Chapter 20—My Grubby Halo

My grubby halo, a vapor trail in the empty air—Pink Floyd, “Learning to Fly”

Spike rolled until he was above her, looking down into her face.

The significance of her words finally penetrated his brain, and he was filled with awe and delight. She watched the emotions skimming across his features with relief.

Their eyes met, and she drowned in the depths of his love. Swam in his desire for her. Luxuriated in the knowledge that they belonged to no one else but each other.

“Buffy, I love you. I love you, pet, with everything in me.”

She reached up to caress his face. “I know, Spike. I love you too.”

She rolled her hips against him, and gave him a wicked smile. “Wanna get dirty, Mr. The Bloody?”

He grinned, his tongue firm behind his teeth as the scent of her arousal hit his olfactory nerves. “Why, I would love to, Ms. Slayer.”

He skimmed her shirt off before she could speak, and gripped both her hands in one of his as he teased her with the other. “Dirty, huh? That what you want, Slayer? The Big Bad?”

Her answer was a breathy moan. “Yeah, Spike. Give it to me good.”

Last night was about love and desire. Tonight, it was about passion and sex. Spike stretched her arms out above her head, and tied them to the headboard with the scraps of the nightshirt she had been wearing moments before. She knew the bonds would only hold her if she let them, and so did she, resting acquiescent beneath him, her eyes large, yet still full of trust.

He ran his hands over the softness of her skin as he nibbled on her jaw. “So beautiful, Slayer. So…pliant. Aren’t you afraid of what I’m gonna do to you?”

She moaned. “I’m more afraid of what you aren’t going to do. Spike—” she said, catching her breath as he caught her nipple between his lips. She threw her head back, and pushed herself further into his mouth. He looked up at her, surprised, but didn’t relinquish his hold. Instead, he reached his hand to tease the other nipple into hardness.

She groaned again and threw her legs around his waist, grinding her pelvis against him. There was too much material for him to fully enjoy it and he reached down to tear the scraps of lace that passed for knickers from her golden mound. Releasing her nipple and giving it one final kiss, he brought her panties to his nose to inhale the scent permeating the fabric, then tossed them over the side of the bed. “You may want to stop wearin’ your pretties to bed, Slayer. They don’t last long.”

She replied with a grunt, and he slid down her body, securing her knees open with his hands and leaving a wet trail with his passage. He hovered above his goal, lavishing in the heady perfume wafting into his nostrils, then wetly kissed the inside of her thigh. “You smell like bloody ambrosia, pet.”

He pillowed his head on her thigh, and blew a cool breath across her curls. “Eh, not a natural, are you? But such a pretty pussy, waitin’ for me to pet it.” He watched as her nethers twitched under the weight of his gaze, and said, “Yeah, it wants me. Tell me you want me.”

He could hear her panting above him. Her heartbeat thundered under his ear, and it picked up and changed tempo at his command. “You want the Big Bad to touch you, don’tcha Slayer?”

“God, yes, please touch me, Spike. I’ll do anything—“

“We’ll save that little promise for later, pet.” He reached out his finger and stroked a glistening curl, then brought it to his lips. “I’ll bet you taste as good as you look, too.”

Without giving her a moment to think, he swiped his tongue from bottom to top, and she jerked spastically beneath him. “Yeah, I knew I was right. You taste bloody wonderful.”

He tossed her thighs over his shoulders and held her in place then applied his tongue to where it would do the most good. He opened her fold by fold, teasing her to the brink of insanity, then plunged his appendage deep into her sodden core. His nose brushed against the nubbin of her clit and she sobbed and begged for pressure there, arching and rubbing to no avail.

Her sobs turned to shrieks as he sucked her clit into his mouth and prodded it with the tip of his tongue. Her heels drummed on his back ineffectively as he tormented her, then locked around his head as he forced her over the wall and into the shining sparkling bliss of orgasm.

Holding her firmly to his face, he rolled and put her above him, her knees splayed around his head and his mouth barely moving. She gripped the headboard for dear life as he started to move his tongue once again, thrusting her over that glistening precipice to complete loss of control. She ground herself against his teeth, craving more, and he obliged her willingly, alternating between nipping and licking the swollen bud above his eager mouth. Her juices bathed his face and chest and he wallowed in the evidence of her desire, thrilled that she wanted him. His cock was rock hard and wanting to thrust into her with abandon, but he wanted this to be good for her first and foremost.

She sensed his need, and tore her hand out of its bonds to reach behind her, gripping his cock in her fist. She could feel his gasp against her sensitive flesh as she squeezed it, then stroked it from base to tip, swirling her thumb enticingly over the engorged head. Grind, stroke, grind, stroke, she built her rhythm on the sound of the blood pounding in her ears, blocking all sound as she keened her need in greedy sucks for breath and feral grunts of passion.

She slid down his body, leaving a wet trail of juices on his skin, pressing her breasts hard against his chest. She retained enough sense to maintain her grip on his swollen cock, and raked it across heated folds of skin as she spoke.

