Chapter 14

“Give me a sit rep,” Riley commanded, jogging over to meet Beta Team.

“Hostile was tagged and retreated into the sewers,” Forrest reported. “We’ve been tracking it for almost an hour now, still hasn’t come up.”

“Okay. Stay on him. Let me know when he surfaces.”

“What do we do when we spot him, sir?” Graham asked, with more formality than he would normally use with his friend.

Riley raised his eyebrows. “You know how to bring in a hostile, Agent.”

“Ri…” His voice softened. “He’s with Buffy.”

Riley cursed under his breath, then whirled around and punched the closest wall. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Would it have changed your orders?” Forrest asked.

Without answering the question, Riley warned him, “If she gets hurt –”

“She already took out two of my guys! It’s not her you need to worry about.”

“Well, I am.” He took a breath to calm himself. “Proceed with the mission. But if anything happens to her, I’m coming after you.”

“Sir, we got visual!” one of the soldiers shouted. “Came out of the sewers about a hundred yards away. They’re headed towards a populated area.”

Forrest looked to his commanding officer for orders. “Okay, then,” Riley said. “We change into civvies and move out. No deadly weapons. Tasers and tranqs only. I’m not taking any chances.”

*****

“What do we do?” Buffy asked, slightly hysterical. “No matter how much we run, they’re gonna find us.”

“You’ve gotta get the tracer out.”

“I can’t. Not here – it’s too deep.”

Spike nodded. “Your house, then. Let’s go.”

They took off again, trusting superior speed to get them back to Revello Drive before the Initiative caught up. Then, they’d just have to hope the military didn’t make it a policy to burst into private homes when in pursuit of a hostile. They skidded onto the front porch at full throttle, tumbling through the door and slamming it behind them. Buffy leaned back against the closed door, trying to catch her breath.

“Your mum home?” Spike asked, whipping his head around as though he expected one of the commandos to jump out from behind the furniture at any moment.

She shook her head. “Buying trip in San Francisco. Come on, in the kitchen.”

Buffy rifled through the silverware drawer until she came up with a sharp knife. “Take off your clothes,” she commanded. Spike gave her a suggestive leer, but obediently shrugged out of his duster and then pulled his t-shirt over his head. Buffy was distracted momentarily by the way his muscled chest rippled as he moved.

“Focus, Slayer,” he teased, catching her staring. “Plenty of time to admire it later.”

“Right.” She blushed, grabbing a dish towel from the sink and handing it to Spike. “This is gonna hurt.”

Spike nodded, bending over the breakfast bar and shoving the dish towel into his mouth. He gripped the sides of the countertop as Buffy made the first incision into his back, his cry of pain muffled by the towel.

Her palms were sweating, and it was hard to keep the knife steady as she tried to dig the tracking beacon out. “It’s in really deep,” she said nervously. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

He pulled the towel out of his mouth. “You have to, Buffy. Just do it. I trust you.”

She tried again, and Spike screamed in agony, causing her to jerk the knife back. “Oh, God. This isn’t working. I need something to grab it…” She darted out of the kitchen, and Spike heard her footsteps pounding up the stairs.

She returned a moment later, a pair of tweezers in her hand. “Okay, I’m gonna try this. Are you ready?”

Spike nodded, sticking the towel back in and tightening his grasp on the counter. Buffy stroked his back between the shoulder blades with her free hand, both to reassure him and to calm herself down. She swallowed hard, and then dug into the wound with the tweezers. She pulled hard, eliciting a stifled roar from Spike.

“I almost got it. Just a little more.” She pulled on the tweezers again, and finally a tiny dart with a blinking red light on the blunt end of it came free with a bloody squelching sound.

*****

“Okay, we want to keep the hostile contained,” Riley instructed, as the team jogged down the residential street, now dressed in civilian clothes and carrying backpacks with their weapons and equipment. “So no one is to make a move without my –”

Forrest suddenly stopped, staring at the GPS device in his hands.

“What?” Riley asked him, as the others gathered around.

“It’s on the move.”

“Heading?”

Forrest glanced up, looking around. “Straight at us. Forty meters and closing. Moving fast.”

“Look alive people,” Riley ordered the soldiers. “Weapons at the ready.”

The commandos slung their backpacks off their shoulders and reached in to grab their weapons, keeping them hidden until they spotted something to use them on.

“Twenty-five meters,” Forrest counted down, his voice getting more and more urgent. “Twenty… fifteen…”

“Where?” Riley asked, spinning around helplessly. All the soldiers were frantically looking, but the street was empty as far as they could see.

“I got nothing,” Graham said.

“To the left. Ten meters… five!”

“He’s back in the sewers,” Riley concluded. “Come on. Let’s not lose him this time.” On his orders, the team set off in the direction the tracer was moving, heading away from Revello Drive.

*****

When Buffy came back downstairs, Spike was still leaning heavily on the breakfast bar, his forehead inches from the countertop.

“You okay?” she asked, prompting him to spring upright.

“Fine,” he replied, hiding his wince. “You get that bugger taken care of?”

“Yeah, it’s flushed. We’re safe.” Putting her hand gently on his shoulder, she spun him around to take a look at his injury. “Let me see this.”

The wound was fairly small but deep, and bleeding steadily from Buffy’s probing. Getting the first aid kit out from under the sink, she began to clean up the blood on his back. “I’m sorry,” she said as she worked. “Does it hurt?”

“Not too bad.”

“Almost done.” She taped a gauze square over the wound and rubbed his shoulder comfortingly. “There. All better.”

“Thanks, love.” He turned around, letting her hand drift across his skin, coming to rest on his chest as he faced her.

