Chapter Sixteen
*~*

The smoke clinging to Spike’s body dissipated quickly, replaced with the sweet fragrance of orange blossom as the steam rose thick around them.  Buffy stood beneath the hot spray of the shower, eyes closed, head swimming with a dreamy mixture of exhaustion and arousal.  Spike’s hands skimmed down her arms, leaving a path of tingly skin and fruity-scented lather.  His soap-slick fingers slipped between hers, laving each digit carefully before starting on a swirling ascent up her arms through the bubbles.  His palms cupped her shoulders, and Buffy moaned low in her throat, tipping her head back until it made contact with Spike’s chest behind her. 

She felt rather than heard the rumbling in his chest.  It vibrated along her spine and down into her belly, stirring the heat already simmering there as much as the sweep of his fingertips on her skin stoked the flames from the outside.  He circled her breasts, first tracing the undersides with an almost feather-light touch and then moving in ever-narrowing spirals until he rolled her already hardened nipples with his fingers.  Her back arched and she let out another moan, the sound of it mingling with the steam to curl in the air around them.

Soft lips planted moist kisses along the column of her neck, and Buffy tipped her head to grant him better access.  Spike’s tongue darted out between each press of his lips, licking at the water on her skin, tracing the marks left behind from his fangs with its pointed tip.  A shiver of heat bloomed out from the marks, spreading steadily south with every beat of her racing heart.  He murmured her name into her neck between kisses, grazed her skin with blunt teeth, until she shuddered and pressed her ass into his erection. 

Buffy opened her eyes and watched his hands sweep lower, spreading bubbles over her sides, her stomach, not missing an inch of flesh with those long pale fingers.  When he finished coating her entire front in orange bubbles, he pulled his hands away to hold them beneath the shower’s spray.  If not for the caress of his lips at her neck and the hard press of his cock behind her, Buffy might have groaned a little louder in protest.  The hands returned swiftly, though, retracing their path, rinsing away the lather and rubbing at her skin until her whole body tingled with warmth.  Spike splayed his hands out over her belly, fingers of the left circling her bellybutton so lightly it almost tickled.

Her resulting giggle shook her shoulders and Spike held her still with his palm and rocked his hips forward.  Buffy pushed back, grinding against him and gasping when the tickly fingers dipped into her curls, slipping slickly though the wetness gathered there.

“Oh, Buffy,” Spike whispered, parting her folds to tease at her entrance with light circles. “So wet for me.”

He swept his fingertips over her clit and Buffy bit back a groan, forgetting whatever she’d planned in response in favour of losing herself to the sensation. He knew how she liked to be touched and it showed in the way he stroked her, pressing here, swirling there, until her legs trembled and every nerve in her body came alight.  She clenched her inner muscles tightly, feeling the emptiness inside even while the act of squeezing drew teasing frissons of pleasure straight from her swollen clit.

Perhaps reading her mind or the neediness of her moans or maybe the rapid rise and fall of her chest in time to her thundering heart, Spike pressed her forward.  Buffy flattened her palms against the shower wall, arching her back, spreading her legs and lifting up on shaking tiptoes, gasping as Spike’s cock slid between her slick labia.  Without stopping the motion of his fingers on her clit, he slid into her, moving in quick, shallow thrusts that struck her just right. Buffy cried out at the fresh bloom of heat and clenched around him, squeezing hard, her muscles already fluttering in warning.

Her chest rose and fell in quick, trembling breaths, fingernails scraping uselessly against the shower wall.  Buffy couldn’t move, held in place by the heat surging through her, curling her toes, shaking her knees, and coiling tighter and tighter in her belly with every press of his cock, every stroke of his fingers.  Spike thrust hard, his full length slamming into her, threatening to push her into the wall if not for his steadying hand gripping her hip. 

