Author's Note: To all of you demanding Riley's immediate painful punishment...I promise it is coming, though maybe not as soon as you'd like...still a lot of story to go :) But I hope that the contents of the end of this chapter (and the next) will help to make up for it ;) You guys let me know :) LOL

Okay...on to the chappie!!!


Buffy was surprised herself at the intensity of the protective rage boiling up inside her as she stormed down the stairs from her bedroom, and toward the second staircase that led to the basement, and the slave quarters.

Where she was certain that she would find her husband.

As she started down the basement stairs, she acted on instinct, knowing what she would need, and gripped one of the rails of the wooden banister beside her, yanking hard and pulling away a jagged, broken piece of the wood in her hand. She frowned, a little disturbed at the effort that it had taken. She was still strong enough to break the rail, but it should have torn away from the banister as easily as ripping tissue paper in her hands.

She was sick and tired of feeling so weak!

She stalked down the hallway, hearing the laughter and soft, suggestive voices from several doors down. Was he making no effort whatsoever to hide what he was doing? No, of course not, she realized in anger. Every slave on this floor, in this entire household, knew how Mr. Finn liked to fill his free time.

The only one who had been kept in the dark was her.

Well, not anymore!

She slammed the door open, crashing it into the wall behind it with a bang, and stood in the doorway for a mere instant. That was all it took to take in the emotionally brutal scene that assaulted her eyes.

Her husband, lying on his back on the bed, still wearing his pants, apparently still in the stages of foreplay. And the vampire girl who straddled him, her hips slowly swiveling as Riley moaned in pleasure beneath her.

It took him a moment to register what was happening through the powerful sensations he was feeling. The girl never *did* register what happened to her. In an instant, Riley’s consort was reduced to dust that sifted down over him, choking him as he breathed some of it in. He scrambled hurriedly to his feet, afraid and a bit disoriented, to see who had dusted his chosen lover of the moment.

His wife – the Slayer – stared at him coldly through brilliant eyes of jade, darkened with rage, her stake in one hand, the other resting on her hip.

“Buffy!” he gasped, his expression one of innocent surprise, as he stepped toward her. To her utter amazement, he did not even look guilty. “Honey, what…” As he spoke, he reached out to take her arm, and she jerked away violently.

“How dare you!” she whispered in a voice low and trembling with fury and pain. The other issue for which she was angry with him, the issue of his brutal abuse of her slave, was momentarily forgotten in the face of the ultimate betrayal she had caught him in the act of committing.

He reached for her again, and again she pulled away from him. “Don’t *touch* me!” Her voice came out in a strangled scream of rage and the agony of his betrayal. “How can you do this, Riley? In my own home! How can you touch *that* and then touch me?” she demanded, with an emphatic gesture toward the fine layer of dust that now coated the bed.

His next words stunned her beyond belief, leaving her helpless to respond at all.

“Buffy,” he said, a pleading note in his voice, his eyes wide with confusion as he shook his head slightly. “I thought you *knew*…”

Buffy stared at him, her eyes widening, a stricken expression on her face. When she finally managed to regain enough composure to respond, she whispered, taking a step backward, staring at him as if he were a complete stranger, “You thought I knew…*what*?”

“Buffy…she’s a vampire. She’s not even human. She means nothing!” he insisted, coming toward her again.

She shook her head emphatically, her eyes welling with hurt, angry tears as she stepped back away from him again. “No!” she replied in a low, intense voice. “No, that is *not* ‘nothing’, Riley! You were sleeping with her!”

“Buffy,” he protested again, coming closer to her. “What I did with her…it meant nothing. These girls…they’re not even human. It’s like a fantasy, Buffy. Like reading a sexy story or watching a movie. It’s not real.”

She stepped back again and broke down in anger and frustration when her back hit the wall, and she realized she had nowhere else to go, as he advanced cautiously toward her again, tentatively touching her arm.

“It looked pretty damn real to me, Riley!” she snapped back, jerking away from his touch, slapping weakly at his hand, her voice coming out as a sob of anger and pain. “I don’t care what you want to call it, you were sleeping with her, and that’s cheating, Riley! You were cheating on me with that – that *thing*…”

Her words cut off, as she was overwhelmed again by the painful reality of what she had just witnessed; tears streaked her face as she looked away from him, unable to bear looking at him for another moment.

