Giles turned at the sound of the library doors.  Cordelia strode in, perched an elbow on the front counter, and smiled at him.

At her smile, his jaw tightened.  "Let me guess.  You're here because Buffy's due to come."

"Well, she always shows up at this time."

Giles let the books he was holding slam onto the library table.  "I've had enough of the games.  Get out."

Unfazed, Cordelia said, "Boy you're peevish.  Tie too tight?"

"Did you hear me?  No more.  You and Buffy can bloody well find something else to do!"

"She's not coming.  Her mom picked her up.  I'm surprised you don't know that, Giles.  Isn't she supposed to give you her schedule?"

Giles paused.  "Then why are you here?"

"Because, officially, I never give in."  Cordelia fiddled with the date stamp and a row of pencils on Giles' counter.  Then she saw the Bouncing Tigger and said, "You still have this?"  She pushed on the head and started the toy going.

Giles rubbed his forehead.  "I am so sick of that thing."  The vehemence in his tone finally got through to her.

"You really do sound pissed."

He leaned against the edge of the table.  "I'm quite angry with you."

Cordelia came over to stand in front of him.  "Because of the bra, Giles?"

"Because of your comment about my…..zip being frayed!" he said in exasperation.

"So you're ok with the bra?"

He made a choked noise as he suddenly vaulted past her and grabbed his coat.  "I'm going for a walk.  If Buffy does show, either make a truce or get the hell out."  He left.

Giles went for the nearest door and landed at the edge of the football field.  He cut a straight line across to the bleachers, his shoes squishing down in the soaked grass from an all day rain.  Despite his coat, it soon soaked his collar and ran coldly down his back.

It wasn't any drier under the bleachers.  The lack of grass only made it muddier and the water that hit him here had the added force of pooling on a seat first before disgorging over the side.

He walked under the bleachers until he got to the end, then stopped and took a breath.  He was at the school's property boundary now but on the wrong side of the building for the parking lot.  He could circle the building in the drizzle or backtrack through the school but, either way, his car was far away.

Giles took a third option, hoisting himself up into the bleachers and taking a wet seat near the top.  He pocketed his glasses, closed his eyes, and leaned back into the rain.

When he heard the step, he didn't bother to open his eyes.  He never thought she'd follow but he was simply too tired to care that she had.

Cordelia sat beside him.  "God, Giles, you couldn't have taken a walk indoors?"

He ignored her.  She went quiet, so quiet that only the pressure of her elbow against him indicated she was still there.

When the rain started to fall harder, he felt her shift around.  He opened his eyes to see her trying to wipe her face with a wet kleenex.

"This was a bright idea," she muttered.

He regarded her for so long that she finally burst out, "What, Giles?"

"The old guy gets more fun than we thought?" he quoted.

"Oh, come on.  You liked that your friends heard that.  Now they don't think such pathetic thoughts about you."

His mouth twitched.

"See?" she said.  After a few more futile attempts, she gave up trying to dry her face.  "Aren't you going to ask about the bra?"

"I know you planted it there."

"You have to give me credit for that one."

He breathed out, losing his humour.  "There's still the matter of your letting Buffy think that we….."  He trailed off.

"I didn't start that.  She and Willow saw us on the couch."

"Good Lord, Willow too?  And you didn't correct them?"

"Nope."

"What must they think of me?" Giles wondered, aghast.

"That you get more fun than they thought," Cordelia said nonchalantly.  "I notice you didn't correct Buffy either."

"…..no….." he said quietly.

She gave him a 'you-see' look before turning her attention above them.  "It's really starting to come down."

Giles undid his coat and wrapped one side around her, drawing her in to him.  She hugged him, trying to get warm, then she placed her hands on his cheeks and pulled his lips down to hers.

He returned the kiss hard, aroused by the contrast of her cool damp skin and remarkably warm mouth.  Her sweater, swollen with water, pressed on his shirt.  He pushed it up out of the way as she shifted around to straddle his lap, her movement putting her breasts beautifully in his hands.  He stroked them, sliding his palms over the nipples.  She moved again and he groaned as she came in contact with his erecting penis.

Cordelia broke the kiss.  "Do you want to stop?" she asked in a bare whisper.  Her face, devoid of its usual self-absorbed impertinence, caught him.

"No," Giles answered truthfully, surprising himself by the answer.  "But it's all right if you do."  Unconsciously he was still rubbing his groin side to side along hers.

