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Chapter 3
 
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Revenant


Chapter 3


Why did he have to keep protecting her like that? It threw her off balance, made it difficult to keep that cool, professional distance she wanted between the two of them.

“I’m sorry,” she said stiffly to him the next day.

His brows rose. “For what?”

“I never thanked you for taking on the Quenat.” Looking at his hand with her scarf still wrapped around it made her feel guilty.

“Don’t have to.” He hunched his shoulders uncomfortably. “Not used to thanks.”

She glanced at him quickly. He had that set face on, not looking at her.

“From me?”

“From any of you,” he said after a small hesitation.

Which really meant from her, even though he was avoiding saying it. She had clearly neither thanked nor apologized. Buffy was not surprised: both came hard for her. Buffy2 hadn’t gone into detail about what had happened between her and Spike, but the pain behind what she did say suggested that she had behaved very badly. Buffy thought back over how she and the Scoobies had treated Spike ever since he came to them when chipped; they had treated him like a thing, not a person. She winced.

“Does it get worse in the future, what we do?”

His lips tightened, then he shrugged it off. “Doesn’t matter if it did or it didn’t. That’s the other dimension. Won’t happen here, right?”

“I guess.” She was going to make sure it wouldn’t.

“It’s not important, Slayer.” He reached out with his undamaged hand and stroked her hair lightly.

She flinched away unthinkingly and he jerked his hand back.

“Sorry,” he said in a muted voice. “Didn’t mean...”

“No, it’s okay,” she muttered uncomfortably. “That’s nice. It’s just that I’m not used to you being nice.”

He laughed involuntarily. “Never been called that before! God! ’S embarrassing for a demon. Should be hiding my bleeding head in shame!”

It wasn’t the soul that was doing it. She had thought it was in the beginning, but he was just as cutting and snarky as he had always been to Giles and Xander, though he was kinder to the girls and especially gentle with Tara. That piqued Buffy a little. She hadn’t missed the way he had smiled at Tara that evening she had brought him to meet the Scoobies. Then she realized with a little shock of amazement and embarrassment that she was jealous of him smiling at Tara like that. She turned away hurriedly.

But he had caught the surprised glance she threw the two of them.

“She died,” he explained to her later. “And she didn’t deserve to.”

They were in her room at the dorm where they usually ended up after patrol for a quick overview of whatever had happened during the day and to set up the next day’s plans. Buffy grabbed the binder and skimmed through it fast.

“Warren Mears?”

“Yeah. But don’t worry, pet. We’ll take care of the Troika early this time around. She won’t die.”

“Good.” Buffy looked away to hide her pleasure at the implication that Spike was planning on still being around two years from now.

She was getting way too used to having him around. As the weeks went by, she grew more and more at ease with his presence. She could talk to him about the problems and triumphs of being a Slayer and he understood. Even Giles didn’t really understand; he always had this ‘sacred duty’ attitude towards it. And the Scoobies had a kind of dichotomy about it—on one hand, she was Buffy, their friend; on the other, she was the superhero, saving the world and having to act perfect all the time. Even Angel was weird like that, insisting she belonged on a pedestal and wanting that ‘perfect’ thing. Spike saw her flaws clearly, accepted them and valued her anyway.

He saw her, understood her. Saw the person she was, not the person he wanted her to be. No one else ever had. She could relax and be herself around him and it was comforting to be known like that. It was a...turn on.

It felt completely natural now to have him there at her left side on patrol. Always on her left side, because he was left-handed and she right, and that kept them from getting in each other’s way and covered the widest fighting arc possible.

Patrols had always been a chore before, but now they were fun with a companion beside her whom she never had to worry about and could rely on completely. She had never had that before. Angel would tell her of a problem, but he often left out important details and never actually fought the fight with her. Spike was right there, telling her all he knew about some situation that might not be mentioned in the all-important binder, fighting the fight right at her side, teasing her, making her laugh, competing with her to see who would make the kill first or most efficiently or use the trickiest moves. She was enjoying having him with her.

