The fabulous banner is by the awesomely talented Ben Rostock.

Chapter 8

She woke up floating in a haze of content. Her body felt heavy and languid and richly pleasured, unwilling to move. She lay smiling dreamily against someone’s skin, too contented to open her eyes, her head in the curve of someone’s shoulder, her body draped over someone’s cool, strong, unbreathing body.

Unbreathing. Spike.

Spike!

Her eyes flew open as memory came back. She jerked bolt upright, clutching the bedclothes to her. Spike was fast asleep beside her, lying on his back, his arm flung out where it had fallen away from her when she sat up. As she stared at him, appalled, he frowned a little and turned onto his side, his hand reaching out for her even in his sleep.

Buffy gasped. Oh, my God, what had she done?

She slid carefully away to the edge of the bed. Her nightshirt lay in a silken puddle on the floor. She caught it up and yanked it on, then stood up silently and ran to the door. She unbarred it as quietly as she could, poked her head out and checked both ways to make sure the passage was clear before she slipped out into it. She heard Spike stir as she eased the door shut behind her.

She dived into her room and barred her own door, praying that he wouldn’t wake and come after her.

She needed time to think.

Her white, strained face looked back at her from the dresser mirror, hair tumbled about her shoulders, fang marks showing clearly on her neck. Oh, good Lord! She peered closer. She didn’t know how many times he had bitten her last night, but there was only one mark on her neck —two neat punctures already starting to fade with her Slayer healing. They would be gone in a couple of hours. She caught up a ribbon and wound it around her neck to cover the marks so that no one would see them before they were gone.

She held the edges of her nightshirt wide and studied her body. Constellations of hickeys and tiny bite marks were scattered over her skin, almost completely faded and sure to be gone within the hour. She wondered whether the hickeys and bite marks she had left on Spike would also fade that fast. They should, with his vampire healing. She hoped so. She didn’t want anybody noticing those either and asking questions.

God, they had been all over each other last night! Slayer blood really was an aphrodisiac. She couldn’t count how many times or how many ways they had taken each other. And it had been wonderful.

Oh, good God, she was insane!

But she had never felt anything like that before in her life. Had never felt so completely fulfilled, so utterly content as she did right now. Spike, damn him, was right. No human could ever satisfy a Slayer.

Spike however...

It was so wrong!

But she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Their bodies sliding and coiling about each other, his weight upon her, his thickness within her, the way he touched her, caressed her, the endearments he whispered into her skin, the look in his eyes as if she were the center of his universe. That astonishing, stupefying, impossible look. As if she meant the world to him. Nobody had ever looked at her like that before. Nobody had ever before made her feel the way he made her feel.

Somebody tapped on her door.

She whirled and stared wildly at it. Oh, please, let it not be Spike! Though she would have to face him sooner or later. And then what was she going to say? What was she going to do? This thing between them—it just could not be allowed to go on.

She cracked her door open warily, ready to slam it shut again. It was Serrai. Buffy let out a little sigh of relief and relaxed.

“You have slept a long time,” said Serrai, smiling. “It is past noon. Your two little magelettes are with Isayel and at sun-up Rihar took the pretty human-but-also-Other out to see the forest. Which leaves you and the likewise very pretty Spike. Would you wish to see more of our land today?”

“Um, could I take a raincheck on that? I mean,” Buffy corrected when Serrai looked bewildered, “perhaps later? I’m a little tired right now.”

Serrai sniffed at her with interest, then laughed. “Many bouts. I thought he had potential, that one. I’m not surprised you are tired. You should have told me I was stepping on your tail.”

“What?”

“I can smell him all over you, your warrior.”

“Oh, God!” Buffy blushed bright red. “Don’t tell anyone!”

“If you wish not. Your companions have no noses, of course, but if you do not wish the rest of us to know, you should wash his scent off you,” purred Serrai and sauntered off, grinning.

Buffy grabbed a towel and ran for the shower.

It took her a long time to come downstairs. It was past two before she edged warily out onto the terrace and sat down to eat her breakfast in the sunshine She had been wavering back and forth about leaving her room. If she did so, she might very well run into Spike; if she didn’t, he would know right where to find her if he wanted to. And of course he would want to. She had no hope otherwise. She was amazed he hadn’t turned up already.

Back in Sunnydale, she could easily have done a disinvite spell to keep him out of her house. But here, there was no way to avoid him. And even back in Sunnydale, it would have been impossible to avoid a confrontation.