There was a long silence, in which she could not bring herself to look up at him again. She could not understand why the revelation of his unfaithfulness should make *her* feel ashamed. “Oh, so that’s really how you see it, then,” Riley finally spoke, and the anger in his tone surprised her into looking up at him again. “Is that right.”

Something in his eyes brought a sudden sick feeling of guilt to the pit of her stomach, and she realized all at once…he knew.

“So let me get this straight,” he said in a quiet, hard voice. “When *I* use one of my more attractive slaves for sexual pleasure…” She flinched at the cold, clinical way he referred to what he had done, surely a result of his time working for the Initiative and similar organizations. “…it’s cheating.” He paused, a momentary weighted silence, before he went on, “But when *you* do it…it’s…*not*, somehow? Help me understand this, Buffy, because I *really* don’t see where you’re coming from here!”

Buffy felt ashamed of the kiss that he obviously somehow knew about, and looked away from him again. She cursed her foolishness; that one moment of weakness on her part had stolen away her credibility in this situation. Still…it was nothing compared to what Riley had done.

“I never…” she began, her voice barely over a whisper.

“Buffy…I know you kissed him,” Riley said bluntly, cutting off her attempts at explanation. He did not say anything more for a moment, and when he moved forward to take her arms again, she stiffened under his touch, but did not pull away. He sought her eyes until she finally looked up at him, surprised to see a gentle, indulgent smile on his face.

“And it’s okay!” he insisted, shaking his head a little with a smile that seemed to indicate that her tears, her shame, were silly and unnecessary. “Buffy, he’s your slave! You can do whatever you want with him, you think it matters to me? It doesn’t count! Just like these girls…these *slaves*…” he said pointedly, shaking his head again. “They don’t count.”

Buffy did not agree with him. Not for a moment. She knew in her heart that it did matter. Riley’s passion for these vampire girls, human or not, spoke as clearly of his lack of feeling for her, as her kiss with Spike spoke of her own need.

And both were intensely, painfully *real*…no matter what Riley said.

Suddenly, she remembered her original reason for coming down here, and pulled away from him again, glaring up at him defiantly. “I saw what you did to him,” she snapped at him, her anger clear in her eyes and her tone. “You said you were going to let it go. You said you were going to leave it to me.”

Riley laughed softly, a quiet, bitter sound, and his smile faded as he said, “Yeah. And look where it got you. Letting him take advantage of you.”

“He didn’t…”

“He told me as much himself, Buffy,” Riley interrupted, and she felt her stomach do an odd little twist. “He was bragging about it to me. Like he thought it’d make me jealous or something.”

His cold little smirk, that said how ridiculous the idea of the kiss making him jealous had been, sent another stab of painful rejection through Buffy’s heart.

“It didn’t,” he told her, as if there had been any doubt. “Make me jealous. But it did make me mad. Because he thought he was getting one over on me by kissing you. Thought he could use you to get to me.” He paused, meeting her eyes with sincerity in his own. “That’s why I did it, Buffy. That’s why I hit him.”

Buffy’s stomach turned at the words – but not because she believed him. She did not. She had experienced that kiss, and knew that *she* had been the one to initiate it; Spike had in no way taken advantage of her.

But for some reason, she said nothing, just looked away from him again. For some reason, he held such sway over her. With his smug, patronizing looks and the tone of his voice that said how patient he was being with her ignorance, her foolishness, he always managed to reduce her to utter insecurity and uncertainty, even when she knew in her heart that she was right.

“I did it for you, Buffy,” Riley said softly, his hands moving up and down her arms now, as he leaned in slowly as if to kiss her.

The thought disgusted her. She tried to pull away from his hands, but found with alarm that he was far too strong. Why could she not break his grip, not even budge him? He seemed to be getting stronger by the day.

“Come on, Honey, stop it,” he said, a slight edge creeping into his voice as he leaned down, his lips covering hers.

She pulled her mouth away. She knew already that eventually she would give in, as she always did, and he would have his way. But right now she was far too angry and hurt still to submit to such affection.

But he would not let it go.

“Stop it!” she cried, her tears flowing again, as she weakly struggled against him. “Riley, stop!”

He ignored her, pulling her closer to him, moving in to try again to kiss her.

She managed to pull one hand free, and struck him across the face. She did not have much preparation for the blow, and it was a weak one, but it stung. In an instinct reaction, Riley drew back his fist to return the blow, and Buffy instinctively flinched, knowing that his strength was much greater at this point, and the blow would be a brutal one.