His passion for life was what got her. She had never really looked at him before, never really seen him. She was looking now. Soulless or souled, demon or not, Spike reveled in his nature and took joyful pleasure in the world. Enjoyed living and grabbed happily at every new sensation. Duty and responsibility always hung like millstones around her neck; she had always felt she was betraying her calling if she relaxed and simply enjoyed herself. But: “Why not have fun?” asked Spike, flinging himself exuberantly into battle. And now with Spike egging her on and Giles and the Scoobies no longer obsessing about her ‘sacred duty’, she could.

“You’re doing it on purpose, aren’t you?” she said to him once she realized what was happening and he laughed, reaching out to stroke the side of her face lightly with his fingertips. He was a tactile being and she was getting used to those light, caressive, undemanding touches now. The burn on his hand was long gone.

“Gotta love what you’re doing, pet. Gotta get a charge out of it or it’s just a grind. You’re the Slayer. The One Girl. You’re faster, stronger, more powerful than anyone on the planet. Isn’t it a rush?”

“Well, yeah, but...I don’t want to be the One Girl,” she said irritably.

“I don't wanna be this good looking and athletic. We all have crosses to bear.”

She laughed involuntarily, then gave him an exasperated look. “That’s not the point.”

“Sucks to be you, huh? That’s the point, innit? Sniveling about that.”

“Hey!”

He cast her a scornful glance. “Still hung up on what that ponce Angel said, aren’t you? Still wanna be ‘normal’. Think you’d like being a shopgirl or a social worker or some other peaceful occupation? You’d hate it, pet. That’s not what you are. That’s not your nature. Can’t ever deny your nature, Buffy. You do and you’re fucked. Why do you think the other Buffy got herself so royally screwed up? She never came to terms with it until the end.”

She stopped, frowning, thinking about that.

He shook his head ruefully. “Everyone else in the whole world wants to be special and here you are special and you’re whining about it.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Life’s not fair. Grow up, Slayer. Face it. You’re never gonna be normal. Deal.”

“That’s so damn depressing,” she muttered.

“Is it? You’re a warrior, Slayer. You’re deadly and you’re lethal and you’re glorious with it. That’s your nature. Enjoy it.”

“Yeah, I’m a killer. Only a demon would think that a positive thing. Riley said I couldn’t love. I think he was right.”

“Ah, pet, you’ve got it bassackwards. You’re not killing because you like killing. You’re killing because you have to. To protect the people of Sunnydale and elsewhere. You go out every night and put your life on the line for them. Greater love hath no man.”

She drew a little sharp breath, staring at him.

“Why do you keep putting yourself down, Slayer? You’re the best. The brightest and the bravest and the most beautiful. A shining light. How can you want to be otherwise? To put that light out, to become normal, would be a sacrilege.”

Angel was the one who wanted normal, who spent his life yearning to Shanshu, yearning to be human. As usual, he saw his way as the only right way and laid it on her. And she had bought into it.

She considered Angel from a new perspective—what she personally knew about him and what Buffy2 had said about him. Angel wanted order. Both he and Angelus in their differing ways wanted order, Angelus to rule, Angel to remain in control of himself. He distrusted passion not only because it was Angelus’ gambit, who used people’s passion and twisted it against them, but also because it broke that control of his. With all those crimes on his shoulders, he was as insecure as Willow. He needed redemption and, to be sure of finally gaining that, kept himself oddly dead inside, needed rules and regulations to keep himself in check, stay in the straight and narrow. He didn’t change, feared change because it shook him out of that path he had so carefully constructed for himself. He was forever on the point of stasis.

No wonder he distrusted and dismissed Spike, that chaos figure breaking every rule he could, that elemental force at once controlled and uncontrollable, rushing at the world and turning it upside down, always dancing on the edge of the abyss. Transformation was Spike’s middle name.