Back in Sunnydale. Back in their own dimension where things were nicely black and white, and she didn’t have to see grays. Trouble was, all of a sudden she felt as if she wouldn’t be seeing in color either there, rather like Dorothy leaving glorious Technicolor behind to go back to same old, same old. Sure there was no place like home, but couldn’t you take the color with you?

Oh, God, she shouldn’t even be thinking like that!

The black panther flowed over the balustrade of the terrace. He was carrying Anya on his back. Anya was wearing the Quenya uniform of black leather vest, pants and boots, and she had her arms around the panther’s neck, her face in its fur and her legs wound around its belly. Buffy gaped.

The panther shook itself, rose up and turned into Rihar. Anya unclasped her grip and slid down his back onto her feet. She looked about as languorously contented as Buffy had felt when she woke up.

“Slayer,” said Rihar courteously to Buffy. Taking lessons from Spike. In more ways than one, thought Buffy in blank astonishment as he turned, bent Anya back over his arm and kissed her breathless. “Later then, Anyanka?”

“Oh, yes,” sighed Anya and stood there with a sappy look on her face as he disappeared over the balustrade again. Then she turned and saw Buffy and blinked, as if suddenly waking up. “Uh, hi.”

“Hi,” said Buffy weakly.

Anya sank down into a chair opposite Buffy. “I have to sit down. My legs aren’t working. The man never gets exhausted. I mean, never! Willow was right about jaguars.”

Huh? “Jaguars?”

“Yeah. Mind you, he does have a tendency to bite your neck to hold you down and take you from the back, but, hey, it’s only now and then, and it can really be a turn-on. You know?”

“Oh, yeah,” murmured Buffy, with a vivid sensory memory of Spike with his fangs in her neck and his body moving against her back as he took her. “It really can be.”

“Mmm.” Anya smiled beatifically and lapsed into a dreamy silence, lost in her own sensory memories, it looked like.

“Um, Anya...” Buffy wondered how to put this. “Kiharn’s negotiating a contract to put Rihar at stud with the Pyarren...”

“Rihar told me. Kiharn mentioned it to him last night.” Anya waved a dismissive hand. “It’s not like we’re going to be staying, Buffy. In a week or so, we’ll be back in Sunnydale. I can’t see why I can’t enjoy myself until then. He makes me feel wanted. And sexy. And desirable. He makes me feel special. I haven’t felt like that in a long while. And he’s so gorgeous!”

“He is,” agreed Buffy, smiling.

“So I’m going to make the most of it while I can.”

She did have a point. But then Anya could do whatever she wanted. Her actions wouldn’t have the kind of consequences Buffy’s would have.

She got up restlessly and wandered into the house, leaving Anya purring in the sunshine.

“Slayer.”

Spike. She braced herself and turned. He was standing just behind her, his eyes very dark and his parted lips pulled back into a tight line. Tensed with strain like that, his face looked very young and vulnerable. Her breath caught in her throat and she couldn’t speak

“We have to talk,” he said.

She shook her head helplessly. “There’s no point.”

He put out a hand and drew her into a deserted corridor. The cool, sensitive fingers slid up her arm, brushed the line of her jaw, then fell away as she pulled back sharply.

“I gave you your space. I didn’t come charging after you when you rushed out of my room like an apocalypse was gonna happen. Knew it all came out of nowhere last night, just kinda exploded. Knew you needed time to think. But, Buffy...”

She drew a deep breath. “It can’t happen again, Spike.”

“Why not?” he asked intensely.

“It was a mistake. You know that. Spike, it’s wrong!”

“Then why does it feel so right?” He caught her face in his hands. “You know how I feel about you.”

She jerked away. “No, I don’t know and I don’t want to know!”

He laughed wryly. “Always the queen of denial.”

“Don’t!”

He said nothing for a moment, just looked at her. She couldn’t meet his eyes.

“All right,” he said softly. “All right. You know I want you though.”

She bit her lip and said nothing.

“And I know you want me.”

“That doesn’t matter! Can’t you understand, Spike? That can’t be allowed to matter!”

“Because it’s wrong.”

“Yes!”

“It’s only wrong in Sunnydale, pet. It’s not wrong here.”

“But...”

“We’re gonna be stuck here what? Another couple of weeks? Give me those weeks, luv.”

“Spike...”

“Who does it hurt here? Just until we get back to our own dimension.” He smiled twistedly. “I understand that nothing can be allowed to happen there. I’m not stupid. Back in Sunnydale, it all comes back. Your calling, your Scoobies, your Council. The lines are drawn again. Slayer vs vampire and death the only action possible between us...”

