Buffy said nothing, but studied him for a moment before nodding and continuing on. He breathed a slight sigh of relief while trying to squelch down the hurt he felt at her obvious rejection of the notion of him calling her his girlfriend. Not that she was, but not that she wasn’t either. He wasn’t exactly snogging in bookstores with a slew of women these days. In fact, he’d never been one for a ‘slew’ of women. He was a one woman man, and the one woman he wanted was Buffy.
Yet she was horrified, obviously, by the idea.
The only success he’d had was being able to incorporate some emotion into his ability to effectively make her lose rational thought. He’d been able to say the word ‘love’ and she hadn’t run from it. In fact, she’d gotten even more turned on by it. He’d like to think she did anyway. He’d slipped it in so effortlessly when describing what it’d be like if it were them in those pictures, how he’d make her feel, and she hadn’t blinked. Instead, she’d whimpered his name. That’s right, whimpered his name. The sound of it had him harder than he’d ever been. Not helped by the fact that seeing what she’d been looking at had caused him to go slightly mad. A bloke could only take so much, and since he’d been on his best behavior since their morning snog, he had to give himself a pat on the back for keeping it together as long as he had. When she’d stood with him in the poetry section, asking him about his favorite authors and selecting books based on his answers, she’d been standing so close to him that he’d been able to smell her shampoo and that bloody vanilla body lotion. That bloody vanilla body lotion he’d seen on the nightstand in her room, and had had erotic images of her naked, on her bed, slathering that lotion on.
She was driving him bloody mad. He’d actually sighed with relief when she’d wandered away. It was no wonder he’d snapped when he saw what she was perusing oh so discreetly through. And her passion, oh God, her passion. He’d hit the nail on the head with her. She was a bonfire ready to be lit, and soon, she was going to be blazing straight up to the heavens. She was so responsive and with an eagerness to learn -- she was like a Catholic school girl making up for lost time. Or rather, she was like a nun that had just decided to be released from her vows and felt the guilt and uncertainty about it still, but little by little, she was coming undone. He couldn’t help but feel smug about that. Even if Buffy was keeping him closely in check with her inability to admit or give him some kind of crumb beyond the physical that she felt anything for him. He was going to have to take what he could get it seemed.
“It’s not that I think you’d be awful to date, William,” Buffy said abruptly, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to face him. Okay, maybe he wouldn’t have to take what he could get.
He blinked, “Thank you.”
She nodded, satisfied with that, and yet seeming as if there were more she wanted to say; or needed to say. She opened her mouth and no sound came out. She gestured for a minute and he waited, patiently. When she knew the words to say, she’d say them. She seemed to have given up though, and she shook her head, walked away and started muttering to herself.
He lunged and grabbed her arm, drawing her back. “What is it, pet?”
“Nothing, forget it. Just the insane thoughts of a deluded mind.”
“Humor me.”
“What are you doing?”
“What do you mean, what am I--?”
“The kissing, the ‘mauling’. . . .If you had just meant what you said about just trying to make the clerk feel good about being able to get a girl—“
“Oh, that was shit and you know it,” William blurted out, frustrated.
She straightened. “Oh.”
“Yeah, and that’s why I didn’t tell you. Cause of that skittishness you have toward all things having to do with feelings.”
“Will, I—“
“Look, Buffy, we got to get something straight here, you and I, right?”
“Ri—“
“I like you a lot Buffy. And I sound like a complete ponce for saying that, and there’s one way to make a bloke feel good – take him back to his bloody high school days when he didn’t know his ass from his elbow.” Shaking his head, William ran a hand through his hair. “There are better ways for me to say what it is I’m feeling for you Summers, but I know all of them would have you running, and since I don’t want that, I’m saying I like you. A lot. I’m even daring to say I care, but that shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise for you since you already bloody well knew that. We’ve shared a few kisses you and I, and each time has been better than the last and each of them have brought me to my knees. I’d like to be able to call you my girlfriend, but I know that’s not going to happen any time soon –“
She opened her mouth to speak and he held up his hand to stop her.
“This,” he continued, “is how it’s going to work. We’re gonna keep right on with the kissing and I’m gonna keep right on respecting your boundaries until either you become more comfortable with them, or I bloody snap. Not saying that I’d ever do anything to hurt you, pet, because trust me, I wouldn’t. That’s not to say, however, that I’m not going to be a complete prat and test those boundaries. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee I’ll be testing them quite often. I won’t talk of you being my girl, even if I want you to be, and I won’t pressure you for how you’re feeling even if it’s driving me stark raving mad to not know. Right now, I’m gonna take the crumbs you’re offering and we’re gonna keep snogging, you got it?”
Eyes wide, Buffy nodded.
“Any questions?”
“Uh, yeah. What’s snogging exactly?”
“This,” he said and hauled her to him, kissing her soundly before the passion overtook them once more. He released her and pressed his forehead to hers. “Any more questions?”
She shook her head.
“Great. Let’s go, I have something I want to show you.”
What he showed her was a museum. But not any museum, a museum that was hiring for exactly what Buffy did, and a museum whose Director was none other than his uncle, Rupert Giles. He’d called his uncle that morning while he’d waited for her to find her purse before they headed out, and asked him if he was by chance hiring. It was time to set the wheels in motion, and while he’d been hesitant until then, he figured then was a good as time as any to show her the museum since he’d had the floor and she hadn’t been asking for it back.
He told her he knew the Director of the museum was his uncle and she seemed quite curious about it. That warmed him. Despite her bouts of frigidity, Buffy had a heart, and when she displayed any curiosity about him, it drove him wild.
“William, my boy,” Uncle Giles greeted him. The tall man with the graying temples and crinkles around his eyes looked very much like his father, and since his father’s passing, William had felt Uncle Giles had been his father figure. The men hugged and before turning to Buffy, Uncle Giles pushed his glasses up and faced her, smiling almost shyly. “Hello there. William has told me so much about you,” he said and shook her hand warmly.
Buffy eyed William while she replied. “Has he?”
Uncle Giles nodded, “Yes, he has. All good things don’t worry. He told me actually, that you were looking for a job. It just so happens that I’m hiring for the exact line of work you do in the States.”
William could tell by the look in her eye that he was going to get it later when they were alone, but he didn’t mind.
In fact, he couldn’t wait.