And yet Spike was the one who had always stood beside Buffy2 and now was proving to be the bulwark at Buffy’s own shoulder, empowering her, giving her the belief in herself that she lacked. Angel was always showing up and then walking away. From what Buffy2 said, Spike stayed. Buffy had thought she was alone. But she wasn’t. Here was Spike, who never left.

Bright to Angel’s Dark, chaotic to Angel and Angelus’ mutually rigid order, tactile and full of life to Angel’s remoteness and life-renouncing withdrawal into himself, passionate and out there and without borders, he had become like a standing wave, constantly fluid, yet eternally there.

She had been caught in Angel’s static-dream of forever, never growing past that teenage, star-crossed lovers scenario that they had created between them. It was time to move on.

She was learning. Spike’s version of the world had sharp and painful edges, was raw and messy and disorderly. But it was real; it was true. He was never dead inside, too full of energy, too involved with the world.

Her old retort to the Master sprang to mind and she smiled involuntarily. Well, he might be dead, but he’s still pretty.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, noticing her amusement.

“That you’re beautiful.”

He shot her a sharp, startled glance. “You feeling all right, Slayer?”

“Never better.”

She was starting to understand the attraction now, why Buffy2 had been so drawn to him. With the moonlight washing light and shadow over that chiseled body and the sharply defined planes of his face, stressing those killer cheekbones and that beautiful mouth and glinting on his bright hair, he was...tempting. But it wasn’t just that he was hot, it was all the rest of it too.

She stood back to watch him take on a Grathar, his face vivid with laughter and enjoyment. In battle, Spike was a thing of beauty, the swagger changed to fluid grace. He was a warrior through and through and fighting was an essential part of his nature. No wonder he had wanted to stake himself when the Initiative had first put that chip into his head and he thought he could no longer fight. He was right; she didn’t kill for pleasure, only for necessity. For him too, it wasn’t the killing that was important; it was the fighting. Angelus was the one who killed, destroying whole villages in his path. Spike just liked to fight, even against impossible odds and especially when the outcome was in doubt, the fact that he could die proving that he was alive.

So damn hot. She wanted him. Who else was her match? She wanted to find out what Buffy2 had experienced. Angel, also a vamp, was the only one who had ever got her off and that had been only once. But Angel was out of bounds, with that curse of his. She couldn’t take up with him again and put his soul at risk. Parker and Riley had been disappointments. They were human and she had had to hold back to keep from hurting them and so she had never really gotten off. She wouldn’t have to hold back with Spike.

No, no, no. So not going there! It wasn’t fair to Spike. She’d only be using him and besides he was still in love with that other Buffy. It wasn’t right, any way that she looked at it.

Moreover, things were going too well for her to mess them up by indulging herself.

Joyce hadn’t died after her surgery. Spike’s careful watch had caught the incipient aneurysm and Buffy had cooked up a story for the doctor about Joyce having more headaches and had insisted on one more CAT scan. This one pinpointed the aneurysm and the surgeons went in and pinched off the blood vessel before it ruptured. Joyce should now have a long and healthy life.

And she was learning a lot from Spike. Some of the moves he used were unfamiliar to her and, when she remarked on them, he diffidently offered to teach them to her. She leaped at the chance to upgrade her skills and sparring with him was a true pleasure. Giles, Xander or even Riley, drug-enhanced as he had been, had never been satisfactory opponents; she never even broke into a sweat. She had to work to match Spike; she had never had a sparring partner so skilled and so much her equal.

“I’m glad you’re a vamp!” she exclaimed one night after one of the sparring sessions in the cemetery with the Firoud chirping and cheering them on.

He choked on a strangled splutter of rueful laughter. “Never had you say that to me before! The one thing you could never overlook was that I’m a vamp. Guess you like the challenge after all, Slayer. Finally agree that vamps are more fun, right?”

A thought struck her. “If being a vamp was the problem, why didn’t you ask that demon to make you human?”

“And become Captain Cardboard? Even with the drugs, Corncob couldn’t keep up with you.” He gave her a mocking, sidelong glance. “Couldn’t satisfy you, could he?”

She flushed vividly and he laughed.

