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Cousin Arabella by Lilachigh
 
Chp 12 Can you make him happy?
 
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Cousin Arabella by Lilachigh


Chapter 12 Can you Make Him Happy?


The huge mansion was quiet and dark as the evening shadows grew longer outside. Buffy and Spike walked silently along corridors and down the sweeping staircase into the hall. They had hardly spoken since they’d fallen away from each other, untangled limbs and pulled their clothes on over sweaty, sticky damp bodies.

Buffy had ignored Spike when he tried to talk to her about what had just happened. All she wanted now was to get home, crawl into her own bed and forget.

In the entrance hall, all signs of the previous evening’s party had been cleared away and the black and white marble floor had been washed and polished.

‘I’ll go and find Div’vid and tell him we’re off,’ Spike said, his voice full of suppressed anger. Their last bout of love-making had been so intense. All he’d wanted to do was talk to her about it. But no. All her defences had slammed down against him the second she was dressed. “Wait here, Slayer, and for goodness sake don’t get into another fight.”

Buffy watched him vanish down a passage and sighed. She knew she was being uber-bitchy with him, but what was there to say. She ached all over from their last heavy bout of love-making and the tight white shorts and skimpy T shirt Spike had found for her to wear made her feel cheap and grubby.

She wandered out of the hall, through the empty, echoing ballroom, onto the verandah. The sky was a beautiful deep blue and somewhere crickets were chirruping. The fountain pattered down into the pool surrounding it. Buffy sat on the stone edge of the pond and dabbled her fingers in the cool water. A big fish swam up and nibbled at her, then realising she wasn’t food, dived down to the bottom in a flash of gold.

“How nice to have your home so close by,” she murmured. “I wish I could just dive down and find myself snug and safe indoors.” Her head hurt as well as other parts of her anatomy. She didn’t understand why she felt like this about Spike.

This last bout of sex had stunned her with its violence, its passion, its driving desire. How had he become so important to her? OK, when Willow had brought her back from the dead, he’d been there for her and when she was with him, when he touched her, it was the only time she felt anything except a sort of cold despair.

But he was still a vampire. He had no soul. Everything she’d been brought up to believe as a Slayer, as a female, was stood on its head by her feelings for this man.

She took a deep breath and stared up at where the first stars were beginning to appear. She could remember when she’d been about twelve or thirteen, just before she became aware of vampires and demons.

A normal little girl. Crushes on pop stars, movie stars, drawing pictures of the wedding dress she wanted on the back pages of books in school. Knowing she would marry a nice boy one day, someone who was good looking and kind,honest and fun. They would be very happy and live in a nice house, have a couple of children and be friends forever.

No doubts. No death. No demons. No thin blond vampire with sapphire blue eyes would be in your life, because, hey, you were never going to watch him going off to work every morning while you rocked the cradle with your youngest child.

She was twenty-one, had died twice already, lost her mother, been given a sister, killed the love of her teenage years and all of that paled into insignificance when Spike smiled at her.

“Colour me confused, little fishy,” Buffy murmured to the carp as it rose to the surface again. A familiar tingling on the back of her neck made her look up sharply. Arabella stood a few feet away, staring at her. Buffy yawned. “Oh not again, please. Look, we’re just going. We’ll be out of here. Thanks for a lovely party, etc. etc.”

A low growl broke from Arabella’s lips. “You still think you can take William away from me?”

“I’m not taking him anywhere.” Buffy jumped up, irritation at the vampire’s obsession with her cousin beginning to overcome her desire to get the hell out of the mansion and back to Sunnydale. “He’s driving me home and then he’s quite free to come back here, if he wants to. I’m not his keeper.”

Arabella stalked a little closer, her hands compulsively clenching into fists. “You keep his heart.”

“Yes, in a silver box in my bedroom!” Buffy joked and circled cautiously around the other woman.

Arabella obviously didn’t see any humour in her words. “He won’t return to me unless you release him. I can give him Hope, make him happy. Can you?”

“Excuse me, aren’t you a married sort of vampire? Didn’t I meet your husband yesterday? Remember him - very tall, green guy. Frovlax demon. Chews his food and brings it back up. Name of Div’vid. Ring any bells?”

Shimmering into game face, Arabella hissed and crouched lower. “Div’vid is not important. William is. I’ll say it again, Slayer. I can give him his heart’s desire. I can give him Hope. I can make him happy. Can you?”

On the final word she flung herself at Buffy, fingernails stretching towards the Slayer’s eyes. Buffy leapt to one side and smacked the vampire girl on the head as she passed. “Not doing too badly so far.”

Arabella rolled and was back on her feet in an instant. “All you’ll bring him is pain and despair,’ she snapped and slashed with her hand. Her nails caught Buffy‘s bare arm and drew blood. Arabella snarled as the scent of the blood made her loose control.

Buffy flinched, turned to kick out and her supporting foot slid in the water scattered from the fountain in the evening breeze. She crashed to the ground, and her head clipped the edge of the fountain. She was aware of the world going round in red circles, of Arabella’s cold body against hers, a babble of victorious profanities in her ear, then the weight was being lifted and she focussed again on Spike in game face, holding his cousin’s hands behind her back, about to bury his fangs in her slender white neck.

“Spike! Stop!” Buffy didn’t hesitate. It was fine for her to kill Arabella, but not Spike. She couldn’t let him do that for her.

The golden glow vanished from his eyes and his human face appeared. “Sorry, luv, I didn’t believe you. But I’ve been watching and listening. Bitch tried to kill you.”

“She’s still your cousin, Spike. Family.”

“Bloody hell, Buffy, I offered to kill Dru for you once, remember. Why should Arabella be any different?”

“Because you’re different.” The words fell into the silence broken only by the splashing of the fountain. Her gaze caught his and held it steady, forcing him to think, to remember how far he’d come since those days.

