Just as I'm about to raise my hand and knock again, the office door slides open, and he's there.
His expression is inscrutable as ever – melancholic and unapproachable – and when he speaks his voice is flat and emotionless.
"Doyle."
One word. A mere recognition of my presence, nothing more. But he opens the door wider in invitation and walks away across the room, leaving me to step inside and close it behind me.
Is this a sign of trust, I always wonder? That he can turn his back on me so casually, as if I weren't even here? Or is it simply the arrogance of one who knows his strength is superior? Maybe he doesn't care the least whether I'm a danger to him or not, perhaps he lets his guard down because it doesn't matter whether he lives or dies.
That last thought scares me, and as usual I can't figure it out.
He moves to stand by the window, leaning his shoulder against the frame, arms folded across his chest, and I realize that he's resuming what he was doing before I came, that he's been standing there for a long time, staring with unseeing eyes out into the dark.
I hang back by the door, uncertain what to say. Watching him.
There is barely any light in here, just the vague shimmer of the desk lamp. His figure is in the shadows, what I see revealed only by the distant street lamps outside and the rays of the descending moon.
He looks timeless, yet so firmly anchored in the here and now.
Somehow I can never really imagine how he must have appeared in other times and places. In the long hair and short pants of the 18th century, or the starched shirts and silly top hats of the 19th. He seems to belong here, at the start of this millenium, among the bright artificial lights and dark alleyways of this strange city. Certainly, he is set apart from it all in so many ways, but the era becomes him, and he is at home in it.
As at home as such a creature can be anywhere on this earth.
He shifts, and from somewhere in the darkness a wine glass appears in his hand. As he lifts it to his lips its contents sparkle in the dim moonlight, a deep, resonant red. I could almost believe it's burgundy he's drinking, or an old, expensive claret, but of course I know better. And I ask myself if it's a mark of friendship that he lets me witness this, the drinking of animal blood that I know must be his greatest shame. Or is it of no importance to him what I see, because I too am an abnormality, removed from the true humanity he yearns for? I like to think he values me more than that, but deep down, I really don't have a clue.
"Did you want anything? Have any new visions to tell me about?"
His eyes are still glued to the street below, but there is a slight edge of eagerness to his voice, as if he aches for something to tear him away from his reveries. Business has been slow lately, and I worry sometimes that the steady stream of vicious demons to finish off might be the one thing that makes his existence bearable.
"No," I answer. "No visions tonight. Just came by to see how you're doing."
He turns then, and looks at me, and I step closer so that he can see my face, see that I mean this earnestly, that I don't wish to intrude where he doesn't want me.
"I'm fine," he says, in the tone people use when they have no intention of revealing how they're really feeling. But then his expression softens, and he adds, "Thanks for caring."
The warmth those few words create inside me gives me the nerve to cross the remaining space between us. His glance strays to the window again, but I'm near now, and I don't need to search his eyes to sense his pain.
"You look like you could do with some company," I offer.
He looks down at the empty wine glass standing on the window sill, and begins to slowly rotate it in his hands.
"Yeah. You're right. I've been thinking too much these last few nights. Dwelling too much on the past... and the future."
It hardly takes a mind-reader to know what he's been thinking of. Who he's been thinking of. And I wish I had the power to wipe that well-shaped little Slayer from his memory once and for all. But I guess we all have our crosses to bear, of which no one can relieve us, though some seem so much heavier than others. And my wish isn't exactly selfless, anyway.
"You must try and leave it all behind you," I say, though I'm sure he knows that as well as I do. There aren't really any comforting words of much use when you're talking to a vampire cursed with a soul and undying love for a mortal woman he can never have.
The glass seems to hold his entire attention, and I start wondering if he even remembers I'm here. Then he lets go of it and looks straight into my eyes.
"I do try, Doyle. Every single day. And most of the time it's easier than I could have hoped for. But when I'm alone it steals into my mind, and then they're always there. The thoughts of her, of what we had, of what it will be like to live for centuries without her. And the sorrow overwhelms me."
I can't decide if it's resignation or desperation I hear behind his words. Perhaps a soul-tearing mixture of both. But there is only one part of his confession I know how to answer, and so I move closer and tell him what I want him most of all to understand.
"You don't have to be alone, Angel."
He gazes strangely at me, as though he can see beyond the reassurance to the emotions motivating it, and I'm afraid that what he sees will make him turn away. But instead he smiles. The bare ungraspable shadow of a smile.
"You're a good man, Doyle," he says. And then, with a glint of humour I'm not expecting, "For a demon."
I smile back at him, returning the compliment, qualifying it with the same joke.
"So are you. For an undead."
It feels a moment of intimacy, enclosed with him here in the darkness and moonlight. My heart is beating fast, as if I had just disclosed its treasured secret, not veiled it in other, harmless, words. And perhaps he does comprehend, because something in his eyes is different now. Completely different.
As in a trance I lift my hand and place it on his chest, feeling it hard and flat under the smoothness of his dark silk shirt. Slowly, I slide my finger back and forth over his nipple, silently making the offer I'm unable to put into words.