“Deny it all you like, but it’s the truth. What would you do if Angel ever turned up human? That’s what he’s got a yen for, y’know. That’s the carrot the PTB keep dangling in front of his nose. But is that what you want, Slayer? Your one true love, this time with a soul that won’t go bye-bye, but a body you could break in half. Just another Harris, he’d be, just another Scoobie waiting at home while you fight the monsters.”

She flinched, then glared at him. “Shut up, Spike!”

“Why don’t you people ever think things through? I like being a vamp. I like the speed and the strength and the power. And you need someone who’s your match. I went through those trials for her and I asked for the prize I thought would work. If the soul couldn’t do it, d’you think turning human would?”

“Angel doesn’t want to be human because he wants me. He wants redemption.”

He was silent for a moment, then gave her a twisted smile. “Back to Angel, are we? That’s all any Buffy can see, innit?”

It wasn’t, but she couldn’t tell him that.

“There’s no point in this,” he said suddenly and turned on his heel.

“Why do you stay, Spike?” she flung at him irritably. “What’s in it for you? What’s keeping you here? You should just go.”

He gave her a bleak look.

“Got nothing better to do, do I?” Then in a sudden burst of exasperation, “Because I’m a bloody fool, Slayer!”

And was gone into the shadows.

She glared after him. Why couldn’t he see that she wasn’t hung up on Angel anymore? Seething, she stomped back to the dorm. The Firoud had vanished, picking up her bad mood, and she was all alone.

And aroused. Sparring with him always aroused her, that necessarily intent focus on each other, the give and take of their moves, the violence. Violence had never been a factor in her other three relationships, but it was a factor with him. He woke that in her. Because of her frustration.

She lay in bed, glaring at the ceiling while Willow slept peacefully on the other side of the room. Her breasts ached and she was all buttery and throbbing and, even though it was so wrong, she was dying to jump his bones. God! She got angrier and angrier just thinking about it. At herself, at him.

She was in an absolutely foul temper when she got to Shady Rest the next evening. Spike, coming strolling along, his face remote and collected, only exacerbated her more.

“Whoa,” he said, stopping in front of her. “If looks could kill, I’d be a flaming pile of dust right now. What’s put a bug up your ass tonight, Slayer?”

So refined. Even the soul couldn’t teach him manners. Couldn’t he at least try not to be insulting? Her temper flared and she hit him.

Then stopped short, appalled at herself, as he staggered, then recovered himself. He didn’t step back, didn’t move away, just stood there looking down at her, a twisted smile on his face.

“Well, that was familiar,” he said wryly. “You getting pissed at something and taking it out on me.”

“I d-didn’t mean...” she stuttered.

“You never do. But I still end up your whipping boy, pet.”

“Spike...”

No way to explain. And words had never been her forte. Furious with herself, finding no other way to make things plain, she caught his head in her hands and kissed him.

His body jolted in shock against hers. Then he made a strange, agonized sound in his throat and was kissing her back, despairingly, devouringly. And God! it was what she wanted. Her arms locked about his neck and her whole body ignited in violent response.

Raw greed in both of them, mouths twisting together painfully and bruisingly hard, arms clenching so tightly about each other it would have broken bones on anybody human.

They kissed and kissed again, unable to break their mouths apart, eating each other alive. All heat and need and violence, bodies rubbing and straining together, tongues thrusting and battling, passion flaring, urgent and imperative. He stepped forward, turning, and she found herself backed against a tombstone, found him between her parted thighs, his body hard and insistent, pressing demandingly upon her. Her legs came up without her even thinking, to lock about his hips, pull him even harder to her.

He gasped against her mouth. Then he was suddenly shoving himself backwards, jerking away from her. She stared at him in astonishment, seeing his face gaunt with strain and appalled, his eyes glazed with some private horror.

“Oh, God, no! Not again!”

“What..?” she stammered, bewildered and shaking, shocked down from that high of heat and exigent desire.

“Never like that again! Not gonna fall back into that old downwards spiral of mutual destruction!”