She gave a little sharp gasp at the thought. “I can’t stake you, Spike! Not now. Not after...”

He smiled and reached out to touch her face, thumb sliding delicately over her parted lips.

“I’m glad. Couldn’t hurt you either. Never could. Tried, but something always kept getting in the way. Didn’t know what it was until a while back. Know now. We get back to Sunnydale, I’ll do whatever you want.” His eyes were vividly blue and intense. “Tell me and I’ll do it.”

“We can just be...friends?”

His lips tightened, but he nodded. “If that’s what you want.”

“It has to be.”

“Do anything you want. Be anything you want.” He gave a little, shuddering breath. “Never thought you’d want me. Never even dared hope. Bloody miracle. And now...Can’t give it up. Not so soon. Not after just one night. A couple of weeks. That’s not much to ask, is it? Here, where it won’t matter. They’ll go all too fast, those weeks. Buffy! Don’t you want it too?”

She did. She wanted it all too much.

“I want it.”

His eyes flared and he caught her to him, kissed her desperately hard. Her arms closed about him as fiercely; her mouth responded helplessly to his, clinging to his.

He was everything she shouldn’t want and he was everything she wanted. He was forbidden and she didn’t care. Here, it wouldn’t matter, just like he said.

Oh, she understood Anya. Two weeks? She too would make the most of them.

***

She didn’t love him. But she wanted him. It was enough.

It was something he could keep with him later once she was gone, something that he would always have and which no one could take away from him. He understood clearly that once they were back in their own dimension again, everything would be over. But here they were out of their world, out of their time. Everything was possible, because everything was a dream.

“We can’t spend fourteen days in bed!” she protested when he kept pulling her back into it every time she tried to rise.

“Not like we got anything else more important to do.” He ran his hands in a slow glide over the smooth silk of her skin, from the tips of her outstretched hands down her body all the way to her knees, and felt her body involuntarily heat and flex. “We’re stuck here until Kiharn finishes negotiating with the Pyarren. Think of it as an enforced vacation.”

“Yes, but we can’t just stay in bed,” Buffy objected, even though her hormones were saying: well, why not?

“Oh, you want to do it some place else instead? Not a bad idea. I noticed some potentially very nice locations out in the forest.”

“Spike!” But she was laughing.

“So what do you want to do instead? Go hunting? Take down notes on this culture and its flora and fauna for your Watcher? Willow’s already doing that. Try to decipher books in a language you can’t read, only understand when you hear it? Have polite conversations with strange Shifters about the weather or the best way to rip a deer apart? C’mon, Slayer.” He laughed at her. “Isn’t this more fun?”

She couldn’t help purring as he stroked her. “Yeah, but...”

“You got some Puritan hangup about enjoying yourself? Lovemaking’s an art form.”

“Not a twenty-four hour art form, for Heaven’s sake!”

“Why not? We vamps, we got the time for it.”

“Yeah, no jobs to worry about, happy meals on legs walking around everywhere...”

“Which for me is you right now.” He bit her neck lightly and she laughed.

“Nothing to do but veg,” she finished, trying to sound scornful and failing.

“You can use the break, Slayer. You’ll be back to your patrols and college and apocalypses soon enough.” He laughed, seeing the wry look on her face. “Haven’t really had a vacation since you were called as a Slayer, have you?”

That was true and all of this felt so marvelous. “I should really check on the others.”

“Why? If there was a problem, they’d be pounding on your door in a second and we’d hear them. Glinda and Red are having the time of their lives doing mojo with Isayel. Harris is still sweating and whining in bed. Demongirl’s banging Rihar all over the landscape and don’t tell me she’s not. I can smell him on her.”

Buffy giggled involuntarily. “Like the Quenya can smell us. Now that really came from left field. Anya, I mean. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“I was. Well, something like that, anyway.” He shrugged when she looked at him in surprise. “Lioslath showed her she could stand on her own feet, make her own choices. The bunch of you never listen to her and Harris spends all his time stepping on her, can’t get past the fact that she used to be a demon. Now she’s rebelling.”

Buffy bit her lip. “We’ve all been so blind.”

“You have, pet. You’ll never have a better expert on magical affairs than an ex-demon like Anya with a thousand years experience behind her. But not even your Watcher pays any attention to her. And why? Because she didn’t used to have a soul. Because she’s forthright, doesn’t have the social smarts not to say exactly what’s on her mind without censoring it the way everyone else does.”

“I’m ashamed,” Buffy muttered.

