TITLE: Christmas in New York 3/?
AUTHOR: Claudine
EMAIL: claudine423@yahoo.com
PAIRING: W/E, W/G
RATING: PG
FEEDBACK: If I beg ?
NOTES: This is a future fic.
DISCLAIMER: Permission to use these characters relating to BtVS & AtS has not been given. Joss, Twentieth Century Fox, UPN, WB & Mutant Enemy own TM and copyrighted them. Nor do I own the rights to The Grinch or any of the other stories/songs I mention. Gimme a freakin' break Mr. Copyright man - I'm merely a humble fan havin' some fun. No infringement is intended. Say goodnight, Gracie.....
Willow leaned forward and moved her mouth to stream of cold water running out of the faucet. She drank as if she'd been lost in a desert for ten days, the thirst almost drying her to the bone, a thirst she thought she’d never quench. Before she pulled away she splashed the icy water on her face and soaked a towel so that she could roll it up and place it behind her neck. She sank to her knees on the floor, the porcelain cool but comforting when she slid her feet out from under her body and rested against the door. Her heart was racing, her mind swimming. The back of her head was throbbing like a bass drum.
"Willow? Are you alright?" Ethan's voice was a muffled whir in her ears when he spoke from the other side of the door.
"I...I'll be fine in a minute," she lied. She didn't know if she would be fine at all, not after what had happened.
She had seen too much, felt too much. Though Ethan seemed to be on the straight and narrow, his past was still a part of him and when Willow peered inside as he suggested, she felt it all. The power and darkness were so intense that she could barely breathe.
After she had calmed down and cooled her body temperature, she stood up and took another look at herself in the mirror. She was a mess, clothes rumpled and her hair sticking to the back of her neck like wet spaghetti. “Still red, that’s a good sign.” Though she hadn't been 'evil' for many, many years, the darkness in Ethan's soul danced with the memories in her own and tempted her to cross the line again. The internal struggle left her weak and confused.
She ran a brush absentmindedly through her hair and then rejoined Ethan in the living room. There was a fire roaring in the fireplace and soft music playing in the background. Despite her growing attraction to him, romance was the last thing on Willow's mind. "I think I need to go." She didn't want to leave, but she was weak and confused. She needed sleep.
"No, please. I'm sorry – I had no idea you would feel it all, that you could reach so deep - I never should have let you..."
"It's ok," Willow said. "I'm glad you did....it's just....it took too much out of me."
He was standing in front of her, shadows playing across the strong features of his face. Concern was the last thing Willow expected to see when she looked into Ethan Rayne’s eyes, but that’s exactly what she found. “Come and sit down,” he said softly, not a hint of anything but goodness in his voice. “You need to rest.”
“I really should go home. I…I….” she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what she meant or what she wanted, but being alone with Ethan in his home was creating too many possibilities for her. And she was afraid that she might give herself over to him for the wrong reasons.
It was as if he read her mind. “I would never hurt you, Willow. It’s important that you know that.”
“I have to go,” she whispered.
“I’ll walk you,” Ethan said. Though Willow was about to protest he interjected “I insist.”
She took a deep breath and smiled. His chivalry was another check in the plus column. Giles would never let me walk home alone, either, she thought.
Ethan held up her coat and waited until she slipped both arms into it. He turned her to him and held her by the lapels for a fraction of a second before he slowly buttoned her up and tied a scarf around her neck, fighting strongly the urge to sing a few bars of “Baby it’s cold outside.”
He grabbed his own coat and gloves and threw them on quickly while they walked toward the front door. “Ladies first,” he said.
Willow moved ahead of him but just before she opened the door to walk outside she turned back to Ethan and said, “You know, you could have blocked that stuff about you and Giles.”
“And what stuff is that?” He knew what she meant, but he enjoyed toying with her. Though he was quite the ladies man in his later years, Ethan's youth was questionable.
“That whole ziggy-stardust-androgynous-experimentation era.” Willow had never asked Giles, but she assumed that he and Ethan had been together back in their Eyghon days.
“No secrets,” he said, “I wanted you to see it all, I wanted you to know I wasn’t hiding anything.”
“Or,” she offered, “You assumed Giles never told me and you just wanted to knock him down a peg or two.”
“Guilty as charged,” he said and leaned in close to her, “Did it work?”
She just smiled and turned to the door.
The air was crisp all around them, the night finally still. Not only were the crowds gone, but the streets were downright deserted. Not a creature was stirring now that the midnight hour had come and gone. It was after 2 a.m.
There was a soft snow falling all around. The instant Willow took a deep breath she felt better. The cold air in her lungs stifled all that wicked energy that had been pulsing through her. It was as if the moments before had never happened, though she remembered everything. She leaned her head back and watched as the snow fell from the heavens.
“What a wonderful prelude to the new day." Ethan cocked his head to the side slightly, watching Willow in the snow. "Feeling better?"
Willow ran her gloved finger over the bridge of her nose to wipe away a few snowflakes.
"Amazing what a little fresh air can do."
"Which way, m’lady?"
"This way," Willow nodded and turned away from him. Ethan followed. "It's so quiet,” she said, “I've been here for over three years and I've never, ever seen the city so still."
They walked for blocks until they ended up at Rockefeller Center again. "Tell me, darling Willow – when streets are lined with people again, and you find yourself in the solitude of your own flat, when the sun dances on this blanket of white in the morning - what do you wish to find under your Christmas tree?" They stood side by side in the still of the night, the lights painting shadows all around them as they leaned casually over a half-wall and stared down at the empty ice rink.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but the new-and-improved-evil-free-handsome-charming Ethan is kinda freaking me out." She was only half-kidding when she nudged his shoulder with her own.
"Really?" He stood up tall, took her by the shoulders and turned her so that she faced him. "Perhaps there's a bit of that old scamp left inside of me." Ethan inched forward slowly, hoping she would meet him halfway. When she leaned in to kiss him, he playfully avoided her lips, instead kissing her on the cheek and then he whispered in her ear, "How's this?" He slid his hands into her coat and around her waist, the heat from her body like a flame against his. "Naughty enough for you?" He nibbled on her ear and kissed his way down her neck.
Willow couldn’t speak. The contact made her breathless. "Ethan..."
"Yes?" He whispered again in her ear, his breath warm on the blushing skin of the side her face and neck.
"Kiss me."
Ethan wrapped her delicate frame in his arms and lifted her off the ground in a moment of passion. His kiss was probing and deliberate, his arms strong around her waist as he held her tight. He felt his knees about to buckle from her touch, her kiss. He stepped forward, searching for something to lean her up against for support and leverage. When the backs of her thighs touched the half-wall behind her, Willow instinctively wrapped her legs around Ethan's body. He set her down and stepped closer to her, his hands moving down her back, over her hips and down the length of her thighs, exploring as much as she might allow before he wrapped her in his arms again.
She broke their kiss, desperate for a breath of air, but Ethan could not tear himself away. He moved his lips slowly over her neck and she arched her back, their bodies pressed together as one. When he nibbled playfully in the hollow of her collar-bone, Willow barely stifled a moan. She squeezed her legs tighter around him, lost in his touch. She felt the cool of the snowflakes falling on her neck before the heat of Ethan's mouth kissed them away one at a time - a sensual agony.
Her head lolled forward and she met him in another kiss; slow, deep, tantric, explosive. "Ethan," she managed breathlessly, "Take me home." She covered his mouth in another kiss.