a flick with the tip of the crop, sometimes a sharp stinging bite across his back. Nothing very hard yet. He wanted suffering, he wanted marks, but Buffy wanted to listen to these sounds for a while before she got serious with him. Heat him up, redden his skin, bring him into the state he needed to be in, the one he'd described to her on their first night together. Trance state, endorphins flowing, emotions at the surface, his control over himself stripped.

Buffy listened to him, and when he began to plead with her to show mercy she knew it was time to turn serious. To strike him hard enough to bruise, hard enough to shock him to silence, to wrest from him with the next a single word. Yes. Yes, he said, and Buffy took it as license. Licence to strike again. To give them both what they both wanted. To stand back and wait and watch him writhe and come still again. And then grant him another stripe. Just three, but they would stay with him.

She wrapped her arms around his waist, lifted him, and turned him herself. He groaned when she did that, turned on as he always was when she used her strength on him. She set him back on his feet. He struggled to find his balance but had a hard time, so she held him until he steadied himself. There were tears on his face, but when she wiped them from his face he said, "More?"

"Yes. Because you've been good."

Three more, across the front of his thighs this time, lower down to avoid any chance she'd hit anything she didn't want to. This time Giles cried out on each stroke. She hadn't held back. He had his marks now, the ones he'd asked for as part of his fantasy. Buffy touched the stripes she'd left across his legs. They were hot to the touch. He have deep bruises, and if he went running he'd have to wear sweats or everyone would know his secret. Buffy thought that maybe Giles wanted people to know, almost, wanted someone to look at him and know he was her man. If he didn't think that way, then maybe she did. Maybe she wanted someone to see how she'd claimed him.

"They're gorgeous. Your new whip-marks."

"Yes."

"Thank me for them."

"Thank you," he said, and his voice was strange again like it had been the first time.

"I like the idea of always having some fresh marks on you. What do you think?"

"Please. Always."

Time for a break, then, to let him rest on his knees and recover. Buffy unchained his wrists from the bedpost and eased him down to the floor. Slayer strength, so wonderfully handy at the strangest times. She didn't give him any respite from bondage, however. Chain on the collar, to one of those eyebolts on the bed. Then carabiners to clip his right wrist to right ankle, left to left. She checked the clips. Solid. Then she knelt down with him, between his legs, and snuggled up close to him. One hand behind his head, pulling him down so she could kiss him.

"You need some water?"

He shook his head, then said, "Maybe." He was definitely far into some altered state, then.

Buffy drank first, because the water was hers. Then she held the bottle for him and fed him a few swallows. She wiped his chin for him afterward, and kissed him again. This time he didn't try to take command of the kiss but opened his mouth for her obediently.

Buffy played with the chain that hung between his nipples. Giles made a soft sound that she couldn't decide meant pain or pleasure.

"Does this feel good?" she said, and did it again.

"So good. So bloody good."

"Does it hurt?"

"Yes. Everything hurts. It's good."

"What feels the best?"

"Nipples," he said, and his voice was husky. "Ring. Can't tell. Need to come."

"You deserve to come. Because you did as I told you."

"I did. I waited the way you wanted me to."

"And that means you can come now. As many times as you like tonight."

"God, please. I want to come."

"How would you like to?"

"Inside you. Anywhere. Your mouth. God, yes, your mouth."

"In my mouth. Because you deserve it."

Buffy liked giving head. She had this vague idea that she wasn't supposed to, that it was something women were supposed to be degraded by or something confusing like that. But she liked oral sex. It was a gift, from her to her partner, just like anything else they might do for each other. And it was something they'd all loved. Even jerky Parker, who'd been the first guy she'd given it to, at the same time she'd received it for the first time. Parker had liked it. Riley liked it. They'd all liked giving it as much as getting it.

And Giles, he was loving it. A gentle kiss to the head to start, and he was already moaning. Licking the shaft, getting it wet so she could slide her hand over what she couldn't take into her mouth. And there was a lot of that, because Giles was a big guy. Buffy took her time with this part and listened to him make those amazing sounds. Just as good as the sounds he made when he was being whipped, just as exciting, in a totally different way.

Buffy flickered her tongue against the head of his cock and felt him tighten in her hand. He'd been hard for so long, and unsatisfied for so much longer than that, that it wasn't going to take much for him. Even with the ring slowing him down. Time to give him release. She shifted and took him into her mouth, let his cock slide over her tongue. His hips shifted. She reached between his legs and found the base of the plug and moved it inside him. He swore and thrust his hips harder. His cock found the back of her throat. Buffy let him in deep, all the way in, using every bit of experience she had.

"Gonna come in your mouth," Giles was muttering. "God, can't bear it, gonna come."

Then he was coming, pulsing in her mouth and crying out her name. It was a long orgasm, long and slow and sweet. Buffy let her mouth fill with his come. Not the first time she'd tasted it, but this time she held it without swallowing, waiting for him to finish. When it was finally over and he'd fallen silent, Buffy stood and bent over him. She gripped Giles by the hair and pulled him into a kiss, open-mouthed, letting it all slide into his mouth from hers. He groaned and sucked at her tongue eagerly, and swallowed his own come. She let him lick her lips until it was all gone and he'd calmed.

Buffy released her grip on his hair and studied his face. He looked okay. More than okay. The expression on his face was that strange thing Buffy had seen on him only when they were together like this: serenity. Peace. His face was salty from tears, and he was completely at peace.

"Thank you, my Slayer," he said.

"You're welcome." Buffy kissed him again, deeply, but his body was trembling against hers differently now. He was exhausted, and she needed to give his strained body some relief. Now came the mundane things: taking the plug out and setting it aside with the steel ring. Untying him so he could stretch. And taking off the nipple clamps.

"Brace yourself, sweetie," she said. Giles closed his eyes and nodded. His jaw was clenched, but still he cried out when she released the clamps from him nipples.

She helped Giles onto the bed and spread the blanket over him. His wrists were locked together again, and he'd clasped his hands and rested them under his cheek. Buffy knelt on the bed next to him and ran her fingers through his sweat-damp hair. All sorts of strange emotions were running through her. She still hadn't come yet, and it almost didn't matter. Stroking Giles's face was more important right now. It was normal, probably, maybe, to feel tenderness for the partner she'd just whipped. Normal to feel all melting inside at the expression on his face. Normal to want to fuss over him. This man, her Watcher, her mentor, her sworn companion, who wasn't her boyfriend exactly, because that word seemed ridiculous for him, and for this relationship, whatever it was. Some time soon she was going to have to figure it out.

"You feeling okay?" she said, though her head was full of a thousand things she wanted to say instead.

"Wonderful," Giles said, still with that slurry voice. "Quite-- quite wonderful. Been wanting it so long."

"Yeah. Me too."

"We'll do it again?" He gazed up at her with hope on his face.

"It's not over yet. I'm not finished with you tonight," Buffy said.

Her Watcher smiled and closed his eyes.

To be concluded in "Serenity".