“Blame the mindset the Council gives you.”

“That’s what Lioslath meant when he said ‘questionable teachings.’”

“Seeing things differently, are you, pet? That might cause problems when you get back. Maybe you should stay blind. Easier for you.”

“No,” she said. “Blindness never is.”

“But seeing has a price, luv.”

“We’ll all have to adapt. Things are going to be different once we get back to Sunnydale,” she said determinedly.

“Are they?” He didn’t seem very convinced. “Well, Anya will be. She’s found herself and there’s no going back from that. Harris has a shock coming.”

“I’m scared.”

Change was always frightening. Spike looked down at her, saw the trouble and confusion in her eyes. All of this was bewildering to her, everything happening too fast. Only a little while back, she had hated him. She had spent years hating him. And now here she was in his bed, in his arms. He could see how this would be confounding to her, going against her teachings, her worldview, her very instincts.

“Let it go for two weeks, pet. Don’t think about it for now.”

“No,” she agreed, her arms tightening about him.

The walls would come up again when they got back to Sunnydale. He knew that absolutely. He knew the pressure Giles and the Council would put upon her. He would lose her the moment they left this dimension.

“Be with me now,” he said into her hair. “Stay with me, at least while we’re here.”

“Yes,” she sighed. She could do that. Here, Buffy thought. Here, where the world was upside down, where everything wrong was right, a lovely crazy fever-dream she never wanted to leave. Here, where his arms were a haven and his lovemaking a delight, waking sensations she had never felt before and feared she would never feel again back in Sunnydale. But she wouldn’t think of Sunnydale now, nor of her duties and her responsibilities. They didn’t matter, not here in this dimension.

She was happy. She had never felt so happy and free as she did right now. Ever since she had been called as a Slayer, there had been so many things to worry about—the Hellmouth, demons, apocalypses, the Council, the Scoobies. For these two weeks she didn’t have a care in the world. She didn’t even have to worry about the progress of their journey, because even that was out of her hands. Kiharn was taking care of that and word was that the negotiations were going well.

All she had to do was eat, sleep and make love. It was Heaven.

“Come and hunt,” called Tirr and Serrai gave them a wicked grin across the great hall as they got to their feet.

“Do you think they need more exercise than they are already getting?”

Willow and Tara looked bewildered, but Anya, always sensitive to sexual vibes but never more than right now, flashed them a laughing, conspiratorial glance. Those Quenya sharing a human lunch around them laughed also. They all knew, of course. Even bathing couldn’t keep Buffy and Spike’s scent off each other, since they couldn’t stay out of each other’s arms.

“Anya. Anyanka,” called Rihar from the terrace and Anya jumped to her feet, her eyes shining, abandoning her lunch at once.

“Tomcat calling on the back fence,” murmured Spike. Tara and Willow giggled and Buffy swatted his arm lightly as they headed out to join Tirr.

“Pot, kettle, black,” she muttered under her breath and he grinned at her unrepentantly.

“Wasn’t criticizing. Just commenting. He’s certainly not calling her to go hunting.”

Anya wasn’t the hunting type. But both Buffy and Spike enjoyed it, whether the Quenya did it in human form or as cats. It was fun running through the forest side by side, boar spears in their hands. The Quenya liked pork and hunted it as humans and in packs because the size and slashing tusks and cunning of the Querid boar made it a dangerous adversary. Buffy’s Slayer and Spike’s vamp speed and strength made them more than a match to the Quenya in human form, and they had worked out a smoothly cooperative system that allowed them to take down any boar with ease.

“You work well together,” remarked Serrai after one of the hunting expeditions and Buffy thought suddenly how well they would match on a patrol, the two of them fighting demons as a team.

“What?” said Spike, catching her sideways glance.

“Nothing,” she muttered.

“Patrols would be fun,” he said with unnerving accuracy. He was always good at guessing what she was thinking.

“Would you do that? Help me with my patrols?”

“Sure.” He tilted a sardonic eyebrow at her. “Like killing things, remember?”

The Council would have a seizure. He was a vampire after all.

“Why are Slayers always expected to fight alone?” he asked. “All those apocalypses and battles. Wouldn’t they be easier with someone to help?”

Oh, they would. But...

“Can’t be done,” she muttered.

“Yeah. Evil here,” he said dryly.

She didn’t want to think about things like that right now. “Damn it, Spike! Why would you even want to fight my battles?”

He reached out and touched her face lightly. “Why do you think? For you, Slayer. For you.”

