Author Notes: Thanks to everyone who asked for more.
Story Notes: Originally posted to UCSL 9/9/2001.
Summary: Sequel to "Consolation" 3rd in the "Hungry" Series. "Tell me that you don't love me." Buffy/Faith post-"Lovers Walk."

-FlyWoman

Raw

Midnight after another slow patrol - all the vamps in town must have been at a party, but my invitation got lost in the mail. Nothing good on t.v. and only sappy love songs on the radio. I sit cross-legged on my unmade bed, sharpening my favorite stake and feeling hemmed in by the dingy walls of my room.

A quiet but unmistakable creak on the stairs, then a soft shuffle just outside my door. Someone is lurking there. I feel my face breaking into a grin. Maybe tonight won't turn out to be a total bust after all.

I drop the knife, get a good grip on my stake and creep silently up, wrap my fingers around the doorknob, and then pull with a quick jerk that spills light in onto the floor.

Buffy is standing there.

Her eyes are black pools and her mouth is an open wound. She has this look that I recognize all too well, when you've just done something that hurts so bad that only a greater pain can make it easier to bear.

I don't lower the stake, only stand here staring at her. I haven't seen her up close since the last time she stood framed in my doorway, trying to convince me that I could trust her.

What a joke. I've finally learned that you can't trust anyone. And ironically, she was the one who taught me that. She and her unexpectedly un-dead undead boyfriend.

I've spent the past week skulking around Sunnydale, staying out of her sight. Tearing myself out of her life left too many raw places that are only now starting to scab over. There is nothing she could say that would convince me to let her in.

At last she speaks, and the small voice sounds like it was dredged up from the depths of a dark lake. "I told him I wasn't coming back."

Oh god. My resolve melts away like so much butter dropped into a hot skillet. Did she have any idea how those words would affect me, or did she just drag herself over here because she had to talk to someone or go crazy and she figured I'd still be up? I have no idea, but I guess it doesn't really matter because either way, I can feel my face softening even as I step aside for her to enter.

Buffy walks forward gingerly, as if every footfall threatens to jar something loose. I shut the door and drop the stake onto the dresser, damp from my nervous hands.

As I turn back towards her, Buffy flows forward, pressing her cool skin against my belly, my arms, the sides of my face. It's really not that chilly outside, yet she's shaking in my arms; her first pass misses my mouth altogether. I slide my hand up the nape of her neck to steady her, and our lips meet so violently that my teeth ring in my skull.

She kisses me with something that resembles desperation, and her mouth is cold and potent as a margarita, edged with the salt of recent tears. Dizzy with a surge of arousal that could be rage or excitement or both, I kiss her back, hard enough to bruise, and I'm not sure exactly who I'm trying to punish.

Undeterred, Buffy keeps advancing, her mouth locked to mine, an irresistible force that pushes me back towards the bed. When the mattress catches me mid-thigh I sit down suddenly, and without breaking contact she follows and straddles me, shrugging out of her sweater, then her gray-green top.

Her icy fingers fumble with the hem of my t-shirt, and I flinch as they meet with the heat of my flesh. Without appearing to notice, she slides her hands up over my ribcage to caress my breasts, then around back to grapple urgently with my bra.

I don't know what to think so I stop trying, just allow my body to respond to her touch, her scent, and the unspoken wish for suffering that rises from her skin like steam.

Even as Buffy's unhooking my bra, I unbutton her fly and thrust my hand roughly between her thighs; she bites down on my lower lip as she lurches against me, stifling a cry against my teeth. The taste of my own blood quenches my desire about as effectively as gasoline, and I stand abruptly, spilling her off my lap. I haul my t-shirt over my head, letting my bra fall to the floor, yank down my zipper, and wriggle out of my jeans.

She's pulling off her own pants, all tightly muscled calves and taut thighs, but before she quite finishes, I grab her wrist and haul her back onto the bed, then rip off her panties, the thin fabric tearing under my insistent fingers. She balks, but with her pants still around her ankles she has little leverage to resist me, and I wrench her arm until she's crushed up against my breasts, my chin tucked between her neck and shoulder.

Now I have her in a headlock and she's struggling, trying to breathe past the pressure of my arm on her larynx. Her throat looks so pale and tender, the delicate tracery of an old scar barely visible where her carotid pulses. There's no mistaking that mark.

Was it Angel? Did he brand you before or after you sundered his soul?

I can't stop myself from staking my own claim to her, pressing my mouth to her skin and sucking until her blood pools purple in a bright bruise.

She's groaning, writhing, but making only token attempts to free herself from the cage of my arms. Her heart is hammering against my hand as I squeeze her hard little breast, raking the nipple with my fingernail. Her legs are pulled in, spread wide apart, her pelvis shifting hungrily against the bedspread.

I let go of her breast and slide my hand down the inside of her thigh, already slick with sweat. She's drenched, but so tense that I have to force my finger past the tight walls of her cunt.

Is this what it takes to get inside you?

Buffy moans loudly and I thrust into her harder, my thumb dragging over her clit. I squeeze a second finger inside her, then a third. I push in, pull out, loving the way her hips echo my movements even as she squirms and sobs.

And then, when I feel her getting close, the pressure building palpably in her pelvis like a dike about to burst, I stop. I pull my hand away, let go of her neck, push her down on the bed, and she lies there, crying silently, limbs tangled, curling in on herself.

"What'sa matter, baby? Did I hurt ya?"

Buffy refuses to look at me. She's shuddering, her eyes squeezed shut, her face twisted in a familiar grimace of pain and desire.

She doesn't resist at all as I pry her open again, straddling her, my breasts brushing her belly, my face forcing her thighs apart.

God, it's been so long since I had this, the full ripe taste of her, like biting into a succulent peach. She buckles, hands gripping the outsides of my thighs for support, as I circle the knot of her clit.

As roughly as I handled her just a moment before, I now go softly and sweetly, surprised by my own tenderness. The velvety skin is raw where my nails have scored her, and I lick away the hurt with great gentleness, the innumerable invisible cuts sealing themselves under my tongue.

Finally I catch the first faint flicker and slowly coax it into a full-blown flame that flares suddenly and inexorably to consume us both.

When the spasms stop, I give her a last kiss before turning around to look at her. B is glassy-eyed, her face soft and sheened with sweat. She looks as limp as if lime has dissolved her bones.

A though leaps unbidden to my mind and before I can move to prevent it from escaping leaves my mouth: "Guess you never had it this good with Angel, huh?"

She stops breathing as her face goes very still, a pond freezing over. "What?" she says in a low, dangerous voice that raises sudden goosebumps on my arms.

Fuck. Faith, stop. Apologize, grovel, whatever you do, don't finish that thought. But the words trip glibly from my tongue even as my traitorous mouth twists into a smirk: "I just meant, must be a challenge, what with the pointy teeth and all."

She doesn't say anything. I'm prepared for violence: a slap, a scream.

The way she collects her clothes with brittle little movements is much, much worse.

"Buffy, wait. I'm sorry. I don't know what made me say that." But I do, and she does, and maybe that, and not the actual words, is why she's ignoring me, pulling on her pants, her lips set in a tight line.

As she opens the door, I try one last time, grabbing her arm. "Buffy, please."

She looks down at my hand as if it were some new species of cockroach and then back up at my face. Her eyes are icicles and her voice stabs me: "Don't. Ever. Touch. Me. Again."

I let go, and she slams the door behind her.

***