Buffy braced herself, wrists burning, legs shaking from the strain but it felt so good, she was so close, and Spike rocked into her with another deep thrust and placed a slick, twisting stroke to her clit.  The moan started in her belly, rising out of the heat and tearing up through her chest to a ragged, desperate crescendo.  The coil broke and Buffy crashed, losing her grip on the wall, her entire body shaking as the waves of her orgasm surged through her, shouting her pleasure over the roar of the water with Spike’s voice in her ear, urging her on.

Buffy’s knees gave out but Spike caught her, strong arms around her waist, holding her tightly against him, his cock still rock hard and buried to the hilt inside her.  Her chest heaved, desperately trying to pull air into her lungs but hampered by the steam and the shuddering aftershocks and Spike’s cock gliding in slow, rolling thrusts into her still quivering body.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered, needing to say it more than she needed to breathe.

Spike’s breath tickled her ear and he tightened his arms around her waist.  “Bed?”

Buffy tried to answer, but only managed to moan and shudder around him.  He seemed to understand, though, and pulled out of her to set her down on shaking legs.  They both groaned as they separated and Buffy leaned heavily on the shower wall, not quite trusting herself to stay upright.  Spike turned off the water and in the next second pulled her around to face him, hands on her waist, and lifted her up into his arms.

His cock nudged at her folds and Buffy sank down on him, her muscles squeezing tight the moment he was fully sheathed.  She nuzzled her face into his neck and held on as Spike carefully stepped out of the tub.  Every step jostled them together and Buffy squeezed tighter, nibbled on his neck and shivered from the loss of the steam, though the heat rising again in her belly would soon make up for the sudden chill.

Spike dropped them both onto her bed, sliding out of her long enough for them to scramble up toward the pillows.  He settled between her thighs and Buffy draped her legs around his hips, opening her eyes to stare into his as he entered her with a hard thrust.  What shimmered there in those blue depths, almost fully swallowed by wide, dark pupils, should’ve terrified her and it did, in a way.  But it was a thrilling sort of terror, like balancing on the edge of something brilliant she could, so far, only sort of understand.  Spike moved inside her, filling her so full, an exquisite stretch drawing shivers of rapture with each plunging thrust, building the heat inside with each progressively tighter squeeze of her muscles, daring her to let go and just fall, deeper and deeper into him with every answering roll of her hips against his. 

Spike dipped his head and caught her lips in a kiss, and she felt him trembling against her mouth.  Lips and tongues moved together sloppily, the pleasure blooming below too bright, too intense for any sort of finesse.  Buffy bit his lip and he groaned, slamming into her so hard it stole her breath and her belly quivered in warning.  He dragged his mouth away from hers to her nuzzle her neck, licking, sucking, biting with blunt teeth until Buffy shouted his name and ground up hard against him.

She knew it would happen before she felt it, a sort of hazy preconception that quickly coalesced into something vibrant, a flash of gold inside her head.  Buffy dragged her fingernails down Spike’s back, shouting yes yes yes! inside even though the only sound she could make was a hoarse moan that burned her throat and resonated in her ears from the shear force of it.  The bristling rush flared up her neck and raced down her spine, but not in warning.  No, the sensation pooled in her belly as a swirly, tingling knot of icy heat.  The tremble started in her toes, and she curled them into Spike’s hips as it rolled through her whole body and all her breath left her in a shuddery whoosh.

Spike let out a raspy moan and pieced her neck with his fangs, the prick of them hot and soft and sharp and vital, too tender for such a brutal act, too intimate to be brutal at all.  Buffy’s inner muscles clenched, tighter, tighter with each steady pull of blood at her neck.  Spike thrust hard, slamming into her with such force she felt it in her teeth, behind her eyes, all the way to the tips of her fingers.  He thrust again and again, timing each one with a deep pull of blood that began in her womb and blazed with fire through every nerve.  One final thrust that knocked her into the headboard, one final pull at her neck, and the pooled heat exploded.  Buffy cried out into the darkness and clung to Spike as her orgasm crashed over her.  He slid free of her neck and slammed into her one final time, roaring out his release into the dizzying, swirling vortex surrounding them.