Buffy was suddenly acutely aware of his state of undress, and she traced the chiseled lines of his chest as though memorizing them by touch, learning every dip and curve of muscle, every hairline scar that crisscrossed his pale skin. With her previous experience nothing but a disturbing hole in her memory, she needed to absorb every detail of this intimacy with Spike.

Spike was still, letting her roam as she pleased, stifling a groan as her warm hands caressed him. He ached to touch her, to draw her into his arms and kiss her as fiercely as he had in the woods, but he couldn’t rush her. The slightest word or movement might break the spell, might snap her out of her tenderness and bring her walls right back up.

“Buffy,” he murmured as she leaned into him, placing soft kisses on his collarbone. Her fingertips coasted down his sides, meeting the hem of his jeans at his hips and then following the waistband around to the front, toying with the top button. Spike caught her hands in his, halting their progress.

“Don’t, pet,” he said, when she raised her head in surprise. “Don’t have to do that.”

“What if I want to?”

The question caught him off-guard. “You sure? No need to rush, love. Know what you’ve been through.”

In response, she slid her arms around his waist, splaying her hands across his back as she pulled him flush against her. “I’m ready, Spike. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you if it’s too much.”

Spike dipped his head to capture her mouth, teasing her lips apart as he played with the hem of her shirt. Trusting her to stop him if he crossed a line, he slid his hands underneath, caressing her bare skin. She shuddered at his touch, and he hesitated, but her kiss encouraged him on as he traced the curve of her breast, her lace bra scratchy against the pad of his thumb.

Gasping, Buffy pulled away from the kiss, pressing her forehead to his as she caught her breath. It felt almost foreign to her, this passion, this need, when for so long she hadn’t been able to separate the physical, sexual response of her body from the overwhelming sense of fear and panic. But just like the first time she’d kissed him, her body relaxed into a peculiar familiarity. Thank God for Willow’s stupid spell, she thought, as Spike’s hands skated up her arms, lifting her shirt over her head.

Dropping the shirt to the floor, he lowered his head to nibble at her throat, down the slope of her neck to her shoulder. When he found the stretch of bare skin interrupted by her bra strap, he reached behind her back and unhooked the bra, letting it slip off. Spike pushed her against the countertop as he kissed her again, bending her backward until her feet left the ground and she hooked them around his legs, dragging his jeans up above his ankles as she rubbed against him.

“Oh, fuck, Buffy, we have to stop,” Spike panted, dropping his head into the crook of her neck.

“Why?”

“If we don’t, I’m liable to shag you right here on the counter, and I don’t want that, love. Not after…” He pulled away from her, allowing her to sit up. “Owe you better than that.”

Buffy ran her fingers through his hair, tousling his curls and drawing his head close to hers. “I have a bedroom upstairs,” she murmured. “Will that do?”

Spike froze, his wide eyes displaying his conflicting emotions. “You’re serious? You really want…?”

“What more do I have to do to prove it to you?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, allowing him to scoop her off the countertop. He carried her up the stairs and laid her down gently on her bed. Dispensing with the last of their clothes, he crawled in beside her, reluctant to make the first move.

“Are you sure?” he asked again, still not trusting the permission he’d been given.

“I want it to be you, Spike,” she said firmly, one hand on his cheek as she gave him a reaffirming kiss. “I want it to be you.”

She gasped at the first penetration, his fingers sliding inside her. For a moment, she felt a sudden fight or flight instinct, her entire body tensing up at the invasion. Spike pressed a kiss to her belly, murmuring calming words against her skin, and her worry quickly melted away under his gentle massaging touch. Her legs fell open a bit more as she relaxed, letting him reach deeper inside her.

Then, she felt his tongue, swirling in ever-tightening circles around her clit, making her beg for him to touch it. When he did, finally, flattening his tongue and sweeping upwards hard and fast, she nearly leapt off the bed at the sensation. “Oh, God, do that again,” she pleaded.

And he did, over and over until she was clutching the sheet with both fists, his tongue teasing her clit as his fingers worked nimbly inside her. She came with a breathless sob, a cry so desperate that Spike’s worried face was beside hers instantly.

“You all right, love?” he asked with concern, afraid he’d done something wrong, something to bring up bad memories.

She whipped her head back and forth, her inner muscles still clenching. “I’m fine. More than fine. That was… that was…”

“Wanna make you come again and again,” he said, his voice husky in her ear. “Wanna make you come ’til you forget you were ever with anyone but me.”

She whimpered, pulling him into a kiss, tasting her own juices on his lips as she climbed on top of him and straddled his hips.

“That’s my girl,” he encouraged, letting her take control.

She sank down on him slowly, inch by inch, and he had to restrain himself from bucking up and burying himself in one thrust. He knew she needed to set the pace, needed to have the upper hand.

Once he was fully seated inside her, she went still, letting out a deep, trembling breath. She clutched his shoulders, causing pain to flare up from his injury, but he gritted his teeth against it and let her hold on, whatever she needed to feel secure.

“That’s my girl,” he said again, locking his eyes with hers and pouring as much reassurance as he could into his gaze. “My sweet, beautiful girl.”

Gradually, her grip lessened, and she began to move against him, his hips rising to meet her thrusts. Her eyes never left his, searching them relentlessly, though she wasn’t even sure what she was looking for.

What she found was awe, assurance, and a depth of affection that overwhelmed her with its intensity.

When it was over, and she was spooned against Spike’s chest, his fingers stroking through her hair, he asked her, “How do you feel, pet?”

She thought for a moment, letting the emotions wash over her.

“Whole,” she replied.