Her legs gave and she sat down on the tombstone, staring at him, at the torment and the horror in his face.

“Spike, wait! What is it? What are you talking about?”

“Starting with violence and anger and ending up with sex as a weapon.” He was vibrating with the intensity of his feelings. “Not gonna let you do that to yourself again! Hell, no! I want you. God, I want you, Buffy! But I’m not going back there again!”

He backed away, shaking his head violently.

“It would destroy both of us. It almost did. I won’t let that happen. Not this time!”

He flung out his hand in a slash of absolute negation, then whirled and was gone.

Buffy sat staring after him for a moment, then pulled herself together and raced back to the dorm. The binder was where it usually lay, on the night table beside her bed. Willow was out with Tara somewhere and she was able to search through the file in peace.

‘I cut him up,’ said Buffy2. ‘I used him to make me feel and then hated him for making me feel. Hit him, shamed him, flayed him with my contempt. He’d always be making love, but I just fucked him. I destroyed him, wanted to destroy him, and so I nearly destroyed myself.’

“Oh, boy, I really screwed up,” Buffy whispered. She had skimmed over that the first time she had read the file, then ignored it on later readings because it seemed to have no relevance once there was no Spike any longer in this dimension. She should have checked any reference to him when he came back, but she hadn’t thought to do so. She did so now.

Violence leading to sex leading to pain, around and around. God, what must he have felt, finding the old dynamic recreating itself!

But this wasn’t that old dynamic and she had to explain that to him.

She went to his crypt, hoping to find him there. If he’d gone someplace, Willy’s or wherever, she’d wait. But he opened the door when she knocked, looked at her without surprise.

“Shouldn’t be here, Slayer,” he said bleakly, turning away. “It’s not safe right now.”

“It’s safe. You’d never hurt me. You just proved that.”

“Slayer...”

“We need to talk.”

He let out a little spurt of bitter laughter. “That’s what I kept saying in the other dimension. Sure makes a change, hearing it from you. Come on in then and let’s...talk.”

He shut the door behind her and, after a small hesitation, barred it, then waved a hand at the ancient armchair.

“Have a seat. Want a drink?” His face was guarded and withdrawn. He had pulled back into himself. She had never seen that in the Spike of her dimension whose emotions had been always out there. But this Spike carried it like an accustomed defense. His Buffy had hurt him badly, must have done things even after he had the soul to make him shield himself like that. Maybe even Angel had, in that year Spike had been with him. The ease with which he wore that armor spoke of long familiarity with it.

“No.” She sat down, trying to think of how to get through that barrier. “None of us Scoobies ever talked to each other. Not about the things that mattered. Maybe things wouldn’t have gone so badly wrong several times if we had, instead of bottling it all up.”

“True.” He swung himself up to sit on the sarcophagus well away from her, ran a hand through his hair, disarranging its smooth slick-back so that strands tumbled down over his forehead. The uncharacteristic gesture betrayed his unease. He wasn’t wearing his duster and his feet were bare and, with his hair falling across his brow like that, he looked young and oddly vulnerable. “Want to get to the point, Slayer?”

“I’m not her.”

His head jerked up and he stared at her.

“I haven’t gone through what she did. Haven’t died, haven’t been ripped out of Heaven, haven’t lost the ability to feel. Have learned a lot in the last couple of months, both from what she said and what you’ve said. Don’t care if you’re a vamp. In fact, I like it. It’s going to come in handy.”

She smiled crookedly, but he didn’t.

“Um, I don’t know exactly where you’re going with this, pet...”

“Never going to hit you again unless we’re sparring. Well, except for a whack upside the head when you deserve it.” She grinned when he made a little amused sound, then sobered again. “But never in anger. Ever again. I swear it, Spike.”

“Don’ mind you hitting me, pet. It’s the...the combination.”

“Yeah. Violence and desire. You’ve been there too often. It’s going to come up again. We’re both violent people and it’s a turn on. Like when we spar. But not in anger. Not in hatred or in self-hatred. Not in contempt or in shame.”