Minutes, or hours, or maybe days passed before the speckled blackness cleared and Buffy came back to herself, Spike’s body collapsed atop hers, his chest rising and falling in unneeded breaths.  She giggled and when he lifted his head to look at her, eyebrow lifted almost comically high, Buffy laughed harder and buried her fingers into his hair, unusually soft and free without the helmet of hair gel.

“Gonna share with the class?” Spike asked, sounding more amused than anything, as he levered himself up on his elbows to look down at her.

The giggle subsided slowly and Buffy smiled lazily up at him, stroking his naked back and enjoying the sleepy-eyed face staring back at her.  “It’s just, you’re breathing.  You always breathe.  It’s—”

“Habit,” Spike answered, tracing her cheekbones with his fingers.

“I was gonna say adorable.”

Spike’s fingers stilled and his brow furrowed.  “I am not adorable!”

The giggle bloomed in her chest again.  “Kinda are.”

“Bloody hell, woman,” Spike said, rolling off her and tugging the soggy comforter out from underneath them, before pulling her into his arms and wrapping them in the dry sheet.  He curled around her, his chest to her back, the bend of his knees matching the bend of hers.  “Next you’ll be calling me Blondie-Bear.”

His voice in her ear did terrible things to her despite the ridiculousness of his words, and she both shivered in response and burrowed deeper into his embrace.  “You did not just go there.”

He chuckled warmly, tongue darting out to lick gently at the fresh marks on her neck.  “Not many more places to go I haven’t been.”

Buffy could already feel her desire rising again, but less urgently than before.  She closed her eyes and let the sensation wash over her, sighing softly as she felt Spike harden behind her.   She wriggled back against his renewed erection and he responded by closing his lips around his mark and sucking.

She shivered again at the shimmer of pleasure spreading lazily through her, and ground back against him.  “Whatcha gonna do with that?”

Spike answered by gripping her thigh and lifting her leg to drape over his, shifting a bit behind her until she felt him line up and slide into her.  She was still slick and so tender it was almost too much. 

Almost.  A day might come when she had too much of Spike, but this day was not it.

“You feel so good, Spike,” she whispered, arching her back so he could slide even deeper, biting her lip around a throaty groan.  “Don’t ever stop.”

“Never,” he whispered, fingers stroking her belly as he moved slowly behind her.

Those two things had already become somewhat a habit for them to say, but Buffy knew he meant it just as much as she did.  She reached back to stroke his neck, then threaded her fingers into his hair.  “Spike, I—”

She couldn’t say it, not quite yet, but more than ever she felt the words hovering there, just out of reach.  It wouldn’t be long before they came to her, before she could whisper them in his ear and truly mean it.  And she wanted to, so badly she could taste it.  If anyone deserved it, it was Spike. 

If anyone deserved it, it was them.

“I love you, Buffy,” he whispered, maybe understanding what she was trying to say, or maybe not, but it didn’t matter.  “Love you so much.”

Buffy moaned softly and scratched her nails over his scalp.  “And don’t ever stop.”

“Never.”

Too soon, a slow, trembling orgasm rolled through her body, and just seconds later Spike shuddered against her back and came inside her.  They lay still for a while, sleep nudging at Buffy’s mind while Spike breathed against her back.  Though her legs felt like jelly and she didn’t think she could stand if the world depended on it, Buffy turned around in Spike’s arms.  He drew them more tightly around her, and she snuggled into his chest, conscious of the bandage and the wound he refused to let her see.  Spike rumbled softly, the sound and vibration of it no small comfort as she drifted in the weightlessness of pre-sleep.

She floated there at the edge, warm, sated, and more relaxed than she could remember being in ages.  They weren’t perfect.  They’d barely just begun to figure out what they could become, but they had a chance, and maybe, just maybe, they could be something amazing.

Come on.  I can feel it, Slayer. You know you wanna dance.

Yes, Spike, I do wanna dance.  And it could.  It could be you.

*~*