She smiled at him, a different smile than the one she'd given him earlier in the library.

"My God," he murmured, letting one hand slide around her back to the curve of her behind.  It was all he managed to say as she went in for another kiss, seemingly as ravenous for it as he was.

Unexpectedly she stood, breaking the contact so abruptly that he wavered off-balance, nearly falling off the bench.  He grabbed the wooden tier under him as she laughed but it was an eager sound, unrestrained but not mocking.  While looking down at him impishly, she undid her skirt and let it drop, then followed suit with her underwear.

His gaze travelled to the fur at the join of her thighs.

"Touch," she said in a hushed voice, taking his hand to the spot.  He did, letting his fingers slide between the lips and into the heated drenched interior.

"Harder," she added.   But he withdrew his hand and looked up at her.

"I'm not going to beg," she told him and he smiled at her words.  Placing his hands on her backside, he yanked her fur to his mouth and pressed in deeply.

Cordelia yelped, trying to find a handhold on his shoulders.  The pitch forward brought to mind a dizzy ride when she was a child, teetering on the handlebars of a bicycle plunging down a rough steep hill.

But she didn't fall.  He held her perfectly, easily.  She wondered at it, then gave herself over to him, closing her eyes and raising her face to the rain.

His nose found her clitoris first, then his tongue.  He explored wildly and she whimpered above him.  The sound quelled the fear that it had been much too long since he'd done this particular activity, that he wouldn't remember how, that he'd fumble awkwardly while she laughed at him in derision.  But she was crying above him.  Hearing it, he sucked her clitoris in further, feeling it throb and harden into a fierce point.  She was moving, trusting him not to let her fall, and he fell into her rhythm until it degenerated into ragged short thrusts and then into one tense rigid position.  She came in his mouth and her pussy wet him profusely.

Afterwards, she slid down his front and, uncaring of her musk, kissed him lingeringly.

Giles brought her hand to the front of his pants.

"Let me catch my breath," Cordelia said.

But he said, "No."

She met his eyes and grinned but it was eager, willing.  She carefully undid his fly, reaching her fingers in to keep the zipper from scratching his erection.  He raised up enough to let his clothing drop.  When he settled on the bench again, she gave his shaft one gentle slow stroke, then positioned her vagina over it and slid him inside.

He groaned at the tightness around his penis.  It had been too long for this too.  He'd almost forgotten the feeling of being so enclosed, the pleasurable pulse inside a woman's slick textured passage.  The richness of it made him laugh despite a quiver of knowledge that he'd had this opportunity elsewhere, not too long ago.  It was a knowing somewhere underneath a drugged haze, a vague memory buried under drifts of heavy white inebriation.  Being inside of this woman, being aware of it, was rediscovery.

And genuine need.

He jabbed hard, trying to find an angle that would accommodate the unyielding wooden tier below him.  He ended up almost completely back, his shoulders on the next bench up and his hands braced on the gritty dank cement under the seats while she rocked feverishly above him.  Her mouth returned to his, cold from the inclement air, then fervently warm.  Her vagina pulled his shaft on every downstroke and squeezed with every thrust in.  His penis edged into the final stiffness, the precipice of orgasm.  Her passage suddenly deepened.  He touched bottom, groaned in her mouth, and emptied his seed into her.

When Giles finally opened his eyes, Cordelia was looking down at him thoughtfully.  It was a terrible moment until she smiled and put her lips back to his for another kiss.

"I'm never going to look at these bleachers in the same way again," she said and he laughed with her as he straightened back up, taking her with him in his lap.

But she only gave him one more kiss before abruptly climbing off and saying, "Ok, we're done."  She started dressing.

He stared at her blankly.

"What?  Do you want to cuddle or something?" she asked.

"Um…..well….."

"Out here in the pouring rain?"  She fastened her skirt deftly.  "You can cuddle yourself because I want some dry clothes."

He dressed slowly, struggling with his sodden trousers while pricks of unpleasantness went through his chest.  She waited for him though, taking his hand afterwards and leading him back across the field and through the doors near the library.

It wasn't any warmer inside.  The school was empty and dim and their footsteps echoed randomly back to them.  Curiously she went with him into the library instead of to her locker where he presumed she had those dry clothes she'd spoken of.