“Buffy...” he whispered. She was no longer talking about blows and he knew it.

She stood up and came and laid her hands lightly on his shoulders. “I want you, Spike.”

“Oh, God!” His eyes closed for a moment.

“Do you want me? I’m not your Buffy.”

“You’re Buffy.” His hands closed on her upper arms. Their faces were almost level and she could see the struggle in his eyes, his irises vividly blue, his pupils expanding hugely over an intense, burning blackness. “I can’t help wanting you. Only...”

“It’s not going to be like it was. I promise you that.”

“You don’t...” He drew a shuddering breath. “Don’t want to cheat you. Don’t want to get in the way of you finding someone better, someone you could...you could...”

“Love? Don’t know if I ever will. Haven’t had too much luck with it so far. This love thing. You don’t love me either, Spike. You love her.”

“I...”

“But we want each other. Maybe we won’t ever love each other. Neither of us is there yet. We both know that. Maybe we never will. Is that a problem for you?”

“I don’t know. What do you really want, Buffy?”

“You. Just you. You turn me on and I want you. Real bad.”

His breath shuddered in his mouth; his forehead fell against hers. “Bloody hell.”

“Gotta be honest with you. I also want to find out what it’s like with a vamp.”

He laughed a little. “But Angel...”

“That was once, just once. And I was virgin and nervous and it mostly hurt. And then he turned into Angelus, so I never did get a chance to find out what it could really be like. After that, well, there was Parker and Riley.” She made a face. “You were right. They both were...disappointing.”

“Can guarantee you won’t be disappointed with me, luv.” His eyes were dancing. “Curiosity, is it? I can live with that.”

“More than that. More like greed.”

His breath hissed between his teeth. “Like the sound of that.”

“I don’t want to use you,” she said fiercely. “I don’t want to make you feel the way she made you feel.”

He slid off the sarcophagus and pulled her against him, cradling her face in his hands. “You won’t. You care a little, don’t you?”

“I care.”

“That’s...more than enough. More than I hoped for.”

He couldn’t have held back even if he had tried. Not with her offering herself to him like this. This wasn’t his Buffy. But it was Buffy. It was Buffy. And he had two years of want built up inside him.

He kissed her and lost himself. It was Buffy and more. Her body melting against his, her arms around his neck, her taste, her scent wrapping him around. Familiar, but God! so different because it was willing. Not in anger and resentful lust, this yielding, but in sweetness and shared surrender. Not fighting it, but responding unreservedly to every touch, every caress. Only the Bot had ever responded that way—Robot Buffy, programmed to respond. And even knowing that it was a program, he hadn’t been able to stop himself, blocking out the artificiality because he had needed that response so desperately. Counterfeit as it was, he had clung to it, for lack of the reality.

But this was real. And the pleasure was so acute it hurt.

“God, Spike!” Buffy thought her legs would give way. The intensity of it! Her whole body was melting; her bones turned to water; if it hadn’t been for the iron bar of his arm around her waist, she would have gone straight down to the ground.

And that was from his just kissing her! But it wasn’t just kissing. It was eating her up alive. His tongue sliding and thrusting and devouring her in a famished, ferocious wanting that shot fire along her every nerve and woke an equally frenzied, equally abandoned response in her.

“Two years wanting you,” he muttered. His mouth raked down her throat.

She gasped, her head falling back, eyes closed, losing herself in sensation. Her knees gave way. Arms around his neck and waist, she dragged at him imperatively.

“Where are you going?” he asked on a breathless spurt of laughter.

She laughed herself. “I think into a little puddle on the floor.”

“Oh, no, no.” His eyes were alight with tenderness. “Not gonna make love to you on the floor. Got something to prove, don’ I? Not going to disappoint you.”

“I don’t think you could.” He had already taken her past anything she had ever felt before, turned her frantic and wanton with need, mouth ardent on his, nails digging into his flesh through the thin cotton of his tee.

