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Unsettled

Rating: NC-17, Breath control, sex, angst, much general wrongness.
Timeline: Spoilers through Salvage.
Author's notes: Wes/Lilah, Wes/Angel implied. Thanks to Wesleysgirl for the beta read and Minim_Calibre for the title!
Feedback: Mer

Lilah wasn't strong enough for the pillow. In intent, certainly; in riding the edge of danger and making him wonder, each time, for just those crucial seconds, if the thrill of falling over would seduce her more than the continued convenience of an Englishman in her bed. But those sharp, slender arms hadn't the brute force necessary to force it down and keep going, the 300 thread count Egyptian cotton snagging on his stubble until the down sucked in warm and damp with breath, filled up his cracked lips and pressed against his eyelids like a migraine or an orgasm. Even with his wrists bound he couldn't quite recapture it, the trembling failure of elbows that would not bend, hands that would not lift or even scrabble at the sheets for purchase.

The belt was better. Not the same, but close enough to thick hands around his throat, if he closed his eyes. The same position, certainly, with muscled thighs straddling his own. The thick rough edges of the leather caught him just along the scar, and his breath rasped loud over the slight sucking sounds of her riding his cock. One hole tighter, and another, and another. She liked to make it last until he cracked, cursing her, "do it, you stupid bitch," slapping and scratching at her cheeks, her throat, the surprise of real tits that shook and jounced above him, whatever he could reach. And then at last she pulled hard and cruel enough, and he saw white, and nothing.

After, she would wipe his come from her thighs with his sheets, his shirt, his skin — whatever was crude and handy and not her own. She would laugh that low, rich laugh and trace her fingers along the new red ridges and the old. "I love yanking your chain, Wes," she'd taunt him, "but what's with the death wish? Are the orgasms really that good?"

He'd bring the leather up, doubled, to stroke along the hollows of her collarbone. "Someday I'll show you," he'd promise, or threaten, or something nameless between the two.

But he never had. There'd been plenty of time, it seemed, and then no time at all. Wesley wound his fingers in her hair and pulled one last time, just enough to part her lips when he kissed her, and taste the last breath gone stale in her mouth. He folded the plastic sheet once, twice, over her face. She looked beautiful like that, softened and solemn and timeless, like a princess caught in ice. And then the folds of the tarp fell in against her cheeks, and Wesley wondered what it would feel like.