At the last second, he stopped, breathing hard, fury in his eyes, as he barely reigned in his temper and lowered his fist.

“Fine!” he snapped, releasing her with a shove that knocked her painfully back into the wall. “Whatever, Buffy!” He stepped away from her toward the door to the room. He glanced back at her with a disgusted look to add, “And you wonder why I have to turn elsewhere. When you treat me the way you do. Honestly, Buffy, you can be such a bitch!”

The cruel words stung her worse than any blow, and after he walked out, she stood there for a moment, sobs overtaking her, her tears flowing freely down her face at his heartless rejection. After a few moments, she managed to regain control of her emotions, and looked up, as a thought occurred to her. She debated for a moment, her bruised, needy heart arguing with her timid, ravaged spirit.

And then she made her decision, and headed back for the stairs…back up to her room.

She had somewhere else to turn, too.


Spike waited anxiously for Buffy to return, pacing slowly across the floor, glancing toward the door every few moments. He wanted to follow her, but was hesitant to do so. She had ordered him to wait for her here. He had seen the blind fury in her eyes, had known what she was going to do…and he was terribly afraid that she was going to get herself hurt.

Finally, he decided that this was another occasion in which it was better to do what was best for her than to do what she told him. He made up his mind and headed for the door… bumping into her as she returned from her little excursion.

He stopped short, his eyes downcast suddenly, inexplicably nervous. “I – I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“I told you to wait for me,” she said, her voice quiet, but loaded with some unidentifiable emotion, as she stood there, and he could feel her penetrating gaze boring into him.

He looked up at her, wondering at her odd tone. She was looking again at the bruises that covered his torso, and although they had faded nearly completely away since she had left, and the pain was considerably less now, due to his accelerated vampire healing, he could still see the sorrow in her eyes that they were there at all. “I’m sorry he hurt you,” she said simply, in that same soft, loaded tone that was so puzzling to him.

He felt a bit put on the spot, not quite sure how to respond to that. He shrugged slightly, wincing at the painful pull on his bruised ribcage. “Not your fault,” he murmured. “You didn’t…”

He stopped talking suddenly when her gentle hands came to rest on his shoulders, and he looked up at her in surprise and apprehension as she pushed him backward toward the bed, putting one hand behind his back to steady him as she helped him to sit down, careful of his injuries, and then sat down beside him, looking him in the eyes with a calm little smile.

“Buffy…what…?” he began, his voice little more than a whisper, wide, anxious blue eyes searching hers.

“Shhh,” she reproved him softly, placing a finger to his lips, her own eyes seeking, studying every line of his face, as the finger against his lips, slightly parted in wonder at her unprecedented behavior, slowly moved upward to trace the lines of his flawless features.

Her hand moved gently around to the back of his neck, and she leaned in closer to him, her heartbeat quickening at the soft little gasp that escaped his lips.

*Don’t think, Buffy,* she told herself, closing her eyes and plunging forward, pulling him to her as her lips melded to his, her tongue pushing insistently forward, invading his mouth with an urgent intensity.

He returned her kiss with a fervent hunger, his arms sliding around her with much more certainty than they had in their last kiss. He could not understand what had brought about this turn of events; he was only glad to be holding her in his arms, to be allowed this chance to lavish his affection upon her.

Gently, she pushed him backward, down onto the soft pillows of her bed, in an echo of her actions a few weeks before. But this time, she did not pull away. She knew exactly what she was doing from the very start.

Her mouth never left his as his back hit the bed, and her hands moved slowly down his body, one remaining at his hip, the other moving around to softly cup the growing evidence of his desire, swollen against the confining fabric of his black jeans.

He arched his back and let out a soft moan at the contact, and it urged Buffy on to more, as she began to stroke him, still gently, but more firmly through his clothes.

“Oh…Buffy…” he gasped. “Buffy…please…”

She pulled away from the kiss again, her own desire awakening with a new intensity at his open need for her, at the near desperation in his voice. She studied his face again, her eyes wide, taking in the desire, the passion, that she had not seen on anyone’s face, not for her, in so long.

Without even realizing she was saying it until it was said, she whispered, “You’re mine,” in a tone that was both fiercely possessive and full of gentle affection; and as she spoke she tightened her hand slightly around him.

He gasped again at the pressure, affected as much by her claim as by her touch. “Yes,” he gasped. “Yours…all yours, sweet…sweet Buffy…”

Satisfied, she leaned down to claim him again, with her kiss.