He scooped her up and dropped through the trap. She felt the little rush of air as they fell, then the flex of his body as they landed. He reached out to turn on a lamp, then set her down on her feet beside the bed.

“Not where I want to be,” she said severely and hooked her fingers into his belt and pulled him towards the bed. “You’ve missed the mark by a foot.”

“No, I didn’t.” He pulled her back. “We’re exactly where I want us to be.”

“Oh, come on.”

He pulled her hands away from his zipper, laughing. “Don’t. I’m hanging on by a thread right now. It’s going to be hard and fast as it is, I’ve been wanting it too long. But we’re gonna do this right. You’re not there yet.”

She wound herself around him. “Trust me. I’m there.”

“No, you’re not. You don’t know, do you, what it could be like. You don’t have a clue.”

“If you’re the expert, then stop talking and do something! Want it. Want you.”

“You do, don’t you? God, Buffy!” His eyes were shining as he looked down at her. “Raise your arms.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere!” She raised her arms, laughing, to let him pull the tee she was wearing over her head. “Now you.”

“Not yet.”

“Want to touch your skin.”

“Me first.”

Her bra was gone.

“I...Ohhh.”

His hands had slid across her breasts. She arched to them, but the way he was looking at her, the heat and the deep, wondering pleasure in his eyes was almost better even than his touch. He lifted her, bending her back over his arm, and his mouth closed upon her breast, suckling on her nipple, his tongue circling it, pressing it against the roof of his mouth, hardening it to the point of pain.

“Oh, yes!” She caught his head, holding his mouth to her breast, her fingers digging into his thick hair.

He tipped her back onto the bed, coming down beside her, bending to move from one breast to the other. She purred, pushing herself into his mouth, savoring the sensation.

“You’re overdressed,” she complained. “Take your tee off.”

He yanked it over his head and threw it away.

“Wow.” She had only seen his back before. Talk about gorgeous, his chest, that sixpack, all that ripped muscle and clean, strong bone. That skin like cool satin against her. She ran her hands over him with pleasure and felt him shudder in delight against her. “Oh, that’s nice.”

“Nice,” he muttered, amused. “Yeah, you know this. You’ve been here before with those other wankers. But let’s take it up a notch.”

That tingle of vamp presence she always felt in his presence suddenly intensified. Her Slayer instincts reacted and she pushed him away a little to look into his face. He hadn’t gone into full gameface, but his eyes were gold and the fangs were showing.

“Can you take it?” he asked, smiling.

Her eyes widened. Full gameface with the ridges made him look like a predator, like a lion or a leopard; but she was used to that and it wouldn’t have bothered her. But the gold eyes and the fangs by themselves was a look she had never seen. It was shockingly sexy.

“It’s hot! But why?”

“For this.” He bent and licked her nipple.

“Holy...!”

His tongue had gone raspy as a cat’s. She almost shot right off the bed, the stimulus was so intense. Her whole body arched involuntarily to his mouth, her back bowing.

He scooped her against him on a growl of laughter and heat, held her while that wicked tongue rasped over her breasts and belly and ribcage.

“Oh, God, oh, God...!” She was writhing uncontrollably.

“Didn’t Angel at least...?”

“He stayed human. God, Spike!” Her brain was blanking out into nothing but sensation.

“Poofter.”

His tongue was rasping up her inner thigh. Where had the rest of her clothes gone? She hadn’t even been aware of him sliding them off. He was turning and twisting her to his mouth and his hands were caressing and kneading every inch of her and all her senses had gone into overload.

“You’re still overdressed!” She pulled at his belt buckle and he let her, but stopped her when she would have yanked his zip down.

“Jeans are the only thing holding me back and we’ve one more level to go.” He was gasping too, his breath panting in his open mouth, close to losing control. She could feel how aroused he was.

“One more level will fry my brain!”

“You’re a Slayer. You can take it.”