“Spike—you should know better about getting the best of the Slayer. I give as good as I get, sweetheart. You of all people should know that by now.”

He was her captive, hypnotized by the flush of desire spreading across her skin, infecting him with need. He watched as she positioned him at her entrance, then slowly eased herself onto him, engulfing him in liquid silk. She was flame to his moth, and he would immolate himself to touch her fire.

She sat down fully on him, and rolled her hips experimentally. “Mmm…nice and full…a girl could get used to this, Spike.”

He groaned. “You’re gonna kill me, Slayer.”

She grinned, and raised herself up, her hands on his chest. “I know, slayee…but what a way to go.”

She started rocking slowly, her clit brushing against him, then flexed her thighs, experimenting again, to move herself up and down. She felt so complete with him inside her, and she ached for him to make it permanent. Forever. That’s what she wanted.

She stilled her inner demon that whispered sedition in her ear, and concentrated instead on the glorious stretching sensations in her pussy. That sense of fullness that she craved before she knew what it was. She slammed her pelvis against his, and bones ground flesh between them and prompted a loud gasp from her lips as he nudged against something deep and firm inside her.

“What was that?”

Spike looked up at her, surprised, and realized this was the first time she’d felt that sensation. “That, darling girl, would be your cervix. I like to call it your sweet spot. You liked that, didn’t you?”

Nervous, she licked her lips. “Is that bad?”

He shrugged. “Some women can’t take it. Hurts ‘em.”

“Oh, that didn’t hurt at all, mister. I can take it.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, I imagine you could.” He grabbed her hips, and jammed her down onto his cock firmly, several times in a row, until her eyes were glazed and her breathing erratic.

“See?” she said, panting. “Told you I could take it.”

Grinning, he rolled them again, firmly connected to her. She was flat of her back with her thighs in his hands, and he watched the flush building again, tingeing her skin red as she climbed up and out of control again. “Let’s see how well you can take it, Slayer.”

She wanted it hard, needed it—she gritted, “You…don’t have…the stones….”

“Oh, I’ve got the stones, little miss,” he said, not missing a beat, and she felt them slap against her ass. He did have the stones. She reached up to pull him down to her mouth, and devoured his tongue as he pillaged her, their bodies smacking together loudly in the quiet room.

With every move inside her, something unimaginable was building—something so great, she could barely afford to wonder at its magnitude. She felt her muscles scrunching into tight bands as she climbed, and it almost made her afraid. This was so much more than anything she’d ever known, and she knew it. It would change her forever.

She gripped his shoulders with her nails, raking them down his back and planting them deep into the cheeks of his sculpted ass, pulling him deeper and harder inside her willing body. He saw stars as the scent of borrowed blood filled the air, and his sac bunched against his cock, preparing to jettison in homage to the exquisite pleasure she was giving him. She squeezed him tightly, inside and out, and he pressed his forehead to hers, watching her face with her eyes screwed shut and her lips pulling back in a rictus of ecstatic pleasure.

She opened her eyes, and found his face close, right above her. “I—love—you—Spike,” she whispered, and his completion was upon him. His hips jerked spasmodically forward as he spilled inside her and something sparked in answer inside her as she joined him, tumbling over the edge with him as she cried his name shrilly into the night. Conscious of their housemates suddenly, he silenced her cries with his mouth, swallowing her screams of delight as she came repeatedly with every little movement of his body.

He made a conscious effort to be still, and she twitched beneath him. Her blood pounded in both their ears now, and she smiled against his lips. “I love you, Spike. Love you.”

He sighed into her hair, and buried his face in her neck. “I love you too, pet. Sleep. We need it.”

Still intimately joined, they fell into exhausted slumber. Sometime during the night, they slipped apart, but still held tight to each other.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They knew they were loud last night, even to their own ears. They didn’t realize how loud until they entered the kitchen the next morning.

Four pairs of dark-rimmed eyes stared at them from four tired faces. There were other emotions clearly displayed, their owners being too tired to conceal them. Giles was concerned and dismayed; Anya looked decidedly jealous. Dawn was simply disgusted. Tara smiled sadly, happy for them, but missing Willow.

Tara reached out a heavy hand, and touched Buffy's forehead lightly. A silvery spark ran down her finger and glittered on her golden skin, then disappeared. “If you…when you…need to…j-just say ‘Silencio’, and it will…form a bubble around you. Please?”

Buffy looked embarrassed. Spike, surprisingly, threw his head back and laughed.

They stared at each other around the room as the vampire laughed until tears formed in the creases around his eyes. “Oh, pet, I do think that we’ve outdone ourselves. We’ve embarrassed the lot of them.”

“Yeah, and me too,” she said sullenly. “Why was that so funny?”

He shrugged, still chuckling. “Possibly just the looks on their faces. Possibly because I’m just so bleedin’ happy. Maybe all of it combined.”

She smiled, and he felt the room lightened. It was akin to standing in the sun. He favored them all with a grin, and moved to fill the teakettle. “Cuppa, Rupert?”