For an eternity, all is still, while endless seconds tick away on the old clock on his desk and the moon begins to sink beneath the rooftops of the city.
Then, as suddenly as though it came from nowhere, a flare of desire lights up his face. He reaches out for me, bends my head back, and kisses me.
There is so much desperation in that kiss that for an instant I think its force will break my neck. But then I'm caught up in it, responding to it, giving in to his supernatural strength and, more than that, to my own passionate need.
I know that I'm only a substitute. Or, rather, not a replacement as much as a means of forgetting, something to help him block out for a little while the thoughts which are ceaselessly tormenting him, a body utterly different from hers in which he can lose for a few brief minutes the insupportable memory of her touch.
I know all this, but I don't care.
I don't care, because his hands are roaming my back, pressing me to him while his tongue explores every corner of my mouth, and I have never wanted anything the way that I want this.
I need his skin, the feel of it against mine, so I push him up against the window, tearing at his clothes. The demon in me is near, and I can hear the delicate fabric splitting between my hands. Then his torso is bared and I kiss him – hungrily – licking, biting, sucking. He is cool, of course, without the warmth of a human body, but so soft, so firm, so exquisite. The taste of him is unbelievable, and I can't get enough.
But he won't stand passive and let me take what I long for, and I know this is how it must be.
He grabs me by the shoulders and spins me around, slamming me into the window pane with such violence that I expect a rain of shattered glass to fall down on us. But the only things breaking are the buttons of my shirt, tiny bits of plastic scattering across the floor as he rips it off me.
All his suffering, all the pent up emotions which have been circling around within him, seem chanelled now into primal sexual need, and, though the intensity of his assault is almost more than I can handle, I will not deny him anything.
I am his now, if only till the moon has left the sky, I am his.
His hands and lips are everywhere, leaving trails of fire on my skin, our bodies so close I can feel every inch of his arousal pressed against me. Then his teeth are there, sinking into my neck, and I stand breathless, quivering between pleasure and fear.
Is all self-control gone? Will he slash my veins open and drain the blood from them like his darkest instincts must be telling him to do?
For a second, as the pain of his bite turns to bliss and I start writhing in his arms, I actually think he might do it. I don't know if I have the will to resist.
But instead he pulls me to the desk, makes me bend down over it. I have no doubt what will happen now, and I ache for it so badly I can hardly stand. As he yanks my pants down, I grip the edges of the table, steadying myself.
I hear the dry sound of his zipper, and then his fingers are opening my ass, and I moan as his cock begins to push inside me. The searing sensation is so powerful it nearly tears me apart, but I don't want him to stop. I have never been possessed like this, and I inwardly beg that it won't ever end.
He is sliding in and out of me, filling me over and over again, harder and harder with each new thrust, and there is nothing in the world but ecstasy. It's my hips his hands are bruising, my body he is claiming, I who am giving him what he needs, and as the tidal-wave builds within me, thrashing for release, I can forget the true reason he is doing this and believe it's really me he wants.
Then his palm closes on my shaft, a stream of electricity flooding every part of my being, and I'm coming, coming, screaming his name at the top of my lungs.
He is there with me, his nails clawing at my side, his wordless roar blending with mine, ringing in my ears. And then, suddenly, all is quiet.
For a few more moments we are joined together, until he pulls out and steps away. Leaning heavily on the desk, trying to catch my breath, I hear him put his clothes back in order and know that I should do the same.
With hands still trembling, I rearrange my pants and pick my shirt up from the floor, slipping it on without attempting to button it. His back is to me now, his focus apparently directed at the window once again. As I wipe my seed off the desk with a blank sheet of copy-paper I pray that this night won't make him hate me. Or worse, hate himself.
After the physical nearness we've just shared, the distance between us feels enormous. The short respite we've both had from the pain in our lives is over, and there's nothing else I know how to do for him.
"I guess I'd better be going, then," I say awkwardly, adding a mumbled "Good night" that floats unanswered in the void around me before it fades away.
I walk towards the door, conscious of every step I take. But as I lay my hand on the knob to open it, he calls me back.
"Doyle."
It might be my imagination, but it sounds as though a layer of hurt and frustration has been scraped away from his voice, leaving it clearer than it's been in a long time. Turning around, I meet his gaze.
"Thank you," he says, with a naked, genuine sincerity that makes my heart skip quite a number of beats.
"Any time," I reply, squeezing the door knob far too tightly in my fingers.
"Do you really mean that?" His question takes me by surprise, and at first I don't know how to answer. But after all, when it comes down to it, there is only the simple truth.
"Yes."
He nods slowly, thoughtfully, as if considering.
"I'm glad."
A strange mixture of emotions whirls through me, but there is a finality to his statement that keeps me from trying to clothe it in words. I can't stay here any longer. It's time to leave.
I nod back. A single movement of my head that is more than enough for him to understand, and yet so horribly insufficient.
Silently, I slip through the door and make my way out into the street. As I shove my hands in my pockets and start towards home, I can still feel his presence inside me, hear his last half-spoken promise echo in my mind. I wish I didn't want more.
Looking up at the sky I see the bleak greyness of early dawn covering the city. I lower my eyes to the pavement beneath my feet.