He bit her, fangs sinking delicately into her flesh everywhere across her body. He had driven her so high already that the tiny pinpricks were excruciatingly erotic. Her whole body flamed into white-heat. She keened in helpless pleasure and clutched at him, nails clawing down his back, teeth sinking into his shoulder. She felt him shudder and surge against her. Bites to a vamp, oh, yeah. She suddenly remembered where the trigger point was.

“Can’t take it anymore, Spike!” she snarled and bit him hard at the junction of his neck and his shoulder.

He hissed, then contorted against her, shucking off his jeans as fast as he could. Then he was between her thighs and she felt the broad, satin head of his cock breach her entrance.

“Oh, finally!” she sobbed and clawed at his taut ass, pulling him into her. “I thought you’d drive me insane!”

She gulped in shock and delight as he thrust into her, feeling him larger than she was used to, so impossibly hard, her body having to stretch to accommodate him.

He paused, his lips brushing her forehead. “Am I hurting you?”

“No!” Her legs came up involuntarily to grip his waist and pull him deeper. “It feels wonderful! But so big!”

“The vamp side.” His fangs had receded, but around the black blaze of his hugely enlarged pupils his irises were still gold.

“Don’t shift back!”

He laughed breathlessly. “No. I know you like it.”

He filled her to the utmost, a glorious feeling.

“I’d like it more if you’d move.” She clenched on him demandingly and he closed his eyes for a moment with a shudder of pleasure, himself drowning in sensation.

“God, those Slayer muscles! I’d almost forgotten..!”

He was moving now, unable to keep still any longer, losing control, powering into her, gasping at the resistance of the tight Slayer muscles of her sheath.

“Oh, yes!” she whispered, arching to him, finding his rhythm. “Oh, yes! Oh, God, the way you feel!”

She had never felt anything like this before. Hard and fast, he had said, and that was the way she wanted it, with both of them out of control and slamming into each other. All heat and violence, like leopards coupling in the spring. She clawed at him, bit, and he snarled back, hammering into her. Driving each other higher and higher. Raw savagery. And something elemental in her wanted it, reveled in it.

“Slayer,” he whispered in delight, in triumph, and that was it, that was the side he had unleashed in her, the Slayer, the match to his vamp side, that no one had ever released before.

Unendurable. She screamed as her whole body seized up in a blaze of unbearable, white fire. Heart, brain, lungs all stopped, her climax was so shattering. She felt him jolt and pulse within her at the same moment.

She came staggering back to consciousness an eon later to find him grinning down at her.

“So. Did I disappoint you, Slayer?”

“You know you didn’t. Can the man be any more smug?” she muttered under her breath and he laughed.

“Good. And now that the edge is off, we can play.”

Buffy’s jaw dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding! You can’t mean..!”

But she could feel him still partially erect within her and rapidly hardening. He blinked down at her, surprised.

“Yeah, sure. Vamp here. Just getting started. Haven’t you ever done it more than once?”

She shook her head dumbly.

“Wimps,” he muttered. “And you a Slayer. Can go all night if you want to.”

“All night?” she said in a failing voice.

“Think just once, even twice, is gonna be enough for me?” He kissed her deeply and sensuously. “Wanted you too long for that. Wanted you too much. But we’ll go slow. Just a few more times tonight.”

“A f-few...” From an under-achiever to an over-achiever in one short leap. But he had it all wrong. She wasn’t capable. “Uh, Spike, I don’t think I can...Oooh!”

He had started to move, not really thrusting, just push and relax, push and relax with his hips. His mouth took hers.

All golden this time, all sweet, voluptuous sensuality, slow and rich as honey before speeding up to that sizzling, accelerated rush. But tender, loving. He had shown her the Slayer side of herself and that was raw violence and savagery. This time he showed her the human side of both of them, the side that was all tenderness and heart. She was both and so was he. She saw his eyes above her filled with delight and wonder; caressed him and watched his helpless, drowning response. No wonder that other Buffy hadn’t been able to give him up. She couldn’t understand how that Buffy had managed to resist him in the first place.

It was a long, long, delirious night.



TBC
 
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