Things couldn’t be that simple. Not for her. He was making it so hard for her to keep her head together. She was losing all perspective. Everything was skewed. It was this world. Nothing was going to make sense until they were back in Sunnydale. And when they did, none of this could be allowed to matter.

“Don’t, Spike. Don’t. I don’t want to think about reality right now.”

“Reality is what you make it.”

“That’s not true.” But, oh, how she wished it were!

“But you have to want it enough,” he said quietly. “You don’t.”

She did. But it just was not possible.

“Spike...”

“Yeah. Shouldn’t have brought it up. I just...never want it to end, pet.”

She leaned against him, her face against his chest, breathing in the scent of his skin. “I don’t either.”

His arms tightened about her. “Don’t you?”

“No.”

“That’s something.”

“Don’t lets talk about it, Spike! Clock’s running and we’re almost out of time.”

“Yeah.” He kissed her temple. “Wanna go swimming? Rihar showed me this waterhole the Quenya use.”

“Don’t have a suit.”

He grinned at her. “I’d have that off you in no time anyway, pet.”

“Skinnydipping in broad daylight with the Quenya all around? Nuh-uh.”

“Rihar said just to toss a piece of clothing over a branch. Tells everyone the pool’s being used for nookie. No one will come near.”

She laughed involuntarily. “And everybody will know.”

“They know already, don’t they? C’mon, Slayer. How many chances am I gonna have to make love to you in the sunshine? Drop a few of those inhibitions.”

“Haven’t got many of those left any more,” she growled, but didn’t resist as he pulled her along, laughing.

The pool was beautiful, wide and deep and crystal clear, with a waterfall dropping down at one end, a hundred feet high but only five feet wide. The water was sunwarmed on the surface when she slid into it, cooler when she dived lower. ‘I don’t ever want to forget this,’ she thought. But when they got back to Sunnydale, she would have to. She would have to block all of this out, as if it never happened. She could do that. She would.

Spike tossed his vest up into a tree where it hung like a black flag, then dived in beside her. She circled him a couple of times, then struck out across the pool. He slid after her. It became a race, the two of them laughing and flashing across the width of the pool faster than fish. Then his hand caught her ankle and pulled her down.

Yet another world, floating weightless in the clear water, twisting around each other, hands and bodies drifting lightly, teasingly over each other, skin slipping and sliding tantalizingly, mouths brushing. She set a foot on his stomach and pushed off, reaching the surface for a quick breath before his hand caught her inner thigh, gripping it and pulling her down again. She twisted to face him as she slid downwards, her open mouth sliding down his torso from shoulder to pelvis. He tried to catch her to him, but she twisted away like a seal, smiling widely, her hair flaring out as they wove spirals around each other.

He didn’t need to breathe, but even though her Slayer abilities let her hold a breath longer than most, she still did. But just as her lungs began to protest, his hands caught her waist and lifted her up to the surface, his mouth burning down her spine as he did so. She took a breath, then was drawn down again. She gave herself over to him, trusting herself to him, not even having to think about breathing because he knew and lifted her smoothly to the surface whenever she needed it.

Free and weightless, underwater creatures turning and twisting and coiling about each other. A glorious feeling, another experience she didn’t know how she could bear to forget.

Heating up now. Wanting more. Her legs locked about his hips; his arms tightened about her, mouth raking her breasts, drawing hard upon her nipples. She clawed at him, needing weight and friction now, not cool buoyancy.

They breached the surface with a great splash and suddenly she was lying upon a flat rock a few feet away from the falls, the spray from the waterfall cool upon her overheated body. Then he was over her, coming into her hard.

“Yes,” she said, “Yes,” beyond thought, given over to this purity of pleasure, letting go completely and drowning in him, her heels pressing hard against the stone to thrust up at him as forcefully as he was thrusting down.

She saw his eyes very still as he looked down at her, felt him holding the moment, held it herself, a perfection she never wanted to end, wished she could give him more for that look in his eyes, that look that she didn’t want to see and yet couldn’t help cherishing.

She closed her eyes against it, gave herself over to sensation, his cock driving into her, his breath harsh against her face, their bodies thrusting and straining together.

“Take it,” she said, pulling his mouth to her neck, giving him the only thing she had to give. But even that was not really a gift, she thought as his fangs slid into the vein and that delirious rapture began. Not when his taking her blood was as violently pleasurable to her as it was to him.

‘I’m cheating him,’ she thought. ‘He’s giving me so much and I’m cheating him.’

Then she stopped thinking altogether as they both convulsed and her brain blanked right out.


TBC