Spike pushed Arabella away from him, as if her touch burnt. “Buffy’s the only person who can ever make me happy,” he snapped at his cousin. “Don’t you forget it.” Then, “Let’s get the hell out of here, Slayer.”

He held out his hand and without hesitation, Buffy took it. And the feel of his cool fingers was like finally coming home.

But as they walked across the ballroom, matching stride for stride, behind them, Arabella started to scream. “Div! Div, darling! William tried to kill me. Stop them! Somebody stop them.”

A rumbling roar came from somewhere deep inside the house. The Frovlax demon was coming to the aid of its mate.

“Run, Buffy! I don’t want to fight Div’vid.”

Together they raced across the ballroom, through the hall and out once more into the night. The car Spike had ‘borrowed’ was parked only yards from the stone staircase that led down onto the drive.

Buffy risked a glance over her shoulder and gasped. She’d had no idea how fast Div’vid could move. The seven foot green demon had almost caught them and Arabella wasn’t far behind, leading a whole posse of demon servants.

Swerving, Buffy knocked a huge stone container full of flowers off its pedestal as she passed and heard Div’vid howl with rage as his big bare green feet slipped in the mess of earth and petals and he tripped, making the ground shake as he fell.

Then they were in the car, Spike spun the wheel and with smoking tyres, they were zooming past some little fluffy pink demons, sending them screeching off into the bushes and away down the long drive towards the road. “They’ve shut the main gate!” Buffy yelled as they came into view.

Spike laughed, his eyes gleaming. “Hold on, pet. This could be a bit bumpy.”

And with a crashing clatter, he rammed the gates, sending one of them flying, and the car was through, on the road and heading away from the mansion and back towards Sunnydale.

They drove in silence for a couple of minutes. Spike found some awful rock music on the radio and sang along as the miles went past. Eventually Buffy leant over and turned it off. “I’m sorry,” she said.

The wheel jerked in Spike’s hands. “Bloody hell, Slayer, I didn’t think you knew that word. What are you sorry about?”

“Ruining the party, I suppose. Making you fall out with your family.”

Spike glanced across at her, puzzled. “You mean fighting with Bella? That’s nothing new, pet. We used to do it all the time when we were kids. I thought it was a great party. Nothing like a good scrap to make it end with a bang.”

Suddenly he drove the car off the road, into the desert and stopped, turning the lights off so they were plunged into darkness. They got out and sat down in the sand, leaning against the front bumper, gazing out into the starlit desert.

“So did you have fun at the party, Slayer?” His finger reached out and ran slowly down her face, circling her mouth, drawing the outline of her lips. She shuddered.

“Not too pleased to have lost a perfectly nice dress, been in several fights, and had to run away at the end, just so I didn’t kill your relatives. But otherwise, I enjoyed the show, Mrs Lincoln.”

Spike edged closer and his hands moved to circle her waist and pull her so her head was lying in his lap. She heard his zip give way and stared up at him, shivering, only too aware of the steely hardness that was only centimetres away from her mouth, but refusing to give in to her desire to touch, to lick, to suck.

“You could thank me for taking you,” he murmured, one hand slipping inside her shorts.

She sighed as she felt the tight material give way under his strength and the flood of moisture that coated the inside of her thighs.

“You do realise Arabella is in love with you,” she said and watched, almost in disbelief as her tongue flicked out and circled his cock.

He moaned. “No she isn’t. She’s just bored. Oh god, do that again, Slayer. Please.”

Buffy obliged and squealed as his fingers spread her legs wider and found her clit.

“Anyway, Div’vid’s taking her away to live abroad. Bloody hell, Buffy, your mouth’s so hot. Lick it, harder, harder. Suck it, that’s right baby, oh god, oh god, Slayer, I can’t stop.....” He spurted into her mouth, hips jerking, his fingers frantically working to send her over the edge.

When she came back, she was curled in his arms, the sandy soil gritty against her bare skin. “Typical. I get to sleep in the desert, but I bet Arabella’s going to have some sumptuous home in Paris, or Florence or Monte Carlo,” she grumped.

Spike opened one glazed eye and stared down at the blonde hair spilling across his chest. God, this woman had a one track mind. Still, if she went on using her mouth for other things as well, he could put up with the questions.

“No - Div’vid told me yesterday. He’s got a business venture going out in Australia. In the Outback, somewhere. A sheep station, I think he said. Thousands of miles of emptiness. He thought Arabella could use some time alone with him. Rekindle their relationship. He’s a nice guy like that, you know.”

Suddenly, Spike tensed. He could feel Buffy shaking. What had he said to upset her now? Then he realised she wasn’t crying, she was laughing.

With a swirl of blonde hair and slim tanned limbs, Buffy sat up, hugging her knees, her eyes sparkling in the starlight. “You mean Arabella’s going to be all on her own, just with Div’vid and flocks of sheep and kangaroos and wallabies and things, thousands of miles from civilisation? No shops, no parties, no people. Just - Australia?”

Spike nodded, puzzled. He was still bewildered as they drove back into Sunnydale. Buffy had been singing Waltzing Matilda all the way home, but as long as she sat with her hand firmly between his legs, he didn’t really mind.

Then as they reached the outskirts of town, she said, “Will you tell me what the hell was the story about the puppies?”

“What will you do for me if I do?”

“Do? You mean - oh god, Spike, you are such a pig! What do you want me to do? What! That’s impossible.” There was a long silence, then her curious voice asked, “Isn’t it?”

And they were still negotiating when they drove over the Welcome to Sunnydale sign and back into town.

the end


Don’t worry, Arabella lovers. Australia will never hold her. She’ll be back! She’s got a secret she wants to share.





 
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