Giles stood, looking for a time at the familiar room that suddenly didn't seem quite so familiar, aware of an aching coursing down his back.  Cordelia waited him out.  When he turned to her, she asked, "What did you think would happen afterwards?"

He turned to her and discovered a dreadfully young girl.  As he looked at her, stinging with embarrassment and astonishment at his lack of control, disbelief at himself swept through his stomach.

Cordelia's gaze dropped under his.  "I know I'm not…..smart like you, Giles.  I don't know the things you do.  I can't discuss the political situation in Britain or a book by Voltaire or what it's like to be forty years old.  Maybe…..maybe what you got in the bleachers is all that there is."

This admission shocked him.  But it wasn't like Cordelia to be exposed for long.  She raised her head back up, staring defiantly at him, not a quiver anywhere.  "Aren't you going to say something?" she asked, her patience at an end.  "Giles, what *did* you think would happen afterwards?"

"I don't know," he said.  "I didn't think you and I would…..ever….." he paused, caught by a glimpse of something under the bravado, something desolate and wary.  He realized this hadn't gone the way she'd planned, somewhere the last half of the scheme had fallen away.  She wasn't fussing with her hair or trying to deal with her soaked clothes.  She was trying to find her ground.

"Cordelia, I can't discuss the political situation in Britain either and I've never read Voltaire.  I can only tell you what it's like to be forty-five, and it feels…..fairly damn old."

He raised his hand to her hair, expecting her to step back from the gesture, but she let him touch, allowing a small sweep through the wet strands.  He'd given her a window of vulnerability and that was all she'd needed.  She found her familiar spot again.  She could classify him, if she wanted, into the category of her father's friends who stood a little too closely when their wives went into the kitchen.  Giving her hungry pathetic looks, dripping with middle-aged insolence.

But Giles didn't get into the category too neatly.  She was nagged by the delight he'd taken in her, the way he'd chosen the timing and positioning, bringing her over him with a startling ease that left her hanging on by her fingertips.

She'd fallen into the complete unknown, and she wanted to go back.

"Very few can make me so angry," he said.

"And I think you like it," she surmised.

"Hardly."

"You're outmatched, Giles," she said quickly and his lips curved.  She closed the space between them and added, "I suppose you can have that cuddle now, if you *must*."

He pulled her tightly into him, opening her mouth with his tongue and tasting her again.

Someone coughed.

He broke the kiss and stepped back in sinking awkwardness.  Cordelia, undaunted, travelled the step with him, not allowing him to let go of her.  She turned and said, "Hello again."

Giles drew in a breath and looked as well.  Phillip stood by the counter, back straight and hands clasped behind him.  Politely, he replied, "Hello Miss Cordelia."  He inclined his head.  "Rupert."

"Phillip," Giles said.  If Cordelia could hold her dignity, so could he though, admittedly, the puddles of water at their feet were making it difficult.

"I apologize for the intrusion," Phillip said.  "I came to collect Allie's toy."

"It's behind the counter," Cordelia said, pointing beside him.  Phillip reached for it and unexpectedly set it going.

"I'm going to bounce!" Tigger said.

Cordelia shot a devious look at Giles and whispered in his ear, "That makes two of you."

He clamped his jaw.

"Thank you for keeping this for my daughter," Phillip said in the same even tone as before.

"No problem," Cordelia said.  But as he turned to leave, she couldn't resist and called, "Is it still raining out?"

Phillip glanced back at them just as Giles felt a huge drop of water run down his arm and plunk to the floor.  He looked as if he considered several responses before choosing, "Yes, I believe it is.  If you go out later, you might want an umbrella, or two."

"Thank you," she said.

"Anytime."  Phillip nodded his head goodbye and took his leave.

Giles looked down at Cordelia who returned it with cool equanimity.  A worried idea crept into his mind.

"How many other…..plots…..do you have in motion?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Your bra and my, uh, underwear went missing at the same time.  One of them is still…..outstanding."

She snickered and, leaning to his ear, replied softly.

"But that package to the Watcher's Council was Wyndham-Price's report to them, not mine," he sputtered.

"So?  It's not like your name was sewn in them," Cordelia shrugged.

He stared at her, awestruck, then choked.

"Giles?" she asked apprehensively.

But he was laughing, a wonderful laugh that vibrated through her as well.

"Strange man," she declared but she let him bend down and kiss her after all.