“Certainly.”

Buffy turned to Giles. “We need some fake papers for Spike as soon as we can get them. I want to get married.”

Giles rubbed tired, bloodshot eyes as his glasses dangled from the other hand. “Why married? Isn’t claiming enough?”

“Nope. I want it all legal and binding in all my worlds. Human and demon. I don’t want anyone or anything thinking that they can tear this apart.”

As if fated, the doorbell rang. Dawn ran to answer it, and came back to the kitchen, face pale and sober. Xander was close behind her.

In a word, he looked terrible. The days of sitting with Willow and getting drunk had finally taken their toll, and his face was haggard and gray with exhaustion. His hair stood on end from repeated rakings with his fingers, and his clothes were wrinkled and stained.

“Xander, I’m not going to feel sorry for you, no matter how bad you look. You know how I feel.” Anya turned away from him, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Let me get this all out before I explode.” Or before I lose my nerve, he added silently. “I owe everyone in this room an apology.” He took a big breath, then looked at each one in turn as he spoke.

“Dawn, I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to ignore you. I never mean to. Tara, I’m sorry I came off so judgmental and hateful. I have absolutely no right. Giles, I’m just sorry I showed you my worst side.”

He paused, and then waved his arm at the three main focal points of his gaze. “But you three. You three, I have wronged beyond apology.”

He looked at the ground, and then at Spike, setting his mouth. “I have treated you like the dirt you were buried under since the day I met you. No matter how many times you saved my hide, I still ragged on you constantly and did everything I could to make you feel small. Part of it was my own insecurity, part of it was resentment, and part of it was just plain envy. I hated you because I wanted to be like you. Cool and menacing and somebody besides the joker. I don’t deserve anything from you, but someday, if it’s in your heart, I hope we can be friends.”

He turned to Buffy next. “Buffy, I don’t deserve you either. I…well, a long time ago I put you on this pedestal. You kept jumping off or falling off, and I kept shoving you back up there, determined that you were going to be the person I wanted you to be. I had no right to tell you anything, not about your love life, your choices, or what you want to do. It is none of my business, and I made it my business anyway. I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have said any of those awful things.”

He turned last to his fiancée. “Anya, I owe you the biggest apology of all. I set you up to fail. I was trying to hold you to some unmeasurable standard that nobody in his or her right mind should have, and then was overbearing when you didn’t. I treated you like dirt too, and made fun of you to your face, and you loved me through it all. I ignored a big part of you, made you shut up about it, and thought I was right doing it.” He moved toward her, and knelt down in front of her. “Anya Christina Emanuella Jenkins, I love you with all my heart. All of you, human and ex-demon, soul or not. I understand if you don’t want to, but…will you marry me?”

Tears streamed down Anya's face as she looked down on him. “Oh, Xander, of course I will! I love you so much, and I’ve missed you. Tara's not nearly as nice to sleep with, and Spike and Buffy are way noisier than we are. Plus, we have a nice private apartment to have our orgasms in. Let’s go home right now.”

He grabbed her and kissed her, then remembered the others in the room. He looked around at them hopefully, praying for their compassion.

Dawn, Buffy, and Tara crowded around him and Anya, sandwiching them in between them in a group hug. He could hear their tears and squeals in a rising cacophony of girlish love and pleasure, and it warmed his heart to the bottom.

Nothing could conceal his surprise at the hand held out to him, however. He stared at Spike's hand, disbelief written clearly on his face, and looked back up to check his eyes, a conditioned response. Spike didn’t flinch, just looked back at him calmly, waiting patiently, and Xander took the cool hand firmly in his grasp. “Spike.”

“Xander. Guess this means I can’t call you Whelp anymore.” He grinned, and Xander returned the open smile.

“Why not?”

“Because a man isn’t a whelp.” It wasn’t the words but what lay behind them that sealed the friendship between them.

Giles stepped forward and shook Xander's hand as well. “Apology accepted, Xander.”

“Thanks, G-man.” He grinned foolishly again when Giles winced, and then threw his arms around Anya and Dawn, laughing. “I love you guys.”

“They love you too. Now, let’s go home and have lots of orgasms together, honey. It’s been a while,” Anya whined.

Xander smiled down at her, and kissed her again. “We’re outta here, people. Feel free to interrupt us in about a week.”

With a light heart and lighter step, he and Anya left the house with promises to return as soon as they had, in Anya's words, “many orgasmic episodes of make-up sex”.

The mood much lighter in the house, Buffy turned to Tara. “What did you do to me before?”

“Huh?” Tara looked at her, bleary-eyed and confused.

“When you touched my forehead a while ago. You touched me, and shocked me.”

Tara looked suddenly guilty. “I just…I gave you a little piece of magic. So you and Spike could be together and not keep us all up all night long.”

Giles looked interested. “You can do that, Tara?”

For some reason, Tara looked at Giles with a secretive smile. “I think that there are a lot of things that we can do, Giles. It’s just, finding them out is all the fun.”



A/N: Thank you for your reviews...they make my day!